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Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

Formerly "Lemon Fool - Improve the Recipe" repurposed as Room 102 (see above).
TheMotorcycleBoy
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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189054

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » December 24th, 2018, 9:55 am

Lootman wrote:While I am at it why not the rename the HY-Strategies board as "Dividend Investing"?

Good idea. I have, from a newbie perspective previously voiced unease regards the clarity of the acronym HYP.

What about "Investing in Equity for income" or even just "Income investing" ?

Matt

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189076

Postby dspp » December 24th, 2018, 11:25 am

Let us assume for a moment that a board was created called "Dividend Investing".

And let us assume for a moment that the existing HYP Practical board was renamed (for example) "HYP Purists", which has the convenient benefit of still having the same acronym of HYP-P.

Would everyone who is whingeing about being persistently modded on the HYP-P board instantly decamp to the new Dividend Investing board ? Thereby leaving the sanctity of the HYP-P board as a safe space for those who want such a safe space.

????

- dspp

melonfool
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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189081

Postby melonfool » December 24th, 2018, 11:53 am

If the guidelines and moderation aren't stopping people now then I don't see how a name change will make any difference.

Despite cries of horror at the confusion it must cause to newbies it is consistently long standing Fools who cause the problems. So they set up a nice straw man of imaginary users who can't understand the board as support for their cause.

It feels very much as if some people just don't like other people having their own thing that they can enjoy without interference.

I expect they are the same people who talk through films.

Mel

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189107

Postby Lootman » December 24th, 2018, 1:21 pm

TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:
Lootman wrote:While I am at it why not the rename the HY-Strategies board as "Dividend Investing"?

Good idea. I have, from a newbie perspective previously voiced unease regards the clarity of the acronym HYP.

What about "Investing in Equity for income" or even just "Income investing" ?

It's good to hear the reaction of someone who is relatively new here, since some cynics doubt that they exist, apparently.

As I recall, back in the TMF days there was an "Investing for Income" board as well as the two HY boards. It was a place to discuss things like bonds, annuities, savings accounts and the like, i.e. many topics that didn't relate to equities.

There is strong interest in dividend-based strategies in the UK, even if most of us do not take it to the lengths that TMF did, where almost every article was along the lines of "look at the size of the yield on this puppy". So dividend investing definitely deserves its own board in my view. The issue is more around taking one particular dividend strategy and carving out a "safe space" for it, such that its adherents never have to read anything they don't like, agree with or are interested in. (Personally I find it trivially easy to ignore topics that don't interest me but evidently some do not or cannot).

It seems that at least for now there is a critical mass of Lemons who wish to preserve that segregation, and of course there is always resistance to change. The time to have merged the two HY boards was back when TLF was set up and many former TMF boards were being merged; that opportunty was not taken. So I imagine that the current situation will continue to exist until HYP fizzles out and/or its followers die off. (I say that because there is now no sponsor of the method and so few new HYP'ers are being minted. It will just fade away. Hence my characterisation of it as a legacy method).

For those like me who access the site in a topic-centred way, rather than a board-centred way, it doesn't matter so much. It's only an issue if I make a post and it happens to be on the "wrong" board. And even if/when I am moderated, I likely won't notice as there is no notification and I am not in the habit of reading my old posts again.

So I'd just regard it as a quirk and not let it put you off. It's more a problem for the Moderators due to extra workload, and to those who dislike discussions like this one for some reason.

TheMotorcycleBoy
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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189177

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » December 24th, 2018, 4:58 pm

Lootman wrote:So I'd just regard it as a quirk and not let it put you off.

Don't worry mate, I most certainly won't! When it comes to Internet Forums I'm pretty thick-skinned (I think!). And to be frank, myself and Mel think this place is pretty damn good. People have been very welcoming, and very helpful, and it's basically free. We certainly could no way have done as well in our first 9 months in this game without TLF! Merry Christmas!

Matt (and Mel!)

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189408

Postby TUK020 » December 26th, 2018, 10:50 pm

mc2fool wrote:
TUK020 wrote:Suggestion: Rename "HYP Practical" board to "PYAD HYP".

I think renaming the board is a good idea, for the reasons you cite, however I'd comment that PYAD is not only the handle of the creator but also is a "value" term (PE. Yield, Assets, Debt), and may result in some ex-TMF value types then thinking the board is a revival of the old value board, and HYP can still be thought of standing for any "high yield portfolio".

