What makes a worthwhile forum?

Posted on by The INO.com Team

After visiting the forum of Blain Reinkensmeyer, one of our frequent guest bloggers, I started thinking about forums. So I started searching. There are hundreds, if not thousands, that I came across. Some free, some paid, and all different. I ran across some that were very niche, only covered "edible futures" (YES EDIBLE FUTURES). After looking through as many as I could manage in a 3 hour time window...I decided to go to our amazing user base to see what they think makes up a worthwhile forum.

Blain and StockTradingTogo have a forum that I spent a good bit of time reading, and learning from. Take a look at the StockTradingToGo Forum, analyze the posters and moderators, look over the content, and see how it compares to YOUR favorite forum.

There are many things that make up a good forum...but what do you think are the most valuable tools?

Please post in the comment section what YOU think makes up a good forum. There are no right or wrong answers as everyone trades differently, thinking differently, and needs different info.

OK...COMMENTS ARE OPEN!!

7 thoughts on “What makes a worthwhile forum?”

  2. No forum is of any value unless it offers differing points of view. If you only read thoughts of people who agree with your view, you'll never learn anything new, and if you are wrong, you'll not get a chance to see things from a different perspective. Therefore the best forums are the ones that provide encouragement and support for dissenters, and the worst ones are the ones the treat dissenters rudely or use moderators to delete their posts.

    The second thing that differentiates a good forum from a bad one is to recall that quality of posts is much more important than quantity. Many forums have posters who think there job is to cheer for their position, whereas the forums that are valuable are the ones where posters do actual analysis, and are open to changing positions if the analysis changes.

  3. Ideally a forum IMO would be a place where people simply "collaborate" try to get the most accurate picture of the markets-economy. ie with a "scientific approach: mostly focusing on data (tech analysis and fundamentals) and psychology.
    In practice, I have often found that most people starting a forum have an agenda, and if it not money (which I believe it always is anyway) it is an opinion and hence there is a bias from the start. If you are a trader this is not a good place to be. Better read it before you sleep and have time to erase any "impressions" and place what you read into a more global context. Trading with a bias will hurt you, short term anyway.
    Furthermore, opinions attract counter-opinions and hence more drift from actual analysis towards tendentious opinion. Not to mention of course the invasion of "pure manipulation attempts". You would think one would want to protect a forum from that, but that is hard to do if the forum itself is not purely based on critical analysis of data.

    There is clearly a danger in trying to find like-minded people and spending too much time "basking in this atmosphere", as the markets is not made of like minded people.
    So forums have entertainment value, sometimes information value (although if you follow Bloomberg + WSJ + your charts and market data you probably wont learn very much on any of them.

  4. I think what a forum needs is an early start in the days of the Internet. If you don't have that, it's like playing catchup. As well, if what you are involved in is a "little flock," don't expect a big participation, because by nature, your target market is little.

    I agree also, you need the staff because with lots of staff, you have that additional participation that consistently remains.

    My belief is in 100 years from now, Biblocality Forums will be all the rave. What I have come to recognize is I am attracting only a very few Christians because these forums are the deepest Christian forums on the Internet, which I can literally prove to you based on teaching (see the 5 deeper truths). So just the most spiritual Christians would venture on it and spend significant time here. Many Christians like to remain carnal and fleshly, so they will lose the reward of reigning for 1000 years.

    But the other crowd I am attracting are the usual hostile non-believers, so as the years go by and they become converted to Christ, they will remember where their ideas were pressed, at Biblocality Forums.

  5. Your continual shifting on gold and silver makes me dizzy. How can anyone ever make money on your trades?

  6. My two cents worth.

    I think forums need some volunteers who are willing to work it. Because I have found forums can get quite nasty, and so for the benefit of the owner of the forum, it would help to have some solid volunteers to keep the nastiness out.

    But on the positive note, what I think forums can do for people is offer them the chance to find like minded people. Also people that have similar resources, backgrounds etc. When you can team up with people of similar ilk to you, you have a far better chance of being to help each other forward in the trading world.

  7. Brad

    I thought you have gone away after Friday for your summer hols!

    The forum will depend on the level of trading experience of the members.

    Otherwise, the newbies may be lost.

Comments are closed.