Community Constitution

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DionysusToast said:
If you look at this thread and the main contributors to it, it is worth considering how much they contribute to the forum in terms of trading chat before basing the forum around their opinions.

Otherwise, it's going to be a case of the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Why not solicit the opinions of people that actually trade and discuss trading? Why are the opinions of those that do nothing but complain so important?
Click to expand...

Opinions have been sought, that's what these threads are. What are you expecting in terms of solicitation? Whether someone trades or not, they're still more valuable for the site than someone who can't be even bothered to give an opinion on the websites future direction.
 
Liquid validity said:
Why don't you give your opinions then instead of complaining about people that complain.
No one knows your opinion if you don't give it.
Not having a pop, just an observation :)
Click to expand...

I spent 12 months in Japan. One of the many things I learnt there is that you cannot make decisions by committee.

I was sent to Japan with a remit of "make sure they don't fnck it up". I was getting paid just under $1000 a day to do that & this was when $1000 was a lot of money.

I remember sitting in a meeting with 15 guys (including me) in Toyama and 3 guys in Kawasaki. This was a satellite video conference and that was pricey as the internet couldn't support such things then.

We were discussing nothing more complex than the design of a sales order change history module. Simply put, someone buys something, they change their mind and you need to track that as you are a huge Japanese manufacturer and these things have ripples.

Day 1 ended - no further forward - 10 hours, 18 people
Day 2 - couldn't jusify the cost of the video conference, another 10 hours, 15 people
Day 3 started....

Sasazu - "Peter San - you are here to help. We aren't getting anywhere. Do you have any ideas?"
Me - "Yes, you have too many people in the room. I suggest having 2 people create a design, then if you want we can all come back and take a look at it and approve it or not. So I am now going to leave the meeting. I suggest others do the same".

I left, 5 Philippinos left. All the Japanese stayed behind. Culturally, none of them could leave the meeting but they could have smaller meetings next time, which they did.

So - my opinion is not going to help because having more diverse opinions won't help. I am biased as I am a vendor. Others are biased because they have a stick up their ar$e about T2W.

At the end of the day, the forum-member relationship is similar to a supplier-customer relationship. As much as suppliers might want to blow smoke up the ar$es of their customers, they are there to extract as much $$$$ from their customers without disenfranchising them.

Some customers are difficult. In my experience it is the smaller customers that whine the most. Say you sell software for $100k. A multi-billion dollar company will buy it & you might get a few support requests. A small Million dollar company will be calling you up ever other damn day expecting you to read the bloody manual for them. This is just the way it is. Those little customers are OK but you don't base your business around them just because they are the squeaky wheel.

T2W is a business. It needs direction. No-one is really going to buy into any kumbaya nonsense that the members come first. The members will come first as long as this is in line with what makes the business grow. If not, it'll go the way of the Twinkie.
 
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DionysusToast said:
I spent 12 months in Japan. One of the many things I learnt there is that you cannot make decisions by committee.

So - my opinion is not going to help because having more diverse opinions won't help. I am biased as I am a vendor. Others are biased because they have a stick up their ar$e about T2W.


T2W is a business. It needs direction. No-one is really going to buy into any kumbaya nonsense that the members come first. The members will come first as long as this is in line with what makes the business grow. If not, it'll go the way of the Twinkie.
Click to expand...

So I take it you aren't an advocate of Soft Systems Methodology being used for software analysis and design :LOL::LOL::LOL:

Im fully in agreement that you can't take decisions by committee, but you can, and should try to make yourself aware of the issues, and consultation is a reasonable course of action. However, I honestly don't think members should play a part in that consultation, for the reasons you highlighted. the dog should be wagging the tail, not the other way around.

I honestly don't believe t2w currently has direction, and that's their problem.
 
DT - fair points.

I can't really say I disagree with that at all.
I know where you're coming from, they should know what direction
they want to move in essentially, and know how to initiate that change.

None of my posts bar one, have actually mentioned transforming T2W
as a business, apart from one minor idea about outsourcing article content
in exchange for free advertising.
All my other posts are about basic site mechanics pretty much.
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/search.php?searchid=10571654&pp=25

Thats all I am talking about, basic site ideas that affect user experience,
not business direction, so in that sense I agree with you.
 
Hakuna Matata said:
@Steve

Steve, please can I have your thoughts on two features I have suggested many times but had no feedback on: Firstly, the option to "follow" another member, and be advised when they have made a new post (so members can easily see posts they are likely to be interested in). Secondly, the option to mark a thread as "unread" in ones settings panel (so members can read new posts in a thread, consider responses, and go back to reply).

I feel that both of these features, if implemented, would make finding material that members appreciate much easier to find, and in turn, contribute to*.


Thanks,

HM


* and please don't use the potential for vendor abuse as a critique. The whole vendor "problem" has been blown way out of proportion IMO... there is still chaff >> wheat.
Click to expand...

bump
 
Hakuna Matata said:
what?
Click to expand...

