Evening folks, I haven't weighed into the rules conversation yet and saw the great conversation last night too late, but I will throw some thoughts out there as things seem to be getting a little tense around here shall we say. I'm no HLL, and you'd understand my accent no better, but I'm what you are stuck with it seems while he's on holiday 
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These are probably much more questions than answers, but hopefully, the right questions to get to the right answers. And I hope everyone feels inclined to give their opinions, even those that just read normally, so we can get a true and proper representation. Even those that asked for tight rules, or made them, if they can share their thoughts behind it. I could just say what rules I think will work best, but I think if everyone contributes to their creation everyone is going to feel a lot better following rules they helped shape rather than being dictated. A bit like an election, this is a rare real chance for you to shape what you want to see if you use this thread, so why not have your say.
So firstly this is a complex issue, but one that will need a simple solution if it's to be effective. But you can probably boil it down simply to this: The DT thread has slightly different rules to the rest of the forum; we are allowed to make three-letter posts without getting hit for "low content", there are no limitations over what stocks we can discuss, even bitcoin, the dow, gold etc. regularly make appearances. If someone is mentioning something that's deemed not appropriate they are generally called out for it by the rest of the posters, although to be fair often does little to slow anyone down if they are determined. There are also no disclosures under peoples posts, so we don't know who holds what they are posting about, thus the oft-spoken warning by folks to "just assume everyone is holding what they talk about". While that's not always the case, it is a safer mindset with things as they are. There are probably other differences I can't think off the top of my head.
But with the extra freedoms, we do get some rules so things don't go overboard. Most of the rules in the past has been done by you could say a "gentleman's agreement", where everyone agrees to play nice and not go overboard, and someone will eventually pull them or report them if things are excessive. Outside of the normal rules, only the worst spammers have tended to get pulled up. This system has problems though and has not worked perfectly in some regards. The main issue as thing relies on people reporting, and it's often newcomers that are hit hardest as their rogue presence is more obvious. Others I think we eventually have just gotten used to and no one bothers reporting them bust just ignore them (this is speaking from experience watching the report queue).
So as a warning, there is never going to be a unanimous agreement as people use the thread for different reasons. Some use it to read tips, others to post them. Some just use it as a place for active stock discussion, some not necessarily always day-trading related. Some do use it to ramp stocks they hold, or what their "associates" hold (I know, a
shocking revelation
). And some just enjoy the camaraderie in what can be a solitary pursuit, and wouldn't care which way what the rules are so long as they are not too draconian. Some would prefer no rules whatsoever. Different people with different preferences and values means there are going to be both happy and unhappy people whatever decisions are made. Whatever is decided on some people are not going to be happy, so now is your chance to say your bit if you haven't, and afterwards, everyone can carry on like adults whatever the rules are.
So, before you can make any rules, you first need to decide above all else:
what the hell is this thread for?
Is it just strictly for day trading? Is it just to alert people about moving stocks, or do we want to allow discussion of stocks if they change throughout the day? Should people be allowed to post stocks they own, or should there be disclosures if they do? Is this thread a place for active traders that just want somewhere to talk about how a stock is moving during the day, or should they be forced back to the stock threads to battle it out with long term investors?
What is this thread to you? Why do you use it, what do you like about it, and what don't you like. I think that's a decent starting point. We know what it is used for right now, I think what the thread has morphed into is something that covers all of that. The question is what should it be used for and is everything that goes on how we want it?
Once you've decided what the purpose of the thread is, you can easier decide to the purpose of the rules. Maybe sounds like a dumb question, but's it's not
. Maybe we just want to cut out the worst of the spammers; that was my general view on it for the record, that there needs to be certain freedom to allow for the fluid nature of day trading. Unfortunately, some also will try to exploit and extra freedoms for their own gains.
There is a balance to be found, and I don't think that has been found yet. Too much freedom and it's a mess and a manipulators paradise, too many restrictions and you remove the usefulness of the thread.
