Full disclosure: I have no involvement with Ihub o

Full disclosure: I have no involvement with Ihub or advfn outside of my role as a volunteer mod. I have not come to defend Ihub, for if truth be told I think it can be a wretched hive of scum and villainy. I am here because I'm getting tired of seeing everyone get frustrated because they reacted strongly to what Iglow or luckydog or whoever said, said something against the TOS in their reply which required one of the mods to remove their post.

Anyone can use Ihub or not however they want, and it won't matter to me either way.

Yes, Iglow merrily continues on his way because he understands the TOS well enough that he can say whatever he wants and upset everyone else without violating it. I'm willing to bet that he's read the user and moderator handbook so that he knows just how far he can push things without getting his posts removed. He's very careful to stay on-topic, he doesn't personally attack, threaten or try to dox anyone, he keeps his comments strictly to BMXC or Taiwo.

My question is, why are so many people willing to let someone get so far under their skin when it's obvious that he gets off on it? Why are so many people so sensitive to a known troll? Is Iglow a criminal? Maybe, I don't know, and I don't care because, outside of inspiring a mess of off-topic posts that I have to help clean up, he doesn't do anything that affects me because I ignore him.

Why are so many people trying to shut him up? Sure, I think he's disingenuous. Sure, it's annoying how he talks in circles and nothing anyone says in reply to him has any effect on what he says in the future (it reminds me of my ex. So. Annoying.)

The whole point of having a message board to discuss a stock is so that people can have a place to share information and judge for themselves what is true, right?

Part of that requires allowing people to express their opposing viewpoints, even if you think they're being disingenuous, because where do we draw the line between "truthful" and "not true enough?"

When you forbid the expression of opposing ideas like that, you quickly end up with an echo chamber where the only views allowed to be shared are those that support the "official" view established by the board's hive mind. Important cues get missed, and your portfolio pulls a titanic because you couldn't stand the emotional upset of someone saying something you didn't like. You were distracted by shadows and fell victim to the next Enron.

Let's turn this around a bit. What if you were looking into a stock and it's board didn't allow any positive posts that could be perceived as misleading because, perhaps, someone got tired of people saying "this is going to the moon?" (In all honesty, these posts are are just as worthless as the aimless bashers', and can be equally annoying.) You're doing your DD, but you can't get the full picture because the positive side is being suppressed, and you miss out on the next Google.

If you don't like what someone says, ignore them, or refute them. If you think someone has done something against the law, report them to the SEC, not advfn. Advfn is not a law enforcement agency, it's not their job to make sure people are behaving correctly and trying to would open them up to liability. The SEC and DOJ do the police work.