this is a good idea, not sure if it can work in practice across the board, but wld certainly provide exposure to different viewpoints. that is essentially what the 'thread' is for.
each vendor could open their product/service to be reviewed (been suggested before), but this wld be logistically impossible for a big chunk of the lovely chaps eg tutoring service over long periods of time or for expensive systems which require a certain skillset of customer before trying out. for howard et al this method works great cos his was built on flawed option theory which was pointed out in laymans terms (perfect for ppl like me to learn) by all the guys here who actually knew (great thread, for the lulz too).
on a prelim level, t2w cld ask a few 'specialists' for a cpl of hours of their month to at least take a look at some of the vendor articles before they get approved to be published, similar to the proof read by the editors (experts cough)/lawyers etc at a newspaper (which didnt work too well of late).
also a lot of other sites are doing webinars, mainly introductory stuff for newbies, and some are done by vendors but there is no sell whatsoever - the subject is not specifically linked to their products, no promotions of their products, its just left up to whoever attends to google their book or whatever if they wish.
with respect to steve's (welcome back btw) social manifesto, i side with NT....and ET.com is along those lines (from the threads i have read) and prob the forum i like the most (though there is a documented dedine in quality there also whcih is prob the fundamental shift away from forums). ppl asking dumb/lazy questions get shot down straight away, those with thoughtful questions get considered answers (and theres threads on most topics), the trolls invariably come out losers every time (yet they are persistent). this can add to the lulz, if you dont like you just stick on ingore. plus you rarely see vendor scum spam, so t2w need to get hold of their cleanup bot software asap. they do have vendors & vendor issues as well, & some of those are site sponsors, but not so sure their vetting procedures, but its nowhere near as ubiquitous as here.
steve, the strong message from your manifesto post was you wanted this to be a trading related forum. great. one problem, the content of this site probably gives up, as a complete guess, c50% of its space to vendors (adverts, articles, reviews, spam, threads - baghdady/binary options etc etc). ok, they are vendors associated with trading, but what value do the majority of these vendors provide to trading? what value do they provide to newbies wanting to get into trading? ok brokers, platform providers, chart companies facilitate us retail traders to stick a trade on & do some analysis, and some of them also provide some reasonable resources to newbies. and they do very well out of it. these are the ones i assume prob pay most for ad space/clicks as well.
but what about the rest? 2bit/unregulated brokers, signal providers, system sellers, mentors, authors/educators (some of these do add value cos you can get hold of material for v cheap), spurios mkt info vendors etc etc. what do they add? some wld say a lot, some wld say not a lot. most of the ones on this site offer bugger all imo. i wld like to see a vendor offer a competition for noobs to enter and the winner receive the service for free, or smthg like that. or even offer to do a webinar speaking in detail about their system/product and open it up to questions from members - senior and newbies (not quite like the baghdady one)....but you will need to attract decent vendors for this to happen.
and why was DR banned? not perm i hope.
