The Five Commandments of Aussie Stock Forums

[Zaxon]

What I want for ASF is the same thing I wanted on the day I started it: to have a constructive stock market focused community where people are courteous and civil to each other, help each other, share knowledge unselfishly and engage in discussion and debate with each other in a respectful way.

Is that too much to ask?

I'm wondering if the answer to that lies in heavy moderation. On another stock forum I use, moderators are highly active. Name calling, flaming, baiting, off-topic messages are all moderated. In the system they use, the post stays, the content is removed, and a reason such as "removed for name calling" is inserted in place. I think it has the advantage of shaming people, if they start getting visibly moderated messages left under their name.

On the other hand, a lot of people will demand free speech, and say that people are just "too sensitive". But this is a private board with a specific purpose. There's no right to free speech. Your stated objective is to clean up the board, keep it market focus, and keep people civil and courteous. You could moderate all messages that don't serve those goals. 'X' number of moderated message in a month, your account gets suspended for a month etc. Repeat offenders get their accounts locked.

Just mentioning this as an alternative, since I've seen this in action elsewhere.

 

[Joe Blow]

I made to move from the city to the country 20 years ago and never looked back.

You won't regret it, but the downside is that services are limited and it can be boring at times.

If that doesn't bother you and you enjoy peace and quiet then country life is the way to go.

Best of luck on your journey.

Thanks to the internet I don't think I've been bored since the 1990s.

I'm looking for a change of pace, peace and quiet and a simpler, more relaxed way of life. I'm tired of the rat race, the pollution, the traffic and the noise of the city. My gut tells me it's time to change gears and focus on lifestyle.

I'm just about to crack the big five oh and am finding I am starting to want different things now.

 

[SirRumpole]

Thanks to the internet I don't think I've been bored since the 1990s.

I'm looking for a change of pace, peace and quiet and a simpler, more relaxed way of life. I'm tired of the rat race, the pollution, the traffic and the noise of the city. My gut tells me it's time to change gears and focus on lifestyle.

I'm just about to crack the big five oh and am finding I am starting to want different things now.

Yes, the very reasons I got out, plus I'm not a people person and having to put up with hordes of people every day was starting to wear.

You are right about the internet though, without it and the knowledge it brings life would be much less diverse.

And if you do move we can be comforted by the fact that you can maintain this site even in your peaceful repose.

 

[PZ99]

Hi @Zaxon

I can't speak for anyone else but turning ASF into a police state won't do us any good. Seen it happen on other forums where it's virtually impossible for a site owner to use heavy moderation without being accused of favoritism and/or blowing up the neighbourhood. Not fair to Joe to take on that kind of role and extra workload.

I seem to remember Joe saying he started this site to escape the above attributes on other sites.

I think hiding the general chat from the update tabs, as well as using the ignore function and reporting evil posts is the right mix for now

 

[barney]

I'm just about to crack the big five oh

Still a spring chicken

 

[Joe Blow]

I'm wondering if the answer to that lies in heavy moderation. On another stock forum I use, moderators are highly active. Name calling, flaming, baiting, off-topic messages are all moderated. In the system they use, the post stays, the content is removed, and a reason such as "removed for name calling" is inserted in place. I think it has the advantage of shaming people, if they start getting visibly moderated messages left under their name.

On the other hand, a lot of people will demand free speech, and say that people are just "too sensitive". But this is a private board with a specific purpose. There's no right to free speech. Your stated objective is to clean up the board, keep it market focus, and keep people civil and courteous. You could moderate all messages that don't serve those goals. 'X' number of moderated message in a month, your account gets suspended for a month etc. Repeat offenders get their accounts locked.

Just mentioning this as an alternative, since I've seen this in action elsewhere.

Outside of a handful of political and religious threads I don't think things are too bad here. In those threads there are a small minority of people who take extremely dogmatic positions and who allow emotion to get the better of them. I think that if threads on political and religious topics are to be permitted this is kind of inevitable.

I am personally opposed to online communities that are run like police states. People hate being micromanaged even though some expect others they don't like to be micromanaged. Australians push back against this pretty strongly and I think that the atmosphere here would be just as toxic, just in a different way. I suppose in the same way that real police states are toxic.

But the main reason why I would oppose heavy handed moderation is because people have the tools to ignore people, threads and entire forums. In those circumstances the onus shifts to the individual to control their own experience here at ASF and to ensure that discussions and people they find distasteful are filtered out.

 

[jbocker]

...
I'm just about to crack the big five oh and am finding I am starting to want different things now.

The fifties are good years. In a some cases people are in their peak earnings and the debts have diminished (including kids moved out). Leave has built up and weekends have a little more freedom...
ah oh..
sorry I must have dozed off....

 

[SirRumpole]

Outside of a handful of political and religious threads I don't think things are too bad here. In those threads there are a small minority of people who take extremely dogmatic positions and who allow emotion to get the better of them. I think that if threads on political and religious topics are to be permitted this is kind of inevitable.

