On Understanding

Investment Analysis Clubs Saul’s Investing Discussions
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Hey guys, this is an enormously popular board, and trying to keep order is an overwhelming job for me and my assistants. Sure, sometimes we err and speak up on borderline cases like the recent one, but that’s life. We do try to concentrate our attention on the more flagrant cases. Last week we had to delete four posts, and one guy got himself barred not just from posting on our board, but barred forever from all Motley Fool boards.

I’m sure we make mistakes, but the reason you have seen more posts recently pointing out deviations from board rules is that we have so many more total posters, and so many more new posters who don’t yet realize that our board is for discussing individual growth stocks. We are trying to keep this board from being destroyed, which would hurt all of us greatly, even the complainers. I think it would break the hearts of most posters on the board, as well as being bad for our portfolios.

As far as the benefits of keeping the board on topic, the NPI board pretty much allows all topics. You’d expect a lot more posts there than here, and there used to be a lot more. When I took a look in mid-August or so, we had had 900 posts in the previous thirty days and they had had about 45 posts (with a quarter of them not even about investing). That’s 45 compared to 900. So much for the benefits of a board that is open to all topics.

I read things here recently like:

The board is getting tiresome with the constant public berations and beatdowns associated with perceived deviances from board rules…

Well, if you don’t like it here I’m sure you can find other places to post. No one is forcing you to stay if you object to the Rules of the Board, but the Rules of the Board will STAY.

Best wishes, and please try to be understanding, instead of complaining.

Saul

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Saul, have you considered changing the name of the board? Something such as “Saul’s High Growth Stock discussion.” I know it won’t totally solve the problem but it could help. Is there a way to make new board members pass a quiz of what is allowed on the board before being granted access? Or if a member has a certain number of violations within a certain timeframe they get suspended from the board. It’s a great board and I’m trying to think outside the box. I did take your recommendation on Bert’s Ticker subscription and I do like it. Thanks for all your knowledge, expertise and patience. Have a great day!

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Best wishes, and please try to be understanding, instead of complaining.

I agree with your rules and I would follow them even if I didn’t because I think it’s your prerogative to set the rules for your board. The rules are NOT the problem, it’s some of your enforcers who let power go to their head.

Well, if you don’t like it here I’m sure you can find other places to post. No one is forcing you to stay if you object to the Rules of the Board, but the Rules of the Board will STAY.

Let’s face it, we are all guests in your house and house rules apply. I accept that and find it absolutely proper. My problem is the attitude of some of your enforcers and I use the word advisedly. They should behave like the assistants you appointed, not like some SWAT team.

Denny Schlesinger

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I see a certain people feeling as if they have been “scolded”, “belittled”, or whatnot after a board assistant has made the decision to intervene in an off topic post.

It’s my humble opinion that it’s all generally in the head of the person on the receiving end.

The board assistants in my opinion have been very professional, even though they are not paid. The only rudeness and in incivility I see comes from people who seem to take issue with the board assistants. It’s amazing that they have good enough hearts to put up with the abuse and continue to volunteer their time.

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I’m loathe to add to a post where not required, but I will chime in just this once:

  1. I highly suggest the mods (or a volunteer) start considering a new technological home for Saul’s board. The current tech is old, inefficient and requires a lot of mod effort to keep on track. I’m sure all existing posts could be migrated. There are several reasons I recommend this:

  • With the great content of this board, it is likely the number of followers and contributors will increase. Therefore more off-topic posts, more mod intervention and likely mods tiring of being the bad guys.

  • The history of knowledge here is incredibly difficult to search, leading to many posts re-hashing discussions. Also a lot of great posts are hard to find.

  • The extra volume of posts required to police the theme of the board.

  • The tension possibly will get worse.

  • If the interest is there by Saul, I’m happy to look for an alternate home. Someone else would have to help with post migration though.

  1. Please can the mods follow the rules too! I have seen numerous ‘thought bubbles’ from mods (including new topics - even marked OT) about ‘I’m still up 50% this year, even after today’s 7% drop’ or how the strategy is still kicking goals even after the day/week/month we’ve had. Not necessary! We can hear those thoughts in the monthly overview.

  2. Let’s not forget it’s a brilliant board with great analysis and thoughts. I think the growth challenges around keeping the board relevant and on-point, provide a great opportunity to make this place even better. For me, I get excited at the thought of being able to search a stock ticker and see all posts where it is mentioned.

