Member Info for MrMagic

Admin It seems somewhat pointless witholding access to RNS releases here to those who are not premium members when RNSs can be freely viewed on other sites such as investegate.com where they are posted up very promptly. Wouldn't it be a good idea to remove this restriction in order to make the LSE site much more useful?

Scott "We don't support or discriminate against any Member" May I draw to your attention to the fact that I am STILL unable to either rec posts or report posts. That makes it over 2 weeks now, whilst all the while those who continue to propel themselves to the top places of that leaderboard have been free to continue doing so throughout. This situation doees not support your statement regading discrimination/impartiality.

Scott For the record the following is just a sample of posts made by an LSE poster since the events above. I know you know who this is: "now no 2...guess who's just put ya there..he he..lol.lol....boooooom" - to Jange ""jange?.whoooo,that took me 40minutes..lol...doesnt help when he post all the place..." ""everybody was wiped off last night sometimes,except you,you had 75 posts,someone, saying no names,put you all bck up there,it took them 2 hours....lol...." - to Jange "dont think ille ever learn this lot,the rules are always changing...but jange will be back to no1 spot in 5..?..." ""jange deserves to stay there,so guess we'll all be juggling ourselves around below him,market manipulation lse stye..lol...how old are we..ha ha"

That's good to hear Scott. In the meantime can you explain: 1. Why the leaderboard was reset as soon as someone other than the "select few" made it to the top of the leaderboard? 2. Why my post rec privileges are still revoked? These actions make it look like the LSE site is specifically supporting a select group of posters to stay in the top 5-6 places on the leaderboard instead of it being an open and honest system. Why have the people who constantly rec those posters posts not also had their privileges revoked?

All We should exercise some sense of balance here IMO. It IS quite possible that many people are genuinely recommending the posts of those on the leaderboard. Most likely admin suddenly saw a huge influx of post recs from my account and decided in the immediate term that I should be stopped. I do not yet understand why the leaderboard was reset nor why I am still unable to rec posts. I simply wanted to understand if it were possible for anyone else to "lead" the leaderboards. Others are free to post rec other people's accounts if they so wish. For myself I am done with the experiment. The result surprised me, and there was no malice intended, I just wanted to see someone else up on the board for once. I don't actually blame the site. I suspect someone in admin simply tried to "reset" the board back to a position similar to just before I started the experiment, perhaps without thinking how that would look to the rest of us. Ultimately I think it is impossible to fairly police the leaderboard, we are talking about 100s and 100s of posts after all. It is not worth someone's time to try and look at those post recs and judge if they are genuine or not. So ultimately there will always exist the potential for the leaderboard to be abused. I hope I have not caused undue concern or trouble for anyone but I still think it's probably not worth having the leaderboard at all. It appears to be genrally thought of as meaningless. I expect my post rec ability will be restored in due course. Cheers

Actually it is worse that just meaningless. Last week I decided to conducted an experiment to ascertain whether or not these people are an integal part of the LSE site (or admin team) and whether or not it would be possible for anyone else to take up places on that leaderboard. If it were a fair and honest site and website feature, it should be possible to move other accounts up onto that board. I therefore looked for members who posted very frequently and set about recommending all of their posts. A boring and tiresome prospect but worth the effort to try to understand what is going on here. Within 1/2 day I had managed to get an account name up to 2nd place on that leaderboard. The leader, Jange, who is constantly there had 561 post recs at this point and that number had been stable all day. Very shortly after I got to 2nd place and was approaching Jange's post count, Jange's own count quickly started to rise up to about 630. However, the accounts I had chosen had made far more posts than Jange and thus I was quickly able to overtake Jange. The new No 1 slot was taken and had approx 820 post recs. Mission succeeded ? No not quite. What followed was rather shocking and pretty disappointing for a site that SHOULD be operating as an impartial entity. The leaderboard was suddenly and mysteriously "scratched". The post rec counts all plummeted down to the 200 level and Lo and Behold, Jange, Nighthawk and the other "usual suspects" were all still on that board whilst some of the accounts I had forced up there were now gone. Not only this but I suddenly found that my ability to recommend posts and report posts had suddenly vanished. As I write this my privileges are still revoked in this respect. I exchanged a few posts with Nighthawk and others on this issue and they talked as if they were a part of the admin team here (which I have no problem with) but I received no explanation why the board had been reset, nor why the people constantly recommending Jange's posts had not been similarly banned. Within an hour or so, Jange's post rec count had risen swiftly to put that account name back to the No 1 position. What conclusions can be drawn from this experiment? 1. Clearly a number of people have a very vested interest in keeping their places on that leaderboard. I do not know why, possibly it is to present themselves as someone "special" in order to then be able to influence PIs on the boards. I would deem this an abuse of the LSE website facilities. 2. It is clearly NOT possible for anyone to put anyone else's account names on that board if in doing so it knocks off these core posters. It SHOULD be possible in a fair and impartial and honest website, but it appears not to be. 3. If you try to recommend other posters to the level that it will knock off these other core posters then the admin team will remove your post rec'ing abilities. Again this is rather shocking for a website the OUGHT to be totally impartial. At this stage I do not know what the site intends to do about this going forward. If left as is, it would seem a very unhealthy situation for all concerned here. I'm not personally comfortable having a site manipulate it's own leaderboard for specific posters. Hence I recommend that the leaderboard is removed altogether. Perhapss my post rec privileges will be restored in good time. We wait to see.

Really what IS the point of a post recommendation function and associated leaderboard? If the idea is to highlight the acct names whose posts have been genuinely recommended the most, then that is frankly rather naive and fool hardy. How do you determine a genuine rec'd post from one purely designed to boost the numbers? In truth, you can't. It is an utterly pointless exercise and all we get from it is a list of the SAME 4-5 account names over and over and over week after week, month after month. In otherwords, this website feature is being constantly abused by a few people who are determined to keep themselves on that leaderboard. How they do it is irrelevent, whether they are operating multiple account or simply operating as a team / syndicate constantly recommending each other's posts. The end result is a pointless website feature which can only serve to allow a select few to present themselves as "top posters" and thus mislead other members into thinking their advice must be somehow more relevant or factual than other peoples, which is both untrue and dangerous for all concerned. The site does not need this feature. If people want to appreciate someone else's post they can simple say so in a post of their own. Instead of saying "Post rec'd" they can say "Nice post thank you". I submit the case for the post rec facility and leaderboard to be removed. It is impossible to police, it is constantly abused, numerous people appear to have reported their dissatisfaction with it and it puts the site in an untennable position when trying to police it.

Profitseeker I am in full agreement with you regarding the RecPost Leaderboard and its persistent abuse by certain groups of posters. Admin, you need to be seen to be impartial and fair in regards to this and your latest actions don't seem to support this. The same acct names are being allowed to perpetually dominate the leaderboard and as soon as someone tries to change that situation it seems their post rec privileges are revoked to prevent them from challenging this situation again. I appreciate that the number of recs I have had to make to "test the theory" was over the top and although it was a one-off exercise it has proven beyond doubt that at present, this select group of posters are being allowed to continue their abuse of the leaderboard. If I'm honest, I think the leaderboard needs to go completely as it is meaningless, an un-level playing field and is highly manipulative. highlighting the acct names of the recommenders is a decent idea but it won't solve the problem. It will simply lead to these people creating more and more accts to keep reccing posts and preserving their position. Best just to remove the leaderboard altogether as it can not be policed and any selective "adjustments" and privilege banning by yourselves just makes the LSE site look less and less impartial which is far from healthy. Mny thx.