This is the place to discuss Marben's Investment Links (http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/view/29865/marbens-investment-links): whether you think it's a good or a bad idea, how it could be improved, rule changes etc. Please keep the metadiscussion here, rather than in MIL itself.
Fire away!
I am a full-time private investor... with a little trading on the side (generally small-scale arbitrage in specialist niches). Previously, I spent 24 years in the IT industry, 13 of those running my own IT services firm. I invested as a "hobby" for 20 years before turning it into a full-time occupation in 2004. I really enjoy the "research" side of investing, finding out about varied businesses and industries and learning what makes them tick. Since going "full-time" I have learnt an awful lot from some very erudite investors & professionals who are kind enough to share their expertise in electronc forums such as this. I can now count a number of them as my friends, having had the opportunity to meet them in the real world, as well as this virtual one! I try to pay back the debt I owe by sharing what I've learnt and I always value constructive criticism to correct my errors and misapprehensions! I am a Director of ShareSoc, the UK organisation for individual shareholders. See below for details. more »
In reply to doverbeach (post #6)
But I dont see how TIB helps.
I think I do.
Without pretending that I'm going to rush out and stock up on Avingtrans, having followed the example I can see that TIB may be the "missing link" that helps point me towards interesting posts I may otherwise never read.
SW10
In reply to SW10Chap (post #4)
What really appeals to me is that you may have solved "missing piece" on S'pedia - specifically that unless you keep tabs on every forum you're not going to find things of interest beyond your normal areas of interest.
But this demands that people effectively double post - once in the right place and once on Marben's Hub. If they on post on MH their posts are going to sink without trace after a day or so. If they forget to post on MH and everyone is relying on it as their source for what's new, then theri post may never get read at all. It may be ok for the regulars but newbies are going to get this wrong frequently. There has to be a better way forward than that!
We know the developers are working on this at the moment. Personally I think some form of Tags is the way to go. I think we should wait and see what turns up. At the moment there is so little traffic that the Active Forums board is very usable.
db
In reply to doverbeach (post #8)
Hi db
this demands that people effectively double post...may be ok for the regulars but newbies are going to get this wrong...There has to be a better way forward than that!
I take your point. I suppose the way one is exposed to interesting things elsewhere on TMF is through the Best-of-Boards page.
I'm not sure why tags would help me - my tag cloud would not be likely to include (say) Biotechs so I'd still never see outstanding posts in that arena.
SW10
....mmmm....not sure I welcome another opportunity for the sort of introspection that seems to have become common elsewhere ;-)
I like the "Marben's Hub" title - I see it very much as an idea generator....no need for it to be searchable - you just do a quick trawl of the new posts and see if anything there takes your fancy. Unless it is really a knee-jerk reaction post (such as I might have written this morning about Petrel...."its going down" or whatever), then I'd suggest a link to a more detailed discussion, thread or news item is ALWAYS provided.
I don't think an executive summary is always necessary. An alert such as "Bad news for oil prices and E&Ps - US stocks up by 20mn bbls" should be fine if accompanied by a link to evidence the claim. So should a post that says something like "Carpetwrong in deep trouble as sales crater" if a link is provided to prove it.
Maybe a slight generalisation to "Marben's Moneymaking Hub" [or "The Money-making Hub", if the site owners wanted to sponsor it] would also be of interest? I've been having a longshot bet on Wimbledon today which I think has a fair chance of making some serious money - but at present there is nowhere to put it (and it isn't worthy of a thread, discussion or anything more than a one-line alert in any event). Of course if the site owners want to tightly define valid topics to exclusively be about conventional investment then it won't have a place anyway - but I might easily argue that shares, bonds and the occasional gamble are all somewhere on the same money-making, risk-taking continuum! The investment game is all about finding situations where risk has been mispriced by a market - and I don't think one should be too constrained in looking for such opportunities.
I'd also suggest that the default display for that page should be "show all" (irrespective of a user's normal display preference). If the posts are really only 3-5 lines long then having (say) 10 separate ideas displayed at once shouldn't be a problem, especially if posting rates are fairly high.
ee
In reply to SW10Chap (post #9)
I take your point. I suppose the way one is exposed to interesting things elsewhere on TMF is through the Best-of-Boards page.
I'm not sure why tags would help me - my tag cloud would not be likely to include (say) Biotechs so I'd still never see outstanding posts in that arena.
