What happened to the Shoutbox - and all the assholes

AlfredSokol said: "...who used to be holed up in there? I havent posted for a few months due to the signal to noise ratio. Looks like some changes have been made around here? :wave:"

Darren said: "Hello, The ShoutBox was closed when a brief survey of the last 100 shouts turned up some extreme negativity of the following manner: 1) S.I sucks 2) Cryogenix must be banned in order for the website to be good again 3) Darren is Cryo, as well as most of the other users on the website. In other words, the ShoutBox was filled with ridiculous, nonsensical innuendo. Worse still, the former heavy users in the ShoutBox decided to band together and start their own, "you guessed it", investor's forum. At that point they started recruiting as many people as they could to their forum, which is directly against the clearly posted rules on this forum. When I realized just how bad they had trashed the ShoutBox, as well as most new member welcome threads, I turned off the ShoutBox. It seems a bunch of "former users" who I have always been extremely respectful to have turned on me and this forum, and are now working hard to subvert it."

Airelon said: "Darren You have got to be FREAKING KIDDING ME. We begged. We pleaded. We sent you PM's. Nothing. Not even so much as a reply of "[I]Sorry, I take a hands off view[/I]". I don't care if you are Cryo or not ([I]though it's rather interesting since that time, Cryo has disappeared from the forum, and you show up in force, cue the Cryo entrance music[/I]) You get what you asked for. [B][I]You showed complete and utter inattention to concerns[/I][/B]. Heather was nowhere to be found. Upwards of 15 to 20 regular posters were sick of the Cryo-crap. They complained. And complained. And complained. And [b][i]now[/i][/b] you're going to act self-righteous and in the best interests of the posters here? Bite me."

Darren said: "[quote=Airelon;65284]Darren You have got to be FREAKING KIDDING ME.[/quote] Kidding about what? [quote=Airelon;65284]We begged. We pleaded. We sent you PM's. Nothing. Not even so much as a reply of "[I]Sorry, I take a hands off view[/I]". I don't care if you are Cryo or not ([I]though it's rather interesting since that time, Cryo has disappeared from the forum, and you show up in force, cue the Cryo entrance music[/I])[/quote] LOL. You begged and pleaded to have someone banned. You, Mr Airelon, have only been posting here since December of 2007 and not that well I might add. You seem overly interested in the management of the website. You also went OUT OF YOUR WAY to respond negatively to every single post Cryo made. Obsess much? Learn some self control. [quote=Airelon;65284] You get what you asked for. [B][I]You showed complete and utter inattention to concerns[/I][/B]. Heather was nowhere to be found. Upwards of 15 to 20 regular posters were sick of the Cryo-crap. They complained. And complained. And complained. And [B][I]now[/I][/B] you're going to act self-righteous and in the best interests of the posters here?[/quote] No. I'm not acting self righteous. WTF are you talking about? [quote=Airelon;65284] Bite me.[/quote] You've been bit."

Darren said: "Bite me? LOL."

AlfredSokol said: "Darren, thanks for the recap. That has to be the funniest thing I read today. Airelon, now don't take this the wrong way but you really seem to be an emotional bitch. You need to train your intellect to control your emotions in order to be a successful investor. I watched the training film on your BlogSpot. I have to say I was amazed that you are managing a less than $700 dollar portfolio. How small and lame. BTW, as an aside. You look like an older and gayer Kevin Federline. Plus your video presentation skills are non-existent. The whole series I am afraid is completely unacceptable. You should polish your product before you attempt to push it onto more forums."

AlfredSokol said: "BTW what is the fucking obsession with Cryo? The guy doesn't really seem that exciting or dangerous to me. He barely visits here most days."

bigmike said: "Air!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

bigmike said: "blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

bigmike said: "is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

bigmike said: "the best!!!!!!!!!!"

Cryogenix said: "ROFL!! This is priceless. I rarely-to-never visit the General Forum, but I was wondering what happened to the shoutbox. For all the interested parties out there, I intentionally stopped posting here for a few days once I saw Darren had returned. I did that to feed your paranoia and twisted belief that we are the same person. Looks like it worked. :laugh: Life goes on..."

AlfredSokol said: "I can honestly say I never learned that much from the ChatBox crew. I think they were here more for comic relief."

