Who thinks whether it was 2 weeks or two months, he doesn’t see that the feelings of those wounded by this decision would have been any different…
And that’s part of the problem.
If you gave everyone two months and a specific end date, then you’re giving people information that they can use to plan how they will respond to the board closing. People have more time to coordinate where they’re going to go. People can say their final goodbyes, and make their final posts. They can wrap up relationships that, for some boards, have been around for a decade or two. That’s something that would have cost TMF nothing, but showed some consideration for the folks who have been using it for years - and some of whom were contributing to building the brand and business back in the day when the boards were a little more important to the TMF business model.
Giving people less than two weeks’ notice, and keeping everyone in the dark on the details of Closing Time until after it happened, was an inconsiderate move. Made moreso by the fact that five months later, no changes have been made to the freemium Boards - making it pretty likely that TMF could have told everyone about this back in April and held off actually closing the Boards for months without affecting their plans.
It’s unfortunate that you - nor apparently anyone else at TMF - can’t see how that would have mattered.
Again, TMF was totally within their rights to do it this way. It’s a business, the freemium Boards have probably been utterly unimportant for years, and no one here was entitled to have TMF give us a free place to hang out. TMF had no obligation to treat anyone here with any consideration or courtesy. But having chosen not to, you can’t honestly be surprised that people are casting a wary eye on your future changes.
No matter how many times it’s said, that doesn’t make it true. If TMF were truly ‘community-driven’ where are the advisory panels of users? And surveys of users? And focus groups? And interviews? And reports and analysis of that feedback made available to users?
TMF has become just another financial service business that takes advantage of the community they developed by claiming that they wouldn’t ever become one.
No matter how many times it’s said, that doesn’t make it true. If TMF were truly ‘community-driven’ where are the advisory panels of users? And surveys of users? And focus groups?
It used to be.
There was a time when they invited a group of us to their headquarters for a day-long advisory panel or focus group; I forget which they called it. They paid my train fare in both directions, and a hotel for the night. And I got a free T-Shirt too.
There was a time when you had to pay to post on the newsgroups. They comped me for a few years.
Fuskie Who thinks whether it was 2 weeks or two months, he doesn’t see that the feelings of those wounded by this decision would have been any different…
The sense of loss wouldn’t have been any different, but people wouldn’t have felt wounded and treated like chattel if there had been both sufficient time and a clear deadline, allowing people to say their goodbyes and/or make arrangements to continue elsewhere.
…those boards did not deliver sufficient value to the business to warrant their continuation. This was not sustainable.
I wonder how much actual research, as opposed to assumptions, went into measuring the value of those boards to the business. At a minimum I would think that an analysis of how many paying customers followed them and participated.
As to the unsustainable cost, I doubt that was all that much for the old board system since it was so rudimentary. However I can understand how the new board system, which supports things like pictures (at least I think I’ve heard that) could become far more expensive when non-paying participants start posting their vacation pictures, pet pictures, and so forth.
In any case all this is meaningless now. I’m going to give it a good try and see how it goes.
AJ, you misunderstand me. It’s a community-driven business. The commitment to community has to come in the context of running a business. The TMF Community is not a charity. It has to be managed in such a way as to be sustainable over the long haul. The decisions TMF has made are intended to position the TMF Community for the future. There has to be some compromise between having an unlimited open community and no public community at all. I know it’s not what anyone wanted, but it is what TMF felt was necessary, and it wasn’t a decision made lightly.
I don’t know what the future will have for new TMF Community, but I hope that once the migration is complete, there will be opportunities for the public community to grow again. I am just looking at this as an adventure and not a tragedy. There’s enough tragedy in the world already.
Fuskie
Who is sorry you think TMF is just like every other investment company because he still knows of no other company like TMF…
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JeanDavid, I don’t remember ever being paid to go to Alexandria, but FoolFest™ is still around. It took a hiatus during the pandemic but was back virtually just a few weeks ago, with a small Covid-safe number of MF One members attending.
Fuskie
Who notes the public community boards have been free to Fools for two decades but the money still has to come from somewhere…
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RHinCT, the old board system, which was developed and hosted in-house, carried a lot of maintenance costs, both in technical and human resources to keep it operating 24x7, and there were times when it didn’t.
I’m not sure where it is hosted (I’m guessing it is cloud-based), but the new community platform is licensed, with TMF having significant control over its customization. But they don’t have to spend countless hours untangling decades of spaghetti code to keep it online.
Fuskie
Who also notes the costs of trying implement all the discussion board features requested over the years that are available in the new platform would have been far greater than the value delivered…
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It’s a community-driven business. The commitment to community has to come in the context of running a business.
I agree completely with the second statement; the business has to come first.
What I can not agree with is that it is a community-driven business. My understanding is that only a very small percentage of the paying customers - the reason for the business - have any contact at all with the community on the boards. The boards, and the community that has thrived there in varying degrees, has never been more than aspect of the business, not the driver. The newsletters/services, and what they provide, are the drivers.
I haven’t been a Fool as long as many, August 2009 is when I really started. My perception is that TMF and the community were closer together then. My impression is that something of a void has developed between them today. That doesn’t make it bad, but it is different. Despite all the many TMF and CMF-prefixed participants providing a face on the boards, it feels to me like it all amounts to a mask to keep the mob from bothering the real TMF authority. I can accept that, but I won’t pretend it is anything other than what it is.
Been here since the 90s. All I will say is … that, in my experience (I’m 71), growing concerns seem to ALL reach the point where they invite a new crop of MBAs into the decision making realm and things end up circling downward for anyone who isn’t in the lowest common demographic. It’s probably been like this since Socrates. Sad the Fool has reached this point. Many thanks to all the really smart people who continue to post. As always I will take what I like and leave the rest. Greed sucks.
you misunderstand me. It’s a community-driven business.
No. I completely understood what you were saying. But no matter how many times you say it still doesn’t make it true, without any proof. You have provided no proof to back up your assertion that the community is driving the business. Without that proof, it’s just another business, not a community-driven business.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, like Facebook, an agency stopped by Fool Legal Dept. and suggested they clean up the site to updated specs…, or else.
Of course, i can neither confirm nor deny… but the Fool will probably delete this post if true or not.
An infestation of MBAs might be the cause, but my assumption is that TMF outgrew it’s old ways of operating. A small time operation that grows into a big time operation simply can not keep doing things the same way forever. There are small retailers where I get great personalized service. I get great service at Costco too, but it can’t be personalized.
TMF is a community-driven business, not a public service.
For sure. We the community appreciate being entertained by the public service advertisements and we especially appreciate not having to take a funds paid.
RHinCT, the old board system, which was developed and hosted in-house, carried a lot of maintenance costs, both in technical and human resources to keep it operating 24x7, and there were times when it didn’t.
I’m not sure where it is hosted (I’m guessing it is cloud-based), but the new community platform is licensed, with TMF having significant control over its customization. But they don’t have to spend countless hours untangling decades of spaghetti code to keep it online.
My career was in IT, and I can well appreciate the sort of problems that such a system written in house could have, and how more would accumulate over the decades. I hope nothing I said implied that it was simple. I do wonder if the pain and suffering was reduced much by closing all the boards that were closed. Maintenance is usually at the system level, much higher up than individual boards.
So are the IT staff going to have a bonfire to (if only symbolically) burn the old source code? Maybe toss on a piece or two of hardware that caused nothing but nightmares?