Compared to other sites I've seen, this place is a church when it comes to "lively debate".

Things may get slightly warm sometimes but they usually settle down without moderator interference.

Plus the fact that expecting a moderator to read every post and decide what's in or out would be soul destroying for them.

I don't think I've ever seen a post here that I felt compelled to report. (Maybe people have reported me, I don't know). Most of us prefer to either ignore flaming/trolling or handle it ourselves.

Bottom line, things are fine as they are.

 

[Joe Blow]

Compared to other sites I've seen, this place is a church when it comes to "lively debate".

Things may get slightly warm sometimes but they usually settle down without moderator interference.

Plus the fact that expecting a moderator to read every post and decide what's in or out would be soul destroying for them.

I don't think I've ever seen a post here that I felt compelled to report. Most of us prefer to either ignore flaming/trolling or handle it ourselves.

Bottom line, things are fine as they are.

There are no online communities that are drama free. Facebook is a haven for trolls and idiots and I think we compare pretty well.

What's wrong with ASF in my opinion is the balance. This is a stock market focused community and people need to respect that. If I have failed, it is in failing to maintain that focus and balance. Those who have no interest in financial markets and only want to post in religious and political threads should not be here.

Having a General Chat focus does this community great damage and I am still very torn about the best way to deal with it. I have said it before and I will say it again for emphasis, this community is not sustainable long term as a General Chat focused community. It will inevitably fail and disappear. So my message to those who only post in General Chat is this: please give back to this community by posting and contributing to threads in other forums. Help maintain the balance and respect ASF's primary focus and purpose.

 

[sptrawler]

The fifties are good years. In a some cases people are in their peak earnings and the debts have diminished (including kids moved out). Leave has built up and weekends have a little more freedom...
ah oh..
sorry I must have dozed off....

I found 50, was an age where I assessed where I was, and where I wanted to end up when I reached retirement. IMO it is the time that you can change the outcome, after 50 options and earnings potential diminish, financial recovery time disappears.

 

[Dark Knight 2.0]

Facebook has a forum function doesn't it - you can turn Facebook into a Forum?



Someone set up an ASF GC Facebook forum, link it back here in GC section.
I nominate @SirRumpole as Administrator

 

[jbocker]

Joe with respect for your search regarding the 5 commandments of the ASF. From my perspective this is one of my go-to sites of all things on the internet. I am not that big on shares and trade really only on gut feel analysis of the company news and rudimentary chart trends. A punter many would say. I enjoy it. I understand that I need to be careful but I cannot commit the time to be more knowledgeable on robust trading strategies.
I use this site to give me insights into stocks and for a history of opinion. People throw up some charts and comment on patterns, nearly all of which I don't understand but still fascinated.
General chat is an area that allows me to see general opinions on matters and news. I don't expect there needs to be much moderation on the whole site because in the main you must have and continue to do a very good job. As you mentioned there are enough tools readily available.
General Chat : I can get a broad range of viewpoints and arguments from fairly level headed contributors, but there sometimes a flaring of passions. I don't like name calling and if I see it, gives me insight of the name caller. Joe, I would not like to see General Chat go but if it causes you too much work Joe I will certainly respect that decision.
So to readers many of you I admire you contributions (wont embarrass you by naming anyone) keep it coming, and thank you for allowing me a safe place to communicate and for tolerating what may be clumsiness and shallow contribution to the shares and stocks.

 

[Joe Blow]

General Chat : I can get a broad range of viewpoints and arguments from fairly level headed contributors, but there sometimes a flaring of passions. I don't like name calling and if I see it, gives me insight of the name caller. Joe, I would not like to see General Chat go but if it causes you too much work Joe I will certainly respect that decision.

There's a very good reason why General Chat is still here and that's because I think it rounds out a community and allows people to talk about off-topic stuff in their down time. It's no fun to be all business all the time. We all need to let our hair down and post up our travel photos, talk about our hobbies or about being a vegan or whatever. It's a good thing. We all need to change gears.

What's not a good thing is when General Chat takes over a community that is focused around a specialised area (for example the stock market). Then it dilutes the purpose and focus of that community. It also makes it difficult for that community to grow because people show up with an interest in the stock market and see that most of the discussion is about Jordan Petersen, Islam or some other controversial topic and they promptly turn around and walk away. That is the damage I referred to in one of my previous posts.

I have only ever wanted what is best for this community. That has been my sole agenda from the word go. I'm not here to push political barrows or mould the community in any way other than to try and make it a place that people want to be. The problem for me is that I tolerate a lot that other people wouldn't, especially in these extremely politically correct times. I'm far more interested in why people believe what they do then what they actually believe. Some people mistake that for endorsement. It's not. I can assure everyone that I disagree with most of what is posted in political and religious threads in General Chat, I just let it go because I lean more towards free speech than censorship. Which probably makes me the worst possible person to be doing this, but I started it so here I am. Don't get me wrong, posts are removed and people reprimanded and banned but probably less here than elsewhere.

