Interesting, (stepping onto the soapbox...)
I thought Kiwi went out of his way to be helpful despite his iniital belief that John was just being lazy.
I've seen exchanges in other forums that were much less polite.
My advice to you John is not to take offense so quickly whether here or elsewhere. Kiwi spent a lot of time writing a response to you and it wasn't because he was trying to insult you. In fact, he was trying to help you.
In general, people ask questions because they want answers to those questions. Often, however, the way in which a question is asked greatly affects the quality and quantity of the answers.
This idea is pretty common in open-source and technical discussion forums all over the net. There is an excellent tutorial that explains the right way to ask questions at:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
DISCLAIMER: Please read the first few paragraphs. The above link points to a tutorial about how to ask questions that are most likely to get you the answers you want, not a source for you to get answers to those questions.
This tutorial is geared more toward technology questions rather than trading questions but many of the lessons and ideas still apply. The parts "How To Interpret Answers" and "Dealing with Rudeness" are particularly applicable.
Now specifically back to the matter of the original question:
John wrote:Could you please tell me if there is software available to help with entry and exit points?
As Kiwi pointed out, this is a very vague question. Personally, I am probably in possession of the answer to the question but I really didn't know what John was asking for, so I chose not to respond.
Right or wrong, most people's reaction to this type of question is probably: "Well if he can't be bothered to spend enough time that I can understand what he is asking, why should I bother to reply."
It is likely that John has done some investigation into entries and exits and certain software but there is no way to tell from the question.
A better way to ask the question might be:
I'd like to trade the Turtle System but don't want to have to figure out the entry, exits, and position sizing by hand. Does anyone know of any software that does this?
Even better might have been to acknowledge the work done so far to answer the question yourself:
Hi, I'd like to trade the Turtle System but don't want to have to figure out the entry, exits, and position sizing by hand.
I know that VeriTrader does this but it seems like overkill for this purpose, I'm looking for more limited functionality, perhaps an Excel based approach.
I've also looked into Trading Recipes and TradeStation but they seem too complicated as I'm not a programmer.
Does anyone know of any simple software that I can use to assist me with the entries and exits fof the Turtle System?
I encourage those who read this to:
- Not take offense so easily at other's legitimate responses
- Take care when asking questions so you are more likely to get good answers
- Read the above link on smart questions.
Okay, time to step off the soap box.
I'll leave you with one final thought from the above mentioned article:
In their excellent essay on questions, Eric Steven Raymond and Rick Moen wrote:Odds are you'll screw up a few times on hacker community forums — in ways detailed in this article, or similar. And you'll be told exactly how you screwed up, possibly with colourful asides. In public.
When this happens, the worst thing you can do is whine about the experience, claim to have been verbally assaulted, demand apologies, scream, hold your breath, threaten lawsuits, complain to people's employers, leave the toilet seat up, etc. Instead, here's what you do:
Get over it. It's normal. In fact, it's healthy and appropriate.
Community standards do not maintain themselves: They're maintained by people actively applying them, visibly, in public. Don't whine that all criticism should have been conveyed via private mail: That's not how it works. Nor is it useful to insist you've been personally insulted when someone comments that one of your claims was wrong, or that his views differ. Those are loser attitudes.
- Forum Mgmnt
P.S. John, if you haven't left quite yet, please realize that I've spent a lot of time trying to help you and others like you by writing the above. I'm not trying to be harsh or rude, or insulting even if it might appear that way at first.