Alice
I think you have to look at this in context. These boards are littered with the experiences - good and bad, but mainly bad - of people who have paid large amounts of money for courses which are well marketed but, to put it mildly, low on any content which you can't find for free on the Internet if you know where to look. I freely admit that I have been taken in by one which, had threads such as the ones I refer to been available to me at the time, I would not have been. So the background to this sort of thread is both cynical, experience-based and, in many cases, driven by a genuine desire by people who have more experience in this area, to stop newcomers making expensive mistakes. I have found this useful, although I agree with you that the tone of this particular thread leaves a bit to be desired. Asking for evidence of how good these guys are in the same way that people will check out the suitability of anything they are going to spend a significant amount of money is not, to my mind, being nosy (sic) : it's just being sensible. (The fact that, as other posters have pointed out, it's unachieveable, is beside the point!). Of course (no pun intended) the decision on whether to attend is down to the individual, but I don't think you can blame people for trying to find out exactly what they are going to get for their money, and for others with more experience to want to help them : exactly the purpose of bulletin boards as you describe them. No comparison with the Tory leadership : simply a useful aid to decision making which, I repeat, had I had access to before I parted with my money a while ago, I would not have done so.
Kind regards