Site Orientation for Newbies

12th Jun '09 by Administrator

12 comments 5112 reads

Getting started

Profile: Firstly, to tell the Stockopedia community more about you, You can also manage your privacy and other settings from the profile.
Tour: If you want a short overview of the main features of Stockopedia,

Customisation: To customise your personal pages, use the personal toolbar in the left margin- from there, you can set up your network, a public fund and a private watchlist.
Navigation: To start exploring Stockopedia, try the following:
1. Lookup Box: To find information on a specific stock, sector or investment theme, just type the details in the top left hand "Name or Ticker" box. You will then have the choice of going to the relevant Overview, Article, Forum, News or Financials Page.
2. Browsing: You can browse the content via the Forum, Encyclopedia or Fund Portals, or by viewing our Tagging folksonomy of the UK stock market.
3. Search: For a general site search, you can use our own database search engine.

If you need help with something that isn't covered here or in the Help Pages, please send us a message or ask below.

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About the Author

Administrator

Premium Member

12 comments

emptyend

24th Jun '09

One tip to try : in the bottom left corner of every thread display there is a "filter this thread" button. Click on it.

If you are arriving late to a thread it may help you pick out some of the more relevant bits.

alano20

24th Jun '09

In reply to emptyend (post #1)

Yes, but "filter this thread" produces some odd results at present on long threads where it will be of most use.

Using the Phorm Inc thread as it is fairly long, 188 posts now, you first have to change the date from today to say 10 June, then realise that it will only show you those posts of one more that your minimum vote, i.e. if you enter '2' you get all posts with 3 or more. I thought a minimum of 2 would include those with 2 votes.

And another strange thing on this thread, post #2 always comes out ahead of #1. If your filter produces more than a page, by choosing a minimum of '1' for example, I can find no way of seeing the next page, as you are on the last page already.

promethean

24th Jun '09

valid points alan... yes the pagination needs improved in the filter...

in the meantime, try using the full forum search feature http://www.stockopedia.com/search

marben100

25th Jun '09

OK, take deep breath…

In this post I shall attempt to set out my likes and dislikes about Stockopedia and some suggestions that may help others get the most out of it.

Please bear in mind that the site is still under development and features and fixes are being implemented rapidly.

Likes & Dislikes

What I like:

Excellent post editor. You can easily create good looking posts, laid out in a readable manner - and correct errors you spot once posted.
Sensible user-driven moderation. Whoever creates a thread (I’ll come back to explain threads later) is able to moderate it. This should stop disruptive posters from destroying the utility of a thread and allows the thread owner to define the type of posts allowed on the thread, e.g. fundamental only, or TA + fundamentals. Some threads on other sites become unusable (IMO) as they are filled with posts commenting on minute by minute price movements – thread owners can prevent that happening here.
Company-centric organisation. As S’pedia develops, everything relating to a company can be found in one place: threads, wiki article, charts, news, financials* etc. To access any UK company overview page, just type the company EPIC into the box that appears just below the stockopedia logo towards the top left of any page. Once you’ve reached the company overview page, clicking on the “forums” tab shows you all the discussion threads related to the company.
Wiki articles allow all factual information about a company to be easily accessed (from the company overview) and maintained.
Excellent responsiveness from S’pedia’s creators. Use the “feedback” form available from the “help menu” (towards the top right of any page) to let them know of any problems you find or specific suggestions for improvements. I have found that bugs you report are fixed rapidly (sometimes the same day!) and sensible suggestions are acted upon.

What I don’t like:

Stockopedia looks a bit daunting to the new user because it’s so “feature rich”
It can be hard to find your way around. Improvements are underway that should help with this.
It’s still a beta! I love this site and we really need the wrinkles ironed out so that I can simply “live here” and not have to bother much with other sites any more.

Stockopedia 101

Threads

So, where does one start? First of all it is important to understand that discussion on Stockopedia is organised into threads. Rather than there being a concept of “discussion boards”, each new post is added onto a thread. When you view a thread, it is subdivided into pages, each page containing a certain number of posts. By default, you are automatically taken to the last page of a thread when you view it. All posts on the page can then be seen immediately.

