For Hocus

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For Hocus

Post by FMO »

I thought you might find this interesting. I wrote this in September 2001. it may be the earliest example of a post which questions the purpose of the TMF "Speaker's Corner" boards and the role and responsibilities of board moderators/leaders.

It is unimportant to me what intercst invests in but wish for him only success in whatever vehicles he chooses. It is none of my business. It is true that TMF is largely a stock-related website but the individual boards are not designed to focus largely on stock. Most of the topics are about stock, but the topic of this board is "Retire Early Home Page" and it is found in the "Speaker's Corner" portion of TMF message boards. Here you will find such "stock-related" boards as "Adoption", "Movies", "Divorce", Quitting Smoking" and "Single Parents"

I for one am surprised that a more significant portion of the threads aren't about real estate investing given what I personally know about its application squarely to the topic of this board. I am even more surprised that discussions in this area seem to be actively discouraged and propagandized against. intercst has amassed a considerable body of good work and does an amazing job of keeping this board lively and informative and he is deserving of our respect for that. If in fact intercst is not the moderator of this board, it is still his board and the "Speakers Corner" was designed to spotlight it. And it is in the glare of this spotlight that I ask him to lighten up a little on the harsh and misleading rhetoric reserved only for real estate investing. As for the emotional heat,(boy that sound sexy) I love a good discussion; especially about a subject which I feel passionately about. It's easy to go a little overboard. However, even if real estate subjects were banned from this board it is not I who will suffer. It is the readers, who come here to learn how to retire early and who are seeking options, ideas, and widely varying and diverse discussions of how to get there, and finding instead a highly one-dimensional approach which happened to work for one guy.


A quote from TNF's introduction to the "Speaker's Corner"

"Our motto in the Fool Community has always been "Learning Together," and more than anything else over the past five years we have been reminded over and again that the power of many people working together outweighs the power of a single Fool."
FMO

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Post by wanderer »

september 2001... I believe that's when wanderer began his disappearing act. i agree with mhtyler, move to the suburbs and arm yourselves (latter piece is my addition - es, man your zapper!).:wink:

w
regards,

wanderer

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Post by hocus »

If real estate subjects were banned from this board it is not I who will suffer. It is the readers....

You "get it" exactly, FMO. You have presented the message that I am trying to communicate in a nutshell.

SWRs are not the real matter of dispute here. The confusion over SWRs is just a symptom of a more basic problem. The basic problem is that the TMF boards are being adminsitered in a manner that does not allow them to achieve their potential. A better way to administer them is for TMF to enforce their published posting guidelines. When this is done, a powerful tool becomes available to middle-class investors, the power to share information with others on subjects of mutual interest. This is what the fight is about.

Some say, Why not just use this wonderful resource that El Supremo has created to achieve this purpose? The new resource truly offers rich rewards, but there is no reason whatsoever why the creation of a new rich resource means that people interested in making use of such tools should give up the previously created rich resource. Why is it that we should give that up? Someone needs to provide me a good reason why we should walk away from one wonderful resource just because El Supremo has been kind enough to create a second one for us.

There is a reason why I am more intense about saving the REHP board resource that most others. The reason is that I have seen the great power of that resource to add value. I am writing a book on how to achieve financial independence early in life. I know what was in my mind to include in that book before I took advantage of the REHP board resource, and I know what is in my mind now, after having been exposed to the resource. It is my assessment that the book is 10 times better than it would have been had that resource not been available to me.

Let's say that I would have obtained an advance of $1,000 for the earlier version of the book, and that, because of what I learned at the REHP board, I now obtain an advance of $10,000. That means that that board was worth $9,000 of cold hard cash to me. I am planning to write a second book and a third book. If the REHP board becomes functioning again, my guess is that I will obtain another $18,000 of value from that result. Perhaps more. Perhaps I will obtain $100,000 of value, or $200,000 of value. There's no way of knowing the precise number for sure. All I know is that it is a big number.

That's my personal reason for wanting that board to again become a tool for people trying to learn what it takes to put together an effective plan for early retirement. I wrote a check the other day for $860 to a software writer who has developed a tool for me that allows me to make a personal copy of all of the posts on the REHP board and a few others. For me, that expense is a business expense. It is my life's work to write about this subject, and I need a functioning TMF board that includes the work product of the REHP board community for the past three years (the post archive). This is not a game to me, it is a business, and I take it seriously.

Not everyone is writing a book, of course, so I don't expect everyone to be quite so intense as me. But if you consider what you have gained from the REHP board community, you will see that the benefits to you have been substantial. BenSolar said in a post yesterday that, as a result of research he has seen at this board, he is thinking of taking some money off the stock table. The historical data says that that decision may result in a significant improvement in BenSolar's long-term financial prospects. A lot more than $30, OK?

