No reason was given for either deletion of my three recent posts or removal of my posting privileges. While shocking, it was not surprising, and I made screen captures of all three of my posts before they were deleted. Sam, you have copies. You can see that these posts did not in any way violate the IV User Agreement. I posted an excerpt from your blog and asked for a civil discussion. The reaction of Investor Village management to this was to delete the post and ban me.

Although I did not violate IV rules (nor is anyone claiming I did), the post you cite from Bartlett and many others do so, and the vast majority of posts on the IV board having nothing to do with OSTK or even their obsession naked shorting.

None of my previous posts have ever been deleted and I have not even used the board recently.

I think banning of myself and Tamoshanter was a conscious effort by IV managers to stir up a controversy and position themselves as a safe haven for shareholders who don't want to listen to critical views.

One other thing I thought was interesting. In an email to members, Ralph Kidd said as follows:


"A SPECIAL THANKS TO EARLY PREMIUM MEMBERS
For the several hundred of you who have already purchased your Premium Memberships, we do appreciate your willingness to step up early and support us in this way—even those of you who don't wish to use the premium site and just want to support us financially—and there are many of you."

I have no doubt at all that the numbers of "early premium members" who have paid for what they can get for free can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and not in the "dozens." But I have no doubt at all that there is a person who "wants to support us financially," and that that person is Patrick Byrne.