An idiosyncrasy of Stockopedia is that to make a post, once you’ve typed your text, you have to click on the “sentiment” selector underneath the edit area. [Handy hint: you can resize the edit area by dragging its corner – very useful when making long posts]

Anyone can create a thread and will then have moderation rights over it.

How do I find threads I might be interested in? I have already described, above, how you find threads related to a particular company. The “Index” feature (to the left of the uppermost menu on any Stockopedia page) also lets you drill down into “sectors”, “themes” and other areas where threads may be found – have a play with it to find your way around. The “forums” feature of that same menu offers you other ways of accessing threads (more on those later). Finally, I have created a thread: “Marben’s Investment Links” (MIL) http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/view/29865/marbens-investment-links , which can be used to highlight interesting posts and threads. I hope that MIL will prove useful for discovering new investment ideas and, initially, for .finding your way around the site. That’s also where you’ll find pointers to other threads & Wikis I’ve created ;0)

Other Features & Places to visit

The “Network” feature is useful if you want to monitor posts by certain posters. Further details can be found here: http://www.stockopedia.com/help/investors-network

At present Stockopedia’s features for tracking new posts in threads are a bit weak. This is an area that is being worked on and hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for improvements. I find the “Active discussions” option from the main “Forums” menu to be the best means of monitoring new posts until improvements allowing “favourites” to be more clearly defined by users have been implemented.

What else? You might want to have a look at some tips for using the site suggested by other users: http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/view/30195/stockopedia-tips-and-tricks

As you start to use the site, you may have some questions. Have a look at the FAQ thread: http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/view/29545/stockopedia-faqs and if your question isn’t already answered there – post it! It shouldn’t be long before some helpful soul answers. :0)

You can also find out what new features/changes are coming up by looking here: http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/threads/Feature%20Requests and comment on them or make suggestions of your own.

Stockopedia also has various other features that I won’t cover in this post but you might want to explore, e.g. the ability to set up portfolios & watchlists, private messaging between users.

Finally, if you spot any problems with the site, you can use “Feedback” under the main “Help” menu to advise the site operator.

I hope that you find this information helpful and enjoy using the site.

Regards,

Mark

* Beware: I have found the financials (eg market cap.) not to be very reliable, so always check before relying on any figures. I have communicated with the S’pedia team about this and improvement can be expected in due course. ;0)

doverbeach

25th Jun '09

Handy hint: you can resize the edit area by dragging its corner – very useful when making long posts

thanks for that tip, Mark! I was finding the small box restrictive.

Murakami

25th Jun '09

Great post, Marben. Many thanks.

Navigation hint: Not sure if there is clear so just in case, when you type in the ticker into the "Name or Ticker" box in the top left, it should come up with the Stock name automatically. If you click on that, it will go through to the Company Overview page. However, if you don't click on it, next to this Name hyperlink in the "Name or Ticker" box, there are a list of icons on the right - the first one is for the relevant Stock Wiki, the second one is for the relevant Stock Forum page, the third one is the relevant News page, the fourth is Financials and the fifth is Charts.

Is this obvious? I can post a picture if the above isn't clear.

doverbeach

25th Jun '09

Is this obvious?

doesn't seem to work for me :(

marben100

26th Jun '09

Hi db,

Try the following as an example: type "soco" into the box. After a brief pause a "flyout menu" should appear, giving various options relating to Soco (including forums), represented as icons, as described by Murakami, clicking the appropriate icon should then take you to that option (eg Forums/threads for Soco).

Does that work for you? [it works fine for me]

Cheers,

Mark

marben100

26th Jun '09

All new users should be aware of the usage guidance here: http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/view/29526/forum-guidelines

doverbeach

26th Jun '09

Does that work for you? [it works fine for me]

no :(

djpreston

26th Jun '09

Works fine for me db and that's on good old IE. D

SW10Chap

26th Jun '09

Does that work for you? [it works fine for me]

no :(

Hi db - Are you using Firefox or some other customizable browser? And if so, are you using NoScript or some other extension that may be blocking JavaScript?

I've just done a little test and I've found that forbidding stockopedia.co.uk from running scripts, or forbidding googleapis.com from running scripts prevents this feature from working.

SW10

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