"Censorship" on Investnaire.com

[sleepyhead]

[Moderator Note: This thread was carved out of the following thread -> Tesla-Model-S-Demand-in-China-is-Huge]


Update:

Sorry guys, looks like the article has been taken down. I apologize for this inconvenience and nobody is more upset about this situation than I am. One of the reasons I started writing on my own is so that I have complete control over the content. I will have to think about my next steps, but I might have to start my own blog so that this does not happen again.

DaveT covered the gist of the article. I would just add that I talked to a low level Tesla employee who said that demand in China is huge and that there is a waiting list for the Model S. I can tell that the employee was genuine in what he said, but the source of his information is unknown and it could have easily come from customers (although I highly doubt this, since his knowledge about the company was so extensive).

That said, I am confident that demand in China is indeed "huge". I have spent countless hours researching this topic and the company as a whole, the employee only confirmed by research. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to compile my research to present it to you guys, since I have a full-time job, family, kids, and have to manage several investment portfolios. My research consists of reading Chinese websites, reading opinion polls, Chinese Government programs, talking to my Chinese friends, looking at other auto companies strategies and success in China, etc. It would be impossible to compile all of this data into one concise article in a timely manner. But if you spend hundreds of hours researching this data, like I have, then the answer is pretty clear.

I stand by everything I wrote and I know that demand in China is in fact huge.​

I will try to find another way to post this article to share with everyone.

 

[kevin99]

Sorry guys, looks like the article has been taken down. I apologize for this inconvenience and nobody is more upset about this situation than I am. One of the reasons I started writing on my own is so that I have complete control over the content. I will have to think about my next steps, but I might have to start my own blog so that this does not happen again.

DaveT covered the gist of the article. I would just add that I talked to a low level Tesla employee who said that demand in China is huge and that there is a waiting list for the Model S. I can tell that the employee was genuine in what he said, but the source of his information is unknown and it could have easily come from customers (although I highly doubt this, since his knowledge about the company was so extensive).

That said, I am confident that demand in China is indeed "huge". I have spent countless hours researching this topic and the company as a whole, the employee only confirmed by research. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to compile my research to present it to you guys, since I have a full-time job, family, kids, and have to manage several investment portfolios. My research consists of reading Chinese websites, reading opinion polls, Chinese Government programs, talking to my Chinese friends, looking at other auto companies strategies and success in China, etc. It would be impossible to compile all of this data into one concise article in a timely manner. But if you spend hundreds of hours researching this data, like I have, then the answer is pretty clear.

I stand by everything I wrote and I know that demand in China is in fact huge.

The bad guy is me . Sorry I think TMC or your personal blog will be the best vehicle of this particular article, which is quite different from other article you published on investnaire.com, sleepyhead. I do enjoy and love the fact you published other articles on investnaire.

The rational of my decision is this:

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...-Price-Movements/page1056?p=465640#post465640

While it is a solid projection and I am not arguing whether the price is too low or too high, I just want to remind everyone once you project something with certainty, do leave room for error in case the projection is wrong, especially when options is in play.

 

[PeterJA]

Kevin, your explanation makes absolutely no sense to me. I would encourage Sleepy to blog here instead of at Kevin's site. Life is too short for this nonsense.

 

[kevin99]

Peter, all points are welcome, but that does not mean I agree.

It will help if you can state your investment situation. I found people who have no money or insignificant amount of money in the market tend to more be audacious when making claim, as they have nothing to lose and be happy as a cheer leader. We all agree the EV is something to cheer for a long period of time. Making money from it is a different task altogether.

 

[PeterJA]

Peter, all points are welcome, but that does not mean I agree.

It will help if you can state your investment situation. I found people who have no money or insignificant amount of money in the market tend to more be audacious when making claim, as they have nothing to lose and be happy as a cheer leader. We all agree the EV is something to cheer for a long period of time. Making money from it is a different task altogether.

Kevin, I have invested most of my capital in TSLA common stock.

