The Forum Experiment: Concluded

When I came back to the online world of Trading two weeks ago, I got in contact with a close friend of mine who also Traded and did a lot of online community contribution work. When I sent him the email that I thought would come back with the vigor that I was used to getting from him, I was truly surprised at the reply that I got.

A “Forum Junkie” and Community Advocate, is what I used to call him, sent back the most anti-forum reply that I had ever received. He told me that the communities had absolutely gone to hell, and that the only information that you could get out of the forums was ins short, “BS”, I absolutely could not believe what I was reading. Now this was coming from a guy who lived by the forums, I mean his every thought went into the forums for discussion and I could remember the hundreds of emails that he received, not to mention the knowledge that he imparted.. unreal…

So with that I told myself that I was going to conduct an experiment just to see if half of what he was saying was true… And after only one week of experimentation I quickly got a wind of what he was talking about.

Now I am not “judging” or “smashing against” EVERY online forum.. heck HUNT | FX is a forum in itself with over 3 – 500 unique hits a day (in only 2 weeks of being active again) and a tremendous amount of search generated traffic… But I am going to smash against general sentiment.

Out of 3 post on one of the most popular Boards (no names mentioned) I received over 200 replies and in three topics I received approximately 15 responses that maintained any relevance to the original topic. In most cases I had to absolutely beg the participants to reply to the original post and with that I still got a bunch of cloudy information seeking, hungry Traders who were either un-confident in their own trading and venting against others or thoughtless responses that were not centered and off-base.

Maybe if I had told the participants.. “Okay now boys and girls, I am conducting an experiment”, they would have been a little more serious? There were what I now call Spamophobiacs <– I made that up by the way.. That were so anti-profession that they were a road block to themselves. I am on the borads giving information OR trying to give information for FREE that I generally charge major dollars for, and the whole time I did more fighting than delivering of goods.. That is a little backwards would ya say?

So I concluded my experiment, and I could see where my buddy was coming from. Will I engage forums… Yeah.. I will read em for entertainment, and perhaps pick one to actually post on (definitely not the one that I experimented in.. nope.) it was a crazy “wasteland” of Traders.. LOL!!!

I am placing this post under Psychology as well.. This speaks alot about the “mentality” of today’s Trader as well. AND if you are reading this and you are saying.. whoa.. That’s not me.. I actaully give input and I help Traders, then this post is not for YOU. YOU are on the right track.

Good Luck Trading.