So Stockopedia needs a BoB - it cant be that hard to organise, but I don't know if it is on the developers current list.
db
In reply to doverbeach (post #11)
So Stockopedia needs a BoB
No I don't think it does, really. What it needs is a cross between (sorry to those who are unfamiliar with the terms) a Quickies board, a Pub, the FT Alphaville daily discussion and a BoB......in other words somewhere that is just packed full of investment ideas of all sorts (except TA :-)) - and which points readers off to somewhere where they can find out more (hence "hub" is good analogy, with the spokes leading off in all directions!). The idea is (AFAICS) a quick skim, one stop shop - with the "meat" behind the ideas found in more conventionally-structured boards? If you want to use a modern analogy based on something I've yet to get to grips with, it would be Stockopedia's own internal Twitter......
....which brings up the question of names again.........Tw*topedia has a certain ring to it ;-)
ee
Definitely Murray for Wimbledon... odds look good.
I'm very interested in the tags idea... we'll be allowing people to subscribe to a site feed based on their preferences... being mindful of the keep it simple principle though!
i.e. if you state that you want all information on specific stocks - ABC, XYZ, MNO, specific contributors - i.e. joeinvestor, specific tags - i.e. biometrics, or specific content types - new threads, new editorial stories, RNS etc etc - we could provide a single feed to support it.... or even multiple feeds.
We'd also allow the setting of 'ranking' preferences to cut out the noise... i.e. only show posts that have more than x recs...
It would be kind of a much more dedicated development of the network/activity feeds - which are currently experimental... if we were to get it right, and simple enough to use it could be a very valuable aggregator...
... especially in terms of 'tags' which may have the most legs....
PS - we'll be doing a release soon with the new thumbs (which look very handsome!) and rateable headers, and hopefully some new navigation... should only be a few days.
prom
In reply to promethean (post #14)
we'll be allowing people to subscribe to a site feed based on their preferences
like an RSS feed? (eek would be my first reaction)
or do you just mean a tailored home page as a view into the site?
db
More a tailored home page, but we could spin off an RSS or mobile feed from the same idea.
In reply to loglorry (post #13)
Come on then what's the Wimbledon bet all about then? I fancy a flutter!
Not saying yet - may want to put more on when I see the draw. Suffice to say that it isn't on Murray (too short really - though he has a good chance)...and that it might be dead before the tournament starts....
Ask me at the weekend.
ee
I think the idea of the Blog is a very good one. If detailed discussion of an idea is to take place on a separate thread elsewhere on the site that might be missed if it's on a less-followed company, the Blog is a place to highlight ideas detailed elsewhere, write a sort of executive summary of the idea, and hopefully attract people over there to join in that discussion. Of course all new ideas will need a link to that separate discussion.
It may be that better ways of navigating around the site appear in due course, in which case they would make the Blog obsolete, but until then the Blog seems a good ongoing hub summary of interesting discussions elsewhere on the site that might be missed. Yes, it would be necessary to post twice, once the main idea in full on a company specific page and secondly a summary on the Blog to draw attention to it, but it seems a decent stab at bringing new ideas on less-followed companies to people's attention. If something better appears, great.
In reply to doverbeach (post #8)
But this demands that people effectively double post - once in the right place and once on Marben's Hub
Let me just elaborate on this point. The vast majority of posts don't need to be "double posted". However, if there's a money-making (or loss avoiding!) topic, which you really want to draw to people's attention, then that's where TIB comes into it's own. If you've put a lot effort into a post or creating a new thread, then again, TIB can help make sure people are aware of it.
A good search facility is a really important feature for a site like this - unfortunately, I haven't yet come across a BB that does searching really well. It's clearly pretty difficult to do.
Personally, I have a problem with tags, in that I'm an eclectic investor and don't know, in advance, what I might be interested in. So I'd just like any interesting ideas brought to my attention (but not every single post in an oning discussion or thread!).
I don't mind fun money-making ideas like the sports bets* - but the pros & cons should be spelt out in a "sports bets" thread and a link posted. TIB will lose it's purpose IMO if we get into a lot of rambling. I intend to be pretty strict about enforcing the rule that a post must contain a link (rule 5), so that discussion of the idea continues somewhere other than on TIB and thus, hopefully avoiding the clutter that is (IMV) the bane of other sites.
db is right that the "active discussions" page is fine for following discussions at the moment, as the traffic is low. That's what I use, in the absence of a better facility to see what's new on threads I'm interested in. However, if I see an active discussion about a company (X) that I know little about, I probably won't bother to look at it. OTOH, if someone highlighted - "hey, there's a really good post about X here" or "there's a brand new wiki for X" [together with a reason why I should be interested in X], then I'd be more inclined to take a look.
