Re: Our Web Site

[ElSupremo]

Greetings all

Clearly, or at least clearly to me, there are people who are hostile to having open discussions. They insist upon restricted communities and restricted discussions.

This is undeniably true. Most of those sites are restricted with restricted discussions. Whether it says so in the rules or not.

Those other boards do practice deception. They have unstated rules and they have gangs that restrict discussions. I have seen Dory36 restrain such behavior at times. But nowhere else do I see the rules enforced.

Excluding these boards, deception is the name of the game. Those other board are, in fact, restricted communities.

Again I'm in agreement. It's actually much worse on these boards because most of the discussion is negative and involves personal attacks. Some of these boards are worse than others in this respect.

The tragedy among them is The Motley Fool because they enforced their rules once, but later abandoned them.

This is by far the worst of them all. TMF has become a thriving cesspool of deceit, mistrust, misinformation and unchecked personal attacks. First it was the site itself, now their message boards are just trash. No surprise here. Those people have become so brainwashed over there that they are missing the one true target, the darn site they are posting on!

I think that Hocus is right in refusing to remove Arrete's name and Intercst's name.

How can you justify that John. I don't see any right in this at all. If she doesn't want her name used the decent, and right thing to do is not use it.

We three share a desire for an open community such as ES is providing.

Yes we do.

[hocus2004]

If she doesn't want her name used the decent, and right thing to do is not use it.

How far would you take this, ES?

I've talked about preparing a FAQ on the SWR matter. The FAQ obviously has to make reference to the REHP study and the fact that it uses a methodology that is analytically invalid for purposes of determining SWRs.

My guess is that I will probably want to post the FAQ at my web site. If intercst objects to use of his name and reference to his study, do you think that I should delete any reference to him or his study? Am I doing right by the readers of my site if I fail to let them know about the flaws of the REHP study?

[hocus2004]

TMF has become a thriving cesspool of deceit, mistrust, misinformation and unchecked personal attacks. First it was the site itself, now their message boards are just trash.

I think this is a fair description of the REHP board. However, there are several boards at Motley Fool for which I do not think it is a fair description. There is good information at the Berkshire-Hathaway board. There's a High-Dividend Stock board there that I take a look at from time to time that seems OK.

Even at the REHP board, there are a good number of posters who would like to see change. I put up a poll there not too long ago re on-topic posting, and 49 percent of the current board community favored it. That's not a majority, but it's a significant minority. I think that there are many there who are just too afraid to speak up to the goon squad.

If we were able to generate just a little on-topic posting there, I think you might be surprised how quickly things might get rolling in a positive direction again. These things snowball. As the deception became more and more ever-present, things went quickly downhill as every last effective on-topic poster took his or her leave of the place. It can work in reverse in much the same way. You get a few on-topic threads and people begin to feel hopeful again and then all of a sudden the dam breaks.

I don't think that I am a Pollyanna. I am very much aware that that board community faces very serious problems. I am an optimist, though. The topic of early retirement has great pull. That topic can bring in good people if you just get a few threads going that would be of interest to people with an interest in the subject matter of the board.

[hocus2004]

I would be interested in hearing community input on how best to deal with the disruption tactics being practiced in this thread from the Early Retirement Forum.

http://early-retirement.org/cgi-bin/yab ... 1109424693

There's been a good amount of poison dumped into the water supply of the Early Retirement Forum. In relative terms, however, that community has done well throughout this thing. The last thing we want to do is to have that community experience the level of friction that we have seen elsewhere. The Early Retirement Forum is our future (working in tandem with NFB, and I hope with the Motley Fool board linking up at some later date).

The other side of the story is that we do not want to see the disruptive presence grow too strong there. What I see when I look at the Post Archives for the boards that have gone down is that in the beginning even small amounts of disruption are viewed as shocking. The general response seems to be "don't say anything and it will pass." And then we look up a few months later and see that what once was shocking now is routine and that for the DCMs to shock anyone they need to be putting forward death threats.

