Monday Morning Rules of the Board - 1

Monday Morning Rules of The Board

Our board has rules. It’s not like other boards. It is these Rules that keeps this board so valuable to you, and to all of us. If you don’t follow the rules your posts are likely to be deleted, and if necessary you may even get barred from posting on the board. That’s just the way it is. Life is hard sometimes (:grinning:).

We don’t try to beat each other on this board. There are no winners or losers on the board. This is a board where we cooperate, crowd-share information, and help each other to all win together. Every month, there are some people whose year-to-date results are higher than mine. So what? We aren’t competing, we are all winning together.

If you are new to our board, you should read this Monday Morning Rules Of The Board.** And even if you are not new to the board**, rereading it occasionally will be a good reminder.

Assistant Board Managers: I used to need a lot of asst board managers because anyone in the world could drop in and post and the ABMs really helped me keep the board in order. Now between Bear and me we seem to be able to keep things under control, but I really am grateful to all the others who helped in the past.

On Blabbing. For those of you who are new to the board, you just can’t, CAN’T blab about NEW Motley Fool paid board recommendations on our board (or other free boards). The Fool is incredibly kind to run this board for us for free, and by giving away their recommendations you possibly endanger our board’s existence and everything we have built here. Similarly, you shouldn’t post what other paid subscriptions say. It’s unfair to paid subscribers. That’s just common sense.

An Explanation of this Post: We sometimes get many off-topic because new posters are unaware of the Rules of the Board, and some are off-topic because we older board members are careless and post some very off-topic posts ourselves. Loads of off-topic posts will eventually kill the board as serious board members will drift away rather than wade through them. The reason our board has become so popular is that it has been extremely useful to many of us. Let’s not destroy it with a lot of off-topic posts.

This board is for the discussion and analyzing of individual high-growth companies in a cooperative and courteous manner and, secondarily, the philosophy around investing in them. (Usually high-growth currently means 40% revenue growth or more).

That means that there are subjects that are Off-Topic for this board. There’s nothing wrong with them as topics. There are other boards where they are welcome, or even the chief topic of conversation. These include politics which quickly spins out of control and ends up with people who had been amiably working together suddenly viciously arguing. Political posts will be immediately deleted.

In the past we had to make Tesla off-topic too because people had very emotional feelings about it (like politics, and especially if they owned a Tesla car, which all owners just loved), and discussions in the past had regularly turned into angry aggressive arguments. On this new board we’ve managed to have some discussions which remained polite, cooperative, and useful, so I’ve lifted the prohibition on discussions of Tesla on a trial basis.

Investing subjects that are off topic include technical analysis and option trading, including the details of your option positions, or other descriptions of using leverage such as margin. Also discussions of value investing, or turn-around investing, or dividend or income investing, or market-timing, or what some commentator says the market is going to do next week, etc.

Repeated posts of what long lists of stocks have done in the past week or past quarter, or long lists comparing statistics, don’t belong. Basic investing questions like “What does RPO mean?” should simply be googled, rather than filling up the board. Portfolio management is not a subject for this board, and questions about it should be answered off-board if at all. A board which welcomes this subject is the MF Portfolio Management board, which is also a free board.

We have to rule out crypto-currencies and marijuana stocks as most of them are simple speculations and if we open the door to one or two we’ll be deluged with speculative stocks, which is not what our board is about.

One-line posts rarely add anything significant to a stock discussion but fill up the board.

Posts which just rank stocks on some statistic usually don’t add anything either (we are looking for discussion of individual companies, not lists).

As far as month-end summaries, most people on the board find them very useful when the poster doesn’t just post a list of names of stocks, but explains why he holds each of them.

Responding to someone with anger because they disagree with you about a stock is simply not done on our board. And personal attacks by email off-board is also something obnoxious and not part of our board. (If anyone is attacked like this in the future please let us know).

Non-investing subjects like how to cultivate apple orchards, or private humorous conversations, can be fun but don’t belong here. That’s just a few, but you get the idea.

This all may sound intimidating, but think of it this way, if you were on a board set up to discuss French cooking you wouldn’t post about how to make Mexican tacos or Chinese spring rolls, and certainly not about politics, or option trading, either. You’d post about French cooking. Well, our board is about analyzing and discussing individual growth stocks. It’s as simple as that.

I’m not sure what to tell you about appreciations. People who make an especially good post certainly deserve “Likes”, but post after post that just say “Great post!” just fill up the board. I guess if you have something special to say about the post or poster, go ahead. For example: “Thanks Joe, your grasp of this field is amazing and I always learn so much from your posts on these stocks, because you clarify issues about such and such that I can’t figure out myself.” That’s different because you are saying something. I know that I do sometimes break this rule, but I feel that, as host of the board, I should try to recognize and thank people who make especially helpful and valuable posts. I’m sure I miss some.

Ask yourself if your post is adding anything of value to the discussion.

Posts to this board which attack, or detract from, the board’s mission of following this particular way of investing, or which are not respectful or civil may be deleted. There are other boards available if you do not agree with the approach followed here.

If you are new to the board I strongly urge you to read the Knowledgebase, on the right hand panel on our home page. It had to be divided into three parts because of length and it is crammed full of information about the philosophy of the board and about investing. Many say they have read it two or three times.

Let’s all try to keep our board focused on analyzing and discussing growth stocks, and useful to us. We have created something great here and let’s not kill it with a lot of extraneous posts.

Best

Saul

24 Likes

This is a reminder to read these Rules of the Board and follow them. If not your posts may be deleted and you may be dropped as a board contributor, That’s just the way it is.
Saul

13 Likes