Popular Science’s PPX Exchange is run by a bunch of nutjobs
Published by admin August 30th, 2007 in MainI don’t know how else to describe the title of this post except as I have.
I joined the PPX as a player back in June and was there for the first Black Friday incident when the admins miscoded an IPO and sent the market into a spiral. Since then, things have not improved that much.
There is an excellent reference site set up by one of the players so people can see at a glance what stocks are moving whereto better allow them to invest and play the market game. This site has been alternately praised and condemned by the PPX admins because it scans the popular science website once per minute to pull price changes for updates.
Now, because of what the Admins term collusion on the part of 3 players, an account has been threatened with deletion, 3 accounts have been fined heavily, and the forums on the site are aflame in a war I’ve not seen before.
Here, on my own blog, on my own site, I will voice my own opinion - if the PPX admins want to comment, this blog has comment sections available - have at it.
I study stock market simulators - this is why this site exists. I built it to keep track of the new markets and to post information on the existing markets as it comes to hand. I generally operate as an independent without a direct opinion because I like to sit on he fence and be neutral.
I cannot be neutral about this. The behavior of the PPX admins in regards to the collusion, violation of the terms of service, and other issues is totally WRONG. For those of you who want the whole story, it all starts on the PPX forums at the links at the end of this blog.
What it amounts to is one player, username TheRooster, managed to figure out how the HSX Virtual Specialist application worked and used that knowledge to his own portfolio advancement. He succeeded in hitting $1 million POP$ long before anybody else was even close.
He also set up a php scraping site called ppxbroker.com which became a valuable reference and was given the nod by the admins on more than one occasion as a good resource. I even helped out by suggesting the color changes on the stock pricings, which he implemented.
Since this exchange was set up - people have accused Rooster of cheating, using unorthodox methods to achieve his victory, or of just downright nastyness. None of this has been found to be true, and as I have talked to the man who is TheRooster I feel he is in the right, and has never knowingly done anything to misrepresent himself or the game.
He then got his wife involved, using an account named Songbird - and showed her his techniques to play. Her account began to rise at a dramatic rate as she learned to do what has been coined ‘wave-riding’. A 3rd player, ScarletPimple, also began to wave ride and soon, he was at the $1 million mark also, with Songbird closing in on them at over $700,000.
The real kicker happened when PPX began to offer prizes to the person who had the most percentile growth in a monthly cycle. The first prise was an 80gb Ipod, the next prise was an LG Prada phone.
Popsci made a major snafu when ScarletPimple legitimately won the prize. Unlike a proper company, they gave the wrong information to whoever actually shipped the product and it was sent to TheRooster instead.
When TheRooster contacted the PPX Admins, he got a reply from the main Editor of Popular Science Magazine, a Mr. Mark Jannot - in this email TheRooster and his wife were accused of being the same person, and it was pretty much a cease and desist order.
He replied to the letter explaining every action he had done. And got a reply that indicated now, he and his wife were in collusion to pretty much defraud the market and cheat the system, without actually saying that.
End result, Popsci is blaming the entire mess on TheRooster, using him as a scapegoat, and punishing his wife by deleting her user account.
Absolutely mind-blowingly insane. Links to all the appropriate articles and forum entries are below - you are welcome to share your own opinions - I’d love comments and critiques of this behaviour. It truly doesn’t make much sense to anybody.
*amended details
I know now ppx has become worthless to play. And now this incident has led to TheRooster quiting PPX.
People just dont get it do they, PPX sent TheRooster the wrong prize,and now they say that he and 3 other
people have cheated and takes money away from them when they have no evidence of proving them cheated, which
was their fault in the first place b/c MVAIL was suppose to get it and now b/c of the miss hadling of the
prize it landed in TheRooster’s mail box and now i think that we should get along and let PPX pay to send
back the iPod b/c they made the mistake and does anybody listen NO!!! they dont b/c the PPX is run by a bunch
of nutjobs (execpt for yog [she’s cool])
Well now it is worthless to play the game and make money when they can take it away whenever they want and have
no reason what so ever or have the proof to show that you cheated and they take it. And I will really miss
TheRooster b/c he was the “King of the Game” and he made ppxbroker.com to help other people so what does that
tell you about TheRooster. He is a very good man and he helped other with his site eventhough he knew someone
could take his position using ppxbroker.com
I still play, but I have learned not to expect much. The new site forum is TERRIBLE. Just a note: you may want to update your links. instead of forums, it is now “forum-archives”. Interesting article.
Your links are broken, mystery player.