Official ASF Policy on Ramping

• If you state that a stock's share price is going to go up or down you MUST provide reasoning for your point of view. Posts that fail to provide any reasoning will be deleted without notice by myself or one of ASF's moderators. I understand that some will see this as 'heavy handed' moderation but the only alternative to this is to see standards of posting here drop to an unacceptable level and I am not willing to stand by and watch this happen.
  
• Posts that refer to some unidentified individual (a friend, a colleague or an insider) who has told you that a stock is about to move in one direction or another will be treated the same way and removed ASAP.
  
• Every statement you make must be able to be substantiated. For example it is not permissable to state that 'drilling results are about to be released and they will be positive' unless this statement is able to be substantiated. Posts that contain unsubstantiated statements will be removed without notice.
  
• Stocks are not to be recommended to others as a definite "buy" or "sell". As most of you are aware only licensed financial advisors can provide financial advice and recommending stocks to others as a "buy" or "sell" is inappropriate in a forum such as this. There are many other more appropriate terms that can be used to describe your view of a company's worth in relation to its share price such as "undervalued" and "overvalued", just to name a couple.
  
• All posts in a stock thread must contain some meaningful content. Bumping a stock thread by posting a smilie, a single word or an unrelated comment is not permitted and these posts will be removed without notice.
  
• Posting a series of posts that contain nothing more than a running commentary on a stock's intraday price action is discouraged as a single post is enough to alert others to a stock that seeing a significant move in one direction or another.
  
• The creation of threads asking others to recommend their 'hot stocks' or 'hot stock tips' is discouraged and these threads will be closed or deleted as they are primarily used for ramping.

Joe Blow said:

As ASF has grown the amount of ramping in stock threads has increased noticably and it has become apparent to me very recently that in order to maintain standards here I needed to put together an official ASF policy on ramping. In this post I want to outline what is acceptable and what is unacceptable to post in stock threads.

• If you state that a stock's share price is going to go up or down you MUST provide reasoning for your point of view. Posts that fail to provide any reasoning will be deleted without notice by myself or one of ASF's moderators. I understand that some will see this as 'heavy handed' moderation but the only alternative to this is to see standards of posting here drop to an unacceptable level and I am not willing to stand by and watch this happen.
  
• Posts that refer to some unidentified individual (a friend, a colleague or an insider) who has told you that a stock is about to move in one direction or another will be treated the same way and removed ASAP.
  
• Every statement you make must be able to be substantiated. For example it is not permissable to state that 'drilling results are about to be released and they will be positive' unless this statement is able to be substantiated. Posts that contain unsubstantiated statements will be removed without notice.
  
• Stocks are not to be recommended to others as a definite "buy" or "sell". As most of you are aware only licensed financial advisors can provide financial advice and recommending stocks to others as a "buy" or "sell" is inappropriate in a forum such as this. There are many other more appropriate terms that can be used to describe your view of a company's worth in relation to its share price such as "undervalued" and "overvalued", just to name a couple.
  
• All posts in a stock thread must contain some meaningful content. Bumping a stock thread by posting a smilie, a single word or an unrelated comment is not permitted and these posts will be removed without notice.
  
• Posting a series of posts that contain nothing more than a running commentary on a stock's intraday price action is discouraged as a single post is enough to alert others to a stock that seeing a significant move in one direction or another.
  
• The creation of threads asking others to recommend their 'hot stocks' or 'hot stock tips' is discouraged and these threads will be closed or deleted as they are primarily used for ramping.

It will only be possible to maintain high standards here at ASF with the co-operation of the entire community, that is why I am asking members to report any incidents of blatant ramping. In the top right of every post you will notice this symbol '

'. If you click on it you will be able to report that particular post and alert myself and the moderators to it. As we are unable to review every thread reporting unacceptable posts will help us a great deal in our efforts to stamp out ramping on ASF.

In summary, if you are not prepared to present a reasoned argument for your position/views on a stock then please consider not posting. I would much rather have fewer quality posts than a truckload of ramping posts. I suspect most ASF members feel the same way. For those who would prefer simply to ramp or downramp stocks, there are many other forums that will welcome you with open arms. Here at ASF we are determined to maintain a certain level of posting and continued ramping will ultimately result in the suspension of your ASF account.

Comments and feedback on this policy are welcomed.

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sails said:

Hi Joe,

I think this is a great move to introduce such clear guidelines covering all ASF posters and draws a clear line in the sand of what is acceptable and what is not at ASF. Well done!

Cheers,
Margaret.

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laurie said:

I may have enthusiasm for a certain stock which may be confused as ramping but as always D Y O R I thought it's a must! if people are silly enough to follow the pipe piper then how far must one go to protect them

cheers laurie

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rub92me said:

Joe, from what I've seen from your posts so far, I expect you will be reasonable in applying this policy. However, it does raise the question what is considered a 'sufficient' reason to be positive or negative about a stock.
Say my 'method' for picking a stock is tossing a coin or throwing a dart. Will you delete the post if I specifically state that that is how I came to my choice? Are stars, tea leafs, crystal balls allowed? Some people would consider these to have equal predictive power as a chart....

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2020hindsight said:

PS Joe - question - How about " I read an article , source unstated , that claims XYZ will do well in the next 6 months - take it or leave it, do your own research!", Not meaning to be difficult - (you da boss lol) - but you don't say what we CAN say - only what we can't.

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rub92me said:

Joe, from what I've seen from your posts so far, I expect you will be reasonable in applying this policy. However, it does raise the question what is considered a 'sufficient' reason to be positive or negative about a stock.
Say my 'method' for picking a stock is tossing a coin or throwing a dart. Will you delete the post if I specifically state that that is how I came to my choice? Are stars, tea leafs, crystal balls allowed? Some people would consider these to have equal predictive power as a chart....

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nioka said:

I hope you won't be too hard Joe. Yesterday I started a thread on Lynas. I got some information from a close friend who works in the area where the mine is located. On his advice I researched the company and, in my opinion, it is a goer. I bought 10,000 shares and thought I'd share the info. I would expect anyone interested to do there own research. Is this acceptable?

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