I would feel a lot more comfortable if we could deal with the disruption efforts now taking place at the Early Retirement Forum as a community. What people need to see is that it is safe to post on a thread put up by someone with a reputation for honest and informed posting on the SWR question. Make people feel safe, and they will contribute. If no one speaks up to the disruptors, it seems to me that the disruptions will just become more and more frequent and the problem will only worsen over time.

Am I wrong to worry about that?

[hocus2004]

Usually, there is a gray area, an ambiguity, where honest people can disagree.

I have taken some encouragement from three recent posts that offered defenses of the conventional methodology but that did not engage in decpetion or intimidation or any of the other ugliness that has become characteristic of DCM posts.

One was the post by SalaryGuru at the Index Funds board in which he acknoweldged that Bernstein said what he said re SWRs. SalaryGuru said that he disagreed with Bernstein, so he was indeed defending the conventional methodology. There was no deception in his post, however. I thought that the appearance of that post was a very good sign. It suggests that perhaps there is a desire on the part of some DCMs to get back to the right side of the bold line that separates acceptable posting practices from unacceptable ones.

There was also the post by Karma at the FIRE board where she said that she personally made use of the REHP study number as a rule of thumb for guiding her own descisions. She did not made any assertion that the methodology of the REHP study is analytically valid, so that one was also on the right side of the line. The third encouraging one was a post by Arrete similar to the one put forward by Karma. The Arrete post was at the Early Retirement Forum.

What we need is for someone like Arrete or Karma or SalaryGuru to distance themselves from Intercst. I don't get the sense that there is anyone other than intercst who really likes the idea of rooting the DCM case in deception. I think that the others are just following his lead and realize that they could make a much more effective case if they didn't have to carry intercst's deception baggage.

I tried to prod Arrete into taking steps in this direction. I asked her if she would be willing to ask intercst whether he shares her view that his study produces nothing more than a rule of thumb (that is does not accurately report what take-out number is safe according to the historical data). She was not ready to take that step, and got sort of huffy about it.

It would be great if things got to a point where we had to distinguish good DCM posts from bad DCM posts. Until now, the designation "DCM" has pretty much across the board referred to posting practices that included deception and intimidation. But there is no reason it must be so. There are honest and informed ways to defend the conventional methodology. It would be great if some community members who want to defend the conventional methodology but who want to do so in reasonable ways would work up the courage to disassociate themselves from intercst. That would open up the possibility of a far more fruitful (and less corrosive) debate.

[hocus2004]

Intercst is not the only person who has deliberately crossed this particular thick bold line.

That's so. But my sense of things is that the others who have done it have done it only because they feel that they have been boxed in by intercst into doing so. The DCMs generally consider intercst their leader. He sets the strategy and they execute it. My sense is that if intercst's posting privileges were revoked, most others would be willing to follow the rules that apply in the discussions we have on all topics other than the SWR matter.

Intercst is the key to this. People feel that, if they post honestly, intercst is going down. They are probably right about that. I believe that when intercst is removed, it will feel like the fever has broken. I believe that there will be people defending the conventional methodology for some time, but I believe that the nature of the defenses of it will change once the intercst piece is taken off the playing board.

[hocus2004]

What is not OK and what is central to ES's point was that this continued beyond the second post.

I'll try to explain why I think it is important to respond to intimidation posts.

There was an article I read once about New York City where the claim was made that, for a long time the police didn't bother fixing broken windows or dealing with other sorts of petty vandalism because they felt that there were more serious crimes demanding their attention. Then as an experiment they tried dealing with the petty vandalism and they found that by doing so they reduced the level of serious crime.

Why? Dealing with vandalism sent a signal that there was some force present that cared about the future of the city. If you will act re vandalim, you will obviously act re more serious crimes. Criminals got the message and the frequency of all sorts of crimes diminished.