Sleepy, it appears that Kevin has appointed himself the arbiter of what is cheerleading vs. useful reporting and analysis. Therefore, please publish your reporting and analysis where they are not subject to Kevin's censorship.

 

[kevin99]

Kevin, I have invested most of my capital in TSLA common stock.

Sleepy, it appears that Kevin has appointed himself the arbiter of what is cheerleading vs. useful reporting and analysis. Therefore, please publish your reporting and analysis where they are not subject to Kevin's censorship.

This is called responsibility.

As I communicate to sleepy privately, the trouble I am having with this particular article is:

"1. The source of truth is on the employee. I believe the employee is genuine about what he told you. However genuine does not mean truth or fact. The risk here is you choose to believe it is the truth and by publishing your belief, people trusted in you and buy your theory may not realize your conclusion is based on the employee (I know you have your own study, but from the article I didn't see how you arrive to your conclusion from your study). "

Again it is not the conclusion I am debating, it is the method by which it leads to the conclusion.

Obviously everyone owns his/her copyright so I respect their choices. And I welcome everyone's insight and contribution to the investnaire site.

 

[PeterJA]

...people trusted in you and buy your theory may not realize your conclusion is based on the employee (I know you have your own study, but from the article I didn't see how you arrive to your conclusion from your study). "

Sleepy stated clearly what his conclusion is based on. Anyone who "may not realize" it can't read the English language.

 

[Chickenlittle]

Kevin, I have invested most of my capital in TSLA common stock.

Sleepy, it appears that Kevin has appointed himself the arbiter of what is cheerleading vs. useful reporting and analysis. Therefore, please publish your reporting and analysis where they are not subject to Kevin's censorship.

1. I am long in tesla for over a year with options and stock, I believe in the company
2. I do not believe your total net worth determines who is correct. I would not encourage anyone here to either post statements of their accounts or holdings. anyone who feels the need to convince someone with that evidence of the validity of what they are predicting for the future is very insecure. I would remind all that prior results are not predictors of future outcome.
3. I did read sleep's post before deleted and he clearly stated the source of his information. its up to the reader what to think about its reliability. I almost posted that I would take the source with a grain of salt and given the criticism from kevin, he could have done the same.

 

[MikeC]

+1 to not censoring Sleepy

 

[DaveT]

This is called responsibility.

As I communicate to sleepy privately, the trouble I am having with this particular article is:

"1. The source of truth is on the employee. I believe the employee is genuine about what he told you. However genuine does not mean truth or fact. The risk here is you choose to believe it is the truth and by publishing your belief, people trusted in you and buy your theory may not realize your conclusion is based on the employee (I know you have your own study, but from the article I didn't see how you arrive to your conclusion from your study). "

Again it is not the conclusion I am debating, it is the method by which it leads to the conclusion.

Obviously everyone owns his/her copyright so I respect their choices. And I welcome everyone's insight and contribution to the investnaire site.

Kevin, I don't think you should have removed sleepyhead's post. It was well-written and had some good factual information about his conversation with a store employee. Whether the store employee had the right facts of course is up to debate (but that was acknowledged by sleepyhead in the article as well).

If you disagreed with the article or saw danger in it, you could have added an "editor's note" at the end of the article saying something to the effect, "Editor note: I personally disagree with the conclusions of the writer for X reasons...". That way you could share your concerns but leave it to the reader to make their own conclusions.

 

[kevin99]

I appreciate the input here. I've communicated to sleepy privately and we will see how this can be handled. I do want to remind all of you that you don't necessarily know the whole rationals ( I share 80% of it), so don't assume it and come to strong statement.

BTW the article is "Unpublished", not removed.

- - - Updated - - -

2. I do not believe your total net worth determines who is correct. I would not encourage anyone here to either post statements of their accounts or holdings. anyone who feels the need to convince someone with that evidence of the validity of what they are predicting for the future is very insecure. I would remind all that prior results are not predictors of future outcome.

It seems you have the tendency of taking a common sense argument and go to the extreme. You did it twice in your two posts. I will stop right here and let you have all the fun.