Darren said: "[quote=AlfredSokol;65907]I can honestly say I never learned that much from the ChatBox crew. I think they were here more for comic relief.[/quote] I hear that loud and clear. For a year these petty tyrants sat in the ChatBox, using my free resource and complaining about it. All because of one issue: their pure unmitigated hatred for "Cryo". His crime: claiming he was better at investing than they were. Rather than argue the point and prove it once and for all, they degraded into ad hominem attacks. When I look at that bitchy little post in this thread from "Airelon" I cringe. The guy barely contributed to the forum at all. Within a week of joining he starts trolling and spamming. Me, being the nice guy I am, try to ignore it for as long as I can. I should have canned him early on for his spamming. Then these guys go and start a derivative knockoff forum and attempt to contact my users to populate their new forum. This is definitely unethical IMHO, and done in an underhanded manner. For my part, I've never once "Spammed" this URL anywhere on the internet and haven't had a hard time attracting members. Why? Because the forum is better than many others on this subject and I aim to keep it that way. The real deal is, I have had enough. After months and months of this negativity and a full month since the asshats started their own forum, they are STILL coming around trying to spread negativity. You will never once see me visit their forum and attempt to degrade their efforts."

AlfredSokol said: "For awhile there these people thought Ron Paul was going to be the next President of the United States. Can you imagine that?"

Harry said: "[QUOTE=Darren;65918]I hear that loud and clear. For a year these petty tyrants sat in the ChatBox, using my free resource and complaining about it. All because of one issue: their pure unmitigated hatred for "Cryo". His crime: claiming he was better at investing than they were. Rather than argue the point and prove it once and for all, they degraded into ad hominem attacks. When I look at that bitchy little post in this thread from "Airelon" I cringe. The guy barely contributed to the forum at all. Within a week of joining he starts trolling and spamming. Me, being the nice guy I am, try to ignore it for as long as I can. I should have canned him early on for his spamming. Then these guys go and start a derivative knockoff forum and attempt to contact my users to populate their new forum. This is definitely unethical IMHO, and done in an underhanded manner. For my part, I've never once "Spammed" this URL anywhere on the internet and haven't had a hard time attracting members. Why? Because the forum is better than many others on this subject and I aim to keep it that way. The real deal is, I have had enough. After months and months of this negativity and a full month since the asshats started their own forum, they are STILL coming around trying to spread negativity. You will never once see me visit their forum and attempt to degrade their efforts.[/QUOTE] Alot of forums I visit just simply delete flame posts and ban the posters if they don't catch on to the policy. I come here for juicy stock information and flags to good info I might be missing somewhere. I was shocked at how personal and cruel some people became. The anonymous public surfs the web. Everybody has their own level of knowledge and savy. But nobody deserves to be picked on like a runt in the playground."

Corey said: "[QUOTE=Darren;65918] Then these guys go and start a derivative knockoff forum and attempt to contact my users to populate their new forum. This is definitely unethical IMHO, and done in an underhanded manner. For my part, I've never once "Spammed" this URL anywhere on the internet and haven't had a hard time attracting members. Why? Because the forum is better than many others on this subject and I aim to keep it that way. [/QUOTE] Actually, our intention was never to drive traffic away from your forum. Actually, we consider our own forum to be a private investment club, rather than a public forum. So we hope that you continue to generate considerable traffic Darren. As far as spamming, we were simply trying to let other posters know that we would be drastically cutting back on our posting here at SI, and if anybody wanted to know where we would now be posting, to shoot us a PM. Some people felt a little betrayed after dedicating so much time to posting on this site to not see it moderated more heavily, so emotions were flying hot. Most felt that given that you have admitted that SI was simply one of many websites you run (for profit, nonetheless), that you were not truly vested in cultivating the SI community and culture, and therefore were much happier to move on to greener pastures by their own standards. You certainly got heavy fisted in retaliation, though, didn't you? The URL to our board is now marked as spam and you banned many of the people who left. By the way, by 'your users' do you mean the users that came to this board looking for help that stuck around due to the replies posted by many of the people you consider to have plagued the board for the last year? Last I checked, you didn't post for months on end. Also, we already discussed what would happen if Cryo showed up on our forum -- and I am sure much to your surprise, we all agreed that as long as he agreed to our standards of professionalism and was able to provide well argumented evidence for his predictions, he was more than welcome -- as is wisely said, "if two people have the same opinion, one of them isn't necessary." The majority of us weren't as much tired with Cryo, it was simply the general way this forum was run. I still peruse here every once in a while -- there are still a few terrific posters who scribble on these walls. But, quite simply, I think the majority of us just wanted our own private forum for discussion ... a club house, if you will."

