Member Info for reteps

All the very best, Pdub.

Very sorry to hear your news, Pdub. My best wishes to you now and in future. I second the humour and determination advice!

I was wrong! ******** will get filtered! Also, my last post was delimited by rant and endrant tags which have been eliminated.

Personally, I think it's high time we had some accountability from LSE about how their system actually works (or doesn't). We all know that sl@g will get filtered but ******** won't, nor will the C-word (see Peterfal's referenced BB for multiple examples). New posters attempt to post URLs but that doesn't work for them, why? Apparently because you have to have been a poster for 72 hours (or some such figure) before you are allowed to post URLs. How do I know this? Because a member of the Team said so in 2014 (or thereabouts). Unfortunately, with the demise of long-term posting history, there isn't a lot anyone can do, short of screenshots, to reference past events older than some arbitrary figure. I find it reprehensible.

Tough.

reteps

Well, funnily enough, IH, you told me something almost diametrically opposed only a few days ago.

28 December 18 - ".... it is the case that if a post gets reported a certain number of times. on LSE, it gets automatically deleted ...

this can be verified by contacting LSE directly: info@lse.co.uk

as such it is possible for poster dictated 'censorship' on BB's to occur ... " - Inner-Harmony

I did contact info@lse and my conversation with them was reported here. The important bit for me was this:
"info@: For the most part, yes. Any post is always reviewed by a person before it gets fully removed. We have automatic removal in place but it's not something we can go into specifics on."

I see you have now made a U-turn. I had been crediting you with a modicum of integrity but now see I was wrong. Filtered in perpetuity.

Hoh-hoh-hi-hoh! Now I have eet! 'A bit frightened!' Moi, je n'ai pas peur...

Alfa, how would you translate 'un petit frit'? I have it variously as 'a little fried' or 'a small chip'. By strange coincidence (again) I lived and worked in France for five years :-)

By strange coincidence, I used to be a non-destructive testing technician and welding inspector for 15 years prior to getting into computing. I used to work in power stations where the high-pressure steam pipework was made out of something called chrome-moly-vanadium (CrMoV) steel. This was because it was creep-resistant at high temperatures and pressures - think longevity and durability, not to mention safety. Such pipework was welded routinely with a TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas) root and MMA (Manual Metallic Arc) filler. The TIG root ensured that the pipe bores were properly aligned and fused together and the MMA filler was mainly for speed - TIG is a painstaking and relatively slow process. TIG welding occurs at temperatures of 2,000 C or so, 4 or 500 C above the melting point of steel. I never heard anyone express any worries about the differing vapour pressures of Cr, Mo or V in alloyed steel undergoing fusion welding.

@Serenus - Sadly, very few ISPs farm out static IP addresses to their customers (Demon Internet used to, don't know if they still do or even if they still exist). Unless you're a corporate client, you are more than likely to get an IP address assigned to you by something called DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). This is done as a 'lease' of an IP address from a pool of available addresses. Leases are usually long term, days or weeks rather than hours or minutes. Something as simple as rebooting your router could see you get a fresh IP address lease, however. As a consequence, a ban on putative trolls based on their IP address has the potential to be terribly unfair as the address could conceivably be in use by an innocent third party and likely will be given enough time.

I think the Mk 1 Human eyeball is much better at spotting the patterns of recidivist trolls - you can generally see a wrong 'un by post number three. There are a few false positives, but not that many!

Very pleased to hear your news, Knuttie. Best wishes to Liz and yourself. Also hoping Pdub passes a comfortable night!

Thanks to all for their good wishes. I'll add mine for everyone else, present or absent, afflicted or not, by whatever it may be. I'll even wish the parasites a Happy New Year! You all know it - you can't buy health.

Have been diagnosed with tonsil cancer - pT1N1. Will be seeing an oncologist in the next three weeks with a view to determining if chemoradiotherapy is indicated. The good news is that there were clear margins on the excised left tonsil and that the one affected lymph node (of three removed) had nothing outside its capsule. I have been expecting this for a few weeks, kinda, sorta, but it's a bit different when it's in black and white. I have prescribed myself a stiffer than usual Scotch...