I think that there is a dynamic like this that plays out on our discussion boards. There was a time when it would have been unthinkable for someone on one of our boards to put up a death threat in order to block a discussion that the majority of the community wanted to see go foward in fact go forward. Yet that happened on the Motley Fool board. It didn't happen all of a sudden. There were lots and lots of acts of petty vandalism that took place before things reached a state where death threats became an acceptable posting practice. It was the community's tolerance of low levels of intimidation that led to the level of intimidation you are seeing when death threats become an acceptable part of the discussion board experience.

We can draw the line at all sorts of places. It is a mistake to draw the line to rule out even small infractions. People need to let off stream and you need to let them do it. Deliberate deception is not letting off steam. Threats of board bannings are not letting off steam. Smears of other posters are not letting off steam. Those sorts of things are serious enough infractions that I don't think it is healthy to let them pass without comment. I don't think it is healthy that I am often the only one commenting on them. But I think someone needs to do it, and I feel that the job has been given to me by default.

I think we all have grown over time to accept things that are simply unacceptable. If it were any poster other than intercst leading the Campaign of Terror, the poster would have been sent packing close to three years ago. People made special rules for intercst. I think it is because they love the boards so much and they see him as being responsible for them. I see the entire community as being responsible for the boards, so I feel that my loyalty goes to the community as a whole rather than to any one poster. But I think that is what was going on when people elected to make special rules for intercst.

The decision to make special rules for intercst ended up being the opening of a Pandora's box. Intercst came to realize that he could get away with just about anything, so he tried just about everything. People who had already made special rules for him were not able to figure out where you draw the line after you have already agreed to erase the line. So things just went more and more downhill. People found that they needed to join in he deceptions being posted by intercst in order for the deceptions to have any impact, so they next justified not only tolerating deceptions but also participating in them. Now they possessed not only a desire to protect intercst from any consequences of deception but to protect themselves from any consequences too. Things have now reached a point where there are a number of commnunity members who never give a thought to the question of what it takes to retire early but put all their energies into assuring that deception and intimidation can contunue to rule the boards.

Do you change this by making a point once and then walking away? It doesn't seem to me that that will work. There are lots and lots of people who would like to see the ugliness brought to an end but see no hope of trying to stand up against the DCMs. The DCMS just appear to be too strong and too ruthless. I think we need to try to show people how it can be done.

I make it a practice to respond to intimidation posts as often as I possibly can. I never respond in an inappropriate way, however. I never engage in sarcasm or deception or intimidation or with any of the other nonsense that you see coming from the other side. What I am trying to do is to show people that it is possible to object to the practices of the DCMs without climbing down into the mud pit with them. It is possible to stand up for our boards without getting dirt all over your face.

I just don't think it is healthy for us to have this ugliness in our midst and to have it generating no reaction. Would you rather see a person with an illness fighting it or giving into it? I want to see some fight. The DCMs are waging a battle for the soul of the board. We are a good people and they are trying to turn us into something else. I think we need to object. So long as there are objections raised, I feel that there is hope that we can turn things around. When the DCM voice is the only voice heard at the boards, I think that is when we are truly dead as a community.

The thing that baffles me is that those who want honest and informed debate seems to feel that the word "fight" is a dirty word. We have always had the advantage in terms of numbers. We had posts calling for an end to the funny business that got 50, 60. 70, 80 recs at the Motley Fool board. The DCMs know how to put up a good fight. They never let the desires of the majority of the community slow them down for even a second. When they heard someone put forward a plea for reasoned debate, they quickly went about the business of destroying him and made a show of it so that any other community members with thoughts along the same lines got the message as to what they were in for if they "crossed" intercst.

You don't get anything in this life if you are not willing to fight for it. I am not willing to engage in DCM-type tactics. That would be demeaning, and I would rather just give up on the boards than do that. But I feel that if you love something, you should be willing to say a word in its defense from time to time. Hundreds of people created a wonderful community of learning on these boards, and I believe that those people are entitled to a little bit of fight from those of us who inherited the fruits of their efforts.

That's my take. I see each deception and intimidation post as an insult to the Retire Early pioneers who built the first board. I feel that I owe those pioneers something and I feel no shame in speaking up for their good names, I am willing to fight and to fight hard to save these boards.