The direct cause of that benefit is this board. But how did this community come to exist except through the earlier creation of the TMF community? El Supremo came from TMF, so did Ataloss, so did wanderer, do did raddr, so did FMO so did Andrew61. Most of us now using this place to learn about early retirement are here by way of the TMF boards. We owe that community something. We owe it a little bit of a fight to save it.

We also owe a little something to ourselves. As great as the funtionality of this board is, the Motley Fool boards have an edge in the community-building department. The edge is that the Gardners spend lots of money attracting people to their site, through books, speeches, radio shows, newspaper columns, and so on. Each person attracted to that site as a result of those efforts is a potential raddr or FMO or wanderer of the future. We need these people contributing here. And Motley Fool has the resources to pull them in to the Retire Early community so that we eventually gain access to their input.

We need to make sure that they keep getting pulled in over there, that they learn enough about the realities of early retirement to find their way here, and that thereby we learn more about a whole bunch of Retire Early ideas that we ever could hope to learn by talking only amongst ourselves. Saving the REHP board helps this board's long-term development in a significant way.

What downside is there to the idea of a group of us going over there and asking that the REHP board be administered according to the published posting guidelines? I see no downside whatsoever. We write a FAQ on SWRs at this place and adopt it as our governing statement. Then 12 of us with roots in the REHP board community (let's say hocus, wanderer, raddr, JWR1945, StubbleJumper, Dagrims, Andrew61, Galagan, Ataloss, MHTyler, ChocoKitty and FMO) head on over to the REHP board and ask that the same FAQ be adopted there either as a replacement to or supplement to the current FAQ. And a debate begins.

Intercst or an intercst supporter puts up one of the four prohibited types of posts--one aimed at disruption, or deception, or personal attack, or ridicule. One of the 12 says, "hey, intercst, I'm trying to engage in a process of Learning Together (the TMF motto) here, could you please knock it off?" And then another says something similar. And then another.

What does he do? One of two things. One, he knocks it off. That's great, the spell is broken, and the board again becomes a valuable resource for people trying to use it to plan a successful early retirement. Or, two, he does not knock it off. And we go to TMF and ask that a warning be issued, to be followed by removal from the site if he ignores the warning. Again, the board becomes a valuable resource for those who want to use it for the purposes Motley Fool intends.

Someone tell me why this is a bad way to respond to the events that have transpired thus far in this matter.
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Post by JWR1945 »

hocus asks:

Some say, Why not just use this wonderful resource that El Supremo has created to achieve this purpose? The new resource truly offers rich rewards, but there is no reason whatsoever why the creation of a new rich resource means that people interested in making use of such tools should give up the previously created rich resource. Why is it that we should give that up? Someone needs to provide me a good reason why we should walk away from one wonderful resource just because El Supremo has been kind enough to create a second one for us.

My answer is exhaustion.

However, since we do have this board, we are able to renew ourselves, regain our energy and continue.

We no longer have to walk away. Thank ElSupremo.

Have fun.

John R.
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Post by ElSupremo »

Greetings Hocus :)
But how did this community come to exist except through the earlier creation of the TMF community? El Supremo came from TMF, so did Ataloss, so did wanderer, do did raddr, so did FMO so did Andrew61. Most of us now using this place to learn about early retirement are here by way of the TMF boards. We owe that community something.


It's true that these boards sprung as a result of TMF boards. However, and I'm speaking for myself only, if you meander over to TMF index funds board and look over about four years of my posts there, I think you'll agree that I paid my debt to TMF. I don't feel I owe them anything(Including $30 :wink:) And I don't feel the least bit sad things transpired the way they have. I have every confidence that our boards here will surpass(If they haven't already, the FIRE board is unbelievable!) anything done at TMF. It's just a matter of time. You really only need look at troll infestation over there to see this.

That said I do respect your fight to save the REHP board. I agree that there is no reason(other than personal) to chose one board over another. Take jbking for example. He posts all over creation! And after putting so much time into a place it's very difficult to consider leaving. I faced that same situation myself(as did the rest of the old index funds board). Some chose to stay, but the best contributors there, the ones who made that board what it was, left and are here today(or will be when the free year runs out in February). IMO this experience has made us stronger than we ever were before. It's barely been a year since this happened and look how far we've come. In another year when the boards are solidly established and the word gets out, who knows. I definitely like the up side.

By the way hocus, you can call me ES if you'd like. Or not. :wink:
"The best things in life are FREE!"

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Post by ataloss »

? Someone needs to provide me a good reason why we should walk away from one wonderful resource just because El Supremo has been kind enough to create a second one for us.


