Personally, I would rather hear a well reasoned critique to my idea than cheerleading or congrats. Like Charlie Munger said, always invert. Me-too support, unless grounded and providing additional info is pretty worthless in investing. It's important to know what things you missed in your analysis, not that it's elegant, great, and fantastically written.
For real investor, the results are in the pudding of investing into the idea and reaping the rewards. The comments on the boards may be useful or not, but they are not main reward.
BTW, you are wrong to equate critique with insults.
Of course, there are people who don't like to hear negative opinions because they get better results when they don't hear them (see Shane M on Fundamental Value Investing board). Unfortunately, the only advice for such people is not to participate. I haven't seen a single idea that was unanimously approved anywhere on SI or any other forum.
I will admit that I am guilty, but guilty of not critiquing ideas of other people. Most of the time I stop myself by thinking "this person is invested in this idea, he will hate when I say negative things about it, he will argue with me, both of us will be unhappy, I won't invest in this idea anyway, so what's the point in conflict". However, it's quite likely that the author would get more benefit from my critique than from my silence. :/ |