I am open to following new strategies if there are community members who have good ideas for alternative ways to fight the good fight. I have a hard time going along with the idea that there is nothing here worth fighting for, however. I see a lot worth fighting for. I think we are a good people who just happened to have been cursed with the bad fortune of having been started by a very selfish and puffed-up founder.

I believe that when we cut intercst loose, all of our problems go away. And I think we will. My personal belief is that it is just a matter of time. People have a real hard time convincing themselves that there is no other way to heal the wounds. He has made it clear time and time again that he will permit no other way. So I think we have to accept reality for what it is and get it over with. I think that someone needs to do what he can to remind us of our good side until we reach the point at which we feel comfortable taking the necessary steps together, and I feel that that role has fallen to me.

Again, I am open to other ways. I need to hear people putting forward other ways of achieving the same purpose, however. For me to be persuaded to go with an alternate strategy, I need to see a realistic chance that that strategy will at some time in the not too distant future allow newcomers to enter our community and see it as an inviting place to check out and even remain in for some time, I doubt that there are too many who have that reaction to us today when they visit one of our boards for the first time.

We have work to do, but it's not an impossible job. The hardest part is changing direction. We have been walking towards the darkness for so long that it is hard to accept that we have taken so many wasted steps, steps that took us farther away from where we want to be rather than closer to that place. Wel, we made mistakes. We can't change the past, but we sure as shooting can get about the business of changing the future. The work we are doing is important enough to justify giving it a real solid try.

[JWR1945]

Do you change this by making a point once and then walking away? It doesn't seem to me that that will work. There are lots and lots of people who would like to see the ugliness brought to an end but see no hope of trying to stand up against the DCMs. The DCMS just appear to be too strong and too ruthless. I think we need to try to show people how it can be done.

No. You object to that particular misdeed one or two times. You make your objection clear. You make it firm. Then you stop at that point.

The same person is likely to misbehave later. This is a new misdeed. You object once again, clearly and firmly. You stop that new objection after one or two posts. [For that particular person and that particular incident.]

Notice that you always object. But once you have put forth your objection to the latest misdeed, you let that particular discussion end.

Having said all of this, I know that it is not always possible to end a discussion. When TH first started posting, he had the bad habit of always putting words in your mouth that you could not ignore. (This trait probably came from his marketing background.) In any event, I felt the need to correct him until enough had been put forth before I felt able to walk away.

I am sure that he thought that I was dragging things out. That was not true. It is just that he would take a broad swipe at our research and I felt that it had to be answered.

Have fun.

John R.

[hocus2004]

Here are some words posted today by 2828 to the Motley Fool board.

2828: "Has anyone ever used chat room monikers as references in a book before? I wouldn't take any book very seriously if they couldn't even get someones real name.
"HappyBeaverHead likes to save and play on his hobby wood lathe"

"See how stupid that sounds.

"Arrete is passionate about saving bird lives, saving her money and chatting with booze guzzlinggutterslut and assclownage at her favorite board, REHP.

"The guy is insane. How can anyone take a book like that seriously."

I have seen a few references to discussion board posts in other books. One that comes to mind is the book titled "A Mathematician Looks at the Stock Market."

Still, 2828 is making an interesting point. As a general rule, people don't take discussion boards seriously. One reaction that I sometimes get when I tell friends of mine about The Great SWR Debate and especially about The Debate About Having a Debate is a rolling of the eyes. Even my wife sometimes rolls her eyes!

I am breaking new ground in this book by putting some reliance on things I learned at discussion boards in development of the argument put forward. I have a far higher estimation than most people of the potential of this new communications medium. I think that discussion boards are an important communciations medium of the future, and I think that the FIRE/Retire Early/Passion Saving boards are the vanguard. We are the ones that are going to show those who follow how to do it right.

I hope.

[JWR1945]

Intercst is not the only person who has deliberately crossed this particular thick bold line.

