Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
I believe Ted's bullying, his unhelpful gloating over anyone not 100% long SPY and the link firehose is more than enough justification for an ignore feature or outright ban.
I believe Ted's great contribution to this board is his practical skepticism of high fees, alternatives and complexity. I wish he would post more constructively on this topic and aggregate his links into a single daily post with a sentence about why he found each link interesting.
In any case the rest of us should ignore his ridiculous trolling as on this thread.
Reply to @Old_Skeet: I've been here longer than most and was semi-active in the fundalarm days and find this board is quickly disintegrating because of chaos in the discussion board. Most of us have jobs, kids, activities, etc and can't spend unlimited time weeding through link farms. This is not a daytrading site.
We need slow, deliberate decision making info, we don't need to know how a fund did for first 4 days of the year. If someone is going to post links, then at least explain how that is useful/actionable for long term investors.
Where does the buck stop? I beleieve it to be David and believe he reads the board ... and, if he wanted it stopped he would have done so by now or might even be working on it as I write. I don't have priviledged information so I have no clue as to what his thinking is.
This is all too silly. You do not need a hammer to swat a fly. Why don't you just ask Ted if he could slow down the links so they mix in better with the fund talk? Maybe he'd do 5 or 10 in the mornings and 5 or 10 after lunch or golf or whatever else he does. His links are good. But too much of a good thing is bad. And please stop being rude to Ted. He does not deserve that. Thank you. I shall now start a home improvement project.
A heavy fog blanketed my small part of the world, wetted everything, and caused me to cancel my Sunday morning tennis. Having spare time, I belatedly decided to join the wisdom (or foolishness) of the crowd on this topic. It certainly seems to have attracted much more attention than warranted.
On the positive side, I, and I suspect a host of other MFO members, have benefited from some of Ted’s voluminous postings. The MFO website would be of lesser utility without them. That is not merely my assertion; it is an experimental fact. The site became a far duller, less vibrant, and less useful resource when Ted elected to drop his contributions for a time many months ago. In that sense, Ted is a treasure that should be respected and protected.
However, there is also a negative side to Ted’s numerous references. For the most part, Ted submits Naked Unqualified Posts. Given the current posting structure, these dilute the impact of serious exchanges within the Discussion section.
They are Naked in the sense that all we have is a title reference to some published writing; the post is devoid of any information that is contained in the reference. It is Unqualified in the sense that no assessment of the reference’s content is offered. It is a blind reference. I choose to visit a few of these references based on my perception of the source’s credibility. I am more likely to access a WSJ reference over one from Brooklyn Joe who consults astrological charts for investment decision making.
The fundamental question here is whether Ted’s simple references merit inclusion in the MFO section called “Discussion”. Most of his posts contain zero discussion. In terms of a MFO investment idea conversation, this type of post is more properly classified as a “candidate discussion”. Perhaps it deserves its own website category; perhaps it could be merged into the resource section; perhaps no action need be taken.
In the end, this is Professor David Snowball’s project. He owns the site and consequently makes the rules and sets the standards. His rules are modest and his standards are the highest. Evidence of that judgment is found every month in his grand Commentary section. He gets to choose. Regardless of his resolution, I will remain a loyal participant in this worthwhile project. I’m confident that Professor Snowball will make both a wise and prudent decision.
For what it’s worth, my preference is for a separate listing of simple references. They do not qualify as discussion material, at least not yet. If the referenced material includes some assessments, some pros and cons, or some meaningful debate, then it fits snuggly into the Discussion format. And I mean much more than just “atta-boy” or “plus one” scoring commentary. These are useless for decision making.
There are endless ways to do some sorting, likely none of them perfect, and all costly in terms of effort to accomplish. Luckily, that’s not in my wheelhouse nor is it a task assigned to me. I would botch it big time. Professor Snowball and staff will not, especially given the growing popularity of this fine resource.
Ted is just being Ted. Over the many years that I have known him by way of these Internet exchanges, I do sense a growing impatience and intolerance. He has changed; I have changed; everyone else has changed; the marketplace has dramatically changed. In terms of investment philosophy, Ted and I share many similar processes and preferences. I will still profitably use some of his excellent references, although I vote for a more civil discourse.
I do wish that more of our discussions attracted this much excitement and active involvement. Freely expressed opinion diversity makes for better decisions.
I realize that I’m just another voice from the Internet wilderness, but I finally surrendered to the lure of this extensive exchange.
Best Wishes for a solid financial 2014. Everyone, take a deep breath and cool-down.
Reply to @JohnChisum: I walked away yesterday and thought about it all night in order to get some perspective. I think there are two problems, both leading to people leaving the forum.
First, as you suggest, and cman points out, the site design doesn't permit filtering of a large drop of topics so that discussions can be shunted to secondary pages and risk not being seen, especially by infrequent visitors. That being said, many users find value from link posts, and nothing should really discourage that. The solution seems to be some sort of filter like Accipiter suggests.
