The TMG people are committing fraud on this site.
“Jerry Jenkins” and “George Wilson” in their My Analysts both suddenly added positive commentary about TMG 2 and TMG 2 Futures the same day. They also aim fire against Beau W’s system. And of course, they comment about ZERO other systems.
I think you should suspend all TMG systems for 30 days, to send a message. This kind of behaviour should NOT be tolerated!!!
MK, sometimes more needs to be done than just giving con artists a lecture
This kind of thing could be a almost eliminated (casual fraud, anyway), if you had two levels of "subscriber", those that had merely registered, and those whose credit card details had been confirmed.
Give people a peephole, and they will try to drive a tank through it.
But if the punishment is a slap on the wrist, then there is no disincentive to stop.
I agree with Jack in that it is better to prevent by technical means than to punish via human control. Maybe members who haven’t payed for anything on C2 shouldn’t be allowed to post public comments or otherwise influence the community, just look.
that would be nice, but I doubt subs would be required to registered. This has come up before, and that option was avoided.
Probably because it would reduce the # of people who would stick around.
I’m afraid that we disagree. When I look at those My Analyst pages you criticize, I say to myself, “Gee, there’s a silly, masturbatory attempt at self-promotion.” Then I try to calculate exactly how many poor people those pages are going to affect. I conclude that they will affect approximately – just a round a number, here – zero people.
The thing about bad self promotion is that it is obvious to just about everyone in the world that it is bad self promotion. It’s meaningless. C2 Members are smart, and they will ignore people prattling about their own systems.
As I’ve said before (or perhaps I never said it explicitly, but I surely thought it quietly to myself), C2 isn’t going to implement highly restrictive security in order to prevent people from participating on the site. We want more people to be active participants, not fewer. The idea behind the site (the collective in Collective2) is that collectively, the group of us will be able to distinguish truth from falsehood, good trading systems from bad.
Now, obviously, there are certain activities beyond the pale, which are forbidden: setting up “shill” accounts to praise your own system, for instance – that’s a no-no. Obvious attempts at doing this will be dealt with. But other than this really egregious stuff, C2 will not spend a lot of resources policing and monitoring the quality of people’s statements. These speak for themselves, and can be judged easily by the C2 community, without any help from site administrators.
Matthew,
I think there exists simple solution in spirit of C2. How about adding small icon “Verified C2 member” or whatever word wrapping you will choose. In general it will mean that C2 has verified information about its member, i.e. credit card payment is enough third party verification. In the case it will be easy to separate fiction internet characters that have only IP address and real people who provide additional information about themself to C2. It won’t violate privacy of any C2 member, but will give some info for thoughts about fiction "analysts"
Eu
I definitely know the chilling effect that requiring credit card info would have C2. That is why I said above I did not think that would happen.
I say to myself, “Gee, there’s a silly, masturbatory attempt at self-promotion.” Then I try to calculate exactly how many poor people those pages are going to affect. I conclude that they will affect approximately – just a round a number, here – zero people.
The thing about bad self promotion is that it is obvious to just about everyone in the world that it is bad self promotion. It’s meaningless. C2 Members are smart, and they will ignore people prattling about their own systems.
I cannot agree to this at all. You are just speculating, and not thinking this through Shills and Aliases is a huge problem on place like Ebay and Amazon. This has badly affected their reputation. Look what click fraud has done to the reputation of Google and Yahoo. Reputation has also been mentioned by some C2 people when others did this in the past. What is the point of making My Analyst public to others, if it is not trustworthy?
It affects newer people greatly. They come in, and try to figure out which of the systems to try and deal with. Many of the things like system stats are mystifying. But reading what others think (testimonials) is likely very persuasive to them. Then they put REAL money into these system. And you think the # people affected is zero, MK???
I am rather disappointed that it does not bother you in this case that people try to con others. It more seems you are concerned about losing revenue, than dealing with outright manipulation of the site. I think banning TMG systems for a month is a very GOOD idea. They have no other option, as you are the game in town. Banning is what you did to consensus-trading, when he openly admittted on his website to stealing other’s signals.
I definitely know the chilling effect that requiring credit card info would have C2. That is why I said above I did not think that would happen.
You didn’t get it. There aren’t specific requirements for registration as credit card or any other changes in registration, but people who paid for C2 service (as subscribers as well as system vendors) already provided verification info in one way or another and C2 has the info. The question is only make it visible. In general you still have the same reviews in my analyst page, but with small icon “unverified/verified C2 member” that’s it. It’s very similar for subscribers reviews at a system page i.e. “subscriber/autotrader”.
