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The Motley Fool

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SalvorHardin
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Re: The Motley Fool

#388298

Postby SalvorHardin » February 20th, 2021, 9:42 pm

Gostevie wrote:I’m not entirely sure why that was the case but it could be that some of the more experienced and eloquent investors drifted across to newer platforms such as Stockopedia and even Twitter to discuss their investment ideas, which had a snowball effect of fewer other people visiting.

A few thoughts:

1) The 2008 financial crisis did a lot of damage. Many names vanished from TMF during this period. They weren't replaced to the same extent by newcomers. I suspect that a lot of posters cut their TMF activity during and after this period (heavy losses can greatly inhibit some people)

For example, at a TMF social a couple of years later, I was told of one regular poster who was bankrupted owing £450,000 thanks to a big holding in RBS.

2) When Paulypilot moved to Stockopedia, quite a few posters went with him. Stockopedia's boards get very few discussions, most of the interaction there is people commenting on Paulypilot's articles.

3) A few people, jealous of how much money some of us had made on small cap oils, managed to get TMF to kick emptyend (ee) off the site. Since ee was the most prolific and influential oil and gas poster, traffic dropped and was never replaced. Lots of oil and gas posters moved to ADVFN, following ee.

Pre-2008 Oil and Gas, and Paulypilot's Pub, were the big successes. Less so post-2008. The number of TMF posters who turned up at Soco's AGMs dropped dramatically, starting with the 2009 AGM.

4) Increased use of twitter. An example is WShak, who was a prolific oil and gas poster on TMF, who is still very active on twitter

SalvorHardin
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Re: The Motley Fool

#388302

Postby SalvorHardin » February 20th, 2021, 9:53 pm

I should add that towards the end, the workload of TMF's moderators grew quite substantially in the wake of the Brexit vote. LoST spilled over onto other boards, where posts could receive recs, notably Bert's Investors Sanctuary.

Rising tempers led to many more pulled posts and threats of legal action. As seen recently on TLF, when Polite Discussions was temporarily shut down, this upsets the moderators

AsleepInYorkshire
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Re: The Motley Fool

#388303

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » February 20th, 2021, 10:02 pm

I met Paul but only for a brief moment some time ago. I was quite sad to hear that he had struggled in 2007/8 when the banking crisis hit. He's a kind person with a heart of gold.

AiY

Lootman
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Re: The Motley Fool

#388491

Postby Lootman » February 21st, 2021, 5:50 pm

SalvorHardin wrote:I should add that towards the end, the workload of TMF's moderators grew quite substantially in the wake of the Brexit vote. LoST spilled over onto other boards, where posts could receive recs, notably Bert's Investors Sanctuary.

Rising tempers led to many more pulled posts and threats of legal action. As seen recently on TLF, when Polite Discussions was temporarily shut down, this upsets the moderators

At this point I suspect that TLF's Polite Discussions board has been permanently shut down, as it has been a few weeks now and there doesn't seem to be much of a clamour to re-open it. There were a couple of fairly prolific Lemons who made 80% to 90% of their posts on there who might be a bit bored now, but that is about it.

Perhaps as a result I notice a lot of quasi-political discussions invading the Coronavirus topics, which appear to have taken over the mantle of hosting ideological disputes in the absence of Polite Discussions.

scrumpyjack
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Re: The Motley Fool

#388495

Postby scrumpyjack » February 21st, 2021, 6:16 pm

Sorry to hear of the poster who was bankrupted over his holding in RBS. IMO one should never borrow to buy shares (don’t know if he did) and never put oneself in a position where if all your equities became a total loss, you go bankrupt. If any one does leverage themselves like that, they are being extremely unwise.

I also lost a lot on the banks back then, but it was a valuable lesson that everyone can be wrong and things may not be as you think they are. I was fortunate that I subsequently made some excellent investment choices which made up many times over for the banking disasters and also decided to be far more diversified and go more for Investment Trusts, one of which was SMT (wonderful!). This also demonstrated to me that one should let the winners run on and on. A 10 times gain greatly offsets a near 100% loss. Partly my change in approach was due to the experience of 2008 but also a decision that as one gets to retirement one must reduce risk and not expose oneself excessively to one’s own judgement. Accept the possibility that others may know better sometimes.

JamesMuenchen
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Re: The Motley Fool

#388613

Postby JamesMuenchen » February 22nd, 2021, 8:44 am

SalvorHardin wrote:3) A few people, jealous of how much money some of us had made on small cap oils, managed to get TMF to kick emptyend (ee) off the site. Since ee was the most prolific and influential oil and gas poster, traffic dropped and was never replaced. Lots of oil and gas posters moved to ADVFN, following ee.

Not really a fair comment and not how it happened in my recollection.

EE had many issues with posts being pulled due to his apparent inability not to name-call other posters. He clearly felt that this rule shouldn't apply to him. I remember a lengthy discussion on Improve The Fool about how he should be able to call other posters "tw*t" as he might mean "twit" and not "twat". The response, of course, was that you can't call people "twit" or "twat" and you can't use "*" to mask swear-words, so whatever he meant by it the post would be pulled.

