Length of Threads

[Dod101]

Under Musk Endeavours we now have a thread of 296 pages and 5,909 posts since the first post on 8 May 2017.

This is completely unrealistic and probably bars any newcomer contributing anything meaningful. Most books are helpfully divided up into chapters and then paragraphs, sometimes even different sections.

Someone decreed that the Coronavirus topic ought to be divided up into different threads. The same needs to happen to this thread on Musk

The same thing is in danger of happening with Company News where any report or observation on say Shell gets lumped into one thread.

Something needs to be done!

Dod

[moorfield]

Something needs to be done!

Let's start a Counting Thread instead... On another forum I frequent that has been running for 12 years and has now reached >3700 pages...

Ready...

1

[Itsallaguess]

Something needs to be done!

Yeah - people need to be careful what they wish for! :O)

I personally think both areas work well as they stand, and I think having a specific thread for the Musk stuff, as well as singular news-threads for Company News, works very well indeed, as it allows those participants that are interested in the contents of those threads to have a single, simple method to follow them, and it allows those people who aren't interested in them a single, simple method to ignore them.

As someone who's interested in the Musk side of things, but not generally interested in the news-related stuff, I can see both side of those benefits with the two specific examples you've given...

Both of those benefits would be severely watered down, in my opinion, if some sort of 'forced-multiplication' process were to be introduced, and I honestly can't see any upside to such a suggestion...

I love Ody's enthusiasm for all things 'Musk', but the thought of him being forced into some sort of 'separate thread' mode for his prolific posting reminds me of the 'Trouble with Tribbles' episode of Star Trek from my youth!



Source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trouble_with_Tribbles

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[swill453]

As someone who's interested in the Musk side of things, but not generally interested in the news-related stuff, I can see both side of those benefits with the two specific examples you've given...

Can someone explain what "the Musk side of things" might be? Is this related to Elon Musk, of Tesla? Why would this result in such a long thread?

Scott.

[88V8]

Mmm, yes, pros and cons... The coronavirus separation illustrates the downside of separate threads, where one now has to read four or more somewhat overlapping threads to remain au fait.
Although I am pleased that the statistical debate has been partitioned.

I have not made the acquaintance of the thread to which Dod refers, but I do have a tin of mink oil purchased in Yosemite in 1992 which remains in good condition.

V8

[dealtn]

Under Musk Endeavours we now have a thread of 296 pages and 5,909 posts since the first post on 8 May 2017.

This is completely unrealistic and probably bars any newcomer contributing anything meaningful. Most books are helpfully divided up into chapters and then paragraphs, sometimes even different sections.

Someone decreed that the Coronavirus topic ought to be divided up into different threads. The same needs to happen to this thread on Musk

The same thing is in danger of happening with Company News where any report or observation on say Shell gets lumped into one thread.

Something needs to be done!

Dod

The entirety of Company Share news is 3,807 posts over 141 threads.

The longest thread on the entire Board is 221 posts. This happens to be about AZN, and many of those posts are more about "the vaccine", than the company.

The specific thread that has lead to you posting your request for something to be done about the "lengthy" threads totals a whole 12 posts! A quarter of those are your post, a helpful reply pointing you to the correct place to post, and your subsequent reply to a moderator complaining about this issue.

By contrast the 2 "High Yield" boards are approaching 50,000 posts, and I wouldn't care to count how many threads exceed the 221 "threshold".

Interesting that concurrent to a thread that is running on the "lack of financial discussion lately" one of the few areas of the site devoted to news of a financial interest on potential companies to invest in, we now have this thread seeking to restrict the ease of such discussion.

Where exactly do you see this danger of newcomers not being able to contribute anything meaningful to Company Share news?

Moderator Message:
RS: Ad hominem remarks removed

[Gengulphus]

A thought about making long threads more useful for readers: produce 'index' posts for them. E.g. for the longest thread currently on Company News, something like:

AstraZeneca PLC (AZN) - index

2019: Feb Mar Apr Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2020: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2021: Jan

Each link points to the first post for the month concerned in the AstraZeneca PLC (AZN) thread. When a month is not listed, nothing was posted in that month.

would enable people to easily check up on discussions about AstraZeneca news for the last year, 6 months, or whatever other period they were interested in, in forwards date order (much easier reading in that order, given that later news items often refer to earlier ones).

Such a post would want to be in a thread of its own - otherwise it would simply replace the problem of locating the date you're interested in with the problem of locating the index post! That thread would ideally also be locked, but the post would need to be kept reasonably up to date. That suggests that such indices would be much better automatically generated and updated, and I don't see anything in principle that would prevent that being done (though in practice, availability of the required phpBB expertise might well be a problem).

