There are many system reviews, its hard to tell which ones are worthwhile.
What I would like to see is a little link along the lines of “3 other reviews by this person” that when you click on it, it brings up ALL of the reviews they have posted.
To my mind, this is the best way to gauge what a reviewer is saying.
Are they always positive? Negative? Is this their only review, and it’s TOO good (obvious Shill).
Thoughts on this?
For anyone curious, this idea was spurred by the recent review for one of my systems.
While I certainly appreciate the glowing review, I know that if it were a review of someone else’s system I would have some severe reservations about it’s authenticity.
That’s an interesting idea, but it doesn’t solve a more general problem. The general problems with the reviews is that the incentives are wrong:
A. If I’m a subscriber and found a really good system, I have an incentive not to disclose this to others as the system might attract more subscribers in that case. More subscribers might mean more slippage and an opportunity for the vendor to increase fees.
B. As a vendor I have an incentive to write (anonymous) negative reviews for other vendors’ systems anyway.
I’m not suggesting this is what people do or should do, but it’s what you would expect if they behave rational.
In spite of what you brought up I know for a fact there are a (very) few persons that trade a lot of the systems on C2, and give their honest feedback about each in the form of reviews.
Okay, I know there’s one person, so there might be more than one.
The proposed link, while not solving the issues you brought up, will make it very clear if someone is offering worthwhile reviews.
I’m not excessively worried about the negative review point you brought up. If we were going to see that, I think we would have seen it by now.
I agree. I think it would be good if for each review, C2 would show the date the reviewer unsubscribed. In case of negative reviews where the reviewer did not cancel the subscription soon after writing the review, it can be judged as biased (and vice versa).
I give system reviews zero credence. We have already seen at least one person who faked reviews of his system. UNLESS I know the reviewer they come from, and they are reputable and involved in the site. But since reviews are anonymous, I consider them as trash.
And besides, who cares if someone thinks "It is a good system. I think you can make money on it" or "I sent the vendor a question, and she responded nicely" ?? The available stats on it are the only thing of value to me. How long has the system been trading? What are the drawdowns? Is the vendor averaging down? Is all the profits from a sudden runup (luck?) or a nice, growing curve? Is the vendor outperforming or just leveraging a rising/sinking market? Does the vendor continue to outperform when I am observing it, or do they happen to just have been on top of hundreds of systems out of sheer luck? What is the net per unit?
>I give system reviews zero credence. We have already seen at least one person who faked reviews of his system. UNLESS I know the reviewer they come from, and they are reputable and involved in the site. But since reviews are anonymous, I consider them as trash.
I agree. I think it is important to know atleast the identity of the reviewer. I don’t believe any of the positive reviews. But if it is a negative review, I usually do a bit more research.
>The available stats on it are the only thing of value to me.
Some stats may not be available for eg., actual slippage, actual transaction costs, ease of fill, ease of trading, is it trading on a fast market, on fundamentals, etc. Reviews are the only guide in such cases.
I remember seeing one of the new reviews a couple of weeks ago, saying something like "This system is good. I may quit my daytime job."
If this person was serious, the only things that came to mind are "a fool & his money are soon parted" and "knucklehead, knucklehead, knucklehead"
If this is the quality of reviews, I would rather poll the rabbits and squirrels hopping around outside. At least they cause minimal harm.
I remember seeing one of the new reviews a couple of weeks ago, saying something like "This system is good. I may quit my daytime job."
If this person was serious, the only things that came to mind are "a fool & his money are soon parted" and "knucklehead, knucklehead, knucklehead"
If this is the quality of reviews, I would rather poll the rabbits and squirrels hopping around outside. At least they cause minimal harm.
As I have suggested in another thread before, it would be much more informative if C2 (or the vendor) would show what % of subscribers is still subscribed e.g. 3 months, 6 months etc. after the first day of their subscription.