The best I can offer is "collateral damage", if your post formed part of a thread that was deemed against the rules, see my earlier report today on an exchange of email with info@lse.co.uk. If that wasn't the case, then I have no idea, I'm sorry. The consensus seems to be that we should always be sure to start a new thread if we are responding to something that is likely to get removed.

I've had an exchange of email concerning post deletion with info@lse.co.uk (Craig). Below is a summary of the conversation:

Me: I have heard it said on various occasions that if enough people report a post on an LSE board, it will be automatically deleted (without human intervention). Is this actually the case?

info@: Posts get more visible to the moderation team (move higher up the list) based on the amount of reports they have.

Me: Thanks for the information. In that case, could you please explain why the moderation team felt the need to delete posts from me (reteps) on the Bushveld Minerals (BMN) board on Friday and Saturday last?

info@: You were caught in the crossfire meaning your posts were within a removed topic.

Me: That makes sense. So, for the avoidance of doubt, there is no automated moderation in use, all deletions are overseen by humans?

info@: For the most part, yes. Any post is always reviewed by a person before it gets fully removed. We have automatic removal in place but it's not something we can go into specifics on.

Me: Thanks for the information. Last question (for now!), do you have any objection if I quote you and this conversation (in summary) on the BMN board?

info@: I wouldn't copy and paste the email and all its contents but you're welcome to explain it in your own words if you like.

Well, I've left my own words unchanged and made minor changes to the text from info@ in an attempt not to "copy and paste the email and all its contents" but this is as accurate a representation of our conversation as I can manage.

The upshot of all this is to reassure me that automated deletion based on arbitrary dislikes and reports does not happen. I can envisage a scenario when a tired member of the moderation team, early on a Saturday morning, deletes a swathe of reported posts or topics without paying too much attention, perhaps because (s)he is at the end of a long shift and has seen far too much rubbish already. So, perhaps we need to time our battles better?

"A bubble is an economic cycle characterized by the rapid escalation of asset prices followed by a contraction. It is created by a surge in asset prices unwarranted by the fundamentals of the asset and driven by exuberant market behavior." - Investopedia.

Note the use of the words "unwarranted by the fundamentals of the asset".

IMHO, this does not apply in the case of BMN.

I've long held the view that LSE is a disfunctional platform and nothing much has happened recently to cause me to change my mind. If anyone was wondering about my credentials, I have been involved in mailing lists, message boards and online forums at a technical level since 1996. It's the best we've got, I suppose (see ADVFN) but it could be so much better.

Not sure why you felt the need to tell me about the footer on the email I may or may not get from LSE. It won't be my first conversation with them. Can't say I've ever tried to contact them over the weekend, however.

Good morning also.

Have emailed info@lse.co.uk but thus far no reply. If what you say is correct (and I am coming to that conclusion) then the system gets abused a great deal it seems to me. All my posts concerning filters over the last couple of days have disappeared. I have had no notification from LSE as to why this should be, so am led to consider some sort of automated process in operation. I am rabidly anti-censorship for the vast majority of cases. It's one thing to ignore or arrange to not see things you don't appreciate but quite another to make them cease to exist!

The price of vanadium is unlikely to fall much further as there is a global deficit of supply which is not likely to be rectified any time in the next three years. It will take that long to bring on-stream any new resources. The current vanadium price drop is widely attributed to seasonal fluctuations in Chinese steel production / consumption and once the holiday season is over and production rises again, vanadium prices are expected to rise as a consequence. I think I'm correct in saying that Vametco and thus BMN would be profitable even if vanadium was half the price it is now. Furthermore, a lower vanadium price will make VRFB technology more attractive and BMN owns a VRFB supplier.... This, taken as a whole, is probably why most LTH here aren't especially concerned about vanadium pricing. Congratulations on having discovered the filter system!