Oh my goodness! Can this be? (re: Banned)

[Reub]

M.T. Is it true that Clive was banned from this website?

[MediumTex]

M.T. Is it true that Clive was banned from this website?

Yes.

He's the only one we have ever banned.

It's a high bar to get over, but he managed to do it.

I don't really want to get into a lot of the details because Clive isn't here to defend himself, but Clive's suggestion that Craig and I were financially taking advantage of Harry Browne's widow by writing a book that tried to keep Harry Browne's ideas fresh and relevant and that through our book we were misleading investors in a way that would lead them to ruin (even though he admits he hasn't read it) just got to be a bit much for us.

The idea that Craig and I wrote the book for any reason other than to be a solid PP resource is ridiculous.  When you take the very small amount of money that books like that make and then divide it between two authors and consider that we basically worked on it for an entire year, it was really nothing but a hobby and a labor of love (just like this forum and Craig's blog).

As far as the book misleading people into ruinous investment decisions, I think that the PP's history speaks for itself, and in any case the book simply lays out the strategy and lets the reader decide if it is right for him.  Unlike many of the books written in the investment space, we weren't selling some other service.  We just wanted to write a good book.

Clive is entitled to his opinions, of course, but you can only insult the people hosting the party so many times before you are going to be asked to leave.

[Reub]

I understand, but I'll miss him!

[MediumTex]

I understand, but I'll miss him!

Me too (most of his posts, anyway ).

[dualstow]

He deleted his own posts regularly.

[MachineGhost]

He deleted his own posts regularly.

I wonder why he did that.  I tried to do it once for privacy reasons (only topics without replies were successful).  I can't imagine what his motive was...

BTW, wouldn't it have behooved MT or craigr to make a statement much sooner that clive had been banned rather than leaving us to falsely ponder on why he decided to leave?  There was a large period of pondering between the dirty deed and the mea culpa...

[smurff]

I'm glad you told us that Clive was banned, and gave brief details about why.  I can't see how he could have come to his conclusions based on the public information divulged on this forum.  Perhaps envy comes in to play, which makes it easy to attribute negative motives (that are not in fact present) to a project undertaken as a labor of love.

But I still miss his colorful charts and graphs.

[Reub]

We weren't really told. Clive brought it up on another forum and I asked about it here after reading his post there. I think that there should be more transparency in these forums when it comes to these things. There is no reason to ban, or for that matter, even warn or censor, a contributor under the stealth of darkness. Everything should be transparent.

[craigr]

We weren't really told. Clive brought it up on another forum and I asked about it here after reading his post there. I think that there should be more transparency in these forums when it comes to these things. There is no reason to ban, or for that matter, even warn or censor, a contributor under the stealth of darkness. Everything should be transparent. Why isn't it?

Our rules here are pretty simple:

http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ht ... ic.php?t=3

Rule #1:

"1) Be civil."

The forum is private property. We have real jobs and do this in our spare time. We are not going to announce when someone is being banned. We are not going to open it up to debate because this is not a democracy.

As for "more transparency", we have banned exactly one person in the several years this forum has existed who wasn't a viagra pill pusher or other spammer. That was Clive. We do warn people when they are being rude, etc. and they get the clue and knock it off. If they don't get the clue, they're out of here. We're not throwing a going away party for them.

Managing forums is time consuming and pays basically nothing. We would make far more money flipping burgers at McDonald's with our time than managing a forum. So as a general piece of advice for anyone on any forum: have some respect. The forums on the Internet are almost all in the same boat and it costs money for hosting services not to mention the hours spent doing admin work on the site, answering questions, etc. Forum and blog moderators have enough hassles and they don't need to have members coming in slinging arrows at them.

[Alanw]

Craig and MT,
Thank you very much for hosting and spending your time and money on this forum.  It has been very enlightening from both a financial and "other topic" perspective.  My investment knowledge has increased much more on this site than any other site I have found.  What I have learned on this site has greatly contributed to keeping my investment decisions well grounded.  For that, I wanted to say thanks.

[flyingpylon]

Craig and MT,
Thank you very much for hosting and spending your time and money on this forum.  It has been very enlightening from both a financial and "other topic" perspective.  My investment knowledge has increased much more on this site than any other site I have found.  What I have learned on this site has greatly contributed to keeping my investment decisions well grounded.  For that, I wanted to say thanks.

+1

This forum is a sanctuary from the vast wasteland of crappy forums on the internet.  I fully support Craig and MT to run it as they see fit, and if any of us have a substantial disagreement, we are free to leave.

[l82start]

ditto on the approval of how this forum is run and some of my observations based on being both a poster and an admin/mod on other forums

a forum only works as a democracy out front and a benevolent dictatorship in back, any other combination tends to fail quickly
a democracy both out front and in back ends up turning into a big fight over every decision that needs to be made.
a tyrannical dictatorship either out front or in back devolves into constant arguments over abuse of power, and lost of the ability to post freely and people losing interest in the forum or in posting there.

giving people the free reign to post as they see fit, balanced against some hard and fast rules, without abusing the rule making power is difficult edge to walk, this forum has been exceptional in doing so, so far....

[craigr]

This thread has run its course.