The Lemon Fool

We are just talking, texting, on "the cloud". How much does that cost? Serious question!

ap8889 wrote:Also noted they are 2.6m in debt.

We shouldn't expect the "deluxe" TMF level of service unless we get TMF levels of money to the guys paying the bandwidth fee. Hopefully stooz and Clariman can make this work. But we need to keep our hopes and dreams within the budget they are happy to operate.

Yes, but there are avenues we can choose to take that tif choose to/were not able to follow such as Wikipedia style begging, advertising opt out, justgiving requests, crowdfunding(?), merchandise!

Must be a million quid in tshirts that read "I heart Clariman/stood" (delete as applicable)

Just noticed - can't select a smiley on my iPad

Meatyfool..

I haven't a clue what they spent their money on or where they made their money?

ap8889 wrote:Also noted they are 2.6m in debt.

We shouldn't expect the "deluxe" TMF level of service unless we get TMF levels of money to the guys paying the bandwidth fee. Hopefully stooz and Clariman can make this work. But we need to keep our hopes and dreams within the budget they are happy to operate.

Yes we should! We should expect at least TMF levels of service in matters that matter!

It looks to me as if we already more-or-less have that. That is to say, TMF capabilities not replicated here are not the ones that really matter (unless I'm missing something, which is entirely likely). OK, recs were nice - a way to agree with or thank someone without a content-free MeToo post - but I see they're already being discussed.

If it turns out that the cost (money, time, anything else) of running the service is more than the owners are happy with, I hope they'll address that by opening community discussion, so we can reach a new solution without the time pressure of the TMF bombshell. Similarly, if this board lacks capabilities that Fools value, those should be subjects for community discussion.

Besides, if this site gains traction to the level of TMF boards, the owners should be sitting on a potential gold mine. Sites like this make good profits through advertising. Let's just hope that if the owners go down that route, they serve us something inoffensive!

Uncle,

It had crossed my mind based on the alacrity of the lemon fool appearance that maybe stoozand Clariman had seen the signs and prepped in advance.

Possible, but I doubt it.

And I don't say that as a means to denigrate their efforts. If someone spots an opportunity I don't begrudge them.

And good luck to them. Let's hope we can keep the fool ethos running a little longer.

Meatyfool..

Just tried to trash my last post, but got timed out for edit.

Could be construed as being churlish, for which I apologise.

Many thanks to our hosts for the wonderful resource they have creAted for us.

Meatyfooll..

I actually had no previous knowledge of the tmf closure.
I found out yesterday from Clariman, and at my own expense, bought a domain and built the software last night.

Tmf had given me a lot, so hopefully I can give back to those that helped me. So that's too say it's my only motivation.

I hope to make improvements quickly, as there is none of the red tape as yet.

Tmf appears to be bespoke product, so there will be some things that will be difficult to replicate.
Please bare with me. It's only been 22 hours..

Meatyfool wrote:Uncle,

It had crossed my mind based on the alacrity of the lemon fool appearance that maybe stoozand Clariman had seen the signs and prepped in advance.

Possible, but I doubt it.

And I don't say that as a means to denigrate their efforts. If someone spots an opportunity I don't begrudge them.

And good luck to them. Let's hope we can keep the fool ethos running a little longer.

Meatyfool..

They were indeed quick to act. Whether they saw it purely as a rescue operation on behalf of the community or had in mind the possibility to monetise is immaterial, except insofar as it might affect the future of this site. For my part I deplore enclosure of the commons (appropriation by websites of public discussion that used to happen on Usenet), but that battle is long since lost. So Thanks and Good Luck to our new hosts!

But they surely cannot have foreseen that TMF would be so ****** as to spring such sudden closure on us, leaving anyone the opportunity to walk away with the Fool's community and goodwill, all for free! You'd've thought someone financially-aware would've put the boards up for sale/auction to whomsoever thought they could make a go of it!

stooz wrote:...and at my own expense, bought a domain and built the software last night.
Tmf had given me a lot, so hopefully I can give back to those that helped me. So that's too say it's my only motivation.

Simply brilliant, duly 'rec'd'.

The information about the MFUK accounts is sad, but also helps to explain the plethora of emails I've been receiving about how I need to sign up for this or that tip sheet / stock picking service etc: over the last few weeks I've been getting multiple emails a day telling me it's my last chance to get in on the act.

I wish the Fool well, and as somebody who has not subscribed to any of their services since VI (Value Investor) folded, have no axe to grind with their ending the party, but do hope that they are able to recover and become a decent financial site, much as they used to be back in the day.

In the meantime, here's to the Lemon Fool!

VRD

<b>Simply brilliant, duly 'rec'd'.</b>

How do you rec here?

<b>Simply brilliant, duly 'rec'd'.</b>

How do you rec here?

ap8889 wrote:Just for interest I took a look at the accounts for TMF UK.

They lost a million quid in 18 months. The cash flow was positive 200k but only after nearly a million quire worth of share dealing service was sold

That is a staggering level of expenditure for such a small scale operation. Somebody was lining their pockets.

stooz wrote:I haven't a clue what they spent their money on or where they made their money?

Me neither, but TMF were a market leader 15-20 years ago, and surely have a fairly wealthy list of users, so to lose a million a year takes a very special type of incompetence. TMF get great credit for setting up the original service, and for the community it fostered. But it has been seriously mismanaged in the last decade or so, had weak management, shockingly bad analysts and reports and an out-dated platform. I can't comment on their products and services, because I never spent a penny on them, but that's just another problem.

In theory the TMF boards should not have been that expensive to run, once set up, and they were hosted in the US. But TMF UK decided to do a lot of moderation and that comes at a cost - they had three people doing it, albeit part time.

Anyway, I suspect that TMF staff are too busy worrying about whether they will have a job in 2017 to focus on anything right now. It would be ironic if this turns out to be not just a legcy of TMF, but more successful than it.

Lootman wrote:
Me neither, but TMF were a market leader 15-20 years ago, and surely have a fairly wealthy list of users, so to lose a million a year takes a very special type of incompetence.

Or serious management charges from the parent company for doing very little.

Been there, had the redundancy.