So, I'd suggest something along the lines of "Bland Annuity Replacement Portfolio Practical" instead. That contains the original purpose and avoids the contentious wording (although I'm sure some will say it introduces others :D)

I realise that I have mentally pigeonholed the board in question as a variation on this theme: "Purist Bland Annuity Replacement".
The penny only dropped when I noticed that I had abbreviated this to PooBAR
:-)

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189854

Postby SDN123 » December 28th, 2018, 11:42 pm

TUK020 wrote:Suggestion: Rename "HYP Practical" board to "PYAD HYP".


I think this is a great idea, although for reasons mentioned elsewhere in this thread there are probably better alternative names.

It feels to me like (very often straw man) moderation “issues” will kill* the Practical board which would be a great shame. Therefore, although I don’t think that, by itself, a name change will fix the problem a change may be a useful line in the sand to try to reduce the current issues.
(*I doubt the board will actually die, but I believe that without some changes the number of useful, informative and entertaining posts from experienced and generous contributors will slow and eventually stop.)

I’ve mostly been a lurker on the HYP boards on TMF and TLF. When I first arrived (I think around 7 years ago) I read and re-read the dense content of the boards. I believe that I have benefited significantly from what I have read and learnt here. It would be a shame if “current local issues” stopped others from benefiting in the future.

I have these observations that I hope will help this conversation:

- These boards are so useful because they are moderated.

- No moderation system is perfect. I can’t say that I agree with all of the moderator’s decisions but I can say that I’m very grateful to the moderators for their time and without them I would not visit the boards and would feel very sad about that.

- In my opinion a strength of the “evolved version of high yield portfolio investment derived from some TMF articles written by Stephen Bland” is that is it based around some consensus guidelines and not a strict set of rules.

- It seems to me that it is very difficult (although not impossible) to capture “consensus guidelines” in board guidelines and even harder (maybe impossible) to moderate consistently against them when there users of the boards who are emotionally attached to a particular strongly held position (see below).

- In my professional experience many people hate the abstraction of guidelines and constantly seek “black and white” rules even when creating such rules is not to their immediate advantage. (Think of King Solomon cutting the baby in half.)

- In general people are very emotionally attached to how they are perceived (even if “only” online) and people are very emotionally attached to the groups to which they belong (regardless of how they became affiliated to any particular group) and people are very emotionally attached to their money and investments.

- The point above makes the publically declared choice of any particular investment style a perfect storm for emotional attachment and argument (and for dogmatically following a style even if the evidence is that it’s isn’t optimal for an individual’s circumstances). For examples google “Value vs Growth”, “Active vs Passive”, “Charts vs Fundimentals”, “Gold vs Fiat Currencies”, “Equities vs Fixed Interest”, etc., etc.

- There are clearly some very long term interpersonal issues between some of the posters here (and Mr Bland who posts less often now). The change from TMF to TLF didn’t fix that so a board name change is unlikely to fix that as well.

- The current local issues with “My HYP style vs Everyone else’s HYP style” is just a niche variation on all of the themes above and won’t go away with (on its own) just a name change.

In conclusion, I really feel that something should be tried to reduce the (pointless and distracting) spate of meta arguments on the Practical board while retaining board guidelines, moderators and as much of the board’s “traditional” character and purpose as possible. I believe a new name could be part of change but is unlikely to be a total solution.

If the moderators and/or owners can think of anything else that I could do to help (or anyone else that feels similarly could do to help) please let me know.

SDN

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189860

Postby TUK020 » December 29th, 2018, 12:13 am

SDN123 wrote:I have these observations that I hope will help this conversation:
SDN


Very constructive input. Appreciated
tuk020

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189868

Postby Itsallaguess » December 29th, 2018, 5:31 am

SDN123 wrote:
In conclusion, I really feel that something should be tried to reduce the (pointless and distracting) spate of meta arguments on the Practical board while retaining board guidelines, moderators and as much of the board’s “traditional” character and purpose as possible. I believe a new name could be part of change but is unlikely to be a total solution.

If the moderators and/or owners can think of anything else that I could do to help (or anyone else that feels similarly could do to help) please let me know.


There has already been the suggestion of a solution to many of the current and historic issues that continue to affect the HYP Practical board.