I like the "Hub" name - and will include it in the header text - but AFAIK there's no facility to change the title of a thread currently.
It also strikes me as problematic if, literally, hundreds of threads are created for a popular stock like Soco - which is what will happen if a new thread is started for every single minor discussion topic. That could really make it hard to find things and keep track of where new posts are (though there could be solutions to those problems).
Cheers,
Mark
*Though I'd be more inclined to lay (bets on) Murray than back him, at the sort of odds I've seen offered :0)
In reply to marben100 (post #19)
the pros & cons should be spelt out in a "sports bets" thread and a link posted. TIB will lose it's purpose IMO if we get into a lot of rambling. I intend to be pretty strict about enforcing the rule that a post must contain a link (rule 5), so that discussion of the idea continues somewhere other than on TIB and thus, hopefully avoiding the clutter that is (IMV) the bane of other sites.
The thought was for a very occasional one-liner - nothing more. In fact you might consider vetoing ANY discussion of ideas on the Hub itself - any discussion should take place on the linked board/post.
It also strikes me as problematic if, literally, hundreds of threads are created for a popular stock like Soco - which is what will happen if a new thread is started for every single minor discussion topic. That could really make it hard to find things and keep track of where new posts are (though there could be solutions to those problems).
On that specific issue I'd say that there would perhaps be 5-6 core "asset" threads that have some reasonably longevity, coupled with occasional short-term threads (relating to results, AGMs etc) and supplemented by one or two "catch-all" threads for miscellaneous bits and pieces....so no more than 8-10 threads that would be "active" in any sense of the word - and probably no more than a couple that would make any sense to post on (or search in) for a given topic. I certainly DON'T envision hundreds - or even dozens.
A decent search function will of course help in due course.
ee
It also strikes me as problematic if, literally, hundreds of threads are created for a popular stock like Soco - which is what will happen if a new thread is started for every single minor discussion topic. That could really make it hard to find things and keep track of where new posts are (though there could be solutions to those problems).
No, that shouldn't be a problem, no more than lots of threads on the Soco board is a problem for TMF. My idea is that you should be able to have EITHER Soco OR specified individual threads on your 'favourite' page - obviously going for Soco will get you any new threads on Soco. So clicking on Soco takes you down to the next level of threads on Soco, each showing New ones for you to click on again ( just like going from the favourites board to the Soco board shows you a list of new posts). Similarly clicking on E&P Sector takes you down to the E&P EPICs from where you can click on down to the threads - one more level of clicks but allowing a sector or epic facility that isn't there on TMF hence avoiding all the angst about whether TMF should start a new board or not for a moderately interesting (or temporarily interesting) stock.
Anyway as the 'next release' is coming up soon, we will be able to see!
I take on board SirL & ee's comments, Perhaps Marben's Hub could turn into a great twitter like approach to highlighting useful posts. I am still sceptical that newbies would "use it correctly" but in the end there is little downside to suck it and see as a way of finding out :)
db
I think you should go ahead and get Marben's Hub publicised - perhaps the Admins can do something on the S'pedia blog? And if works, then maybe a pointer in the Getting Started pages?
As SirL and db suggest, it'll either blossom or wither away on its own - and even glorious failure may give us some better ideas...
SW10
I agree the purpose of the hub should be just as a signpost (without too many cluttering posts) so much/any detailed discussion of the idea on the hub thread should be banned. If there are (on a good day, picks a figure out of the air) just three good significant new ideas, then the hub board should have just three posts on it, no more, no clutter, just highlighting and linking to the other thread where the actual discussion is. Anything other than executive summaries of ideas with links might be banned to keep it clean. As for whether newbies would use it correctly, well the top post and some gentle reminders would be important.
On the subject of the Soco threads, surely the most important one is the valuation/sentiment/where the SP is going one? Or is focussing on that where I've been going wrong all these years?
In reply to sirlurkalot (post #23)
On the subject of the Soco threads, surely the most important one is the valuation/sentiment/where the SP is going one? Or is focussing on that where I've been going wrong all these years?
Excellent idea. Please start the thread and I'll be delighted to contribute :-)
For info, I have spoken to S'pedia admins and will hold off publicising TIB & S'pedia itself until they have made some improvements to the S'pedia landing page over the weekend. I will "get the word out" next week. In the meantime, I'd encourage those that want to, to make use of TIB where appropriate.
OK - improvements in & after a minor hiccough, I like 'em! TIB is now renamed Marben's Investment Links (MIL). Thread headers should be properly updated now. please let me know if I've missed anything.
Cheers,
Mark
