Let’s create a thread for the Forum’s well-being survey!
We will start conducting an anonymous semi-annual survey for forum members regarding their thoughts on the forum. The purpose of the survey is to ascertain the current state of the forum and highlight everyday challenges. Our goal is also to ensure that the forum’s quality and direction are on the right track.
This thread will be used to publish the survey itself, analyze the responses, and discuss the survey and its results.
The first survey questions would be as follows:
We will publish the survey ourselves next week, but before that, I’m throwing the ball to the community. Is there any important question or theme missing from the list above that would be good to include in the survey? Is any question unnecessary, and why? What thoughts does the survey evoke?
What rating would I give in a situation where the rules are clear, but no one follows them? 1? What if even a lawyer can’t figure out the rules, but the community manages to follow them perfectly? If I gave 1 again, the answers wouldn’t be distinguishable from the data. Generally, it’s best to ask only one thing per question, so those could be separated into their own lines.
What does “forum quality” mean to the respondents? Some might understand it as the technical implementation of the forum, others as a measure of discussion quality, and a third as a measure of the quality of the discussants.
This might slightly skew the research results according to the current market situation. Would it be more sensible to ask about new/potential/interesting investment opportunities, so that the recent performance of the stock’s price wouldn’t affect the answers?
I would perhaps add a question to the list that examines the forum’s recent development, such as “The usefulness of the forum in my investing activities has increased / decreased over the past 6 months.”
Of course, you will also get this data from longer-term results, but I think this would serve as a good “sentiment meter” for how the forum’s short-term development is perceived.
By the way, the classic NPS question, “I would recommend the forum as an investment tool to my acquaintances (1-10),” is completely missing from the questions. Perhaps intentionally?
These will probably also elicit very polarizing answers, as some prefer a more relaxed “coffee discussion” even outside the coffee room, while others might want strictly factual content that only professionals “should” produce 
If one wants a more precise distribution (assuming there are enough responses), there could also be a grouping question first, like “I would like the forum to be: A) factual, B) relaxed” or something similar.
Then one could conclude that “Those who want factual content rate forum moderation at 7.2” and “Those who prefer a more relaxed approach find the forum to be 8.1 factual.”
I would also like to see a question about satisfaction with the breadth of thread topics and their suitability for investors. This relates to the forum’s quality. Personally, I have felt that the forum’s quality in this regard has declined.
Of course, everyone can decide for themselves which threads to write in and what to read. However, in my opinion, many good writers have strayed into writing in threads that barely discuss investing. These include, for example, the Russia’s Aggression thread and the politics corner. This does not do good for the forum’s level if it is intended to be an investment-themed forum.
Also, in the coffee room, there is daily unnecessary bickering and shouting, which only drains the energy of forum members and the administration.
@DarkRoast summarizes the essential aspects of survey techniques. Questions must be unambiguous enough so that the questioner and respondent are answering the same question, with as little bias and ambiguity as possible.
Personally, I use the classic zero-information-producing answer for open-ended questions: “What are the three most important selection criteria?” Answer: 1. price 2. quality 3. price-quality ratio. From this answer, one doesn’t know what price or even what price range is good, nor what elements quality consists of, with what weightings. And finally, the ratio is formed by two vague dividend and divisor terms, so how on earth can one draw conclusions in any direction based on the answer?
Thanks @DarkRoast, @Musti, @Torniojaws, @MoneyWalker and @jps for your comments.
It’s good that you brought up a few somewhat ambiguous questions, and we will modify the questions accordingly. The quality question was intentionally left open to interpretation, as it forces the respondent to consider what quality means to them. Of course, there’s room for refinement in that question too, and we aim to make the questions even more unambiguous.
@Musti, a mood meter is a very good idea and will certainly be included in the question battery in some way. The NPS (Net Promoter Score) question also crossed our minds, and we intentionally didn’t rule it out as a potential question yet.
@MoneyWalker, one idea behind this survey is also to gather data and thoughts on the question you mentioned: whether the forum wants to be strictly an investment forum, or an investment forum where other topics can also be touched upon and discussed.
We also thought about slightly reducing the survey scale to 1-6…
Now I didn’t quite understand. If I take, for example, training or motorcycle forums, most people are interested in war, corona, and other current topics. In my opinion, this is a very good thing, and these discussions have been of high quality. In fact, I can’t find a better forum in terms of quality. Those that are on the same level are usually practically dead. I don’t know about others, but I personally enjoy going to the gym, and after 15 years, nothing really new comes up if you don’t consider these current topics. Of course, things are constantly happening in the investment world, but I believe there are a lot of people like me here: investing is interesting, but I don’t want to read every day how the stock market is doing.
Maybe I misunderstood what you were getting at.
I’ve spent so much time on forums that I can say it’s not easy to find one as well-maintained as this.
I myself have been observing the development of the forum’s quality over the 981 days I’ve visited it. During that time, I’ve read 279,000 messages, according to statistics. I didn’t mean to compare this forum to other forums. I imagine the quality is indeed better, and the moderators do an excellent job 
Thank you 
But my point is about the decline in this forum’s quality relative to its own past standards. There’s still good writing, perhaps even more of it, but as the number of writers has grown, threads contain an increasing amount of writing that interests me less. This slows down the discovery of good content. I’m a really slow reader 
Many probably appreciate that the forum allows for broad discussions beyond investing. I, however, am solely looking for discussions focused on investing. To my regret, I’ve noticed that many good old writers are very enthusiastic about threads unrelated to investing. If those threads didn’t exist, perhaps they would have more time to write about investing. Everyone, of course, chooses what they write about, but humans are curious creatures. Everything new easily sweeps you along.