That suggestion is that if posters know, or even strongly suspect, that their income-portfolios, or the discussions around them that they wish to carry out, do not align with the written HYP Practical board-guidance, then they should strongly encourage themselves to post on the High Yield Shares & Strategies - general board, and if they so wish, they should post a cross-link post onto the HYP Practical board if they want to bring that discussion to the attention of the HYP Practical readership.

Doing so would massively help to keep any income-investment-related posts, or their subsequent discussions, that do not align with the HYP Practical board guidelines, separated from the stricter posting-environment of the HYP Practical board, and this simple act would greatly reduce the number of moderation issues currently, and historically, being experienced on the HYP Practical board.

Whilst I'm not a moderator on the HYP Practical board, it really does frustrate me to continually see streams of posts demanding changes in the moderation process, when all the moderators are trying to do is to keep the HYP Practical board discussions within the boundaries set out within the board guidelines...

There comes a point where those people constantly complaining about HYP Practical moderation need to look a little bit closer to home and see what they can do to help the situation themselves, rather than continually pointing the finger, and when there is a continued insistence to ignore the very simple solution discussed above, to make more use of the High Yield Shares & Strategies - general board and it's much wider income-investment remit, then it's highly unlikely that the current and historical HYP Practical moderation issues are going to be solved any time soon.....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189877

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » December 29th, 2018, 8:57 am

Sorry if I am talking out of turn here, since I'm not aware of the full history.

Would it not be possible to keep exactly the same contentious (I'm using that term very lightly here!!) board, (BTW that would be the "HYP Practical" one right?), but merely insist one/more of it's main advocates are it's moderators, and furthermore only permit a restricted subset of the forum members (i.e. those who fully buy-in to the guidelines) to post/participate there?

You'd get focussed content, and presumably the need to moderate would be vastly diminished?

Just an idea,
Matt

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189889

Postby absolutezero » December 29th, 2018, 11:31 am

Itsallaguess wrote:Whilst I'm not a moderator on the HYP Practical board, it really does frustrate me to continually see streams of posts demanding changes in the moderation process, when all the moderators are trying to do is to keep the HYP Practical board discussions within the boundaries set out within the board guidelines...


And if there are a significant number of people (which there are) who have problems with the moderation stemming from the guidelines, then the moderation stemming from the guidelines and/or the guidelines themselves are the problem. Not the people.

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189897

Postby csearle » December 29th, 2018, 11:49 am

absolutezero wrote:And if there are a significant number of people (which there are) who have problems with the moderation stemming from the guidelines, then the moderation stemming from the guidelines and/or the guidelines themselves are the problem. Not the people.
I think there is probably an even more significant number of people who don't have problems with the moderation and wish we could get on with business as usual. C.

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189904

Postby absolutezero » December 29th, 2018, 12:06 pm

csearle wrote:I think there is probably an even more significant number of people who don't have problems with the moderation

I see you are a mod.
To misquote Mandy Rice-Davies: 'He would say that, wouldn't he?'

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189926

Postby Raptor » December 29th, 2018, 1:13 pm

absolutezero wrote:
Itsallaguess wrote:Whilst I'm not a moderator on the HYP Practical board, it really does frustrate me to continually see streams of posts demanding changes in the moderation process, when all the moderators are trying to do is to keep the HYP Practical board discussions within the boundaries set out within the board guidelines...


And if there are a significant number of people (which there are) who have problems with the moderation stemming from the guidelines, then the moderation stemming from the guidelines and/or the guidelines themselves are the problem. Not the people.


Seems to me if you cannot or do not want to follow the guidelines then you should not post there and find another welcome haven for your posts. It is not as if there are not plenty of other boards on TLF. Just a thought. Not saying that there is not a "reason" to not question the guidelines, just not on HYP Practica board iteself.

I spent years as a consultant specialising in "Change Management" so am realistic to know that nothing stands still, technology, governments and laws change (along with management) and we have to take these changes into account. But, if there are rules and guidelines in place we need to abide by them, unfortunately, whether we agree with them or not. That's life.

Raptor, moderator on HYP and Strategies.

BTW My biggest bugbear as a consultant was when I would question people as to the reason why we could not do something differently and the response was but we have always done it that way. Not an ANSWER and an excuse to stop change, imo.

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189987

Postby Gengulphus » December 29th, 2018, 7:20 pm

absolutezero wrote:
csearle wrote:I think there is probably an even more significant number of people who don't have problems with the moderation

I see you are a mod.
To misquote Mandy Rice-Davies: 'He would say that, wouldn't he?'