1. $30.00

I am saving up to buy your book.

ataloss

(who is not likely to be getting another free year)
Have fun.

Ataloss
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Post by hocus »

hocus:Someone needs to provide me a good reason why we should walk away from one wonderful resource [the TMF board] just because El Supremo has been kind enough to create a second one for us.

JWR1945: My answer is exhaustion.

ES: I have every confidence that our boards here will surpass(If they haven't already, the FIRE board is unbelievable!) anything done at TMF.

ataloss: $30.00

OK. I appreciate the responses. I asked for reasons, and you gave them. That's fair enough.

As for me. I am not exhausted. I am happy to spend whatever amount of money it takes getting the TMF board back to snuff (including paying the TMF admission fee of anyone willing to help me with my efforts there). And, while I believe that this board already surpasses the REHP board in quality of material, I believe that we are better off having two great FIRE boards rather than only one. So I will soldier on.

I hope that no one thinks that I will have hard feelings if most others here elect not to do so. It is a personal decision, one that each community member makes for his or her own reasons. I'd like if if you all would be willing to listen to a pitch from me now and again, and then do what makes sense from your particular perspective.

I will continue to do what I can to open up that board to debate of on-topic issues. As part of that effort, I would like to present a proposed FAQ statement to this board on January 13, to have this board make modifications to the proposal, and hopefully for us to reach a consensus on something at some point early next year.

Then I will ask that some here make a trip over there and make the case for that board adopting the same FAQ. If no one joins me, that's completely OK. I will no doubt learn from the effort to assemble the FAQ here, and that will increase my odds of success over there. If some do join me, that's all the better, from my perspective.

I don't absolutely require anyone from this board to help out over there. There are always new people coming to the REHP board, and most of those new people have a genuine interest in learning the realities of safe withdrawal rates. So long as I don't push too hard or too fast, I expect that I will be able for a long time to put up an occasional post over there pointing out some of the realities of SWRs. No matter how many over there get disgusted with the way that board is run and shift their allegience to this board, there will always be a few newbies there interested in getting their FIRE insights from a TMF board. So I expect there will be some interest in what I am saying over there for a long time to come.

It will take longer to bring the TMF board around if I am not able to get much help from here. But I have some other things I need to be working on, so it may be a good thing for me if, after work on the FAQ is done here, I get to take a little break from this.

In time, I am confident that the desire for valid information on SWRs will grow strong enough that a group of 10 or 12 will materialize at the TMF board asking that intercst permit a balanced discussion. When that happens, we will have not one great FIRE board, but two, and I believe that the long-term result will be a huge boost to both boards.
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Post by ataloss »

Hocus, I think that you and the many astute posters here have absorbed much/all of the lessons of the TMF board. I am willing to learn from the master of FIRE who are here. I don't see much new of value at TMF although I don't mind going back to post until my term expires. Clearly there is more than one valid approach to FIRE and I have no doubt that you book will explore the various possibilities.
Have fun.

Ataloss
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Post by hocus »

I think that you and the many astute posters here have absorbed much/all of the lessons of the TMF board. I am willing to learn from the master of FIRE who are here.

Ataloss:

No one starts out a master. We all start out as newbies. The masters of tomorrow are the newbies of today.

Motley Fool has 2 million or 3 million unique visitors come to its site each month. If one of the 2 or 3 million develops an interest in the subject of early retirement, that gives us 12 new potential masters each year adding to the information we develop at this board.

We need the Motley Fool community-generation engine helping this board become the best that it can be. It's one thing to appreciate the great wealth of information provided at this board today. I'm with you on that. It's something else to say that we shouldn't take a few simple steps to make the board even better a few years from now.

I believe that making the REHP board a place where newbies can be exposed to valid information on safe withdrawal rates will make both boards more powerful resources in the future. I intend to do what it takes to make that happen, and from time to time, I expect to ask a few people here to help out. I will not make a pest of myself on this matter, but I do want people to understand that it is important to me and not to be surprised when I bring it up from time to time.

It's the single most important FIRE issue there is at this point in time, in my opinion. Process questions are generally more important than content questions. It would be nice if we solved the problem of calculation of the true safe withdrawal rate. But if we did, there would still be important unanswered questions because we don't even know all of the questions yet. We need those newbies who are showing up at the REHP board today and giving up on the idea of early retirement in disgust because they conclude that no one has anything serious to say on the subject.

There are at least 47 people still at that board who want to hear serious comments on the subject matter, and are being denied that desire because of the current board administration policies. They deserve our help, in my opinion, partly because helping them now helps us too somewhere down the road.

