Announcement: Separate private forum

Just back from three months in Spain so I've not kept much of an eye on the forum and have just stumbled upon this whole issue. I can't believe the Hoo-Hah it appears to have stirred up. Whilst I've found some DD moderately useful at times on here (and I don't mean Dubious Doppelgangers) I rely on my own judgement NOT that of others. If this encourages others to carry out more of their own DD and use more of their own judgement then so much the better.

After all would you really want to be a member of a secret club that would invite you to join?

Is this the one being discussed?   p2p-underground.freeforums.net/

It won't even let me register so presumably I don't qualify.

Well why can't I post on the PF ?  Why is the membership of the PF restricted to a just a few individuals by invitation only ? Why the secrecy ?

P2PIF staff take into account the needs of all 3500+ members. My forum inbox is bursting with PM's from people who don't understand why so many posts on this thread are so against the DD Central concept, and encouraging us to continue to persue the course we think best.


Before the facility to register on the PF was removed, I attempted to register. That request was denied.  I am one of the more prolific contributors of DD material on here (especially FS which does need more attention DD wise), why is the result of my DD investigations worth less than those of 60+ members of the PF ?

And at that I have to go for today ......

I think this pretty much covers it doesn't it really?

DD-CENTRAL is a private area that will excludes some (based on a criteria) for the the purpose of DD that benefits the masses.  It sounds like this is what the PF has been achieving for well over a year.

I propose you try and make progress with a positive relationship between the PF and this forum.  No more walls

Speaking personally as a lender with a fair portion of my wealth invested in P2P, rather than as a platform rep, my two main worries relate to this.  If closed door DD ends up being treated as gospel without oversight then that has the potential to either affect a good loan's reputation for the worse, or to be erroneously positive on a bad loan.  Neither is a good result for lenders.  Not for nefarious reason but just through simple mistake.  The other potential issue is that of the privileged few being able to act on information earlier than others or to base decisions on information that isn't deemed worthy of being copied to the public forums.

As someone instrumental in the initial formation of this forum my personal preference would be for it to continue as is, ignoring any breakaway splinter group.  Communities fracture and split from time to time, this forum's success has been from its openness and wide appeal.  DD Central would undermine that IMHO.

If private discussion is needed then the model used with the AC private section seems to work well.  As the moderators have confirmed there is very little if any moderation in that section and the general rules used on the public parts of the site are relaxed within those pink pages.  This does require the participation of each of the platforms in order to carry out the KYC / authenticate each user, but there may be ways to work around platforms that do not wish to engage.  It's just a random idea that I haven't put any thought into but if, for example, membership of AC were required to be able to access another platform's private area, and the reps were not permitted access unless they engaged, then the other platforms may feel a little more motivated knowing that their members would otherwise be directed to register with a competitor.  Or members could asked to pay for their own DD - the cost is usually a few pounds which shouldn't be much for your typical P2P investor but quickly adds up at the forum level.  There'll be a solution somewhere.