In the end, he left of his own accord and posted many times advertising the move (also to Stocko, as I recall, at least in the beginning) to take as many posters as possible with him.

As for traffic dropping, I'm sure no-one outside TMF has details of that. But anyway, the O&G sector is not what it was pre-2008 either. The idea that it was a drop in traffic from losing one or two "influential" posters that killed the UK boards seems a bit of a stretch.

The official TMF line was that the site was moving to a new platform and there was no reason to migrate the loss-making discussion boards. Why is that so hard to understand?

SteMiS
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Re: The Motley Fool

#388626

Postby SteMiS » February 22nd, 2021, 9:26 am

JamesMuenchen wrote:
SalvorHardin wrote:3) A few people, jealous of how much money some of us had made on small cap oils, managed to get TMF to kick emptyend (ee) off the site. Since ee was the most prolific and influential oil and gas poster, traffic dropped and was never replaced. Lots of oil and gas posters moved to ADVFN, following ee.

Not really a fair comment and not how it happened in my recollection.

EE had many issues with posts being pulled due to his apparent inability not to name-call other posters. He clearly felt that this rule shouldn't apply to him. I remember a lengthy discussion on Improve The Fool about how he should be able to call other posters "tw*t" as he might mean "twit" and not "twat". The response, of course, was that you can't call people "twit" or "twat" and you can't use "*" to mask swear-words, so whatever he meant by it the post would be pulled.

In the end, he left of his own accord and posted many times advertising the move (also to Stocko, as I recall, at least in the beginning) to take as many posters as possible with him.

Yes, that's my recollection too

SW10Chap
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Re: The Motley Fool

#420065

Postby SW10Chap » June 16th, 2021, 9:53 pm

Those were heady and enjoyable times, before the TMF O&G community started to fissure and crumble.

There was a concerted move to Stockopedia, but that eas hampered by unfamiliarity with the look and feel of the new site. In fact, they were still developing it and making some quite big changes at the request of early members.They even broached the idea of paying regulars for content, which seemed too onerous for me.

The all-important network effect had disappeared though; as some have pointed out, certain posters established themselves on Twitter, some tried to make a go of Stockopedia, while others remained on TMF.

Much as I enjoyed the whole TMF experience, in many ways I was glad things changed; I posted a great deal les and was able to focus on other things.

SW10

AsleepInYorkshire
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Re: The Motley Fool

#420067

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » June 16th, 2021, 10:01 pm

TMF evolved.

Evolution does not mean improvement.

AiY

Moosehoosenew
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Re: The Motley Fool

#420076

Postby Moosehoosenew » June 16th, 2021, 11:21 pm

I thought the main purpose of Motley Fool was to move people away from IFAs towards managing their own investments, and think they succeeded in that. Unfortunately to use internet language they could not monetise it.

I loved reading the posts of so many bright people and continue to enjoy Lemonfool, I should subscribe.

brightncheerful
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Re: The Motley Fool

#420215

Postby brightncheerful » June 17th, 2021, 4:50 pm

Every so often i used to download The Motley Fool Limited accounts and post a few choice comments on their financial achievements. for example, from the financial statements to 31 March 2014, the parent undertaking, Motley Fool LLC incorporated in Delaware USA confirmed its intention to provide financial support for the group should the need arise. At that time, TMF Ltd net debt was £2,614,704 (an improvement on 2013 when it was £3,088,022). [I note from its more recent accounts to Sep 2019 that the net liabilities are £179,599 a marked improvement but a loss nevertheless. (the ultimate parent co is The Motley Fool Holdings Inc.)

Not essential I suppose but I tend to think that a financial site dispensing advice on how to make money out of stocks and shares should itself be making a profit.

I don't think that in the early days, which predate my involvement, the idea was that on-line should be free. I think the marketing plan was that by providing a free forum enough people on it would buy enough of TMF's services/products to more than counteract the cost of maintaining the forum.

Snag was that, in my view, much of TMF's saleable content wasn't that saleable because it was too basic and presumably targeted at a beginner's market whereas many (if not most) of TMF's forum participants were more knowledgeable; and to whet their appetite probably could've done with a more sophisticated product.

Interestingly, a similar 'problem' has befallen the FT, i have bought the FT every Saturday (and sometimes its daily editions) for more than 50 years. At the start of lockdown 1 (March 2020) I took out a digital subscription for a year. I enjoyed the experience and contributed numerous comments, some of which achieving dozens of likes but I thought the standard of research in some articles and news stories was very poor, I wasn't alone in thinking that: many contributors to the comments sections indicated that their only reason for reading the FT on-line was to access the knowledgeable comments. I suggested that many of the journalists were perhaps too young and over-dependent upon their sources so lacked the know-how of the questions to research. One particular article, i forget which, generated so much derision in the comments section stating that the author of the article didn't know what they were talking about. I did not renew my sub but have continued to buy the print version which in my view is generally better written and a more stimulating read.