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not suggesting that index posts should be produced for every thread - just that they might be useful for ones that are both voluminous and intended to be long-lasting.

Gengulphus

[BobbyD]

This is completely unrealistic and probably bars any newcomer contributing anything meaningful. Most books are helpfully divided up into chapters and then paragraphs, sometimes even different sections.

How can something which is real be completely unrealistic?

It's more Eastenders than Murder on the Orient Express, you don't need to have seen every episode to follow it, and there's a reasonable amount of repetition anyway... The BEV thread would have been a better home for large parts of it which range beyond Tesla, but witht hte two stood in opposition that fizzled out.

[mc2fool]

As someone who's interested in the Musk side of things, but not generally interested in the news-related stuff, I can see both side of those benefits with the two specific examples you've given...

Can someone explain what "the Musk side of things" might be? Is this related to Elon Musk, of Tesla? Why would this result in such a long thread?

Start here: viewtopic.php?f=76&t=5037

The length is a lot due to the ongoing enthusiasm for the topic by the OP there, who has posted to date 2143 posts in the thread, some two-thirds of their total contribution to TLF...

[Dod101]

This is completely unrealistic and probably bars any newcomer contributing anything meaningful. Most books are helpfully divided up into chapters and then paragraphs, sometimes even different sections.

How can something which is real be completely unrealistic?

It's more Eastenders than Murder on the Orient Express, you don't need to have seen every episode to follow it, and there's a reasonable amount of repetition anyway... The BEV thread would have been a better home for large parts of it which range beyond Tesla, but witht hte two stood in opposition that fizzled out.

What I meant was how can someone approaching this thread catch up with the content and indeed context without reading the entire thread? That is what I meant by unrealistic. Maybe though you are correct; that it naturally divides itself into 'chapters' . If I can summon up the enthusiasm I may try again.

Dod

[PinkDalek]

... The same thing is in danger of happening with Company News where any report or observation on say Shell gets lumped into one thread.

Something needs to be done!

You've been here before, as it were, but I far prefer how Company Share news should be used. Not that it is in many cases.

There shouldn't therefore be what we often see there, asides regarding topping up/down/holding/how many holdings in a particular strategy etc. That element can be kept to the dedicated boards (when permitted), as what individual investors are doing isn't 'news' in itself, and thus hopefully reducing some of the repetitive nature of some of the discussions there.

[csearle]

As I said in a PM recently, A Company News thread is a bit like when scientists bore into the ground and pull out a long column of soil which, when laid sideways, is like a timeline of events. So said scientist can just look at the bit (s)he's interested in.

Chris

[dealtn]

... The same thing is in danger of happening with Company News where any report or observation on say Shell gets lumped into one thread.

Something needs to be done!

You've been here before, as it were, but I far prefer how Company Share news should be used. Not that it is in many cases.

There shouldn't therefore be what we often see there, asides regarding topping up/down/holding/how many holdings in a particular strategy etc. That element can be kept to the dedicated boards (when permitted), as what individual investors are doing isn't 'news' in itself, and thus hopefully reducing some of the repetitive nature of some of the discussions there.

Like the 3 most recent posts on the GSK thread perhaps, made yesterday, the entirety of that day's additions, incidentally one of which was by the OP here worried about thread length?

None of which were about "Company News". The first referred to his HYP and the share being a "dud" within it, the second queried why you would hold the "dud", the last replying "happy to hold".

I don't have a huge problem with posts such as these (nor would it seem the mods), and in general I would much prefer to see more traffic on those Boards. My preference would be for them to be relevant (and for HYP type comments to reside on their own dedicated Board, especially as it is one of the more frequently cited Boards it seems for irrelevance) however.

it does seem a little strange though for some to be making claims about that Board being populated with lengthy threads (which doesn't particularly stand out as being true) and simultaneously posting at best tangentially there.

If it is a problem for some on longer threads in other places, then let it be discussed and solutions implemented. For that particular place, however it looks very much a solution looking for a problem rather than the other way round.

[tjh290633]

What I meant was how can someone approaching this thread catch up with the content and indeed context without reading the entire thread? That is what I meant by unrealistic. Maybe though you are correct; that it naturally divides itself into 'chapters' . If I can summon up the enthusiasm I may try again.

Dod

Does anyone need to read an entire thread? That particular one is a vehicle for Ody's obsession with Tesla and all things Musk.

It would have to be an obsessive to read the lot. One problem is the number of long quotes followed by a one-line response. A bit more posting discipline might help.

TJH

[johnhemming]

I would suggest that only a small minority of people read all of a thread before posting and hence the length of threads it not that much of an issue.