Are we an investor community or, well, just a community?
I understand the point. It’s hard to say anything with only a year of experience. So which is better, an investment forum or an investment forum that also covers other topics? I’d say there are as many opinions on that as there are users. Option one keeps the place tidy but doesn’t attract users in the same way. Of course, there are other places where you can discuss anything. I’d say it’s up to the administrators. Are they willing to clean up and do more work because more threads/topics bring more spam? So far, it has worked well, even though some people here press the report button too often.
In my opinion, this is the wrong place to discuss frying pans and cats, but for example, investing involves a lot of topics, from cars to summer cottages. NATO, for example, is a current topic that arouses interest, but elsewhere you can’t discuss the topic because it turns into trolling after five messages. Here, the people are generally smarter.
Well, I won’t write any more now because there is no right or wrong in this matter.
The forum’s first well-being survey is now live. I’ll leave the survey open for a while so that everyone who wants to can answer it this week and next.
The survey is truly anonymous, and I thank everyone who responds in advance. It takes about 2-4 minutes to complete the survey. I will present the results of the survey here in this thread in a few weeks, so we can all see what the community thinks about the questions asked.
The survey’s user interface was a bit clunky (at least on mobile) when I was editing and modifying the free-form part of my answer. When I tapped on a section of the text, the text view jumped back to the beginning, and I had to scroll back to the relevant part. It’s not a huge deal and probably won’t affect any respondent’s well-being or cause any rashes. 
To all respondents, remember to write as comprehensively as possible in the “roses and thorns” (feedback) section, as the survey itself is quite brief.
Thank you to everyone who responded to the Inderes Forum well-being survey! Overall, the responses are refreshingly consistent. The forum is considered an excellent tool to support investment decisions, and people generally enjoy spending time here, despite the community’s collective view (6/22) on the stock market’s 12-month outlook leaning slightly bearish.
I want the forum to continue focusing on being
The forum is hoped to remain high-quality, relevant, and equitable, as it is now. It is also hoped to develop into a stronger link to company representatives and analysts, as well as a sparring ground with fellow investors. The biggest threat identified was the silence of the forum’s most talented writers. More attention was desired for technical analysis discussions (comments both for and against). Similarly, the strictness of moderation divided opinions – some would prefer a more lenient approach and a clearer profile as a “discussion place for everyone.” Some felt the forum should focus on company-specific threads, while others considered these a very important part of the forum. Opinions were exactly split, and which direction the forum should go will certainly remain a hot potato. Therefore, we will try to meet both needs in moderation.
“Just like it is now. Suitably moderated, with analysts sometimes responding regarding companies, and occasionally company representatives too, and I also find it great that there are a wide range of topics, even if they sometimes drift from their investment connection to broader waters (I haven’t found any other forum with such a broad, interested group of writers contributing to things other than just investment topics - for example, the Wuhan and Russian aggression threads, of course, started with an investment connection, but grew into unparalleled situation rooms where pieces of information were collected for display and digestion immediately and comprehensively. Wonderful accidental children!)”
My most useful threads
Thanks, roses and thorns!
We warmly accept the thanks and pass them on to everyone mentioned. We also send roses to everyone to whom they were addressed. And we will chew over the thorns among the moderators. Thank you!
How do we proceed from here?
We will discuss the development ideas and wishes that emerged during the summer among the moderators. Naturally, we cannot or will not react to all ideas. However, we promise to treat them with appropriate seriousness, keeping the future of the forum in mind. The purpose of the survey was to ascertain the current state of the forum and highlight everyday challenges. To ensure the quality and direction of the forum remain on the desired track, we will continue to conduct similar surveys semi-annually. However, we encourage people to give feedback to the moderators with a low threshold.
Thank you, Inderes, for being interested in our users’ opinions and for accepting development ideas. And thank you @AaroV for compiling the summary.
I would have been interested to know how many were enthusiastic about answering the survey and providing development ideas. This is probably also interesting information for interpreting the survey responses and drawing conclusions. It might also be interesting to follow the number of respondents annually. Could it tell something about the commitment of those writing on the forum?
It is clear that not everyone can be pleased with the operating culture and moderation lines of such a large and diverse discussion forum, but according to the survey summary, the diversity of this forum - with its broad topics and writers from different backgrounds - is precisely the salt and lemon of this forum. Appropriately enjoyed, it is quite entertaining, thought-provoking, and supportive of investing.
Anyone of us can write almost anything, at least in the coffee room, as long as we write in a respectful and appreciative tone towards others.
For the future, the most important observation I would highlight from the summary is a concern raised by one forum member:
“The biggest threat identified was the silencing of the forum’s most talented writers.”
There are many such talents on this forum! Let each of us take responsibility to ensure this continues to be the case 
We received 270 responses to the well-being survey over a little more than a week. There were 112 development ideas, meaning 41% of respondents left a comment on development ideas or questions about the forum’s direction. It should be noted from the open-ended responses that the answers were really good, and every comment has been read and thoroughly considered. In the next summary, I will include the number of respondents so that we can all see what kind of sample we are dealing with when the next survey appears.
270 responses sounds quite low to my ears 
. Is it due to the timing of the survey (early summer?), when many people tend to think less about investing. Could the next survey be ‘advertised’ a bit more, for example, in the Morning Report/Verneri’s Quarter, on Twitter, etc.? The timing could also be autumn or spring 
270 is a perfectly normal sample size.
270 is a perfectly fine sample of the measurable population. The number of respondents doesn’t need to be higher for the answers to be statistically valid. Of course, next time we will surely try to promote the survey even more actively through various channels. In the summer, forum traffic generally decreases somewhat as the community focuses on vacationing, which has certainly affected the number of responses.