As lately the comments section has gotten heated, I was wondering if readers would be ok with moving to an outsourced comment forum such as Disqus which provides for a much better and fast-paced idea exchange. It will be a change from the existing format. If readers disagree will shelve the idea.
Also, for all to whom a lot of the topics discussed on Zero Hedge are just too arcane, I recommend reading the basic documentation in the
attached website. Will give you a much better understanding of the concepts analyzed here.
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40 comments:
you truly want me to write a response using this piece of crap system?? upgrade it to something better and then i will let you know what i think you should do.
Interesting. I recently started coming here to see what I could learn from yet another potentially knowledgeable source, and, to my dismay, I see a lot of mutual jargoneering "quant-speak" flaming reminiscent of Yahoo! financial boards by people hiding behind anonymous screen names. Do what you must, I mostly just lurk anyway to read things.
I'd weigh 2 factors: 1. Maximum 20% of the comments are worthwhile reading. I doubt many readers are here for the comments. and 2., The amount of time and effort required to make the change, since it's likely Janet Napolitano will shut you down soon anyway.
I say try it and see how it is received. If you hate it can't you go back to this current system?
Is there a way to moderate the comments and omit those from rudes, bigots, wingnuts, etc.? I prefer the informational comments rather than polemics.
As a newbie reader of this blog, I like the content you produce but am not excited about the interface. But I can live with it. From a UI perspective it would make sense to have comments integrated within the same frame where your posts are. If using Disqus would involve users navigate to a new page (and possibly click through a few links) it would not be very user friendly.
disqus will allow the rating of comments and the blocking of low rates ones. democratic, peer reviewed system.
I say no. This works just fine, and until your kick ass piece on the shrinking liquidity, the nerds on this sucker that care can comment just fine.
If you start averaging over 50 comments it might make sense.
Disqus sucks - slow and complex. Please take something better. Or block anon comments if they are the problem... I thought Janet Napolitano was running this site to collect ip numbers for the big black book to be used when things get tough.
If you'd be interested in something like Haloscan, but without the suck, I can get you in touch with the programmer of what we named UniScorn (http://www.ghetto-threads.com/uniscorn/i-dont-think-you-know-what-that-word-means). It works in Blogger and WordPress, has a new comment alert, supports lightboxes for images, autorefreshes, bold, italics, underline, etc.
We found Disqus too slow and Haloscan/JSkit support to be abominable.
Hey TD - I like the idea - disqus works well at dismissing the less interesting commenters and also has a nice Firefox add-in...
Dear TD:
First. Whatever you do, don't dumb the site down. Arcane is essential. You write well, smart people will learn, idiots will read another service. The issues before us are too important.
Second. Comments reflect stress; as hard as they are to read. Again, your serious readers will skip to the next comment after a few words.
Keep up the good work.
regards,
rr
Disqus is way too slow. Crashes some people's systems .
i like the review option. I think leaving this page is going to suck. I wish this wasn't a pop up.
I say no to disqus. Just keep it simple.
GoldmanSachs666 is a dis-info site put up by Goldman, to tell us all the obvious facts, that we already know, thereby distracting us from the real conspiracy of GS crashing the market in 08!
Here is how I see it.
1. GS shorts the ABX(subprime) in 07. Makes a Billion or 2. Sends a ripple in the markets.
2. GS men at the Exchanges raise margin requirements forcing massive liquidation in JULy 07, not to mention cornering the oil market.
3. GS men at the SEC raise margin in 08, lower regulation increasingly over entire tenure.
4. There man Hank Paulson took Lehman in the other room, executation style. That really got things rolling (downhill)
5. Then, GS influence at Mood'yS(warren buffet) slashed AIG rating forcing them to find Billlions overnigth,
6.Then Hank Pauslon shows up with his $700 Billion ransome note. After stock markets crash around the world for 10 days, congress gives the big five banks their money.
7. Jim Cramer, former partner of GS, after watching the market crash for 10 days, tells America to sell everything. If we see a rally this year, you know Cramer is in on it
8. Rubin was a trojan horse on Citi's Board, encouraging them to get long and heavy in realestate.
9. AIG and Citi were made fall guys from the beginning, "to big to fail" was the plot
10. It's possible that GS even inflitrated Freddie and Fannie. It's obvious IndyMAc was a front to push liars loans.
I'd leave the comments close to the article. Smarts will weed through the crap. Dumbs will dwell and add. We can sort it out .
Skipping over the silly comments is easy. Better to keep the interface clean. Maybe you can encourage the more substantive/repeat commentators to pick an anonymous ID/name and stick with it. Once people do that, we will start scanning for those smart comments ourselves.
Anonymous is convenient, but attracts flies. Disqus is awful with IE7, but actually quite good with Firefox, and facilities replies and follow up questions to posters.
Loving the in-depth analysis. Some technical bits on the credit markets are over my head for now, but I'm trying to pick it up. Thanks for the reading list... that ought to keep me busy for a while.