[Gengulphus]

Like the 3 most recent posts on the GSK thread perhaps, made yesterday, the entirety of that day's additions, incidentally one of which was by the OP here worried about thread length?

None of which were about "Company News". The first referred to his HYP and the share being a "dud" within it, the second queried why you would hold the "dud", the last replying "happy to hold".

I don't have a huge problem with posts such as these (nor would it seem the mods), ...

I don't have a problem with them either, as I generally only go to that board when I want to see what people are saying about some particular piece of company news. But your comment about the moderators may well be off-target, because the first step in moderator action being taken is usually that someone reports a problem, and only after that does a moderator look into the report and possibly take action (*). Furthermore, I suspect that most TLF users are fairly tolerant of problems provided they remain small - which that one did (or at least has so far): three posts, with the new stuff in each being a single reasonably short paragraph. So I'd say "(and probably no other board reader did either)" rather than "(nor would it seem the mods)".

(*) There are probably exceptions where a moderator happens to notice a problem themselves while reading the board and deals with it directly rather than reporting it and then dealing with the report - but they're likely to be fairly rare since the moderators pretty obviously don't systematically read every post on the boards they moderate looking out for problems.

... and in general I would much prefer to see more traffic on those Boards. My preference would be for them to be relevant (and for HYP type comments to reside on their own dedicated Board, especially as it is one of the more frequently cited Boards it seems for irrelevance) however.

I partly agree: I would prefer "HYP type comments" like those that don't say anything about any particular item of company news to be on HYP Practical, and I strongly suspect the moderators would too. But IMHO the test for being OK on Company News should only be whether what's said is about company news, rather than having non-obvious extra restrictions such as "except for HYP type comments". So if e.g. a company that is in someone's HYP announces a rights issue, a "HYP type comment" about that news isn't out of place either on HYP Practical or on Company News.

Gengulphus

[tjh290633]

(*) There are probably exceptions where a moderator happens to notice a problem themselves while reading the board and deals with it directly rather than reporting it and then dealing with the report - but they're likely to be fairly rare since the moderators pretty obviously don't systematically read every post on the boards they moderate looking out for problems.

Personally I glance at each post made anew on the boards which I moderate.

Occasionally something jumps out at you, or you get to the situation where in the local paper the Editor would have said: "This correspondence must now cease". Haven't seen that for a long time now in a local paper.

TJH

[BobbyD]

What I meant was how can someone approaching this thread catch up with the content and indeed context without reading the entire thread? That is what I meant by unrealistic. Maybe though you are correct; that it naturally divides itself into 'chapters' . If I can summon up the enthusiasm I may try again.

There are coherent threads of arguments within that thread which go back 3 1/2 years, but it's an area where expectation and reality are both moving pretty fast so unless you want the 'complete history', then there isn't much reason to set up an archaeological dig. At the same time they make sense as a continuum. I don't think it's an area which lends itself to tightly structured on topic threads. Breaking them up would just result in a series of more disjointed threads covering and recovering the same ground. So much of the subjects being discussed is yet to happen, and so little of what is currently happening is publicly known the vaguely defined and vaguely holistic superthread works rather well. Stick an oar in and it won't take long before somebody points out why your question/opinion just goes to prove how Tesla shall inherit the earth/might be mildly overvalued and have somewhat questionable operating practices.

[MDW1954]

But your comment about the moderators may well be off-target, because the first step in moderator action being taken is usually that someone reports a problem, and only after that does a moderator look into the report and possibly take action (*)

(*) There are probably exceptions where a moderator happens to notice a problem themselves while reading the board and deals with it directly rather than reporting it and then dealing with the report - but they're likely to be fairly rare since the moderators pretty obviously don't systematically read every post on the boards they moderate looking out for problems.

Gengulphus

Gengulphus,

Speaking as a mod, I think it's fair to say that Company News is lightly moderated -- not least because few reports about it are received. We are, I think, also fairly sanguine about thread length on that board (and most others, too).

The board serves an important purpose in being a place that company-specific news can be posted, without clogging-up boards such as HYP-P. Without having talked to any other mods about this, I think that I am fairly safe in saying that we would all rather see non-essential posts directed towards Company News than, say, HYP-P or HYS-S.

If people choose to follow-up a news item with comments like "it's my biggest holding and I'm going to buy more", or whatever, then so be it.

MDW1954

[MDW1954]

Occasionally something jumps out at you, or you get to the situation where in the local paper the Editor would have said: "This correspondence must now cease". Haven't seen that for a long time now in a local paper.

TJH

Oop north, in our newspapers, it was "This correspondence is now closed", but that was possibly the grease from the chips smudging the ink.

MDW1954