Second, the author of most of those link posts takes offense when people question this. He then takes that out on people in really insulting ways. This trolling behavior has already driven some posters away from MFO, and limited a couple more people from posting as much as they used to.
It's up to the Forum management to decide how to proceed, but the insults really are more than anyone should have to take on a conservative investment forum.
While the mob on this thread is deciding if I should be boiled in oil, I was busy bringing mutual fund news and views to the MFO Discussion Board in order to help mutual fund investors make more informed decisions. I posted nine links this morning that have brought 466 views as of 6:27 PM CST. What has the mod, you know who you are, on this thread done in a positive manner to help fund investors ? I tell you what they have done, nothing but bitch !!!! Regards, Ted
Just one last thought, since I also use Morningstar and I think they do a rather good job with their discuss section. Perhaps something could be learned by reviewing their format. Could it work here?
They don't anything special other than break it up into multiple topics creating silos.
A forum to look at is bogleheads.org which contains a hybrid of the solutions proposed here.
One, it contains two "tabs" that will filter for unanswered posts and for active posts across all categories. This subsumes the solution I suggested above.
There are two main "categories" in Investing. One for questions on personal investing and one for theory, news and general. This is similar to the link category solution but creates a new category for personal investing questions rather than one for links/news. Makes a lot more sense here too since links (news) based threads make up almost 75% of the posts and a separate link category wouldn't really differentiate it much from all discussions except satisfy anti-Ted sentiments by "banishing him" to a different category, denials notwithstanding.
The above hybrid here would solve almost all usability cases except for the anti-Ted sentiments which is behind most vocal posts here.
So, I vote for a similar hybrid or doing nothing.
The Ted "problem" is better handled by people getting a thick skin or learning how to handle alpha males for which there are any number of articles online.
I hope someone with capacity "David" is reading this thread. I really don't think the site is broke. If David caves in and reacts to every whim that comes his way ... he will have to keep making modifications that will satisfy some and not others. My comment is to leave it like it is. After all, the new and more current threads with new comments say at or near the front of the lineup while those that are not generating reader comment age deeper in the stack. So what's not to like about that?
As I mentioned way up above there someplace "catching up" when you've been away for a few days can really be quite a challenge. I face that situation almost every week, as we typically are away from computers and the internet from Friday afternoon until Monday evening.
Because of all the hollering in this thread I just now paid particular attention as to how I actually handle this potential information overload. I realized that I first skim for threads with the most responses, and then work my way on down to the threads with no response. Just because a thread may not have a response doesn't mean that it's without value, silly, or uninteresting. And in fact I may be the first one to respond if it strikes my interest.
I now think that if I were to ask for a possible technological filter, it would be on the order of cman's suggestions, but with a slight modification. I would really love a button that simply takes all unread posts, and puts them in order by number of responses, then by time of post. The most active would be first in the listing, and when we get down to the "no response" posts the newest would be first and the oldest last.
I don't think that such a filter would either create a "new category" or discriminate in any way against any particular poster, links or no links, but would make life a lot easier on Monday evenings!
Comments
I believe Ted's great contribution to this board is his practical skepticism of high fees, alternatives and complexity. I wish he would post more constructively on this topic and aggregate his links into a single daily post with a sentence about why he found each link interesting.
In any case the rest of us should ignore his ridiculous trolling as on this thread.
I've been here longer than most and was semi-active in the fundalarm days and find this board is quickly disintegrating because of chaos in the discussion board. Most of us have jobs, kids, activities, etc and can't spend unlimited time weeding through link farms. This is not a daytrading site.
We need slow, deliberate decision making info, we don't need to know how a fund did for first 4 days of the year. If someone is going to post links, then at least explain how that is useful/actionable for long term investors.
Common_courtesy&&respect>>technology.
Where does the buck stop? I beleieve it to be David and believe he reads the board ... and, if he wanted it stopped he would have done so by now or might even be working on it as I write. I don't have priviledged information so I have no clue as to what his thinking is.
Here is a link should you wish to contact him:
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/about/contact-information/
Old_Skeet
1) Ted is the king of rudeness, see string above.
2) you yourself wrote "But too much of a good thing is bad".
A heavy fog blanketed my small part of the world, wetted everything, and caused me to cancel my Sunday morning tennis. Having spare time, I belatedly decided to join the wisdom (or foolishness) of the crowd on this topic. It certainly seems to have attracted much more attention than warranted.
On the positive side, I, and I suspect a host of other MFO members, have benefited from some of Ted’s voluminous postings. The MFO website would be of lesser utility without them. That is not merely my assertion; it is an experimental fact. The site became a far duller, less vibrant, and less useful resource when Ted elected to drop his contributions for a time many months ago. In that sense, Ted is a treasure that should be respected and protected.
However, there is also a negative side to Ted’s numerous references. For the most part, Ted submits Naked Unqualified Posts. Given the current posting structure, these dilute the impact of serious exchanges within the Discussion section.