That's so. But my sense of things is that the others who have done it have done it only because they feel that they have been boxed in by intercst into doing so....

I had raddr in mind. I did not understand his behavior. I still don't understand his behavior.

The ones who feel that the must defend intercst do not bother me.

Have fun.

John R.

[JWR1945]

TMF has become a thriving cesspool of deceit, mistrust, misinformation and unchecked personal attacks. First it was the site itself, now their message boards are just trash.

I think this is a fair description of the REHP board. However, there are several boards at Motley Fool for which I do not think it is a fair description. There is good information at the Berkshire-Hathaway board. There's a High-Dividend Stock board there that I take a look at from time to time that seems OK.

It is known (or at least believed by many) that Warren Buffett reads the Berkshire-Hathaway board.

In addition, the Gardners take a personal interest in that board.

When the boss wants something (legal, etc.), he gets it.

Have fun.

John R.

[hocus2004]

I had raddr in mind.

I won't argue with you about raddr. Raddr is the second poster that I have major concerns about at this point.

Those who put forward numbers-based research have a higher responsibility than others, in my view. People need to be able to trust them to shoot straight in order to have confidence in the conclusions they draw from their research. For a numbers-based research guy to post deceptively is a particularly serious problem.

I did not understand his behavior.

I very much believe that raddr could have been saved had enough people spoke up when he put forward his "out of context" post (his first major deception post). I believe that intercst could have been saved too, but I'm more confident that that is the case re raddr.

[JWR1945]

Greetings all

I think that Hocus is right in refusing to remove Arrete's name and Intercst's name.

How can you justify that John. I don't see any right in this at all. Confused If she doesn't want her name used the decent, and right thing to do is not use it.

Hocus wrote a statement of fact. And it was even complimentary. It was clearly in good taste. It does not damage Arrete in any way.

No one is constrained from writing accurate statements of fact. In many cases, people will withhold something because it would hurt someone even though it is true. In other cases, people will mention something in spite of its being unpleasant because it cannot be avoided.

In this case, Arrete was just being petty. She has no basis for a real objection. She simply wants to harm Hocus.

It is better for Hocus to refuse her request politely than to withdraw mentioning her username. Remember, Hocus mentioned her because what he wrote was germane to his discussion. Failing to mention her would, in fact, harm Hocus and his readers.

Have fun.

John R.

[hocus2004]

Arrete posted these words today:

Arrete: "This thing about me being a super saver mystifies me. Art, maybe but I have no particular skill at saving. Just the same as most of us on this board."

I did not intend to suggest that Arrete saved better than any others in the community. The idea is that the community is comprised of people who are more effective at saving than most others. Arrete is just someone I picked in an effort to compile a reasonably balanced and interesting mix of community members to put forward as representative of the community as a whole.

The list on which Arrete's name appears was developed sometime in the year 2001, by the way. The list was compiled prior to the posting of the May 13, 2002, Post Heard Around the World.

[JWR1945]

I am breaking new ground in this book by putting some reliance on things I learned at discussion boards in development of the argument put forward. I have a far higher estimation than most people of the potential of this new communications medium. I think that discussion boards are an important communications medium of the future, and I think that the FIRE/Retire Early/Passion Saving boards are the vanguard. We are the ones that are going to show those who follow how to do it right.

I am confident that this will be obvious to people in the future when they look back to this time.

They will not believe how stupid so many people were. They will know for certain that they never would have underestimated the value of discussion boards.

It is so obvious. Looking backwards. After the fact.

Have fun.

John R.

[beachbumz]

Hocus, a piece of friendly advice: If you want people to read your posts (and I have enjoyed reading many of your non-swr posts in the past Smile ), try to make them more concise. When I saw the length of that last post I went straight to the last paragraph.

According to that paragraph, we are going to try to change the future! My vote for doing that would be to stop the debate about SWRs, because there is in fact no guaranteed SWR, only time will tell who, if anyone, is right (I have played some with firecalc and it's a neat enough program). Instead lets spend more time on educating people on how to become FI at an early age (there are many ways, and I believe that passion saving is a step in the right direction) and showing them that there is life after work. Also, we should be spending more energy on the topics that are important to those of us who are FIRED, such as the best vacation spots, favorite beer, latest gadgets, etc. (oh yeah, and things like investments too ).