But I realise now that in taking such a laissez faire approach to forum management I have made a grave miscalculation. I let General Chat run riot and I didn't keep it in check. ASF has always had a very popular General Chat forum, right from the beginning. But from 2004 until 2009 there was much more stock chat than general chat. The GFC kind of blasted a lot of punters out of the market and the stock chat started to slow. The problem is that the general chat didn't. To me it was still activity and that’s how I rationalised it. I thought that things would eventually turn around and the balance would return. It didn't and it still hasn't. There are a variety of reasons for that, the two big ones being the rise of ETFs and passive investing and the rise of other discussion platforms such as Facebook Groups. A lot of people have thrown their lot in with Zuckerberg and that has definitely had a big impact.

I'm going into far more detail than is probably necessary but context is important.

So we've never really gotten back on track since the GFC and General Chat slowly started to take over. It's easy to say, well do something about it, but restrictions are hard to implement and believe me I've considered them all. Most of them just aren't practicable. You can make rules saying you can't talk about this or that or you can only post so many posts in General Chat per day. None of it really works. HC tried to get rid of political discussion years ago and that failed also.

Some of you old timers may remember we used to have a rule that you needed to post at least 100 characters in posts in stock threads to try and encourage more content instead of useless posts about a stock being up another 1%. It was well intentioned but it never worked. People just padded out their short posts with "blah blah blah blah" or "............................................". So I pulled the plug on the rule when I upgraded the forum software at the end of 2010. One of the great myths about controlling people is that it's easy. It's not. People resist being forced to do anything. You just get the middle finger in return. So you either have to be a complete dictator or try persuasion. I'm not a dictator so persuasion was my only hope. Needless to say, that has failed too.

So that's a bit of an insight into what I'm up against. I've realised that the only real change has to come from the community itself. I can't force people to change, people must change of their own volition. It must be voluntary and because they want to do it. So I'm going to try again with some persuasion because it's the only weapon that still remains in my arsenal. I just don't have an iron fist.

The way back from where we are is to have more stock chat, more trading chat, more investing chat, and more economics chat than general chat. I don't want to sound like a broken record but it's the simple unvarnished truth. So if anyone would like to lend a hand, I'd really appreciate it. Other than that, please be nice to each other and help those that ask for it if you can. The world can be a pretty ugly place, it's nice to have an oasis that people can escape to where people are actually nice and kind to each other. There's no reason why ASF can't be that place. Just don't bring your anger, frustration or resentment with you when you log in. Leave that baggage at the door.

That’s about it.

 

[sptrawler]

That's a very interesting insight Joe, thanks for posting it, from my personal observations recently there appears to be more stock and technical chatter.
I think the steps you have taken, will work and explaining the fundamentals of the issue helps.
I'm with you regarding U.S politics, people should get involved with a U.S forum, if they are that interested.
I think also the domestic political scene has been chaotic, over recent years and has caused a lot of angst and discussion on ASF.
Hopefully you can give us a heads up periodically, on how the forum is travelling and if the desired changes are occurring.
The other problem I have is, I'm not on facebook, so without ASF i'll be in the same boat as jbocker

 

[captain black]

Great post Joe, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I've had an incredibly frustrating day today but it's been very cathartic being able to log in to ASF and read and post and take my mind off things. Thank you for keeping this place going as long as you have.

Just don't bring your anger, frustration or resentment with you when you log in. Leave that baggage at the door.

+1

 

[tech/a]

The way back Joe
I think you’ve nailed it.

 

[Joe Blow]

Thanks guys. That post has been a long time coming but I've held back for some reason. Tonight I just decided to unload and feel better for having done so.

I don't usually open up so much but with the million post mark just around the corner it feels like we're at a bit of a crossroads so I just thought I'd put it out there for others to ponder for a moment or two.

 

[sptrawler]

Thanks guys. That post has been a long time coming but I've held back for some reason. Tonight I just decided to unload and feel better for having done so.

I don't usually open up so much but with the million post mark just around the corner it feels like we're at a bit of a crossroads so I just thought I'd put it out there for others to ponder for a moment or two.

Julia would be smiling mate.

 

[explod]

I have gradually grown away from general chat as I have found it often very intimidating and I do not want to hit back into arguments anymore myself.

Why can there not be a compete division, the investment on the leader page of the site with a notice/direction to the unrelated general chat.

 

[Joe Blow]

I have gradually grown away from general chat as I have found it often very intimidating and I do not want to hit back into arguments anymore myself.

The discussion in political and religious threads (and threads on global warming) reminds me of banging one's head against a brick wall. Unpleasant and something I can do without.

Why can there not be a compete division, the investment on the leader page of the site with a notice/direction to the unrelated general chat.

Changes are coming. I have plans for a software upgrade and new wesbite redesign after we get past one million posts. I will be starting a thread asking for suggestions and feedback soon.