A Near Perfect Investment Forum?

[dealraker]

I'm not sure I remember this correctly and I'm not looking it up, but I think it was the social scientist Soloman Asch who did the experiment where he put 1776 jelly beans in a jar and had his classroom (not sure it was precisely a "classroom") or his participants guess the total (jelly beans in the jar).  He was pretty much surprised at the accuracy of the guessers.

 

Then he had the same setting but added shouting guessers who were way off on one side or the other in their numbers.  And, not surprisingly, the classroom or paticipants as a whole presented far less accurate guesses, aligning more with the shouters.

 

In any event, I've tried to find satisfactory (to me) interaction as to investing in online forums now for over 25 years.  What I've decided is that most forums for whatever reason end up incorporating what tends to be the obsession of the "like" tab and inevitably these forums cycle in and about one dominant poster who tends to lead the posting/shouting.  The "like" tab lights up, the most liked posts get highlighted as the best.  And...this is the part that is also absolutely correct in every case I've followed...the leading shouter leads the herd to places that are not condusive to investment success.  That's as far as I'll go with what doesn't work as to forums except to say I've seen thousands of likes of posts that lost 70% of value within days, and it is simply not uncommon that posters would have all or nearly all their money in these failures.

 

Parsad's board?  The abolutely good to delightful: No dominant posters; generally polite disagreement; hugely helpful/additive choices/decisions to investment returns.  But mostly and most importantly, no dominant poster lighting up the "like" tab leading followers down a rabbit hole of financial harm.

 

And THAT people is unique to this board.  Disagreement and diversity as to thought?  Best thing since sliced bread.  Keep it up.

 

Charlie

 

 

[james22]

*Like*

[brobro777]

This forum is okay but it lacks the YOLO 0DTE SPY options Loss Porn that Reddit has. 

 

No place is perfect, I guess

[Luke]

7 hours ago, brobro777 said:

This forum is okay but it lacks the YOLO 0DTE SPY options Loss Porn that Reddit has. 

 

No place is perfect, I guess

Agree with dealraker, @Parsad please keep up this amazing board. 

 

How are your Nvidia calls going @brobro777?

[brobro777]

4 hours ago, Luca said:

Agree with dealraker, @Parsad please keep up this amazing board. 

 

How are your Nvidia calls going @brobro777?

 

Haha I'm losing on the NVDA calls! ouch!

 

 

[Stuart D]

Agreed, this board is excellent.

[Dave86ch]

I totally agree. This forum is a precious resource for thoughtful debate, aside from political topics.

 

Discord is useless for investment discussions but perfect for software development support.

 

Reddit seems to be full of bots that drive a particular narrative.

 

The old-fashioned forum format is still the best. This one, in particular, has a healthy ethos.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Dave86ch

[rkbabang]

6 hours ago, Dave86ch said:

 

 

The old-fashioned forum format is still the best. This one, in particular, has a healthy ethos.

 

 

I agree.  Back 15-20+ years ago I was a member of probably a dozen of these forums on a bunch of different topics, and a lurker on a bunch of others. Pretty much anything you were interested in there were forums to find info and discuss those topics.   This is the last one I'm still a member of.  I don't know why they all went away.   twitter/X, facebook, reddit, etc, are all extremely poor substitutes to the traditional forum format for finding valuable information on any topic.  YouTube is valuable, but I prefer reading to watching videos.  It takes less time to screen through a lot of text posts than it does to watch a lot of videos.  There is no way to go through hundreds of videos quickly to determine which ones are worth watching.  This forum is truly a great resource.  People have come and go, but the culture has remained constant.

 

[Spekulatius]

It helps a lot when nobody tries to "Sell" anything. Twitter / X has interesting aspects to it, but almost anyone who becomes popular or contacts you directly tries to sell something.

 

Anonymity is preferable because it keep emotions in check (Doesn't hurt at much to call @Spekulatius and idiot than calling me names) and makes it easier to change my mind.

[dealraker]

So years ago two of my friends- married lawyers- said to me, "Charlie, we love watching you are social gatherings."

 

I replied, "What's up with that?"

 

They said, "We predict who you will be obsessed with when you get there."

 

I continued with, "Uhh...and...that's who generally?"

 

Both laughed saying, "It is always the most intelligent person or people there."

 

So as I told my dad early in life, "Dad...someone has to make the C's in the advanced classes...but I know who the smart people are and I ask them the answers."

 

Not much changed!

 

 

[Parsad]

On 9/16/2023 at 6:42 AM, dealraker said:

I'm not sure I remember this correctly and I'm not looking it up, but I think it was the social scientist Soloman Asch who did the experiment where he put 1776 jelly beans in a jar and had his classroom (not sure it was precisely a "classroom") or his participants guess the total (jelly beans in the jar).  He was pretty much surprised at the accuracy of the guessers.

 

Then he had the same setting but added shouting guessers who were way off on one side or the other in their numbers.  And, not surprisingly, the classroom or paticipants as a whole presented far less accurate guesses, aligning more with the shouters.

 

In any event, I've tried to find satisfactory (to me) interaction as to investing in online forums now for over 25 years.  What I've decided is that most forums for whatever reason end up incorporating what tends to be the obsession of the "like" tab and inevitably these forums cycle in and about one dominant poster who tends to lead the posting/shouting.  The "like" tab lights up, the most liked posts get highlighted as the best.  And...this is the part that is also absolutely correct in every case I've followed...the leading shouter leads the herd to places that are not condusive to investment success.  That's as far as I'll go with what doesn't work as to forums except to say I've seen thousands of likes of posts that lost 70% of value within days, and it is simply not uncommon that posters would have all or nearly all their money in these failures.

 

Parsad's board?  The abolutely good to delightful: No dominant posters; generally polite disagreement; hugely helpful/additive choices/decisions to investment returns.  But mostly and most importantly, no dominant poster lighting up the "like" tab leading followers down a rabbit hole of financial harm.

 

And THAT people is unique to this board.  Disagreement and diversity as to thought?  Best thing since sliced bread.  Keep it up.

 

Charlie

 

 

 

That's what I noticed a long time ago as well...so it was never incorporated into the site even though some people wanted to.

 

I've been an A student and I've been a C student...but both times I was still the same person.  Not sure why "likes" would make a difference in someone's opinion or idea on any one subject!

 

Cheers!

[Fly]

This is an excellent board, but I do wonder what it would be like if all posts were purely anonymous similar to the way something like 4chan operates. I like the idea of removing the connection with a specific username which shifts the focus to the content of the message. Many message boards silo into cliques over time and past disagreements throw shade over a future concept that is discussed. Just food for thought.

[John Hjorth]

I can't help to think, that what I and all other non-administrator members' perceptions of CoBF might be by now doesen't really matter as much as what the guy running the place  [joint?] may think of it, most of the time it has not been needed to be a door bouncer, like in some bar, pub or Irish Inn! -But it has happened!

 

I still remember some periods in time, where CoBF was a really unpleasant place to visit, because of the prevalence of bad posting manners among members, combined with primitivity and rudeness to the extremes.

 

Most left by themselves, some got 'help' to do so.

 

To me, the worst period was up to the last presidential election in USA, with trolls in here stirring the pot day in, day out, some even without even just one serious post in the Investment Ideas section of CoBF.

 

Sanjeev [ @Parsad ] must really like us, as a whole! - to keep this thing going!

Edited September 23, 2023 by John Hjorth