I have no doubt that your book will explore the various possibilities

Nothing that happens in regard to the REHP board is going to have any effect on my first book. I know what is going into that one, and it's now just a question of getting the words in the proper order. But the second and third books will be far better products if that board is again opened up to on-topic debate.

We are not going to know everything there is to know about early retirement in the next six months or the next year. This is going to be a long-term ongoing effort. The way to insure that we will learn what we need to know two and three years from now is by getting the learning tools we need in place today. This place is a great learning tool, but there is no good reason we should limit ourselves to one. The REHP board could also be a great learning tool that would complement this one if we would go over there and ask that it be so. We have to ask or it will not happen.
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Post by wanderer »

hocus:Someone needs to provide me a good reason why we should walk away from one wonderful resource [the TMF board] just because El Supremo has been kind enough to create a second one for us.

JWR1945: My answer is exhaustion.

ES: I have every confidence that our boards here will surpass(If they haven't already, the FIRE board is unbelievable!) anything done at TMF.

ataloss: $30.00

hocus: Someone tell me why this is a bad way to respond to the events that have transpired thus far in this matter.

It's not a bad way; it's just not my way. the downside to your plan is simply this: life is short. too short.

For example, i just got an email from a senior who i gave time off to take care of his mom's medical maladies back in 1998. she passed away four years later. last month, in fact. the senior wrote to thank me for the time i gave him when he needed it (really he should have felt free to just take it) and reminded me of what i had told him then, and what i will repeat now: life is short.

too short for tmf or mr. greaney's incompetence/ethics shortage/whatever ailment interferes with his ability to communicate facts in a straightforward manner. i don't really care about how or why he's that way. I care that his illness appears incurable and that that board is not useful to me. Period.

In the meantime, I reserve mental bandwidth to evaluate ideas like this:

I care about things that are going to impact my life in a significant way. I had one plan for this summer: do a fixer upper with a couple of partners. I suspect that we should clear close to my base salary in profit for three months work.

I have just concluded that another way to use my precious time is to wend my way through Asia over the course of a month or so. the impact of that trip - doing a look-see at several very low cost, intriguing places to live - could have just as big or even a bigger impact than adding more assets to our pile. Plus it would be veeery cool to see Sri Lanka and Thailand and the Philippines and maybe some central/SAm hot spots.

This just occurred to me after doing my impromptu exotic locales research. How much time will either of those contemplated activities leave for posting/reading the excrement that mr. Greaney and his chums can dream up (taking into account that the remainder of my time will be devoted to family, health, thinking creatively and reading and posting here)? Cifr (zero, in Arabic), I suspect.

Life is too short... Sorry hocus.

wanderer
regards,

wanderer

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Post by raddr »

hocus:Someone needs to provide me a good reason why we should walk away from one wonderful resource [the TMF board] just because El Supremo has been kind enough to create a second one for us.

JWR1945: My answer is exhaustion.

ES: I have every confidence that our boards here will surpass(If they haven't already, the FIRE board is unbelievable!) anything done at TMF.

ataloss: $30.00

hocus: Someone tell me why this is a bad way to respond to the events that have transpired thus far in this matter.

wanderer:

It's not a bad way; it's just not my way. the downside to your plan is simply this: life is short. too short.


Here's the analogy I'd use. For me choosing to go from here back to REHP would be like choosing to live in a crime-infested inner-city ghetto rather than a nice new suburb just because the ghetto neighborhood used to be a nice place and has been around longer than the suburb.

I agree with wanderer that life is too short to bother with rehabbing a board that, frankly, I believe is way inferior to this one even though admittedly it was a good board a few years back. I simply don't need the aggravation in my life.
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Well Selected!

Post by FMO »

raddr posts:

Here's the analogy I'd use. For me choosing to go from here back to REHP would be like choosing to live in a crime-infested inner-city ghetto rather than a nice new suburb just because the ghetto neighborhood used to be a nice place and has been around longer than the suburb.

Keep those real estate analogies coming. As intercst would say, it is important that your properties be "well selected". I select the nice new suburb. :P
FMO

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Post by hocus »

It's not a bad way; it's just not my way.

That's a fine response, Wanderer. I'm tempted to just say "that makes perfect sense to me." But you know me. Those who prefer the short version can jump off the train here. Those who want to hear all the fine points of why I think that's a fine response, and why I think that my approach on this question is a fine one as well, please read on.

