A couple posts recently mentioning new traffic. For those that might be unaware, this board has gotten some well-deserved love on Twitter lately. That means we are likely seeing an influx of new readers. On one hand, that’s great news! There are many quality voices on Twitter, and that can only make these discussions better. On the other hand, there will undoubtedly be a surge of posters eager to get in on every discussion they can.
Being active in both places, I thought it might be worthwhile to craft this quick message:
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Welcome aboard! This is a great forum, but it does have some rules. There is a slew of links to the right of this message under the “Announcements” banner. If you’re going to only read one link please make it the “Rules of the Board” (https://discussion.fool.com/monday-morning-rules-of-the-board-34…). It will make everyone’s life easier, including your own if you stick around for a while.
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Make sure you follow up with the “Newbies’ Place to Start” (https://discussion.fool.com/distilling-knowledge-34529397.aspx). It literally condenses years of information into a single post. It contains 41 links with some of the best this board has to offer. If you take the time to read it carefully, I can guarantee you will be a better investor at the end.
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The underlying philosophy here can be found in the three “Saul’s Knowledgebase” links starting with this one: https://discussion.fool.com/knowledgebase-2019-part-1-34381924.a…. These are also prominently linked in the Newbies’ post. These will answer most of your questions, so PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE take the time to read it. Otherwise, don’t be offended when someone calls you out for asking something easily found there. That may seem harsh, but don’t say you weren’t warned. This is a popular place, and nothing would ever get accomplished if the board stopped to bring every newcomer up to speed.
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This board is solely about growth investing. No one here has anything against value investing, indexes, gold, REITS, bitcoin, etc. Don’t take it personally. Those simply aren’t a focus here. There are plenty of other boards to discuss those concepts. Go find one of those instead. Please and thank you.
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Please don’t ask what you should buy or where you should put your money. There are no financial advisors here, only investors looking to share ideas that might make us all better. Do you own work! You will be better off for it in the long run anyway.
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We don’t discuss broad market moves here. Why? Because we don’t really care. We can’t control the market. We can only control the companies we own. This board will quickly become unmanageable if we’re going to group brag or group moan every time a stock or the market has a big swing. Please keep that in mind before you post.
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This isn’t Twitter. No one is racing for followers, and empty one-liners have no real place here. This is a forum for thoughtful, thorough discussion of individual growth stocks. That’s it. While that might sound plain or even boring at times, there is a tremendous amount of knowledge (and potentially profit) to be gained. However, that only happens if everyone can stay true to the underlying spirit of the board.
There are always periods where a lot of new readers find Saul’s (my intro was July 2018). That’s great, and the board always ends up better for it. However, there is also a transition phase where questions are asked that have already been answered a thousand times. To help with that, much of what you need just a click away on the right. Please take advantage of it, because we’d like you to find your contributing niche as quickly as you can. After all, everyone here craves information that can make us better.
Again, welcome aboard.