Itera and I do have a past, no doubt there. All I’ve asked to squash the beef was some constructive criticism rather than outright narcassistic despair when these young pups ask questions about breaking into this that and the other thing.
He mocked me rather than come to any agreement, so we continue have beef. These cinderella stories of young pups making it against all odds (one a few posts down) warm my heart and foster inspiration for others.
Many, like myself, didn’t have the brains or means to attend a Top 2 institution; so I made up for it by working hard. Had I listened to people like Itera instead of uplifting optimists, I’d probably be still washing cars like I did in the 9th grade.
I overcame all adversity through hard work, persistance, and most importantly; luck. If it can happen to me, who’s to say it won’t happen to others.
CvM mostly restated things that itera himself posted at some point or another. No other personal information was revealed. No racial slurs, profanities, or other unacceptable language was used. Other comments on AF, including some that I have made, that were more abrasive, have not been censored. The AF rules (like many good forum rules) are somewhat subjective, however, based on this comparison, my conclusion is that the standard is not uniformly applied and that the decision to censor this post had more to do with its subject than with its content.
That is my account anyway. I am not advocating any change in forum policy and am generally happy with the level of forum moderation, since we all know that board resources are limited.
We board members are human beings too. We make mistakes some times; we get hot headed at times.
I know that when Blake and I were going at it, I often stepped back and asked other board members what they thought about something, to make sure that my own frustrations were not clouding my judgement. I saw that coming from a ways away, and it’s one reason that I suggested to chad that we expand the board with new members a few months before we ended up doing the Blake ban.
It is often true that there are a lot of posts that fall within grey areas and some calls are tricky, so in general we board members try not to second-guess each other and are grateful that we don’t have to patrol the entire forum single-handedly. One or two posts that perhaps should not have been deleted is not really a problem in the big scheme of things. A consistent pattern of questionable actions might be cause for rethinking. Each of the board members has their individual biases of what they consider abusive, and my approach has generally been to try to call it out in the thread rather than delete, although epithets and that stuff may merit edits or the button. In general, the best option for a moderator that wonders if they are pressing delete for the right reason is to check with or talk to another moderator, and we often do that.
I agree that itera is often kind of abrasive to naïve new posters, and it’s certainly not my style or preference, but it’s also true that the financial industry has a lot of people like that in it, so getting some exposure to the required skin-thickening is not all bad.
Currently, we serve at the pleasure of the site owner, who consults the community when he wants to change the board.
I’ve brought up the idea of having board member terms (with possibility of reappointment), but it never got very far. It may be time to discuss this again at the next full conference call.
Although it may appear like the board is self serving here, it’s not as if there are lots of goodies that the board receives. It’s mostly extra work in selective clipping/editing and having to field the complaints of a bunch of people. It can be frustrating to see free ipads and amazon certificates being raffled off to AF members and realizing that for all the extra work we put in and crap we have to deal with, all this does is make us ineligible for one of the few concretely valuable things that comes out of AF.
There are occasional raffles in exchange for filling out surveys and such. Every entrant has a chance to win, and I can confirm that the winners are chosen through a random process without favoritism (I can’t confirm that the rewards are actually sent to the winners, but have no reason to doubt it). Boardmembers are ineligible to win.
This thread turned fascinating. It should be moved to the Water Cooler. Or, if we’re giving feedback on iteracom, perhaps to the Feedback Forum.
FWIW, I’m fairly certain if you were to get itera to a bar to have a drink he would be a pussycat. And probably turn bright red due to Asians’ inability to metabolize alcohol.
I personally like how CvM and itera get into heated exchanges, most of their issues are about succeeding in finance whether or not it’s from the top or grinding it out from the bottom.
I remember itera mocking candidates in each subforum for every level of the CFA program but it never felt like a personal attack. The message he brings is generally sour but it’s intended for those IT to FO seekers who might need that reality check from day 1 of the process. CvM brings the opposite, which helps balance the overall perspective.
Pretty much. One is “Aim for the Moon and land among the stars”, and the other is “This is a wakeup call. You aren’t working hard enough”. Different motivatiors for different folks.
You know, the first day I got my charter, one of my sponsors said, “Do you know what that gets you?” I said, “No, what?” He said, “That fancy charter and $3.50 will get you a large beverage at Starbucks.”
He was wrong, though. Because that large tube that the charter comes in can be used to subdue a medim-sized bear if you encounter one. Very useful if you find yourself in rural Canada (or Newfoundland).