 

[sleepyhead]

Guys,

Thanks for the support. I will eventually start my own blog and post the article again. My initial intention was to start my own blog, but Kevin convinced me to start writing on Investnaire. I thought that together we could create a Seeking Alpha type website, just better with less FUD, and with only "vetted" contributors, so that not everyone could post there. Eventually we would grow the author base as more and more people started reading our articles.

Kevin - I understand where you are coming from and I respect your opinion. This whole situation proved to me that working together is a bad idea. My number 1 priority when writing is to have 100% control of the content and the easiest way for me to accomplish this is to start my own blog. I will look into the TMC blog format, but it already sounds to me like I will not have 100% control, so I doubt that I will go that route, but will explore all possibilities. It may take me a while to start my blog, since I don't really have the time to commit right now and internet technology is just too hard to keep up with these days.

Since you are Chinese-American, then I would encourage you to go the Chinese micro-blogging sites and see what people are saying about Tesla. Tesla has been accepting orders for the Model S in China for 3 months now. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence out their that suggests that people are signing up for a Model S reservation in droves.

In fact, I was 99% sure that the model S will be a big hit in China based on the significant research I have done on China. As Julian Cox says, you can google translate a search for Tesla on Baidu.com and you will quickly find an answer.

After speaking to this employee, I am now 99.999% sure that Model S demand in China is huge and I am more than 99% sure that this guy knew what he was talking about. I had a good long conversation with him and I tested him several times to see if he isn't selling me some BS. Everything he said about Tesla was the truth (verified by my knowledge on the company) and I find it very hard to believe that the one thing he made up or lied about would be the demand in China.

Kevin mentioned that maybe he heard this information from customers, but that is so farfetched that I don't even know how to comment on that. Of course there is a reasonable probability that this guy is feeding me false information for one reason or another, but the overwhelming evidence is that he was genuine, truthful, and knowledgeable.

In the end it is my reputation that is on line, and I stand by everything I wrote. I am confident enought to write an article that Model S demand in China is indeed huge, because I have done extensive research on the subject. My conversation with this person only confirmed what I already knew.

I am not recommending that anyone make investment decisions based on my research, because as far as I am concerned Wall St. could already be pricing in huge demand from China. If I can figure this out, then I am pretty sure that the market has already figured this out as well. That is not say that we won't see a 10% jump when Elon acknowledges huge demand in China, but the markets simply like to move a "official" news stories (even though 90% of the news story is already priced in advance).

 

[kevin99]

sleepy, I respect your opinion.

And again I am not debating on your conclusion. It is really the method that is in question. No doubt I have my own sources and research and it likely may reach the same conclusion. That does not in any way lighten my concern I elaborated earlier.

 

[Causalien]

Guys,

Thanks for the support. I will eventually start my own blog and post the article again. My initial intention was to start my own blog, but Kevin convinced me to start writing on Investnaire. I thought that together we could create a Seeking Alpha type website, just better with less FUD, and with only "vetted" contributors, so that not everyone could post there. Eventually we would grow the author base as more and more people started reading our articles.

Kevin - I understand where you are coming from and I respect your opinion. This whole situation proved to me that working together is a bad idea. My number 1 priority when writing is to have 100% control of the content and the easiest way for me to accomplish this is to start my own blog. I will look into the TMC blog format, but it already sounds to me like I will not have 100% control, so I doubt that I will go that route, but will explore all possibilities. It may take me a while to start my blog, since I don't really have the time to commit right now and internet technology is just too hard to keep up with these days.

Since you are Chinese-American, then I would encourage you to go the Chinese micro-blogging sites and see what people are saying about Tesla. Tesla has been accepting orders for the Model S in China for 3 months now. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence out their that suggests that people are signing up for a Model S reservation in droves.

In fact, I was 99% sure that the model S will be a big hit in China based on the significant research I have done on China. As Julian Cox says, you can google translate a search for Tesla on Baidu.com and you will quickly find an answer.