Life is short....too short for tmf or mr. greaney's incompetence/ethics shortage

I couldn't care less what happens re TMF or re intercst. Matters like that don't even rise to the top 100 on my list of priorities. What I am concerned about here is what happens to the budding movement in which middle-class workers try to learn what it takes to achieve financial independence early in life. If TMF or intercst do something to help that movement, I say "thanks, guys." If they stay out of it, I say nothing. If they put up a roadblock to people's efforts to learn about this subject matter, I say "Please stop blocking the road, if you would be so kind." That's the way it has been for seven months now, and that is the way it is going to be for the next seven months and the next seven years.

I want people to learn as much about what it takes to become financially independent early in life as they possibly can. Does that make me some sort of saint? It does not. I do enjoy the feeling when I share something I have learned in 11 years of research and someone else "gets it." But this is not a solely altruistic endeavor for me. My aim is to make money from this stuff, the more of it the better. I'm writing a book on this stuff, and I want people to pay for that book and read that book. If you think through the implications of that fact, I think you might get a better sense of why this matter is of some significance to me.

When I send my book to publishers, they are going to want to know what my credentials are for presuming to tell others what it takes to retire early. I am going to point them to the 1000-plus posts I have put up on the Motley Fool REHP board over the course of the past four years. I am going to point to the sales of my Soapbox report on this subject (it was the #1 selling report on the site during its eight-month history). And I am going to show them the many e-mails I have received where people who read my REHP board posts told me that things I told them changed their lives for the better.

When they go to the REHP board to check this out, what are they going to see? They are going to see hundreds and hundreds of posts saying that I have a mental problem, that I do not understand what Bernstein said, that I am giving people completely invalid information on how to calculate the safe withdrawal rate. When I show them the e-mail from PhantomDiver in which she says that my Soapbox report changed her life, and they then do a search on her name to see what she says about me on the board, they are going to see her recommendation that I seek professional help with my mental problems.

When the publishers see that stuff, and when the book reviewers see it, and when potential customers see it, I want them to be able to see the other side of the story too, if they care to. I want them to see that I have a valid response to every claim that was made against me, and that I went to the trouble of posting those responses on the board for anyone who wanted to know the truth about safe withdrawal rates to see. Perhaps they won't want to read that far. I can't control that. But the material will be there for those who do want to hear both sides of the story. That much I control.

My problems with publishers, and reviewers, and potential customers are not the concerns of this board. It is not this board's business to help me with my personal efforts to sell my book. But it so happens that the intercst problem, which is the reason I am going to face this obstacle in making my book a success, is a problem which causes negative consequences not just for people who write books about financial indepedence. It causes negative consequences for anyone who wants to develop their understanding of what it takes to put together a successful plan for early retirement. There are a lot of people in that group who post at this board.

You will know less about early retirement three years from now if intercst continues to block use of that board for on-topic posting than if he is stopped from doing so. That's just a fact. The Garnders spend lots of money to attract people to that site, a small percentage of them find the REHP board, and a small percentage of those becomes experts over time and find their way over to this place. That's the dynamic of how this place was built up, and to some extent I expect that it will continue to be the dynamic for some time to come. The people who come to this board to learn about FIRE will learn more if intercst stops conducting vicious smear campaigns against people who post on-topic at the REHP board.

I am going to try to stop him. I'm not going to be a pain in the neck about it by posting on the same subject over and over again until I begin to annoy people with it. I'll take a few months off here and there, I will post on other topics from time to time, I will do what I can to focus on the substance of SWRs and stay away from the personal stuff. But I am going to continue to tell the truth about SWRs over there until posters other than me gain the freedom to explore the topic on their own, or until the site goes out of business.

Why? Because I like sharing information on how to retire early with interested parties, and the 47 recs for the recent CrazyLegs883 post shows that there are at least 47 interested parties still lurking over there. I want to talk to those people for several reasons. One is just that I enjoy talking about this stuff. One is that those 47 people are potential readers for my book. Another is that I may set up my own board some day and I want those 47 people to join me in that enterprise.

Another is that I think I was wrong to keep my mouth shut about the flaws in the intercst study for so long. A lot of people were hurt because I did that. It wasn't me giving out the invalid information and claiming "100 percent safety" for it, but I endorsed the board in a sense by contributing as much as I did to its growth. I now see that I was wrong to do that.

I can't change the past, but I can behave differently in the future. When someone asks me in a radio interview two years from now, "Weren't you part of that discussion board that was giving out fraudulent information on safe withdrawal rates that caused so many early retirements to fail?" I want to be able to give a good answer to the question. I think it is a good answer to say that I fought for seven months to see that the other side of the story be presented on the same board for those community members interested in seeing it.

Life is short. I agree. That is one of the reasons why I am so intense on the subject of early financial indepedence. When people are given the information they need to acquire financial independence early in life, they are able to do wonderful things with the remaining years of their lives. I possess information that helps them do this, and I want to share it with them in the most effective way possible. The REHP board is a powerful resource for doing this, and I do not intend to give up use of that resource without putting up a darn good fight. It doesn't matter much to me whether it takes another month, another year, or another ten years. I'm early retired. I've got time.

