Community Guidelines
TickerHound is an online education community where investors ask and answer questions on a number of finance and investing topics. Just as the offline investing community has a set of rules and regulations that all community members must abide by, TickerHound too has a set of guidelines that all members must adhere to.
PLEASE NOTE: If you violate the Community Regulations TickerHound may terminate your membership without warning!
Do: Ask Questions – Feel free to ask as many questions as you’d like. This is a place for knowledge to be passed around freely and we won’t penalize you for trying to enhance your knowledge of the markets.
Don’t: Ask “rude” Questions – Some people have different definitions of what’s considered “rude”, so here’s the TickerHound definition. Questions that:
- Have been asked by you a dozen times before – it’s just rude (and plain annoying) to keep asking the same question. If you haven’t gotten an answer it’s likely because it already exists somewhere on TickerHound and you might need to search a bit to find it or your question is too difficult to answer (not very likely given the amount of people that use the site).
- Contains marketing material or stock SPAM – This is something we won’t tolerate. TickerHound has no problem with our members answering a question and including a link back to their sites where the community might be able to find more useful information. But we have a BIG problem with people trying to entice our members over to another page where all they’ll see are advertisements and/or unrelated offers (e.g. “male enhancement drugs”). An action such as this will get your account terminated pretty quick.
- Are mean or derogatory – Think of TickerHound as a great big University auditorium where some of the greatest minds of our time are walking around and talking to one another. How would you feel if someone walked up to you and called you a bad name, or referred to an entire group of people in a negative light? If you have any kind of morals you wouldn’t do that in a public setting so don’t do it here either!
Do: Answer Questions – Like we said before, TickerHound is all about “Investors helping investors”. Asking questions is great, we want you to learn. But don’t forget to give back a bit too and pass that knowledge on to other members in this vibrant community.
Don’t: Offend Anybody – When someone works up the nerve to come into a public forum such as this and admit that they need help with something, it’s our job to make them feel comfortable doing so. That means you’re not allowed to make somebody feel bad or “stupid” for asking a question.
If you have the answer to a seemingly simple question then by all means, share your knowledge. But under no circumstances are you to put somebody else down because they’re not as “enlightened” as you are. If you are that enlightened then be enlightened enough to remember when you weren’t such a guru – put yourself in the other person’s shoes and do for them what you hoped somebody would’ve done for you when you were trying to learn about a complex or new topic.
Also, the Stock SPAM rules apply here too – don’t use this as a venue to promote your own malicious agenda. Not only will your answers be removed, but your account will be terminated on sight!
Do: Give Credit to Other Members – If you see a great question, or better yet, a great answer, then vote for it! This helps other members accumulate points and even helps get their Q&A’s on the “Popular” list which helps to teach other TickerHounds more effectively.
Don’t: Intentionally mark items as SPAM or as Abusive content when they’re not. We have customer service people watching the system all the time, and we hope you do your part by flagging SPAM/Abusive content as such. But what we can’t have is quality, accurate and helpful content being intentionally removed due to pranks or more likely because someone disagrees with the question or answer.
If we see that someone is abusing the power of the community by continuously trying to flag good Q&A’s as SPAM, then the offender’s account will be terminated.
So while it’s ok to engage in lively discussion and disagree with other community members, it’s definitely NOT ok to try and destroy their reputation or remove their contributions from the site.
Do: Categorize and target your questions – TickerHound is a big site. We already have thousands and thousands of questions and even more answers for you and other visitors to browse through. So when you ask your questions, make sure you put it in the right place.
Proper grammar, spelling and punctuation are other important components of getting your question answered in the best way possible.
We have members who focus on very broad areas of the market and finance, while we have others that are very focused (for example: accountants on TickerHound tend to stay in the Accounting or Tax Issues section of the site). So if your question is intended for a specific type of investor or financial professional, then make sure you put your question in the right place.
Don’t: Try to take a “shotgun” approach when asking questions – Basically, don’t try to ask the same question and put it into 20 different categories hoping to get more responses.
We like to think of TickerHound as a giant room full of investors that are ready to share their knowledge with you. Walking up politely to the closest Mutual Fund expert and asking about a new Fidelity fund is certainly appropriate. But standing on top of a chair and screaming at the top of your lungs to everyone who walks by would not only make you an outcast, but would likely get you kicked out of the venue too.
So if you’re looking to get great answers to your questions then simply type them in a concise manner with a catchy title, a detailed description and then place it in the appropriate category. There are plenty of people out there who can help you, don’t risk turning them off by acting like the guy screaming on top of a chair.
Do: Focus on Earning Points – It’s tough to see sometimes, but TickerHound is a place for investors to come and strut their stuff. I know it may seem like a one-on-one conversation between you and some anonymous person who asked a question, but the answers you give will be on this site forever.
So what that really means is A LOT more people than the one who asked the question will read your response. Therefore, we felt it was important to help people have clear identifications on TickerHound and a way to build their reputation in the community.
So let’s say you’re an accountant and after some hard work you start showing up as a Top TickerHound in the “Accounting” category, you stand a good chance of A LOT of folks reading your profile and visiting your web site, calling your phone number or dropping you an e-mail.
This will most certainly help drum up some new business and therefore you should do everything you can to earn points and build your reputation on TickerHound – it could pay off in spades down the road.
Don’t: Try to “game” the Point System – This doesn’t even need to be explained any further but I’ll elaborate a bit.
Basically, don’t try to earn points in a malicious way – I don’t even have to explain the numerous ways people have tried to do this. Each time we find someone who’s gaming the system, we build a “fix” for it and then terminate their account. So all that hard work the person put into earning points in a dishonest fashion, could’ve just as easily been put into earning and KEEPING those points by doing it on the up-and-up.
