I’ve been using Babypips for almost four years. I generally try to post in a way that is either helpful to other traders, a little dryly funny, or I try to involve myself in debates that I find to be interesting. I realize that my account name will be recognized by those who are not fans of a particular mentor who’s work I am a fan of, and am vocal of, but I’m hoping that we can all be mature enough to realize that this is supposed to be a community for people to share information and help each other to learn.
Yesterday I responded to someone on a thread who seemed a little new to technical analysis who was asking about Fibonacci levels. I answered the question as best I could and pointed him/her towards a mentor who provides free mentoring and his work relates to Fib levels. I provided a link to the free website, and it was done completely with the intent of helping someone connect with totally free learning resources. The day before I had viewed another thread where a web link to get free information was also posted, and there were no edits by the BP staff.
BP operates on a three strikes and your out policy, so when I received my first ever warning for violating the BP rules, I became a bit bothered and concerned. I was told that what I did was called advertising, though the definition of advertising includes commercial intent, which was not obviously the case. I suppose that if one were to really stretch definitions, my post could be considered solicitation, but so can many posts, that just get ignored by the moderators.
If it were not for the three strike thing, I suppose that I would have been OK with it and just asked that BP more clearly define the rules. But I’ve asked that BP not only explain the difference between my post and others that have links to free information, but also that since my intent was to help someone to learn, that they rescind the warning. This is not about mentors or methodologies, it’s about BP being a community that all of us try to make a better place. The fact that BP is a place to help each other to learn means that unless someone does have some type of intent to break the rules, there is a bit of a foggy area with regard to information sharing. Taking punitive action against longtime members who are just looking to help one another, is in my view very cheesy and should be beneath this forum.
Where is the line with regard to information sharing? Why is it so variable and subjective? Should we expect better from this forum? I’m still waiting for an answer.
At a guess I would say that perhaps someone reported your post but not the other post. I can see your concern, 2 more innocent links that someone reports, if thats what happened, and you could be out.
Are you not able to enter into a dialogue with the admins to explain your side? If not, then that is a great shame as it seems something that can be easily understood. Its not like you are repeatedly trying to lure noobies off forum like some of the scammers who pop up from time to time.
Hope this all works itself out for you
The Only good thing about Babypips is school. That’s it once you finished it move on and never come back. They cannot even sort the fx calendar properly lazy admins…
Never thought I’d hear a dumb question but short answer should we expect more - no. Babypips is a place where preditors like your boss come to recuit newbies for their own self gain. Thats bad. Interesting that you don’t ask these questions over at trade2win or forextsd.
You and your boss are free to leave whenever you like. Your also free to participate. But you don’t.
Hey Bob. Welcome to my thread and thank you for posting. I’m ok that you did not exactly follow the instructions, as I realize this is an emotional topic and you feel strongly. I honestly respect the passion of your views. Interesting that you mention my boss… I have not had a formal boss for almost a full year now. Well… my wife and child I suppose qualify, and the market is kind of my boss in a way, but I spent twenty years in corporate America, and I am hoping that trading will always be my profession now.
I don’t understand why you feel ICT is preying upon anyone or what he stands to gain. While I do respect your passion, I think your anger is misplaced. I debate in favor of ICT, because I spent twenty years of my life performing financial analysis, and I recognize that he is a talented person. Is it easy to learn to trade like him? No it takes time and personal development. Am I a much better trader thanks to him? Yes - no doubt. I am very familiar with the work of Sam Seiden and the various Harmonic guru’s, and ICT’s work makes the most sense to me by far.
I received a formal warning from BP after I tried to help someone. My primary concern is trading every day, and I participate in several trading related social media formats with people who have similar trading interests, and would be happy to be more involved here if I thought there was interest in what I had to say. I am sorry if you think my question was dumb. I do like helping people, and after a very good natured post, I received strike one. I respect Babypips, and I don’t think its “dumb” as a member here to ask that if I have a concern, BP should respect me enough to address it.
I remember the post in question, it was someone asking for help or advice on fibs - I don’t use them but I know that ICT has created many videos back a few years that show and explain their use.
There are many other videos on the net that also show the use of fibs, I’ve seen posts in the past linking to some of these sites, almost all of them having a subscription area, usually these videos encourage their audience to join the paid membership.
I haven’t been on the site in a long time that Hogarste linked to, but unless things have changed dramatically, I’d guess there was no solicitation for money on that site.
Should we expect more? - hard to tell, probably down to the moderator in question. Sometimes common sense can fail us all when applying rules, common sense would take into account intent, history and circumstance, lack of sense discards those and applies the rules.
Btw, cannot see the ‘dumb’ part of the question, if I participate in something, give my time and energy to something, then it’s the type of question that I need to ask of myself from time to time.
Yeah I’m wrong it’s not a dumb question. Some get the cane for advertising, some soliciting I get busted for baiting it’s all good. But bro, sometimes I wonder if you people that have or come from within the industry really recognized what a gift life has handed you. Me I make things out of milk, well I use to. Last month I started a new job in Sales / Warehousing. The mining boom is not quite over in west aust. I just don’t have the capital to trade full-time. But if I spend two three hours a night, a day on the weekend. Add a bit into my account each week. Make a little. And do that for the next 10 years maybe I will build up the capital. Maybe in 20 I’ll have enough to retire.Who know who cares. I’m giving it a go.