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Duncs,

1) I highly suggest the mods (or a volunteer) start considering a new technological home for Saul’s board. The current tech is old, inefficient and requires a lot of mod effort to keep on track. I’m sure all existing posts could be migrated. There are several reasons I recommend this:

I know that you are trying to be helpful but your posts shows that you really have no understanding of this board and it’s connection to the Fool. I suggest you become a member of Stock Adviser and Rule Breakers so that you can understand why so many of us post on this board and discuss stocks. It has nothing to do with the technology of the boards but the true excitement of discussing wonderful companies and finding great investments with a band of brothers. I do not think you want to disband that.

Andy

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Perhaps simplify the “off-topic” reprimand posts to a very simple:
This thread is “off-topic” according to the rules of the board. Please no additional responses.

Please review:
“link” the rules.

Any questions regarding this should be addressed off-board by email or private message.

Then a simple:
Thank you.

Short, simple, nothing personal.

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As for moving the board elsewhere, maybe we could nudge the Fool into upgrading their forum software. It’s been a long time since the last upgrade, if there ever was one.

There might even be a gain, if the upgrader happens to be a good and growing company.

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1) I highly suggest the mods (or a volunteer) start considering a new technological home for Saul’s board. The current tech is old, inefficient and requires a lot of mod effort to keep on track. I’m sure all existing posts could be migrated. There are several reasons I recommend this:

The contents are copyright The Motley Fool.

Denny Schlesinger

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A few thoughts on your post…

Re: “I’m sure we make mistakes, but the reason you have seen more posts recently pointing out deviations from board rules is that we have so many more total posters, and so many more new posters who don’t yet realize that our board is for discussing individual growth stocks. We are trying to keep this board from being destroyed, which would hurt all of us greatly, even the complainers. I think it would break the hearts of most posters on the board, as well as being bad for our portfolios.”

Your reputation seems to be attracting more and more new investors and it’s incredibly hard for most people to not want to share their ideas. I hate to say this but perhaps there should be a price to follow your board. It would be highly unusual for the Motley Fool to create a paid service for a single board, yet I imagine that many of us here would gladly pay a few hundred to be members of a walled community rather than watch chaos win.

Re: “As far as the benefits of keeping the board on topic, the NPI board pretty much allows all topics. You’d expect a lot more posts there than here, and there used to be a lot more. When I took a look in mid-August or so, we had had 900 posts in the previous thirty days and they had had about 45 posts (with a quarter of them not even about investing). That’s 45 compared to 900. So much for the benefits of a board that is open to all topics.”

I’ve taken to not posting on your board because many of my ideas are less thought out than the top traders that frequently contribute here. With that said, I never look at the NPI board. If you look at some of the Motley Fool’s top services you’ll find that each has a board setup for new stock ideas. In the case of Stock Advisors it is “Stocks That Interest You” in the case of Rule Breaks it is “New Stock Ideas”. Any time I have a new stock idea I am more likely to head to one of those than the NPI board. It just doesn’t feel like a board that’s tightly integrated into this community.

IMHO, there are two ways to make a board for the masses to freely post new ideas:

  1. Create a board called “Saul’s place for New Stock Ideas”. The beauty of this idea is that new investors who come looking for Saul will find a place endorsed by you for chit chat about new stock ideas and they may chat there without worries of being overly moderated.

  2. Add a “New Stock Ideas” link to the top of your Announcements list and make that link point to the NPI board. Then have the creators of the NPI board update whatever they need to to cause the Google search engine to find the NPI board as one of the top results when people type “Saul” and “Motley Fool” into the Google search engine.

You may already know that I prefer a combination of both 1 & 2… I believe that new investors looking for you and your great community only find one board and they really need to find 2 that are endorsed by you. The name of the board is a big piece of that. If the Motley Fool could rename the NPI board to one that includes your name… I suppose that would be option 3.

On a related note, I know that the weekly Rules of the Board post contains a series of do’s and don’t that are meant to guide us all… Perhaps the first line of that post should say something like:

All new stock ideas should be vented and flushed out on the NPI board before being discussed here.
The NPI board may be found at:
https://discussion.fool.com/new-paradigm-investing-114933.aspx?m…

Thanks for taking any of my ideas into consideration!

Best regards,

Rob

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ENOUGH GUYS. CMON THIS IS RIDICULOUS.

STOP BICKERING.
STOP RESPONDING.
CONTROL YOURSELVES

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So if I’m a newbie losing money on Zscaler right now I can’t complain?

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Tzbbear has been contacted off board and I think he now has a better understanding of Saul’s board. He has been encouraged to direct his questions to the ZS premium board.

Let’s please stop responding to him here.

If you would like to advise him, please do so privately by email or head to the ZS premium board.

Thanks everyone!

Lennie
Assistant board manager

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