In full agreement with your thought process on brand and on small investor protection.
Can i give 2 suggestions ?
1.All new introductions can be “ranked” or “rated” by knowledgeable Seniors say on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being good idea and 5 being “suspect idea” . This rank should appear in all posts on the right side displaying "Value Pickr idea rank " . This ranking should be dynamic based on new data.Benefit is this will alert newbies more rather than trying to engage with the poster in a data war which as you said might not be achieving your purpose of investor protection.
2.All new introductions should have disclosure on not just % of holding but also on his/her acq cost and on strategy(ie when the poster will sell - ie will he sell the next day if scrip hits upper circuit ).
IF I may be allowed to extend the suggestion by @reacher.
Yes ranking of idea is a good idea and should be available to each and every member.
Members can revise their ranking based on their gut feeling, available information, risk that are discussed on the thread.
I am a member of an auto forum in which they have a good filtering mechanism. Every new thread is vetted by the Admin before it is made visible on the forum. Ofcourse it means the Admin has to read each new thread.
Rights for creating new thread can be given only after say 6 months to a new member.
Everything depends on one single decision - is admin/moderator/valuepickr in its totality responsible for content ? If you say yes then you will have to vet new threads,read thro’ each posts,confirm for balanced views etc etc . Its not practical in the long run.If you say no then this can be another Money control where over medium term brand will surely get diluted.What i suggested as a one time rank is a via media absolving too much effort by admin trying to counter motivated posters but at the same time having a control over the thread because the "rank " that they give will override a 1000 words and anyone who reads the thread will ask " why valuepickr seniors are giving this stock a ranking of 5 and calling it a suspect idea " ?
Giving rank by Senior VP members will entail its own problems.
It will at the end of the day be a subjective assessment and opinion.
Plus how many threads will these senior members go thru in an effort to give these ranks or marks.
As mentioned before most Senior VP members wont have the time or inclination to go through these companies. They would obviously have better things to do than read and research these things before giving out opinioins.
I think wherever any member feels that some kind of abuse of forum is going on he/she can flag the post to bring it to moderator attention and then action can be taken if needed.
In fact these kind of operations are ways for investors to educate themselves on how to avoid potential minefields. That is often as important as the search for multibaggers.
I had this thought pass by my mind sometime back that what if somebody misuses this forum to promote their own agendas 'coz of popularity, credibility and reputation of this forum. That looks like has become a reality.
Any checks etc.,. that need to be put in place should be practically implementable. I don’t have any such solution or check in mind at this point in time. But had below thought which might atleast make the quality of the thread being initiated better and may also provide more info to the readers.
We already have guidelines in place to initiate a thread. What I would like to suggest/propose is that a template should be created for all new stock stories to be initiated. Whenever a member wants to initiate a new stock story this template should pop up and it will be mandatory for the initiator to fill up this template. Some fields can be made optional in this template and some mandatory. The template for example can contain basic fields like current price, market cap, summary about company’s business, etc.,., other fields like some financials & ratios etc.,. of the company (present and historical), risks/threats to the business (mandatory field with minimum say 3 or 5 risks to be stated). The more detailed the template more better it would be. For new and basic users all or more fileds can be mandatory and for seniors no such restrictions. I will try to give it a shot, pen my thoughts on this and share it later.
Some benefits of a template like above that I can think of are:
Lazy folks may be deterred 'coz of detailed template to initiate a thread just for the sake of it.
Any new story would give structured and more information especially to amateurs and new members who are not necessarily equipped to understand stock stories or don’t have the discipline to not to follow each and every idea.
Template like this would help new members to improve their thought process in terms of what points need to be considered or stated as bare minimum and infact be an education for them.
Quality of stories initiated may improve.
Pushing hidden agendas behind glamorous words may become a bit difficult as template may bring in some objectivity.
I think it is a good thing to think about any ideas/suggestions etc.,. on the lines of bringing in more accountability, transparency, etc.,. to ensure that brand VP doesn’t get diluted and the reputation and credibility of the forum is maintained and enhanced. I am happy to see this thread being initiated by admin.
On approach from other Members: Some Patterns Newbies should watch out for
In a forum like VP, it is natural for members to reach out to each other. We admire the work of someone, we find complimentary strengths in each other, we want to seek advise on how to grow how to move to the next level, when we cant seem to be making much headway despite persistent efforts, and so on. Most of us have grown by seeking out each other!
So it is quite okay to have an open mind to approach from other members at the first level. But post that, at the second level it is important to watch out for a few things:
a) Is it a genuine two-way interaction, sharing and learning?
b) If it is a phone interaction - how much time is spent on learning about you, your progress over the years, what are your big insights vs how much time is spent on the particular idea?
c) On the idea again - how much is a push down the throat, how much is genuine listening?
d) Does the guy talk too much - like 80% of the conversation is one-way?
e) How much of names dropping so and so HNI has invested? Insider knowledge?
Like many places, at VP we like to give the ownership of good workable suggestion to the idea initiator.
a) Coming up with a reasonable idea initiation template where you are satisfied that there are multiple checks and balances - your job
b) You can then take the help of some VP Top Contributors to refine and present to Core Team
c) Meanwhile @pratyushmittal - please check feasibility of a pop-up/check mechanism that doesn’t accept the initial post unless it has this filled-up template, or some other work-around of achieving the same
Excellent ways to rein in the perpetual offenders.
Liked the following lines…
But the style is the same - genuine objections will be swamped - there is a organised gang supporting with data points, old reports, vomiting the same 10 points with different slants endlessly. Point is nobody has/can have the energy to match/counter these guys
Our experience has taught us it is futile and a waste of time to counter. Its more effective to educate everyone, empower everyone to watch out for these patterns and encourage flagging. If we suspect multiple patterns playing out, the best Deterrent and Expose is to immediately invoke KYC, while still giving the benefit of doubt for inadvertent mistakes, and be willing to give a decent hearing.
Usually they fall in line immediately .
Congratulations for making all efforts to protect the interests of small and novice investors.
One thing for all members to remember to help maintain VP as the best-in-class forum is to be vigilant and flag posts which they think violates the ethos of the forum. Collectively we can make a difference in keeping out those who do not share the values of the forum.