So my personal believe is in propriety based systems. I believe that just like golf, trading is different for each of us. Finding a good coach that can work with you is tuff. Most golf coaches want to teach you how they hit a golf ball. Thats bad because they’re not you. I found a good one more by chance and he did wonders for my game. Maybe it’s been the same for you. But I don’t know any-one that trades like me (and it’s not had to figure out how I trade) little know someone that could mentor me. So yes I get the jizz up when people come an claim they have the answers or can share some secret insight. They can’t. And don’t fell blessed. Very few people here have the ducks nutz to call these people out. Take the Galaxy Traders (there you go dezzi - bit of free advertising) what happen to them. And as for these EA / signal service threads like Dux well they’re just as bad. So should we expect more from BP’s yes we should. These people don’t head to other forums to advertise and recruit, they get laffed at, ridiculed and booted out. They head here where for some reason they are tolerated.
But then we should expect nothing more from BP’s than what we put in. My title (and it’s just a title) has nothing to do with how good a trader I am. I’m simply not. I survive. But what makes the difference to me is that I actively participate. Sometimes for the wrong reason - such as baiting. Maybe for the right - I hope my thread on PA on tick charts has offered something to someone. By participating I learn. You also quickly figure out who’s go something worth saying and who doesn’t. Finally, it’s also a good way to document ones journey. I’m sure if you head to some of my early posts you’ll get a good laff.
Trading is boring as. In fact its mind !@#$%^& numbing. BP’s is also a good place just to come to pass the time away and switch off. After all, it’s just an internet forum.
This is incorrect. We do not operate on a three strikes you’re out policy. In your particular situation, you were given a warning, not an infraction. And it was specifically explained that a warning is just that, a warning that if you continue doing the same thing, you will receive an infraction. Accumulating infractions is what gets you banned, temporarily and permanently. And infractions have never been permanent, except in extreme cases. Most infractions will expire after a “flexible” set amount of time, usually 10 days. Most members that receive warnings learn from them and follow the rules accordingly. Anything resembling a 3 strikes and you’re out policy is used in blatant spamming attempts by spam bots and brand new members here exclusive to spam a link, product, service, etc.
Hogarset, you were given a clear explanation as to why your post was edited. Sharing a link is not always only about learning. In this case, we determined it was not about that, and made the decision to remove it. Intent, as you mentioned, is hard to understand and prove, so many times our decision is met with disagreement.
We also do our best to treat all members with the same lense when it comes to moderation. But that’s the beauty of the infractions system. Most general violations will get a warning or expiring violation. You get the opportunity to get it right the next time. In your case, your same act of posting a link was deemed okay previously, but not in this case. Rather than giving you an infraction, you were given a warning. That is perfectly in line with how we’ve operated in the past.
Great question. Moderation in itself is variable and subjective. We have robots and humans doing moderation. Neither is perfect, far from it. If we moderated based on keywords or IP addresses, exclusively, we’d have a lot less members, threads and replies. The majority of our moderation is done by our moderation team, who are humans. As a long-time member of our forums yourself, and a participant in ICT threads, you know that moderation related to ICT’s threads is never clear cut. Is not as simple as black and white. Our moderators have to go back into a thread (maybe several) to get a sense of the conversation, seek out and understand a back story, do this for several different members, combine all that to create some sort of picture of events, all before making a determination about giving out warnings and infractions and bans. It’s not always as simple as reading a single reply and making a decision right then and there. And some threads, especially ICT’s threads get plenty of activity, making real-time moderation almost impossible. I made it clear in ICT’s newest thread that anything related to ICT would receive more scrutiny. That was the case here.
We’re a pretty flexible bunch, and have been overly flexible with members participating in ICT threads in the past. We’ve received feedback from both camps that we’re not doing enough to keep the haters and lovers at bay, but we understand that we can’t please everyone all the time. We always hope that our members express themselves maturely, and that they can argue in a constructive way, but that doesn’t always happen. Being online, sitting behind a screen, rather than being face to face with another person, empowers certain individuals to completely forget the meaning of respect and tact and general politeness. Again, we try to let members work things out on their own rather than micro managing each and every discussion, but we’ll get involved when we feel there is need. And often this happens only because we don’ know about the situation.
Is this a perfect way of moderating. Definitely not. Can we do a better job of policing the forums. Always. Can we catch every situation and know 100% about what is going on and rule accordingly? No, not possible. So we try to stay neutral, give our [I]adult [/I]community some discretion in how they speak and act, and ask that members report situations that start to take away from the learning experience.
I hope that explains our perspective. Feel free to reply or PM me if you have any comments or concerns.
Being critical to any of our support channels will help get your issue resolved so much faster than doing it here. Feel free to start a new thread with your issues , contact our support team using the Contact Us link at the bottom of the page, or useFacebook.
