I'm just dropping in briefly to comment. I'm currently on vacation in Buenos Aires (heading to Antarctica on an expedition ship on Friday) and so I've promised myself that I would not look at any stock price quotes for a full month while I'm away. However, I figured this would be a good morning to see if any interest comments had come up.
I too wish that Agora would list all of the fake accounts. Also delete all of those accounts AND the posts.
I am disappointed that fake accounts were used. I understand the desire to get the site "populated" and up and running quickly, and I even concede that this activity actually benefited those of us who are real, because "a crowd attracts a crowd." However, I wish that instead of having tons of fake aliases, they could have just hired a couple dozen people to each be a single identity, and to have those people talk back and forth. The difference is slight, but it is the multiple identity thing that really bothers me. The other thing that would have made it more legitimate would be if there had been a directive that should anyone on the board ask any of those hired hands if they worked for Agoracom, the employee would have been mandated to confirm yes. And of course, the employees should have all been prohibited from participating in the forums for any company with which Agoracom had a financial relationship. Had they taken actions like this, they could have still grown the board but not run afoul of ethics problems.
Anyway, Brian, you asked if the light traffic on the CLL board was related to the fact that the board could have been populated with employee postings. I would say probably not. Remember, this activity ended a while ago, not last week.
I do, however, feel that many of us who were here a few years ago knew that there were fake accounts. We even discussed it, specifically with respect to XIII. A "Swiss banking guy who controlled over a billion in assets," yet whose posting timelines matched Canadian working hours. There were so many holes in that guy's story. I wish that his account would be deleted so I don't have to see his alias on the president list for the CLL board.
Not sure about kirkdsmeeton. He stopped posting in July 2009. Maybe he was another fictitious alias.