Something i disliked intensely about TMF was to be banned from using the boards. Having been banned on several occasions - for the most part fairly minor 'offences' in the scheme of things - I would think that most of the folk that were banned did not persevere to be allowed back in but simply wrote TMF off. In the end, of course, TMF wrote off all of us that had frequented its boards and in doing so, as others have said, lost a valuable resource.

Every cloud has a silver lining (or as they don't say in this part of the world, every farmer has a Silver Cloud). Had it not been for TMF re-think, The Lemon Fool would probably not have been conceived. :D

brightncheerful
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Re: The Motley Fool

#420369

Postby brightncheerful » June 18th, 2021, 9:23 am

Thank you to the person(s) that reported my post for the confusing references to TLF when i should've put TMF and to the moderator for editing.

Bnc

stevensfo
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Re: The Motley Fool

#420390

Postby stevensfo » June 18th, 2021, 10:03 am

I was never banned from TMF, but was is noticeable is that I have had jokes removed on TLF that got loads of recs on TMF.

Amazing how much has changed in ten years!


Steve

nimnarb
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Re: The Motley Fool

#420459

Postby nimnarb » June 18th, 2021, 12:41 pm

Never did make it to the Fabled Scottish socials with KingMckong and the like. Probably because London is easier to get to. And they never came to my 2 Scottish socials. Snorvey + Simsqu + family and Snorvey + Basketbob (and wives). But then they weren't invited. I almost teamed up with Tangerinemachine to head down to Edinburgh but it never quite happened.

Snorves…

KingMckong, wow a blast from the past. We had many private discussions on what I can’t remember but he was quite a prolific poster and think he eventually had his own board and was one clever feller. Hope he is well.

20thcenturyboy
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Re: The Motley Fool

#421972

Postby 20thcenturyboy » June 24th, 2021, 4:52 pm

Hi all, I used to post quite a lot on the TMF UK boards from about 1999 - 2005 I think. Then I had kids lol. I used the name 20thCB for a long time.
Mostly on the social boards. Did a couple of music tape swaps (was it TTT?). I enjoyed it a lot and I *think* I went to one of the London socials.
I even bought the original TMF book! I don't know anyone who uses the site any more though, they just seem to be another stock tipping site now, and they really do love their spam emails. It's a shame.

AleisterCrowley
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Re: The Motley Fool

#422023

Postby AleisterCrowley » June 24th, 2021, 7:26 pm

I had a reminder pop up recently that I joined TMF in May 2001, so just passed the 20th anniversary :o
I don't think I started posting until 2002 and not sure when my first London Social was. Grafton upstairs? Probably dates it.

swill453
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Re: The Motley Fool

#422151

Postby swill453 » June 25th, 2021, 9:19 am

The profiles are still there on fool.com, seems I signed up in June 1999. Longest relationship of my life!

Scott.

brightncheerful
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Re: The Motley Fool

#422266

Postby brightncheerful » June 25th, 2021, 1:15 pm

The only time I've bought into Oil when i ended up on what was regarded by analysts as the most valuable mailing list when I bought a few new shares in BP at the time when it was cheaper to buy them (second hand) in the market.

I would think an Oil & Gas board would've been a hot-bed of comment when on 20 April 2020 the US oil price benchmark fell below zero, closing at minus $37.63 a barrel; crude oil now worthless and a liability. And on 30 April 2020, Royal Dutch Shell cut its dividend for the first time since WW2.

--

As for retirement age approaching (in my case long past state retirement age), risk and sometimes others know better than exposing to the risk of one's own judgement, when one has a limited amount to invest (as i do) Warren Buffet's comment - it's okay to put all your eggs in one basket but watch the basket - holds me in good stead. Currently more than half the total value of my portfolio is invested in one share. I am hoping that the sp will go by another £5-£10 within the next couple of months so that i can sell enough to release the capital and keep the rest. At the moment, Ii would have to sell about 80% of the holding to do that.

AleisterCrowley
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Re: The Motley Fool

#422299

Postby AleisterCrowley » June 25th, 2021, 2:13 pm

brightncheerful wrote: when one has a limited amount to invest (as i do) Warren Buffet's comment - it's okay to put all your eggs in one basket but watch the basket - holds me in good stead.

I think that was Andrew Carnegie, but like many of these wise sayings it's probably been attributed to many people :)

DiamondEcho
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Re: The Motley Fool

#422704

Postby DiamondEcho » June 26th, 2021, 10:02 pm

I started following fool.uk boards in - hmmm long ago - mid 90s when living in Asia. Then fool.us when I moved there in '99. Then back to the .uk a couple of years later until it all blew up.
I remember a wild meet-up in New York for a Thanksgiving day parade (2000?). Sordid, bacchanalian, going through most of the dive-bars and ex-spreakeasy's in downtown. Through to a relatively polite meet up some years later in pub in Sunbury-on-Thames. At the latter... Mike4, UnclePhilip, GiniBeams, BarrenFluffit and TMFGrow must have been there, as that was the only time I met a Fool-Mod in the flesh....


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