Eu
Yes I did get it. To my knowledge, neither of the shill reviewers used credit cards or were subscribers. These were not systems reviews, they were "My Analysts" fake posts. In this situation, it would not have helped.
Based on his past comments, MK is not about to force everyone who posts or uses a My Analyst page to provide CC info.
Yes I did get it. To my knowledge, neither of the shill reviewers used credit cards or were subscribers.
Exactly. So adding mark “unverified C2 member” to the “analyst” will give some info for thoughts. I.e. the person never used C2 service 
These were not systems reviews, they were “My Analysts” fake posts. In this situation, it would not have helped.
See above.
Based on his past comments, MK is not about to force everyone who posts or uses a My Analyst page to provide CC info.
It’s not necessary. C2’s users (real one) provides the info when they use C2’s service. All other might be newbie or fake characters. Newbie will become C2 member with time. Fake character will never be verified member. There isn’t any need to force anything or imply strict rules for registration or using “My analysis” page.
Eu
I have to agree with MK on this. I too saw and read the reviews in question before Ross even posted here and I have to say it was pretty obvious that it was a shill review. I mean it doesn’t even read like a review, to anyone with half a brain it’s clearly an advert. I understand the need that people have to champion the needs of newbies protecting them from all evil-doers but seriously, if you honestly think that someone is going to read that review and on that alone subscribe without doing any other research then quite frankly they are complete idiots and deserve to get their ass handed to them. A fool and his money are lucky to get together in the first place. The bottom line is the vendor is doing nothing illegal, immoral yes, but illegal no, so we are just going to have to rely on the common good of vendors and the common sense of subscribers to see through it which I think is a fairly safe bet. If you’re still really worried about it then simply write your own review on your analyst page and when people go to read that systems comments it will be sitting there right alongside to balance the view; Newbie protected, vendor exposed, everyone happy.
I like Eu’s idea - “unverified member” would help, in my opinion.
I like Eu’s idea too.
putting the suggestion of others about verification on the side
This is what I take away from posts between myself & MK/Jon:
1) System (TMG) creates shill reviews
2) I suggest to ban them for a month
3) Ignore this inappropriate behavior, as if newbies fall for this crap, then tough sh** on them.
4) As to C2’s reputation, who the hell cares?
5) now, where am I seeing why TMG should not be banned?
Sorry, I could have been a bit more eloquent I admit but realistically 3) is simply ‘caveat emptor’. Newbies are pretty well covered here already with the welcoming video, tour and numerous learning tools and explanations that the site provides as well as all the legal disclaimers and warnings that pop up as you view each page.
I just don’t see C2’s reputation suffering and I don’t see what banning TMG achieves, it would be a draconian measure, this is free market capitalism not punitive socialism, sure the guy has questionable ethics but he didn’t break the law, it was a review on an analyst page not a fake subscriber review. You could argue that Beau promotes his own system via his analyst page but just doesn’t use an alias, the reviews are mostly just comparing other systems to his own rather than reviewing the system on it’s own merits, so should we then not protect newbies from clearly biased opinion also in case they can’t work out he’s slating another system to promote his own, or are we going to credit them with some intelligence?
Sure, when it was my vested interest to promote my own system, I think it worked. Really, by reading my analyst page you should quickly see how well versed in trading system development I am. Put a link to wealth-lab.com and it’s all in the books. I do have positive system remarks on some of the systems.
It gets to the heart of the analyst pages. I can analyze them very accurately, and I have received quite a few e-mails thanking me for the in-depth analysis there. What that page is is a peek into someone who’s done it (traded and developed systems) for a long time.
On that, yes, I would agree to the verified c2 member status. Absolutely. I’m wondering who wouldn’t be on that list…
BTW, Ross, I, too, have asked Matt to confirm a real person named Jerry Jenkins, as well as George Wilson. I know they aren’t real people.
They also posted a shill review with an assumed alias when I offered free trials.
"I just don’t see C2’s reputation suffering and I don’t see what banning TMG achieves, it would be a draconian measure"
It is called “reputation.” I have no idea why this attitude that it does not matter.
1) Let us just pretend, that after the complaints of click fraud against Google and Yahoo, the following announcement was made: We plan no action against those who perpetrated this. As for our new advertisers, we warned you in our disclaimers. So, tough shit.
2) Ebay is a target of shill buyers/sellers. Instead of dealing with people and suspending accounts, EBay decides it is not worth the effort. "Buyers and Sellers are on their own. Our warnings are sufficent to protect EBay’s interest. Our shareholders are still getting their quarterly dividends."
TMG out for a month? Draconian? No, well deserved. I am shocked at the attitude exhibited today, frankly.
What is so difficult about doing the right thing?