It doesn't offend me at all if you elect not to help out, wanderer. You are not in the same circumstances as me, so there is no reason for me to expect that you would share the same perspective. You have helped me in a hundred other ways, so you owe nothing to me, it's the other way around. What I ask is that you allow me to continue to post here on this subject in the hopes of convincing a few others to join me in the cause. Perhaps I will nab Dagrims, or Andrew61, or ChocoKitty or Galagan. I figure that I need 10 to pull this off (me plus nine others). With 10 people appearing at the other board asking that intercst follow the TMF posting rules for one thread per month, I don't see that he can say no.

We only need one thread per month. Once there is one thread that tells the truth on SWRs, people over there are going to begin to see the potential of knowing more and more about the subject. That will lead to a desire for two threads a month played by Motley Fool rules, and then three, and so on. Intercst sees this, that is why he is unwilling to give an inch on this thing. He knows that once people are exposed to even a small portion of the truth about safe withdrawal rates, the whole thing begins to crumble to the ground.

The hard work is done. I didn't have the Bernstein quote when I started this thing, now I do. I didn't have a transcript proving the things I am saying about intercst's posting tactics then, now I do. I didn't have a second FIRE board where people could share information about SWRs without being attacked before, now I do.

All that is needed now is that last little push, getting 10 people who have developed a clear understanding of this stuff over to the other board and having them ask that intercst kindly allow a discussion of it there. I can't say when it's going to happen, but we are so close that it's hard for me to imagine that I won't be able to figure out a way to take this that one last leg of the long journey.
JWR1945
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Post by JWR1945 »

I think that hocus has made a strong case for having a sister board at the Motley Fool. Their 2 to 3 million unique viewers per month are worth our consideration. They should be able to help us. I know that we can help them.

I can also understand why the REHP might not be the right place. It would be a whole lot easier if it were. It takes a lot of effort to keep any discussion board going. I know that hocus has considered starting a new one at the Motley Fool after he finishes writing his (first) book. That will be several months from now. Still, it would take a lot of his time and effort just to maintain the board.

Building on raddr's inner city's analogy, New York City fit that description until recently. It was hopeless...at least, from an outsider's perspective. Then Gugliani (sp?) became mayor. He insisted that all of the laws be enforced throughout the entire city. There were no areas that remained off limits to law enforcement. The city no longer tolerated lesser crimes in selected neighborhoods. New York City came back to life.

The problem at the Motley Fool is that they do not enforce their own rules. The REHP discussion board...and some others as well...has become a neighborhood that is off limits to law enforcement (so to speak). It is dying. If the rules were enforced, it could make a come back.

Have fun.

John R.
hocus
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Post by hocus »

I agree with wanderer that life is too short to bother with rehabbing a board that, frankly, I believe is way inferior to this one even though admittedly it was a good board a few years back.

raddr:

It is unfair to the many people who congregate at the REHP board to use the behavior of one poster to form your views of the entire board community. Intercst is one poster there, that's it. He is an extremely vocal one, yes. But he is not the entire board.

There is a segment of the board community that supports him, but even that segment is not a majority of the board. It appears to comprise about one-third of the board population. The majority of the REHP board community wants to know the truth about safe withdrawal rates. This has been demonstrated by action taking place on the board again and again and again.

Who do you think it was who gave 80-plus recs for the "My Plan" post and for the "Coin Toss" post? Who was it that gave 40-plus recs for the "What Bernstein Says" post, and for the "Ridicule Rant" post put up by JWR1945?. Just in the past month, I had a post that gave a brief description of my investment ideas garner over 30 recs. A post by CrazyLegs883 asked that I be permitted to have my say on the board without disruption, and that one got 47 recs. Even the post calling for revocation of intercst's posting privileges got 24 recs. That post called for an extreme penalty, but there are 24 people who still haven't given up on that board who have determined that that it is a good idea for the board to consider this option at this point.

Why do people insist on presuming that intercst and his supporters speak for a majority of the board?

The only explanation I can come up with is that people are giving too much focus to the posts that appear when the discussion turns to SWRs rather than to other evidence of board culture on this question. Posting on this question is one-sided, with me often being the only poster taking the anti-intercst line. But it's hardly fair to judge the board by the posting that appears there given that intimidating people from putting up posts that question the intercst dogma is the whole point of the smear campaigns.