There is no perfect solution for everyone. It's hard to put strict rules on how day traders see the markets as things change very quickly. If we were just posting 3 letters and acting as market scanners, then maybe a tight 1 post is doable, but even then my scanners will alerts stock multiple times over a day. But many posts do in fact come with an opinion, and often people do wish to add or change to that, sometimes in very short time-frames in response to the action. Stopping people from legitimately doing that is an unfortunate side-effect of a hard 1 post rule. The fact is stocks can be not day-trade worthy, and then become so later in the day, then again become unworthy. Day-trading is intra-day trading, once you get longer you are doing swing trading. A 1 post restriction adversely hits genuine day-traders as much as anyone, and it limits genuine day-trading discussion. Surely that's not the hope.
So the other side of this is the moderators, and asking a non-daytrader to try and understand the intricacies of it all and making a judgement just for our little corner of the forums is an awful lot to ask. It will be a case of the simpler the rules the less likely things are to go wrong from the moderator's side, speaking from experience. Simple rules that everyone understands. There are only a handful of mods doing a massive amount of work looking after the whole forums. Keep it simple for them and for you, don't have overly subjective rules open to interpretation or it just headaches for everyone. They will get maybe one or two DT reports amongst 20-30 others from over the site, if that, so you want something simple to remember.
I do have my own preferences of what I'd like to see, but I am biased towards what I like to read and what I think the threads should be. Put simply, if a stock is moving, I think people should be allowed to discuss it as that's what I like, what I tune in for: stock discussion. Some get it wrong, some get it right, it's all part of people learning. I get all the alerts I could ever want by myself, but what I can't get is other peoples views and thoughts, whether negative or positive.
You'll often see a few posts marked as not a DT trade, but an ST trade... and generally I feel those are tolerated by most so long as they are clearly labelled as such and informative (I know some do not like them and that's entirely understandable, it is a controversial point), it's the posts that are not DT's but are posted masquerading as such; thing that are hyped/ramped up to manufacture a move rather than a naturally occurring one; I think those are the posts I'd most like to see gone. I think some of those posts would be tolerated more if they were clearly marked as posts where they are held by the poster, and they don't think it's a DT. But even still many of those posts add nothing to the thread. If it's not a promising trade, (whatever type of trade, FA/TA/Long/Short/Reversal bloody whatever) it's not something I want to read about. And as has been pointed out, another unwanted side-effect of a very strict number is going to be people deliberately leaving out stock codes, which will drive some of us unto madness.
So long as a post is genuine and appropriate I'd want to see it allowed. But those posts that are not DT's but are posted or hyped as such can be beyond excessive some days, and the solutions are put them on ignore, read them and just suffer (neither of which significantly dimish their effect, or prevent those posts being read by newcomers that do get suckered in), or you have some kind of restriction to minimize their existence. You will never remove them altogether, but you can try to restrict those posts and it's a question of how to do that in a way that does not affect other posters too negatively. But that it is still a simple solution to remember.
Whether people should be posting about stocks that are short-term holds or long term holds, ones they think are the bee's knees for whatever reason is one I expect some disagreement over. The question is if we disallow those types of posts, where do those people go? Some won't care, but it's a legitimate thing to think about imo, even if not for the users, something for HC to think about if it's decided that you don't want those posts here. Most are not going back to the stock threads, anyone that's a trader knows when you mix with long term investors talking about trades you are kicking a hornet's nest. If you have a negative view, you'll need to bring some body-armour along. Likewise, the Short Term Trading forum is a different kind of forum, it's not really the place to discuss the day-to-day movements of stocks. Generally speaking, if they are clearly marked, I can live with them. Currently, very few of them are indeed marked as such, but a big thanks to those few that do mark those posts as such.