Hakuna Matata said:
Firstly, the option to "follow" another member, and be advised when they have made a new post (so members can easily see posts they are likely to be interested in)
Click to expand...

Try profile bookmark, then subscribe to thread?
Not the same, but close ish?
I should have quoted it to be clear.
Its a kludge I know.
 
Hakuna Matata said:
WTF are you talking about..?? I just wanted to bump the thread to see if I could get a response from Steve

:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I have now pulled all the forum ideas from the thread and your two suggestions are a part of them.

Now I will be the first to agree that this sounds like the classic 'cheque's in the post' response but I intend to look into all the suggestions and find out if they can be done and if there is merit in doing them.

This loop will be closed and you'll get an answer one way or another when I have finished looking into them.

Thanks again.

Steve
 
Thanks to DT and LV for the recent posts. LV puts it very well in the closing words of the post:

"Thats all I am talking about, basic site ideas that affect user experience,
not business direction"

These have been mixed up here for too long. Regardless of the direction I take T2W in, there is an immediate responsibility to the community to fix things that need fixing and that have been neglected for too long. These are the things that many would argue are independant of what the overall operation is doing. Many members have confirmed directly to me that they are not really bothered about this wider picture as long as the forum stuff works for them.

These are the things that irritate people and that need sorting out so they want to stay rather than go. I'm already starting to fix some of these and will continue to do so. I'll also continue to ask for help and guidance because that's how communities work. As Barjon rightly pointed out it is called consultation and it certainly is not weakness or a lack of direction.

The business side of things has become far too embroiled with the community for reasons that have been debated long and hard here and I don't intend to start that all over again. This has led to the situation where the whole organisation, it's management, strategic plans and so forth have been open house for commentary and speculation. I know of no other community of this nature where this happens to the same extent.

On Pistonheads they talk about cars, on Mumsnet they talk about mumsnet stuff, on Money Saving Expert they talk about saving money etc etc. On T2W the focus should be talk about trading with a smattering of this other stuff from those who always feel obliged to post it not the other way around.

As far as I am concerned there are two clear aspects to the whole T2W operation, i'll call them community and commercial. The community side of things is pretty obvious and that is what much of the CEO exchange has been about. Sorting stuff out that impacts on the community directly and that will make it a better place to be. If we achieve this we should increase our numbers and therefore generate the revenue required to keep the whole thing running.

I have an extremely long list of things I want to action in this area. Each one is important and will make a difference but there are only so many hours in a day and resources to make them happen.

I'll happily share any of these if you are interested. And your responses to this thread will be added to them for consideration, of that you can be assured. there will be no more 'i'll look into it' never to be heard of again and if there is any evidence of this i'll expect you to tell me.

What I will not be doing because it is inappropriate and it is not up to everyone out there to tell me what I should be doing, is posting regularly about the decisions I am making that are not directly about the community. I'll obviously keep everyone posted through the CEO forum but i''ll be the one to decide between consultation and advice of implementation. If every single thing was posted and discussed we would never get anything done and people would quite understandably get fed up with it.

So what of the commercial? I have already said that we did some things that, with hindsight were not right and the whole vendor thing has been well aired without me rattling on about it again here.

So i'm not rushing into anything here. I have already said that I want the commercial side to link positively with the community and I really can't see why this will not work. I think we have a golden opportunity to become an extremely useful resource and providing a whole range of trading related services to both members and non members.

I use the word commercial not necessarily in the money making sense but within the context of our wider relationships, ie we have member relationships and we have commercial relationships. We need to turn these to our members advantage (product discounts, information access for example) and to our advantage (member only offers so people join, get more involved and revenue increases as a result).

So future vistors will have three choices, they can ignore all the resources stuff and go straight to the community (just as people never see the home page now), they can do their community stuff and take a look at the other services or they can just use what is there and ignore the community completely, their choice.

So yes, at the base level this is a supplier - customer relationship but I really can't see why the two cannot be mutually supportive and that's the broad direction I'm heading in.

This all takes time, much of what I intend to do is very significant and moving a business with over ten years of experience in a different (and clear) direction is never an easy ride.

But who wants that, there's no fun in that at all!

So there will no doubt be setbacks and directional changes within the overall plan but I'm in it for the long haul and will do what it takes to get things where I want them to be.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
This post is a copy of another made on a binary options broker thread.

This place is rapidly becoming known as a target rich environment for
all these sharks.
Why?
Simply because T2W do absolutely nothing about it, leaving it up to
posters to do the job instead.

Personally I think its about time a prominent broker FAQ was created.
It would outline all the things to look for:
Concrete verifiable address.
Full company details.
Regulatory details.
T&C's
Costs etc.

If nothing else, surely T2W can see it is not in their own interests,
or the legit brokers that advertise here to allow this to continue.

I know some may raise an eyebrow at legit broker, lets face it,
most have been fined for various practices at one time or another,
but at least they don't hide their identity and location...
Even saying all that, most are paragons of virtue compared to these
binary brokers.
 