Darren said: "[quote=Corey;66085]Actually, our intention was never to drive traffic away from your forum. Actually, we consider our own forum to be a private investment club, rather than a public forum. So we hope that you continue to generate considerable traffic Darren. As far as spamming, we were simply trying to let other posters know that we would be drastically cutting back on our posting here at SI, and if anybody wanted to know where we would now be posting, to shoot us a PM. Some people felt a little betrayed after dedicating so much time to posting on this site to not see it moderated more heavily, so emotions were flying hot. Most felt that given that you have admitted that SI was simply one of many websites you run (for profit, nonetheless), that you were not truly vested in cultivating the SI community and culture, and therefore were much happier to move on to greener pastures by their own standards.[/quote] I run websites for a living. So what? I don't sell anything to any of the forum members here and the website has provided free information to investors since 2003. Everyone who is spamming is simply "letting people know" about another website. That's how it works. Since you started your own club, get your own damn members. [quote=Corey;66085] You certainly got heavy fisted in retaliation, though, didn't you? The URL to our board is now marked as spam and you banned many of the people who left. [/quote] Hardly. I got a complaint from a member who was spammed via PM and took appropriate actions. There's a very clear set of rules on this website, accessible from every page. The rules were violated and the accounts banned. Whether you like my website or not, you have no right to recruit members here. [quote=Corey;66085] By the way, by 'your users' do you mean the users that came to this board looking for help that stuck around due to the replies posted by many of the people you consider to have plagued the board for the last year? Last I checked, you didn't post for months on end.[/quote] Once again, I have to say, excuse me? I'll post whenever the hell I want. I run the website, administer the website, bring new users to the forum, and post as I see fit. [quote=Corey;66085] Also, we already discussed what would happen if Cryo showed up on our forum -- and I am sure much to your surprise, we all agreed that as long as he agreed to our standards of professionalism and was able to provide well argumented evidence for his predictions, he was more than welcome -- as is wisely said, "if two people have the same opinion, one of them isn't necessary." The majority of us weren't as much tired with Cryo, it was simply the general way this forum was run. I still peruse here every once in a while -- there are still a few terrific posters who scribble on these walls. But, quite simply, I think the majority of us just wanted our own private forum for discussion ... a club house, if you will.[/quote] This actually makes no sense, at all. You were upset about how the "forum is run". Get a life. As far as the "few" terrific posters go, sounds like a typical passive aggressive insult. I have to inform you, son, in my estimation your new "club" of investors is by no stretch the "cream of the crop" of stock market posters. In fact, most of you have all seriously overestimated your appeal."

AlfredSokol said: "[QUOTE=Corey;66085] that you were not truly vested in cultivating the SI community and culture, and therefore were much [B]happier to move on to greener pastures by their own standard[/B]s.[/QUOTE] The "culture" of insulting other members. Sounds like you guys have formed a club for "flaming faggots" What a long winded bunch of crap to try and justify spamming. So what is taking you complete sniveling assholes so long to move on? All you have to do is type your new URL in your address bar instead of this one. Leave already rodents. :wave:"

Heather said: "[QUOTE]But, quite simply, I think the majority of us just wanted our own private forum for discussion ... a club house, if you will.[/QUOTE] Recruiting people for a "private forum for discussion" is still a forum.. and dropping URL's via PM is not allowed and results in a permanent ban. Please read the [URL="http://www.superiorinvestor.net/faq.php?faq=superiorinvestorfaq#faq_rules"]Rules and FAQ's[/URL] if you need clarification. Thanks!"

AlfredSokol said: "Don't just read the rules. Try and actually comprehend them too. I like the way these guys are lying about their "private club". It is an HTML forum that is easily accessible via Google or any search engine. I guess they can't get their own forums moving and have to resort to coming here, again and again. I am sick of it! I am a [B]Superior Investor dammit![/B]"

Harry said: "[QUOTE=AlfredSokol;66121]The "culture" of insulting other members. Sounds like you guys have formed a club for "flaming faggots" What a long winded bunch of crap to try and justify spamming. So what is taking you complete sniveling assholes so long to move on? All you have to do is type your new URL in your address bar instead of this one. Leave already rodents. :wave:[/QUOTE] That's not right...the smiling wave doesn't make it right."

StockMan69 said: "Sure it does. A smiley or smiling wave always indicates the poster is just kidding"

Darren said: "Harry is right. Alfred, you are better than that."