It is spamming fools like April 14 521pm that need to be regulated.
With popularity comes a larger pool of eggheads. Eventually some will lose interest, realizing they are over their head in the "arcane" ZH zone. A peer review system could work well.
Blog kernal works just fine here, fwiw. The separate comment window keeps the blog stream-lined. Slow load on pda (BB Bold), but to be expected given extensive content.
Don't burn yourself out. Keeping it to fewer but higher quality posts may be in your interest? Your strength and uniqueness is ability to post frequent high quality data and ideas, which stimulates high quality discussion. As an objective outsider, keep in mind that an overzealous slant can and will eventually turn off the sharper big fish lurking. Are you doing this to reach out to and learn from other professionals, or to eventually preach to a group of blind followers? There are plenty of other avenues to load up on conspiracy created from out-of-context data. Don't be yet another Honda in a sea of Honda's.
Keep it up and as always thank you for the great effort.
TD
I'm a blue collar guy w/no investments other than my home. I read to try and understand WTF is happening. This feels very different than the '87 mess.
You write well enough for me to understand some things. Items such as "Bailout for dummies" were great. Thank you
love the reading list should keep me busy for the weekend and then some
You definitely should switch over to disqus, it is much more streamlined, cleaner, and allows more of a conversation. I've ran it on my blog for a while now and love it!
Jay
marketfolly.com
My company(one of your friendly neighborhood money center banks) blocks the comments anyways. If by switching to disqus you lose the blogger.com url, I'm all for it.
thanks for the docs. will flip through them.
not exactly toilet bowl reading. Why is it the greatest investor of all time coined the phrase: beware of geeks bearing formulas?
There's a comment section?
It's your site; you should do what you want. My "vote" would be to keep your comment the section in its present form. It works well enough. And its easy to go back and forth from blog to comments and back again.
I say try Discus. Its too bad that there's a minority of readers who waste ZH's time with comments that lack substance or worse look to pick a fight. In the meanwhile, keep up the good work at ZH. This site is a true ray of light.
lightbox plugin for images on the posts would be great too.
TD, I fully understand your pain, and I strongly agree with you that a peer-reviewed system is the best solution to the problem. On the one hand you would like to start an intellectual exchange with some of the better educated readers; on the other hand, I believe you become overwhelmed by the quantity of the comments due the to increasing popularity of the blog. Like any other forums or comment sections, the most valuable one probably compose less than 10% of the total. While most of the more educated readers have perfected the art of skimming in one way or another, but I would still probably prefer to skim thousands of other high-quality original blog posts out there rather than comments, especially given the number of posts in this blog.
That being said, I hope that I could contribute more by pointing you to the best comment system but I can't due to my lack of blogging experience. But a perfect comment system should allow users to generate RSS feeds, peer-review comments, sort and screen based on the reviews, report abuse, etc.
Finally, at the expense of being cliche, I would still like to let you know that not that many individuals have great insights. Fewer of them are willing to share. And only a very few can share in such a hilarious tone. TD, you are definitely belonging to this rare league. Gosh, I am still amazed by the quality as well as the quantity of your posts. I thought TD was a team of bloggers until there are new people joining. Anyway, please keep up the good work. You are doing a the society a huge favor.
TD, you are amazing! Just a high school dropout with a GED here looking to educate himself as the how and why(beyond usual suspects - greed monsters and scum sucking lizards in suits)of this catastrophic failure. The resources provided through the link from the post is a gold mine for someone like me. Thanks!
Leave things just as they are, thanks!
ardano +2
thanx for askin
ardano +2
thanx for askin
I don't mind things as they are now, although I'll admit that I largely ignore the comments.
(I don't tend to understand what appear to be the 'worthwhile' comments since I don't do this for a living and thus don't really understand the shorthand financial-speak. So I generally have to wait for you to cover the idea in a later post anyways before I really understand what was said in all but the most terse of comments.)
GoldmanSachs666 is a dis-info site put up by Goldman, to tell us all the obvious facts, that we already knew, thereby distracting us from the
real conspiracy of GS along with others to crash every market in the world. Why would they do this? Many reasons:
There is much more money to be made in volitle market. Especially to the down side, and if you are in on it. Money isn't lost in the market. It is
just moved across the table or the world. In addtion, the FEDeral Reserve Bank, decided the the CDS market had gotten way to big,
and it was time to bring in all the chips, I mean dollars back to the nearest Fed Bank.! GS wanted a shake-up of the banks, eliminate their compeption,
marginalize the rest, and get the FDIC to shut down the small ones and feed those deposits up the food chain. I am sure they made
trillions of dollars shorting the world in 08. Just where did they stash the money? Of course, they are going to declare
a measly loss for 08, but where did they stash the money? The trillions that GS and their clients made crashing the market in 08.
I am sure it will show up soon, but in the mean time here is why I think Goldman Sachs, along with others is the main conspirator.
In 2007, GS shorts the ABX(subprime) index and makes about a Billion dollars.