So, the sort of rules I'm thinking. Is something like:
1. A 6 posts total limit per day per stock, and a limit of 2 mentions per hour (I'm talking market hours of course, from market pre-open through to close, there has never been a problem the aftermarket hours posts). Those numbers could be adjusted up or down if they aren't quite working, the only way to know for sure would be to trial it. But i'd like it in conjunction with some other thoughts.
I'd also like to see:
2. Perhaps culturally rather than a strict rule, but maybe a rule if enough people care about it, that people that make posts with some kind of analysis or sentiment about a listed stock, disclose whether it is held or not. If you write a few lines of analysis or screenshot an announcement it is no trouble to write "held or "not held", literally 2 seconds. Yes that's not fair on those that just do it for other benefits, but I can see no way to separate the two. The price for proper disclosures is a little more work, it's a question of whether that second or two disclosure is a price you are willing to pay to bring a bit more clarity to peoples positions. Much like adding stock codes, I think the issue would be people remembering. Most are probably accidental where stock codes are left out, but there are some serial offenders. If someone is posting a quick three-letter post alert without any kind of sentiment then I don't see a reason to require a disclosure. Speed is typically key there, and I think it's a reason to make those an exception to disclosure. This may be a little subjective to judge what counts as an opinion or not, that's my main concern. But think it is probably simple enough for most to judge, even for non-traders.
I'd not want decent posts whacked just because someone failed to disclose once, thus maybe where people are warned first and given some leeway initially but serial offenders get their posts hit with the mods stick may be workable? Or give people time to adjust rather than abruptly enforcing it the next day if this was to be done.
It's not perfect but it's the best I can think of at the moment that doesn't require a strict limit and gives some flexibility for day-traders to post without worrying about the limit all the time. If they don't want to disclose they hold, it would limit the ability to ramp one's own shares without showing your hand.
But all of those thoughts depend on what you want the forum to be? If it were strictly daytraders than a disclosure would not be required, because it would not be full of people holding stock long term trying to generate movement on their stocks
. But if they are not booted out and I don't think that's the best solution, I think the next best bet is to make sure those posts are clearly labelled as such. Another idea floated was to have an active traders thread and day-trading thread, but I don't think there's a lot of support for that either.
All just my opinion, feel free to provide counter-points. I know there will be some that are not fans of what is suggested here but I can live with that, but we need to work towards a solution sooner or later.
I'm happy to try and give insight into how the picture looks from a mod's side of the equation if some have some questions about that side of things, if that helps. I was trying to stay out of it as I have firmly hung my mod hat up (the dog has probably torn that hat to shreds), but I can see we have been struggling to make progress so maybe I can help move things along a little a get a solution.
Sorry for the long post. It's not as simple as put a limit and that's that. For it to have any meaning, we need to know why we are doing it and what it's trying to accomplish. Rules without a purpose are simply pointless, and I think that's how people feel about the one post limit. So I reckon let's carry on hearing as many opinions as we can, and ideally, some kind of consensus will show itself and you can take that to
@Madmin.
Whatever is decided on you will likely have to live with it for some time. Perhaps a one month trial or something can be done to see if it works out, whatever rules are chosen. You do need to see how things work in the wild first before you know if things need tweaking. I don't think anyone should be expected to have all the rights answer to this straight off the bat, so I don't think it's fair to put too much responsibility on HLL with this either. He is brilliant, ever so wise and probably the most respected person on all HotCopper, but he's also human, and I think the responsibility for this needs to be spread to everyone that does use the thread. What I've heard so far is that people don't like the 1 post limit, and want a higher one. Some want no limits but I am personally not a fan of that. Also that people want to not have as many restrictions on higher quality posts, and to cut down on the spammy posts and the non-DT posts. These are kind of subjective and would be tricky to make rules for, but maybe things like requiring disclosures, limits on the 3 letter posts, or posts per hours are indirect non-subjective ways to influence the number of those posts and not unduly burden everyone. I'm not saying all the suggestions are required, but I think we need something as I don't think the thread is really reaching it's potential as it is. This is a chance to be better.
Cheers.
