What's the deal with banana points?

Well I found a breakdown of the ranks and the positive points here: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/rankings

But that still doesn't explain the negative points...

and do these points give us anything other than a monkey type next to our sn?

not sure why the negative points are happening for the edited comments...but I will have my web dev guy look into it.

as far as the banana points, right now they are just to rank contribution to the forums.

we will also soon be installing an authentication tool that tags and/or "certifies" certain users as legitimately working in the business indicated in their profile. (through private e-mail verification)

I just posted 2 new topics and it seems my points didn't accumulate right. Its usually +5 for a new topic post, but I only received 5 total for both of mine.

I think its a great idea to authenticate and confirm credibility. I assume we won't have to disclose our actual firm...to protect the innocent.

Sorry I disagree with jbs. How can it be verified without company email?

I've been in the business for many a year but will not disclose employment facts. Too many ways to get out.

(..and jbs, I even use my personal mac to post..guess I am just an old hippie!)

Hippies are harmless so long as you arent a socialist liberal. I agree now that I think about it. There is no way to authenticate without company email. Ideally, this board would provide an outlet for people actually working in finance to share ideas and experience not manians posting false information (plus you can tell who is a credible source IMO)

If you were to require company email for verification (I don't see any other way) - you'd just have to make sure the email address was deleted after vertification.

Basically, I send WSO an email from my work address, WSO verifies my firm, and "stars" my account. After that, the email is deleted, and there is no record of what firm I work for (or who I am). Only the "verified" star remains...

Another note on editing posts-

It happened again! This time though, I only lost 1 banana for editing my post. And again, the banana was credited to the SAME user as before ("somegirlfromcali"), even though they are not involved in the thread at all...

how you envision certification is exactly how i've been thinking about it. an email from a work account and a tag or "star" verifying professional experience. no record will be kept. e-mails are never made public, but as an admin i can see e-mails, and some people use their work account already, so that would be an easy tag to start.

if people using non-work accounts wanted certification, they could just send an e-mail from their work account to WallStreetOasis.com>[email protected] specifying their username.

Question now is how to best "tag" or illustrate "WSO certification."

WSO, you can add another layer and authenticate those with ".edu" accounts on their e-mail so we know who's in school vs. those who are working (".edu" vs. "@company.com").

I'm all for sending an e-mail from my work domain if (and only if) it goes to a specified and secured recipient e-mail and of course, does not get sold to anyone.

Specific to the "star" or tag you may want to change it to a US dollar sign (for those who work in the US), Euro, Pound, etc, you get my drift. Then you'd know where people work (geographically) and questions can be asked in a more efficient manner (plus I'd actually listen to a guy talking about London nightlife if he had a "£" tag by his name than some poor kid with a ".edu" tag).

Certification is here. Please see post on the home page.

You must be working in the industry and send WallStreetOasis.com>[email protected] (me) an email from work with your username.

After I tag your username as Certified, I will delete the email you sent to me.

i agree i like the $/lb/euro idea as well as the EDU idea so we know who are students