Yes—the user interface is anti-intuitive and limited in important ways. Far too many valuable boards are not permitted to exist. And far too many valuable participants have left—for these very reasons.
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Valuable to whom? Did they bring in any profit to the motley fool?
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They did bring profit. Many paying TMF participants have left because the community was destroyed and/or the software platform sucks. In addition, the vibrant and supportive community to which the non-investment boards were critical held enormous—sometimes lifesaving—value.
If you haven’t been among those who received support, information, friendship, and joy from those boards—then you won’t appreciate anything I’ve said. So…nothing more to add.
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I’ve been here, and greatly enjoyed it, far longer than 99+% of the participants. So long that the fool didn’t even have a record of my actual join date. On the old fool site, my join date was listed as “some time before 1997”!
My point, of course, was that the management of the motley fool obviously felt that the free boards, especially the social ones, weren’t profitable enough, so they killed them.
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(And for all others in addition to sheila…) There’s Shrewdom, that Manlobbi has set up that recreates the original boards’ look and feel. All we need is the community(s) to regenerate.
https://www.shrewdm.com/MB
Log in or create a (free) account under the Login link at the top right.
Eric Hines
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I don’t see that as obvious or even likely. For that rationale to make any sense, there would need to be an obvious revenue generator associated with the new implementation, which there isn’t. And, there were certainly plenty of members on the free boards who had paid many thousands of dollars to the Fool for premium services over the years.
My guess (and it is just a guess - I don’t presume to know what they think) is they felt they were adding value with new features and a modernized interface that works better on mobile devices. They knew some number of users wouldn’t like it, but they are playing a longer game by hoping to attract more than enough new users to replace those who move on.
Rob
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I would strongly agree with that assumption.
TMF is not in the technology business - thay are in the finance business. Like most businesses, they need to focus on their core strengths to be successful. TMF like many other organizations today, are simplifying their technology platforms to make use of "off the shelf’ software solutions that scale using cloud infrastructure. It was most likely a strategic “no brainer” for them - assuming that their user community would be appreciative / accepting of the new platform implementation.
Obviously, that’s where the plan went wrong. The implementation of the new platform didn’t go so well in terms of preparation, configuration options / decisions, communication to their community, getting feedback from their community, etc.
Having been in IT my entire career, I can say that the best measurement of success in a new system implementation is “user adoption”. Clearly, TMF missed the mark on that one.
'38Packard
→ not complaining though, I appreciate TMF providing this platform to us for FREE
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So why do you think they killed the social boards?
I think the company just outgrew that aspect of their history. They took the board revamp as an opportunity to clean house on stuff they weren’t interested in offering any longer. It probably saved them a bit of labor to not have to port so much legacy data, too, so there may have been a financial angle, but I think it was more about cost savings than revenue generation.
Again, just a guess.
Rob
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Does anyone else besides me, think this interface does NOT work all that well on mobile phones?
The code, etc might be mobile device friendly… But the actual day to day use by me, the user, on my cell phone, is, IMNSHO … foolish. Lower case f.
I give it an f for “works better on mobile phone”.
NOTE - I’m on an android, Pixel 7 Pro, new as of December 2022. I don’t know how TMF interface works on tablets or apple products. My 2 year old Samsung S10 sucked on the new tmf interface, too.
The few times I’ve accessed TMF via my 5 year old Dell laptop … It’s “ok” via that device.
I also give it an f for “signal to noise” ratio.
ralph
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I use the new platform primarily on a Mac with dual monitors with Safari as the browser. Some times I take the Mac over to the other side of the house where I’m just on the laptop monitor and both look OK in terms of being device agnostic.
I have tried the new platform on my iPhone and it does not seem that bad, but I’m not a fan of doing TMF on my phone - maybe that comes from being an Old Fool - who likes to read the Fool on a desktop because that’s where it all started before mobile devices! 
'38Packard
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If people spent as much effort learning the new interface as they do griping about it, they’d be expert at it by now… 
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The new interface is extremely easy, you’ll understand it in a few minutes.
In fact, I find it very good.
Unfortunately the old posts have disappeared and apparently many people refuse to accept the changes.
However Manlobbi has created a new/old website, that makes those who disagree with the changes made by the MF happy (including Jim).
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It was jarring at first, but once I got my Categories and Tags set up, I find it about the same to use as the old site, plus there are some new (or better implemented) features I like. I do wish people had taken more time to get used to it, as now the community has bifurcated, which I don’t think is good for anyone.
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Most unfortunate.
DB2
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The fact the TMF just disposed of the old content buries its reputation for me for good.
Now, I am still grateful for them hosting the boards for free for 20+ years, but what a show of disrespect towards the communities they did create.
People posting about parenting or taking care of sick parents, basically putting their life story on the boards, kind of like an online diary. Gone!
People defending parabolic stock moves during the .com bublble - would make for great case studies - gone!
If it wasn’t for datahelper (Search: MI Board Search - Criteria) (thank you!), the rich history of this board - gone!
The only board that had it’s history imported is Saul’s, but I just tried to look back in it a few years ago, doing a search for a ticker that was popular at the time (SKX). It is easy to find old threads, but you can’t see what the board looked like 5 years ago and scroll through a piece of history post by post - that was the genius of the old board software*.
*EDIT: You sort of can, by searching for a word that should be in every thread, like “stock”, in advanced search, selecting threads before/after a certain date, sorted by time posted. Only for this one board, though.
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Just make it a paid board, from whence it came, and be done with the freebies.
Shrewdom is the new home for many of us refugees.
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Yeah…no. It’s been like 2 weeks since I last visited here, and there are only a dozen posts in the 4 boards I follow.
It’s like the old country song, “If your phone don’t ring you’ll know it’s me.” Ain’t nobody here, so TMF now knows it’s us.
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