Dear Fools,
We have an announcement that may come as a bit of a surprise to many of you.
Announcement:As of tomorrow afternoon (Friday), The Motley Fool will no
longer manage the stock message boards found here on America Online. Of
course, everything else will be business as usual for the Fool. We'll still
be writing our Portfolio Reports, our Breakfast, Lunch, and Evening news,
delivering great special features, writing the Workshop and Foolish Four
columns, etc. We just won't be managing the stock portion of these message
boards. (Our special subjects, like Managing Your Finances, Ask a Foolish
Question, etc., will still all be here.)
Rationale: As many of you may have noticed, there has been a significant
increase in posting volume to the stock portion of the Motley Fool's message
boards. Several weeks ago, America Online's Personal Finance Channel began
linking into our message boards via their investment snapshot. While this has
created a tremendous amount of new traffic to these stock message folders,
AOL linked before we could agree upon appropriate guidelines to ensure an
engaging "Foolish" experience.
As a result, there has been a significant increase in the number of TOS and
Fool's Rules violations on the boards. This has created an environment that
falls below Foolish community standards. It must be noted that AOL did offer
some assistance to accommodate this increased traffic, but we chose not to go
this route because the offered help was not Fool trained staff.
Going Forward: Until we can get the proper tools and staffing to manage this
community, we've made a business decision to turn over the management to
America Online. We won't, however, be exiting the "community game." Of
course, we'll still manage the special subject folders here and we still have
a Fool-staffed stock message board community at our website.
Both America Online and The Motley Fool are dedicated to providing you with
an engaging and friendly environment and we both think this is the best plan
of action right now. Further, we are both working diligently to come to
acceptable terms under which The Fool can effectively manage the community.
We're very hopeful that this will come to pass and that we'll be able to
engage you once again in the stock message boards here on AOL.
Can you still read these boards? - Absolutely. The boards will always be
linked in from AOL's investment snapshot. They just won't be managed by or
have the active participation of Motley Fool staff members (TMFs). Instead,
AOL will be monitoring and managing the boards for you.
If you have any questions or comments about this,
<A HREF="mailto:AOLComments@fool.com">please drop us a note</A>.
Best,
Fool HQ
4/12/99 7:17 AM |