Yet, one year later Hank Paulson who is now US Treasary, tells Bush and Congress that "he didn't see it coming." (the real estate thing)
even though he was just CEO of GS one year prior to GS's bet against the subprime real estate market. PAulson was CEO at GS
for a long time and had 5-10 year vision. Paulson most certainly knew that subprime would tank way before he went to be a public
servant as Treasary. In fact, I bet that he knew, and the bailout plan was already in his pocket before he got to D.C. Any Joe with a brain knew
that subprime would blow-up, but we didn't know that Wall ST had been collaterizering it all these years. I think Goldman new that heavy shorts on
ABX subprime index could be enough to get the avalanch started. If not in the markets, then at least in the media, get the topic of subprime outthere.
Flash forward to July of 08, and a we see a hugh sell off in the commodities markets with the media blaming it on a slowing economy. It was really Goldman
Sachs, telling the Exchanges to rasie requirments for everybody, forcing many out of the market. Some even believe Goldman even cornered the oil market.
Goldman publicly announces OIL foracst of $200 but are shorting it at the same time. Principal/Agency principal mean nothing to Goldman!
GoldmanSachs former employee Cristopher Cox, headed the SEC for the last many years. Made sure that regulations were very lax, encouraged employees
not to follow cases, and would rasie the margin requirementts after the market was falling.
Hank Paulson took Lehman to a private room in the White House, and put his head on a platter. I'm pretty sure Hank new that this would rattle the markets.
Just as he wanted! And the perfect excuse in side pocket, "didn't have the legal authority to do." Now that I am a public servant and all. And if it wasn't enough,
he would have his contact at Moody's cut AIG's rating. His contact is Warren Buffet who owns 20% of Moody's. By cutting their rating, AIG was forced to
find Billions overnigth. A bit much, even for Wall ST. Not a chance!, Oh wait Here comes the government to save the day. Yes! Is that HanK Paulson over there
with a $700 billion plan? Hank, That plan looks worn out like its been in your back pocket a few years? It sort of is has says Hank. "You can barely read
the part "to big to fail." Enough with the jokes.
Hank knew that there would be this tug-a-war between the markets and DC while he pitched his plan. After the market had fallen to Goldman's likening,
it was time for Hank to really press urgently and threathen Congress to pass it. They do. The market rallies for 900.
Then you have Jim Crammer from Mad Money, after watching the market crash for 11 days in a row, tell the American Public to sell everytning. Did I mention
Crammer is a former Goldman partner. If the market rebounds this year, then you know he is "in" on the conspiracy.
It also would hold that Crammer is just a tool for Goldman to abuse the public, because he never makes any sense when he talks.
Since AIG slipped through the biggest loophole ever, not to be regulated by the CFTC and SEC because they are an insurance company, that loophole was
well known 5 years ago, which leads me to belileve that AIG was hank picked to be the fall guy at the inception of this conspiracy 5 years ago. It was their
mission, and with Goldman advising them, to get so big, as to be "to big to fail." Possibly Citigroup also. When you look at how large Citi got relative
Goldman, Morgan and others, 10 times as big, it makes it seem they are a fall guy. If the smarter guys(GS) at the table new way in advance about subprime, they
probably were force feeding it to the dumber guys(Citi) and others at the table. Rubin, former GS, sat on Citi's Board. Maybe as a Trojan Horse? Goldman has a
habit of looking at others books and then reneging on either a merger deal, like with Morgan or straigth up fucking you if you are in the he oil market.
The reason I feel that this was conspired 5 years ago is that is when subprime was invented.
It's highly possible that Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac were also made to be fall guys. What if they were influenced by the bankers to get as big as possible.
We all know Indy Mac, specialized in LIARS or Ninja Loans. Still investigating this lead. But check this out to all the quants..
What are the odds that the 2 most eventful (events) in our lifetime(s) happened on the 1st and Last years of the President's watch? (that would be 911 and the Credit Crsis).
If the 1st one didn't convince you the second one will.
Looks like Bush was made to be a fall guy too!
I am in the league of those who are edyukatin' themselves here. Your output is prodigous and accurate. I generally ignore comments as they are mostly junk. If you want to move them elsewhere, that is fine.
The reading list: need to take a speed reading course to get through it.....but thanks for the list.
Thanks for the interest in Disqus. We've done a bunch of releases recently, including one which significantly increased rendering speeds across the major browsers: http://blog.disqus.net/2009/03/26/upgraded-interface-and-performance/.
Let us know if we can help at all if and when you give it a try: help@disqus.com; twitter.com/disqus.
-Ro
Whatever you decide, Tyler.
It's six of one, half a dozen of another to me.
I usually post anonymously. It's mainly pure unadulterated laziness on my part. I simply don't want to log in, log out, all live long day to whatever site I happen to be looking in on at the time.
Whatever. I'm hooked on your site. IT gives me clear, concise information without talking head moonbats (CNBC) flittering across my TV screen). I appreciate you greatly, I want you to know that.
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