First post

DiggerUK

As you will know from your time lurking, there are some self appointed village elders here. They have been as courteous as they will ever be.
You will have guessed that you have committed the sin of asking the wrong question; even though forum rules make it clear that there is no such thing as a daft question......just daft answers. Or in your case, simply rude answers.

Truth is that they do little, if any, thinking outside of the box.
There will be a few posters here who will be happy to talk sensibly about the significance of what we read in financial articles, and how it should impact on our financial planning. So don't give up hope, you will get enough who will respond in a civil manner.

I am the forums resident gold expert, so if you have anything you want to discuss on the subject, ask away..._

p.s., welcome to MSE

TheTracker

Welcome, Smed!

It's refreshing to see an expression of politeness: a simple hello, I'm interested.

The vast resources of MSE are unlikely to collapse under the weight of new joiners sending pleasant greetings. You do get exposed here to serial verbosity from some folk, the forum equivalent to verbal diarrhoea. That's part of the territory though, so don't sweat it.

What are your financial concerns? Perhaps the community can assist.

eskbanker

DiggerUK wrote: »

As you will know from your time lurking, there are some self appointed village elders here.

[...]

I am the forums resident gold expert

Smed

AnotherJoe wrote: »

You already have and to boot accused other posters here of "phishing" which is essentially a fraudulent criminal activity. Nice.

If you arent going to provide any information at all then your time here is likely to be wasted, as I posted earlier try the "discuss the economy" forum with your own topic if you just want the five minute argument, or if you want the full 30 minutes try the Scottish thanks for all the fish thread.

I can not read some of that thread because posts have been removed or edited by a moderator and the thread locked. But it looks like that poster posted a link to his facebook profile and then another poster searched through posts and photos, gained personal information like the postal address from that and publicly posted it. Moderators editing or removing those posts shows that those actions are against forum rules.

TheTracker wrote: »

Welcome, Smed!

It's refreshing to see an expression of politeness: a simple hello, I'm interested.

The vast resources of MSE are unlikely to collapse under the weight of new joiners sending pleasant greetings. You do get exposed here to serial verbosity from some folk, the forum equivalent to verbal diarrhoea. That's part of the territory though, so don't sweat it.

What are your financial concerns? Perhaps the community can assist.

I would not go so far as to say that but replies to questions about investing and investments show a child-like simplicity and reduces a fund and fund manager preference to the level of price with the best fund manager seen to be the cheapest. It is like saying 15g of coffee beans will make a mug of coffee so the cheapest is better than the ones that cost more.

bowlhead99

That's the problem with a forum operated by a website which has ten million people on its weekly mailing list. You will get all kinds of people participating.

From those who say they have no reason to be careful with their online privacy and wish to prove it by supplying a link to their unlocked public Facebook profile where they host a welcoming message to the various MSE screen names and "dare" them to identify and post their address on the forum.

To those who are experienced and well-read investors who reply with answers displaying a "child like simplicity" to address the lowest common denominator in the room who is starting from a position of zero knowledge.

To those who are inexperienced investors who write with a "child like simplicity" because they themselves are starting from a position of zero knowledge and perhaps hope to be corrected and pick up things as they go along but for now all they know is the superficial stuff.

When you have a community of over 800,000 registered members and a readership in the millions, you are going to get mixed content on a discussion forum.

Some of that content will be high quality, display perceptive insights and help to save investors from unnecessary taxes, losses, costs and administration, or open their eyes to opportunities of which they would not have otherwise been aware. Some will trivialize important issues and descend into political or personal complaints, or merely function as welcome comic relief. Within the boundaries of good taste and legality the forum is generally unmoderated and self policing.

If it doesn't sound like a forum in which you'd want to participate, there are others.

Ray_Singh-Blue

Smed. I agree with you that simple can be good. Is that what you want to talk about?

Smed

bowlhead99 wrote: »

From those who say they have no reason to be careful with their online privacy and wish to prove it by supplying a link to their unlocked public Facebook profile where they host a welcoming message to the various MSE screen names and "dare" them to identify and post their address on the forum..

I want to avoid labouring the point and I don't want to be a closet lawyer. But having experience in a similar case, a judge will identify the victim and then consider the competence and vulnerability of that victim. There is definitely a victim and the victim's family might now be involved. On similar cases on social media I see that the court has supported the victim's claim.

I was brought to this forum through M.S.E. because it is associated with Martin Lewis who I see on tv. Coming here was a bad decision.

bowlhead99

Smed wrote: »

I was brought to this forum through M.S.E. because it is associated with Martin Lewis who I see on tv.

It's the same for many people - either the Martin Lewis brand or a Google search on a relevant topic. That's why there's such a range of types of posts and threads with very varied quality of content.

Coming here was a bad decision.

You mentioned you'd come here and signed up to get some ideas and for some discussion about savings. There's probably around 100 active threads since the time you first posted and almost 800,000 posts on older ones, but so far your comments are only on this one, where nobody's actually talking about savings or investments.

There's also a lot of repetition on other threads this time of year because people are trying to sort out their year end tax planning and ask very similar questions to each other. So some of the more insightful comments and observations get lost among the noise and you may think there is not much here that you will get much use out of. However, it can be worth persevering rather than writing it all off as a bad decision to have signed up.

inflationbuster

Welcome Smed

RG2015

"If it doesn't sound like a forum in which you'd want to participate, there are others." (bowlhead99)

As with most things in life you have to accept both the positive and negative elements. I am very happy with the wealth of information on this forum which does contribute to my financial decision making process.

However, I have not been able to find any other personal finance forums. If there are indeed others out there I would be very keen to hear about them.