After speaking to this employee, I am now 99.999% sure that Model S demand in China is huge and I am more than 99% sure that this guy knew what he was talking about. I had a good long conversation with him and I tested him several times to see if he isn't selling me some BS. Everything he said about Tesla was the truth (verified by my knowledge on the company) and I find it very hard to believe that the one thing he made up or lied about would be the demand in China.

Kevin mentioned that maybe he heard this information from customers, but that is so farfetched that I don't even know how to comment on that. Of course there is a reasonable probability that this guy is feeding me false information for one reason or another, but the overwhelming evidence is that he was genuine, truthful, and knowledgeable.

In the end it is my reputation that is on line, and I stand by everything I wrote. I am confident enought to write an article that Model S demand in China is indeed huge, because I have done extensive research on the subject. My conversation with this person only confirmed what I already knew.

I am not recommending that anyone make investment decisions based on my research, because as far as I am concerned Wall St. could already be pricing in huge demand from China. If I can figure this out, then I am pretty sure that the market has already figured this out as well. That is not say that we won't see a 10% jump when Elon acknowledges huge demand in China, but the markets simply like to move a "official" news stories (even though 90% of the news story is already priced in advance).

If you need help, I can set it up for you in 5 minutes.

 

[Norse]

I am probably one of thoose that have followed sleepy the most. It`s been worth gold to me. It`s allways a risk to say something with certainty, but you can not solely rely on what you read on a forum. Sleepy does a heck of alot of work for us. Not only in solar stocks, but he was spot on on the Q2 Tesla earnings. This does not mean he will be spot on next time, and sleepy has probably told us 1000 times that you have to do your own research. Some of us don't, and when you then get burned you can only blame yourself.

 

[DaveT]

Moderator's note:

Let's end the discussion about Kevin's editorial decision. I would move posts, but there's too much content woven into the debate to do so without gutting the thread.

Let's keep the discussion going about Tesla in China, which is a very important topic for the future of TSLA.

The original poster of the thread created his post based on a link to his article that can no longer be found. I think it's healthy for people to be asking why it was "unpublished" and if they haven't read it yet, then how they can gain access to it.

 

[SFOTurtle]

2. I do not believe your total net worth determines who is correct. I would not encourage anyone here to either post statements of their accounts or holdings. anyone who feels the need to convince someone with that evidence of the validity of what they are predicting for the future is very insecure. I would remind all that prior results are not predictors of future outcome.
3. I did read sleep's post before deleted and he clearly stated the source of his information. its up to the reader what to think about its reliability. I almost posted that I would take the source with a grain of salt and given the criticism from kevin, he could have done the same.

+1 to not censoring Sleepy

This trend of censorship is not encouraging for open dialogue on this forum.

 

[ckessel]

Folks, let's not bandy about the word "censorship". Though I liked sleepy's post, kevin has every right to decide what's on his site and I fully understand his reasoning.

 

[Robert.Boston]

This trend of censorship is not encouraging for open dialogue on this forum.

Censorship? With very rare exception, we never delete a post here, or "unpublish" it. Moderators do try to keep discussions on point and civil.

To the contrary, I've publicly encouraged sleepyhead to set up a blog here. If he had posted his article on TMC instead of elsewhere, then we could all benefit from his insights.

 

[SFOTurtle]

Censorship? With very rare exception, we never delete a post here, or "unpublish" it. Moderators do try to keep discussions on point and civil.

To the contrary, I've publicly encouraged sleepyhead to set up a blog here. If he had posted his article on TMC instead of elsewhere, then we could all benefit from his insights.

I shouldn't have said "trend" but I don't know what euphemism you want to use in place of censhorship? The only questions raised about the original report were a question about a source and the definacy of predictions in it. That's so inappropriate enough to warrant stripping it from this forum? Censhorship is not restricted to government sources. No, this isn't a First Amendment issue, and I'm not questioning moderators' rights to monitor the contents of this forum. They have the right, but that doesn't mean I can't question it and call it what it is.