They are Naked in the sense that all we have is a title reference to some published writing; the post is devoid of any information that is contained in the reference. It is Unqualified in the sense that no assessment of the reference’s content is offered. It is a blind reference. I choose to visit a few of these references based on my perception of the source’s credibility. I am more likely to access a WSJ reference over one from Brooklyn Joe who consults astrological charts for investment decision making.
The fundamental question here is whether Ted’s simple references merit inclusion in the MFO section called “Discussion”. Most of his posts contain zero discussion. In terms of a MFO investment idea conversation, this type of post is more properly classified as a “candidate discussion”. Perhaps it deserves its own website category; perhaps it could be merged into the resource section; perhaps no action need be taken.
In the end, this is Professor David Snowball’s project. He owns the site and consequently makes the rules and sets the standards. His rules are modest and his standards are the highest. Evidence of that judgment is found every month in his grand Commentary section. He gets to choose. Regardless of his resolution, I will remain a loyal participant in this worthwhile project. I’m confident that Professor Snowball will make both a wise and prudent decision.
For what it’s worth, my preference is for a separate listing of simple references. They do not qualify as discussion material, at least not yet. If the referenced material includes some assessments, some pros and cons, or some meaningful debate, then it fits snuggly into the Discussion format. And I mean much more than just “atta-boy” or “plus one” scoring commentary. These are useless for decision making.
There are endless ways to do some sorting, likely none of them perfect, and all costly in terms of effort to accomplish. Luckily, that’s not in my wheelhouse nor is it a task assigned to me. I would botch it big time. Professor Snowball and staff will not, especially given the growing popularity of this fine resource.
Ted is just being Ted. Over the many years that I have known him by way of these Internet exchanges, I do sense a growing impatience and intolerance. He has changed; I have changed; everyone else has changed; the marketplace has dramatically changed. In terms of investment philosophy, Ted and I share many similar processes and preferences. I will still profitably use some of his excellent references, although I vote for a more civil discourse.
I do wish that more of our discussions attracted this much excitement and active involvement. Freely expressed opinion diversity makes for better decisions.
I realize that I’m just another voice from the Internet wilderness, but I finally surrendered to the lure of this extensive exchange.
Best Wishes for a solid financial 2014. Everyone, take a deep breath and cool-down.
First, as you suggest, and cman points out, the site design doesn't permit filtering of a large drop of topics so that discussions can be shunted to secondary pages and risk not being seen, especially by infrequent visitors. That being said, many users find value from link posts, and nothing should really discourage that. The solution seems to be some sort of filter like Accipiter suggests.
Second, the author of most of those link posts takes offense when people question this. He then takes that out on people in really insulting ways. This trolling behavior has already driven some posters away from MFO, and limited a couple more people from posting as much as they used to.
It's up to the Forum management to decide how to proceed, but the insults really are more than anyone should have to take on a conservative investment forum.
My $.02
Regards,
Ted
A forum to look at is bogleheads.org which contains a hybrid of the solutions proposed here.
One, it contains two "tabs" that will filter for unanswered posts and for active posts across all categories. This subsumes the solution I suggested above.
There are two main "categories" in Investing. One for questions on personal investing and one for theory, news and general. This is similar to the link category solution but creates a new category for personal investing questions rather than one for links/news. Makes a lot more sense here too since links (news) based threads make up almost 75% of the posts and a separate link category wouldn't really differentiate it much from all discussions except satisfy anti-Ted sentiments by "banishing him" to a different category, denials notwithstanding.
The above hybrid here would solve almost all usability cases except for the anti-Ted sentiments which is behind most vocal posts here.
So, I vote for a similar hybrid or doing nothing.
The Ted "problem" is better handled by people getting a thick skin or learning how to handle alpha males for which there are any number of articles online.
I hope someone with capacity "David" is reading this thread. I really don't think the site is broke. If David caves in and reacts to every whim that comes his way ... he will have to keep making modifications that will satisfy some and not others. My comment is to leave it like it is. After all, the new and more current threads with new comments say at or near the front of the lineup while those that are not generating reader comment age deeper in the stack. So what's not to like about that?
Old_Skeet
I wrote to David & chip the other day, nothing back, so you can rejoice in your Ted-isms. Clutter wins!
Enjoy.
Because of all the hollering in this thread I just now paid particular attention as to how I actually handle this potential information overload. I realized that I first skim for threads with the most responses, and then work my way on down to the threads with no response. Just because a thread may not have a response doesn't mean that it's without value, silly, or uninteresting. And in fact I may be the first one to respond if it strikes my interest.
I now think that if I were to ask for a possible technological filter, it would be on the order of cman's suggestions, but with a slight modification. I would really love a button that simply takes all unread posts, and puts them in order by number of responses, then by time of post. The most active would be first in the listing, and when we get down to the "no response" posts the newest would be first and the oldest last.
I don't think that such a filter would either create a "new category" or discriminate in any way against any particular poster, links or no links, but would make life a lot easier on Monday evenings!
Thanks- OJ