I hope that there is no one who thinks that the intercst camp believes this stuff they have been saying about Wanderer, or FMO, or me, or whoever. The point of the exercise is to send a signal to anyone at the board that this is what will happen to you if you put up a post questioning the intercst dogma. It's not exactly fair to judge the board by looking at those who are willing to post on this question when the price for telling the truth on it is that there will be threads appearing discussing which model of gun is likely to be most effective in taking out an opponent in an internet debate. Come on.

The group in the middle is sick of the personal attacks, they have expressed that view over and over and over again. So when the debate turns ugly (as it always will until intercst gives a sign that he is willing to allow it to proceed some other way), the majority of people in that community check out of the thread. If you have followed this closely, you have seen the same dynamic play out again and again. I put up a post on the substance of SWRs, and it gets a bunch of recs. Someone in the intercst camp puts up an attack or a nonsense post. My response gets far fewer recs as most reasonable people check out of the thread. Soon, the intercst camp dominates the discussion and all my subsequent posts get one or two recs (thanks, Wanderer!, thanks JWR1945!.

It doesn't have to be this way. If intercst were forced to follow the Motley Fool posting guidelines, we could keep the debate focused on substance, and these would be the most popular threads on the board. You cannot judge the REHP board until you see how the board behaves when the campaign of disruption, deception, ridicule, and personal attack comes to an end.

That campaign will come to an end when I am able to find 10 people who feel confident enough in their understanding of SWRs that they are willing to go over to the REHP board and ask that intercst follow the TMF posting rules in one thread per month. We have a secret weapon--the TMF posting rules. Those rules do not permit intercst to employ the tactics he is now using to block effective debate. The rub is that TMFBogey is concerned that to enforce the rules would cause a problem with "board culture." So we need to demonstrate to him that the true board culture favors discussion of the realities of safe withdrawal rates.

I know the REHP board community better than anyone. Yes, there are a few intercst types in the community. But that group is not a majority. Even most of those who are putting up nonsense posts in support of him don't really care about this subject all that much. They would be glad to drop it if intercst would say that's OK with him. This is all about loyalty to intercst. When intercst gives the word, galeno and Telegraph and all the rest will go right back to the political chat that interests them most, and allow those interested in sharing information on how to retire early to do so.

The REHP board is not a slum. It has fallen under the influence of a small group that treats it like a slum. Unless that group is willing to stop trashing the place, the leaders of that group should be evicted. The board as a whole is comprised of a good number of fine, open-minded people trying to learn about a subject of great interest to them, and it is unfair to equate things intercst wants for the board with what the board as a whole wants for the board.
hocus
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Post by hocus »

The problem at the Motley Fool is that they do not enforce their own rules. The REHP discussion board...and some others as well...has become a neighborhood that is off limits to law enforcement (so to speak). It is dying. If the rules were enforced, it could make a come back.

I agree completely. I rarely participate on other boards there, but I watch some, and you see this phenomenon play out again and again. A group of people gathers together for the purpose of discussing some matter of mutual interest, and a small group that wants to destroy the community is permitted to do so despite published TMF posting rules that prohibit this.

The root problem is how to get Motley Fool to enforce its rules. Does anyone know if they are under any sort of requirement to follow the rules that they publish at the site? They have all sorts of disclaimers there saying "we are not responsible for anything that happens on the discussion boards." So the general rule is that you participate on the discussion boards at your own risk.

But my common sense tells me that there must be some limit to the extent to which they can absolve themselves of responsibility when they promise such a completely different experience in their posting guidelines from what actually takes place on the boards. Since people pay to participate on the discussion boards, it is arguable that there is some sort of contract between the posters and the company that there will be at least minimal enforcement of the published rules.

The published rules make lots of promises that the Motley Fool experience will be different from what you see at lots of other web sites. They say that "we will not tolerate" intercst-type behavior at the TMF site. They say that the Speaker's Corner boards are governed by the same rules as all others (no special preferences for "board generals"). They say that posters must "avoid silly arguments," engage in discussion of ideas rather than attacking the people who put them forward in personal terms, and that posting should be in "good faith." It's hard to see how all this can be reconciled with what goes on regularly at the REHP board.

It is the Motley Fool posting guidelines that gave me the idea for the "revocation" post. It is those rules that state that the penalty for contined noncompliance with the rules of the community will be revocation of posting privileges. Presumably, they included discussion of this penalty because they were able to imagine some circumstance where they would want to apply it. So why hasn't it been applied to intercst? t's hard to imagine a poster having a more harmful effect on a posting community than the effect that intercst has had on the REHP board community.