When one cannot find any valid arguments, one can always resort to a personal attack...

Gengulphus

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#189995

Postby Lootman » December 29th, 2018, 8:36 pm

Gengulphus wrote:
absolutezero wrote:
csearle wrote:I think there is probably an even more significant number of people who don't have problems with the moderation

I see you are a mod. To misquote Mandy Rice-Davies: 'He would say that, wouldn't he?'

When one cannot find any valid arguments, one can always resort to a personal attack...

I would probably stop short of characterising that comment as a personal attack. And for two reasons.

Firstly, it wasn't directed so much at a particular Mod, but rather suggested the idea that it is perhaps not plausible for Moderators to give an objective assessment of their own performance.

Secondly, and by extension, I think a class of people should always be assessed only by those who are outside that class of people. So if we are going to conduct a performance review of the Moderators then that should be conducted by the site sponsors and by the community.

Now, none of that should be regarded as me agreeing with the comment. In fact I regard the moderation at TLF to be of a reasonably high quality, given the circumstances. Certainly better than at TMF where it was not community moderation but rather corporate moderation, with all the problems that that implies.
Moderator Message:
some text removed. Clariman


So whilst I do not have a problem with TLF moderation (perhaps because I don't comment a lot on HYP-P), I absolutely support the notion that the Moderators should be subject to criticism without being able to wriggle out of that by claiming that such criticisms constitute a personal attack.

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#190029

Postby Gengulphus » December 30th, 2018, 5:12 am

Lootman wrote:
Gengulphus wrote:
absolutezero wrote:I see you are a mod.
To misquote Mandy Rice-Davies: 'He would say that, wouldn't he?'

When one cannot find any valid arguments, one can always resort to a personal attack...

I would probably stop short of characterising that comment as a personal attack. And for two reasons.

Firstly, it wasn't directed so much at a particular Mod, but rather suggested the idea that it is perhaps not plausible for Moderators to give an objective assessment of their own performance.
...
So whilst I do not have a problem with TLF moderation (perhaps because I don't comment a lot on HYP-P), I absolutely support the notion that the Moderators should be subject to criticism without being able to wriggle out of that by claiming that such criticisms constitute a personal attack.

To bring this back into the realms of reality: absolutezero's remark was directed very specifically at csearle (see post #189904 a few posts up to see it in full context). It did not contain a criticism of csearle's actions or arguments, just the quoted personal attack. I am not a moderator, and have nothing to "wriggle out of", that last post being my first contribution to this discussion.

Gengulphus

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#190033

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » December 30th, 2018, 6:50 am

Considering that the mods read a whole load of stuff submitted on the WWW in their spare time, for no pay, and little thanks, then any level of critique applied to them en-masse or individually, conjures up the phrase "biting the hand that feeds you".

If people really dislike moderation or policy *that much*, why not set up an alternative forum??

Matt

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#190041

Postby moorfield » December 30th, 2018, 9:02 am

TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:If people really dislike moderation or policy *that much*, why not set up an alternative forum??


This is what the Report this post button is for, isn't it? I've been uncomfortable about using that often, for fear of upsetting the OP and winding up the mods.

I decided to use it on Bree's HYPish Portfolio thread, for reasons I've written here. Raptor's reply there was reasonable I thought and one can assume that next year, Bree will update on Portfolio Management & Review; or again on HYP Practical, again get pinged (by me), and Raptor will move it. Not an unreasonable expectation of how moderation should work.

However MDW1954 intervened on that thread, using the "[mod]" tag, with some guff about 95% pure-HYP, which isn't consistent with the first line of the Board Guidance.

And here's my point: If mods express opionion using the "[mod]" tag then they should reasonably expect to be requoted or called out if contributors feel they are being inconsistent. In this example, perhaps MDW1954's opinion should have been written as a personal one, not a mod one. Which would have saved us and others a lot of time.

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Re: Labels. The potential for creating disagreement

#190055

Postby richfool » December 30th, 2018, 10:01 am

I would suggest that using/including a title "High Yield Portfolios" would convey a more general remit, i.e. embracing high yield portfolios in general, and would thus be counter-productive/unhelpful.

I liked the idea of something like "HYP (annuity substitute portfolio) - Practical ----". That then conveys that this is something different, special, exclusive, type of thing.


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