It is always interesting to see if one's strategy would have worked if implemented in the past, but that may or may not have any correlation to the future. I, for one, believe in diversifing over several different asset classes, making adjustments as I deem necessary (to asset allocation, spending, etc.), and let nature run it's course.

I could ramble on here, but I'll practice what I preach and keep this post fairly concise .

Beachbumz

[hocus2004]

But once you have put forth your objection to the latest misdeed, you let that particular discussion end.

What you are saying makes a good bit of sense. I'll make note of a problem that often comes up, though. Because the DCMs engage in so much deception, it is often hard to know whether something that is being said is something that is genuinely believed by the poster or just the product of some game that the poster is playing. There is a lot of genuine confusion re the SWR matter. So it is really hard to make this distinction on many occasions.

Our only hope of bringing the firction to an end is to achieve better communication. So I make it a practice to assume that the other poster is posting something he genuinely believes if there is any thought in my mind that that might be the case. That means that I end up responding to a lot more posts that I otherwise would.

I am often trying to reach out and see if I can connect with someone on the other side (either the poster involved or someone with like feelings). You never know what is going to result in a connection. You just have to try different things and see what works.

Here are some words that appeared at the RetireEarlyHomePage.com board today that go a bit to what I am saying here:

Ataloss: "Ben solar (the much reviled inventor of the fSWR hSWR terminology) pointed out to me that the hocologic is more or less internally consistent if you accept the hoco definitions. "

If there were people of good faith on the other side of the table who wanted to bring this to a good resolution, they could try to build something starting from the foundation laid by those words. I don't know what it is that I said that caused BenSolar to think that, but, whatever it was, it was potentially significant.

It may be that this opportunity will be ignored, as have so many that have come before it. But maybe not. You just never know. I don't attack people in my posts. Not ever. I add bits of humor in here and there to keep things from getting too grave. But I never engage in attack or ridicule or that sort of thing. I am usually putting forth some sort of lead that I feel that there is a small chance that someone will pick up on.

I am an optimist. I believe that that will indeed happen in the end. And it will probably be some throwaway comment that is the cataylst. You can't start a fire without a spark. So Springstein said.

[hocus2004]

I am confident that this will be obvious to people in the future when they look back to this time.

Many people are looking at tiny differences and seeing giant mountains, and at the same time looking at giant opportunities and seeing nothing.

The web site and the book are win-wins. They allow us to get the word re early retirement out to a lot more people, which is a good, while also bringing new blood into the community, which is also a good. I see no potential downside whatsoever. And yet some are finding some, at least in their own minds.

[hocus2004]

If you want people to read your posts (and I have enjoyed reading many of your non-swr posts in the past ), try to make them more concise.

I appreciate you saying that, Beachbumz. I prefer that my posts be short. There is certainly no benefit to me in making them long. But there is an awful lot of confusion out there on an awful lot of points, and on many of the questions raised I am the only one with access to the answerrs (since many of them pertain to me or my motives or whatever). So I feel I need to make an effort to address as many points raised as possible.

I wish that we could all make an effort to reduce the level of confusion. That would minimize the need for long posts and short posts both. It is far more efficient for us just to talk to each other in a spirit of mutual respect and with a shared goal of advancing knowledge of how to win financial freedom early in life.

If there is anyone out there who has any thoughts as to how that goal could be advanced, I sure would be grateful if you would add it to the mix of thoughts now being stirred about in this thread.

[hocus2004]

Here's a link to a post that I put to the Early Retirement Forum today that has nothing to do with SWRs, Beachbumz.

http://early-retirement.org/cgi-bin/yab ... 1109424693

If you added a non-disruptive post to that thread, it might do a little to get the ball rolling in the direction you would like to see it headed.