We have a case where a poster is claiming "100 percent safety" for an investing approach developed in a study completely lacking in statistical validity. It has been shown that he knows that study lacks statistical validity, and yet he continues to put it forward in support of his views regardless. You have people relying on that advice to plan early retirements, which puts them at risk for serious life setbacks. You have other posters going to considerable effort to present the other side of the story to the community, and this individual inciting the board to engage in vicious smear campaigns against them to block the community from learning what it needs to know.

I don't intend to push the revocation idea again for a long time because I don't think there are enough at the board who support it now for it to succeed. But if intercst continues to rely on smear campaigns to block the community from knowing what it needs to know, and if we see a larger number suffer busted retirements in the months to come as a result of his actions, I could imagine resurrecting the idea at some future date six months or a year from now. I believe that at some point the consequences of interst's unwillingness to follow the TMF posting rules may become so great that Motley Fool will simply have no choice but to take steps to protect the larger community that congregates at the REHP board.
JWR1945
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Post by JWR1945 »

hocus

But if intercst continues to rely on smear campaigns to block the community from knowing what it needs to know, and if we see a larger number suffer busted retirements in the months to come as a result of his actions, I could imagine resurrecting the idea at some future date six months or a year from now....

This reminds me about some comments that rkmacdonald made after someone wrote about investing for dividends (such as from REITs) because dividends are much more predictable than prices. I am not sure of the discussion board. I do know that it related to retirement issues.

rkmacdonald pointed out that the poster could not have gotten away with his comments only six months earlier. But because of the sharp drop in stock prices, he could do so now. I think that the REHP will go through the same thing as more and more people suffer busted retirements.

It is a horrible thing that it is happening this way. I view hocus's efforts to mitigate damages as being quite noble. I think that he has, at least, shortened the delay before people can get accurate information.

I think that this board has helped as well. If nothing more, lurkers can come over and learn what is being withheld from them.

Have fun. Thanks, ElSupremo.

John R.
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Post by wanderer »

hocus -

But if intercst continues to rely on smear campaigns to block the community from knowing what it needs to know, and if we see a larger number suffer busted retirements in the months to come as a result of his actions, I could imagine resurrecting the idea at some future date six months or a year from now....

jwr -

rkmacdonald pointed out that the poster could not have gotten away with his comments only six months earlier. But because of the sharp drop in stock prices, he could do so now. I think that the REHP will go through the same thing as more and more people suffer busted retirements.

It is a horrible thing that it is happening this way.

i finally popped my cork after putting up with a year plus of non-sensical arguments and then watching the equity market toward the end of its nearly 50% drop (it dropped a tad more in july this year). it would not be a large overstatement to say that diversification into real estate had literally "saved" our retirement dreams.

i don't share hocus' "mission," as i understand it. He wants to share these ideas (and great, life giving ideas they are) in a way that reminds me of Joe Dominguez (that is a 110% compliment).

Me? I'm selfish. I got mine. Ungrateful? Perhaps. But gramps died at 49, other realtives were in bad shape earlier than i'd like to remember.

I don't mind sharing my twisted perspective. There appear to be something on the order of a million Americans living expat existences in retirement. Given the low cost, high quality opportunities there, and given the good evidence of a lowered SWR (meaning that controlling costs becomes that much more important), OL seems a reasonable alternative. Similarly residential real estate - with a variety of caveats - seems advisable. Similarly a value bent in investing in paper assets. I also agree with hocus that probably the sine qua non of FIRE is sufficient focus and motivation. Once you have that, it's a heckuva ride. Thirteen years is a not unreasonable distance to expected FIRE. So those are the sorts of things I focus on.

I like my couch potato buddies - raddr, ataloss. a bunch of my buddies were never to be heard from again, except privately - ptsurmr, whd23, others. fmo and es are showing alarming trends toward productivity. Once my buddies left at the rehp, i was like, "khalas" ("enough" in arabic).

I like sitting on the dock, on the porch, a coldie in hand. Eating tons of seafood. That's my good life. yeah i do other stuff, scarily hyper-active stuff, but a lot of the time i just want time to stop and i just want to smell the roses with my boys and my family. that's not so much to want.

w
regards,

wanderer

The field has eyes / the wood has ears / I will see / be silent and hear
raddr
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Post by raddr »

fmo and es are showing alarming trends toward productivity.

LOL! Must be some kind of disease. I think I've already been vaccinated, tho. :wink:
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Post by -W- »

I like sitting on the dock, on the porch, a coldie in hand. Eating tons of seafood.
A definitive moment. The two w's have bonded yet again!

A wonderful, simple time where the colours of the day or subtlies of the dusk-evening-night are savoured. Birdsong in the morning or the gentle throb of the crickets at evening...

The play of the planets in the very early morning sky to the East at dawn and the same, special magic as the evening stars wink at dusk to the West, and then shine at night.
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