Liquid validity said:
This post is a copy of another made on a binary options broker thread.

This place is rapidly becoming known as a target rich environment for
all these sharks.
Why?
Simply because T2W do absolutely nothing about it, leaving it up to
posters to do the job instead.

Personally I think its about time a prominent broker FAQ was created.
It would outline all the things to look for:
Concrete verifiable address.
Full company details.
Regulatory details.
T&C's
Costs etc.

If nothing else, surely T2W can see it is not in their own interests,
or the legit brokers that advertise here to allow this to continue.

I know some may raise an eyebrow at legit broker, lets face it,
most have been fined for various practices at one time or another,
but at least they don't hide their identity and location...
Even saying all that, most are paragons of virtue compared to these
binary brokers.
Click to expand...

We used to have broker listings and did look at this again recently. The problem is that it takes a lot of time to set up and, from previous experience, keeping it up to date is a nightmare. So I ruled it out as I don't have the resources at my disposal to make it happen.

However, this does not mean we should do nothing about the ones that continue to 'attack' us. As always with these things there are differing views. We could employ a zero tolerance policy (which we have done before) and deal with them quickly and permanently, well at least until they try again. Or we can do as PB suggested and leave them a while as they spin enough rope to hang themselves. I guess the problem with the latter is that by then someone may well have been taken in by them.

I'm toying with the idea of a vendor only mod at the moment, giving them very clear guidance as to what is acceptable and what is not and letting them get on with it. Thoughts?
 
Steve said:
I'm toying with the idea of a vendor only mod at the moment, giving them very clear guidance as to what is acceptable and what is not and letting them get on with it. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

What's not clear for example about the guidelines relating to vendors including URLs in signatures.

A dumb bit of silicon and a line of php code can verify if a given string of characters is a valid URL. For those lacking the intellect to recognize a string of characters as a link, your stylesheet formats it as a link, and provides useful visual clues that the link is meant to be clicked !

Its about as clear as it gets, vendors can't include links to their websites. Despite that, vendors do include links, and nothing gets done about it

If a rule that is so simple isn't acted upon, or so difficult to identify I very much doubt anything that involves subjective judgement is going to be implemented successfully.

At the moment you hide behind the "lack of resources" excuse when it comes to vendor related issues. You also cut yourself a bit if slack becuase your policies on acceptable vendor behaviour are completely unknown at the moment.

Assigning a mod to the task kind of eliminates that excuse, and it also makes your policies much clearer, and you possibly run the risk of shooting yourself in the foot

For months you've been promising to do something about vendors, removal and restriction of rights and priveladges etc. you promised to publish new guidelines etc, and to date there's been very little progress from the memberships perception at least. Changes that where claimed to have been implemented (for which you recieved substantial praise) in reality just didnt happen (vendor PMs for example)

How can you expect vendors to comply with rules when a) those rules are still not published, and b) the simplest of guidelines are not adhered to, and c) interpretation of guidelines such as no advertising are interpreted in vastly different ways by moderators and staff ?

The other issue Steve is why ask members, why not simply take a decision based on your own experience and expertise

How can I as a member eve begin to give anything like any useful feedback when I have no idea what you are trying to achieve.

Making some poor unpaid volunteer for the focus of all of the sites vendor problems does not seam the way to go in opinion.

The site needs some management leadership from the top, and its sadly lacking
 
Steve said:
We used to have broker listings and did look at this again recently. The problem is that it takes a lot of time to set up and, from previous experience, keeping it up to date is a nightmare. So I ruled it out as I don't have the resources at my disposal to make it happen.

However, this does not mean we should do nothing about the ones that continue to 'attack' us. As always with these things there are differing views. We could employ a zero tolerance policy (which we have done before) and deal with them quickly and permanently, well at least until they try again. Or we can do as PB suggested and leave them a while as they spin enough rope to hang themselves. I guess the problem with the latter is that by then someone may well have been taken in by them.

I'm toying with the idea of a vendor only mod at the moment, giving them very clear guidance as to what is acceptable and what is not and letting them get on with it. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Rather than a full list, I was thinking more along the lines of a due dilligence FAQ
as a sticky in each of the Trading Brokers sub forums.
Just to get people to think about where and to who they send their money
when opening an account.
Who they are regulated by etc.
What I am driving at is a checklist to use in their own due dilligence.

I'm not suggesting T2W do that work or maintain it, as you say, too much work,
and opens up the can of worms with T2W advertising brokers who
fare less well shall we say.

Regarding the bold highlight in your quote, I agree, a record left here is a good thing.
For me though, as long as a record remains, I personally would have canned
certain binary posters by now, but thats just my view.
All quiet today anyway...

Vendor mod, maybe.
I think most step up and do their bit on an ad hoc basis by supporting mods with
post reporting and spit roasting said vendors anyway, I know I do...:)
 
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