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I've recently come across the Stock Exchange SE site proposal, then subsequently the PF&M site. Having a read of this advanced stock trading techniques discussion it sounds like some people would welcome the Stock Exchange people (of whom I am one) splitting off.

It is still in definition stage and fairly slow growing. I was wondering if there is any appetite within PF&M to split the stock market/bonds and investment off? I understand that SE is a user based community (having been involved in stack overflow for many years), so if there is a body of users who are interested enough in a topic they make it happen.

I see that there has been a lot of good engagement in stock market type questions over the time on this site and just thought to ask the question.

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    Interesting to note, they need 40 questions voted 10 or higher. After 7 months, they are at 18. At that rate, I wonder how active the board Itself would be.
    – JTP - Apologise to Monica Mod
    Jun 9, 2016 at 20:21
  • Yes @JoeTaxpayer, I joined about 2 months ago and there have been quite a few ppl joining, but not a lot of engagement with questions, or new questions.
    – Marcus D
    Jun 9, 2016 at 20:35
  • Tough, the new stacks. There are times I see a question I 'like' but it's off topic. Economics picked up some of it, and seems to be doing well, I hope Financial Markets makes it....
    – JTP - Apologise to Monica Mod
    Jun 9, 2016 at 20:57

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There is no "splitting off" plan and nor, IMHO, should there be any such plan. (Community members may of course support another similar site if they choose.)

Personal Finance & Money has since day one included and will continue to include stock investing as on-topic — provided questions asked are about investing as practiced by individuals, and are not seeking specific buy/sell advice, "hot stock tips", etc.

There may be some need/demand for another site with a broader appeal to "pro" traders, or for advanced strategies requiring special market access, etc., but there's no reason to narrow scope here as a consequence of another site having a broader and somewhat overlapping scope.

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    I appreciate your affirmation of a combined site. In some brief searching I did over the last week, I found quite a bit of 'intellectual dismissal' of the Technical Analysis as a trading methodology (for an individual investor). I guess it's up to us TA people to provide the evidence that it is a reasonable tool within a collection of tools.
    – Marcus D
    Apr 27, 2016 at 7:31
  • Valid point, @ChrisW.Rea. Withdrawn.
    – keshlam
    Apr 28, 2016 at 17:11
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    This is essentially correct. The creation of a new site does not make any subject automatically off topic on another site. See Respect the Community.... But keep in mind this is only a proposal; totally unvetted (to date) by anyone managing the network. Their proposal is, essentially, that they have a sufficient body of questions which are not already covered elsewhere... sufficiently diverse enough to create a new site. That premise has yet to play out and will undergo further review once their 'definition' is complete.
    – Robert Cartaino
    May 4, 2016 at 20:02
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Seems to me that basic investing is going to be on topic in both, and splitting a single discussion is usually counterproductive.

If the proposal was to split off discussion of active trading, I'd favor that just to avoid the perennial clashes between folks who have different levels of skepticism about the advantages thereof. On the other hand, there is something to be said for making newcomers aware that the disagreement exists, if we can respect each others' opinions and discuss why we differ rather than feeling we have to defend or attack.

Net net: If we draw a line, drawing a clear line is essential. Otherwise we're just buying even more "off topic here, belongs there" hassles.

(If it's a small overlap, easily handed with "take that to...", and if we can seed that discussion by moving the relevant exchanges from Money over to it, we can manage it. But considering the latter, I think there is evidence things may be too entangled.)

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    Fair comments. the main point "for" a split is the unproductive discussions on how technical analysis / Elliot Wave / etc are akin to snake oil trading. I think there is probably better value in keeping the discussion within the one group. BTW I'm currently a supporter of the area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/91971/stock-exchange proposal, but really cant see it getting off the ground as there is very little engagement. I suspect unless this changes, i'l probably put my efforts into this group instead.
    – Marcus D
    Apr 26, 2016 at 11:13
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I would love to see more advanced questions about investing in the stock market on this site.

That is an area I don't know much about. I have already enjoyed and learned from some of the Technical Analysis questions here, and would love to see more.

I would be disappointed to see that leave and go to another site. Instead, I'd rather see more of that here. This site is big enough for all of us.

Just about all the proposed questions for the new site (certainly all the ones that have hit 10 votes) are on-topic here and should be welcome here. And that brings me to my main point:

We need to be more careful about how we treat new questions on this site.

Too often I have seen what could be a good question closed here because it was not related enough to "personal finance." I do see the need for limiting the scope of the site; however, I think that too often we are overzealous with our closing of questions. Before having a knee-jerk reaction to an advanced question and hitting the "close" button, let's really consider how a question could be useful to an individual investor. Many questions are, on the surface, questions about business, but ultimately are useful to someone who want to invest in a business. If you see a question about some detail of the way the stock market operates, you might initially think that it is an institutional investor question, but the answer is probably still useful to the individual investor and should stay.

Let's first look for a reason to keep questions open, rather than only looking for a reason to close.

If we had done that in the past, no one would be proposing the other site. Let's turn it around now, before the new site is created.

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  • Indeed ... Australia has one of the most educated personal investor communities in the world (I'm sure there are other countries), but institutions have done a poor job with high fees and saving for retirement through superannuation is obligatory, unlike most countries. An individual has the ability to self-manage - over 1 million in Australia now do.
    – Marcus D
    May 2, 2016 at 15:27
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I guess there would be a small overlap which should be fine. There are few question that are tagged technical analysis which can move over or questions of these type can be redirected as appropriate.

As long as there are clear core areas that are different, small overlaps are not an issue. Even today there is a small overlap of Money with Travel, StartUp, expats, etc. I guess in such overlaps the intent of OP define where the question belongs.

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    Indeed. small areas of overlap are always going to happen. DataScience / Stats are an example of a big overlap. Its probably about exercising grace when people are in the wrong group.
    – Marcus D
    Apr 26, 2016 at 11:15
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    Some have quite large areas of overlap, up to and including 100%. For example, there's nothing in Ubuntu that isn't also on topic at Linux and Unix.
    – corsiKa
    Apr 26, 2016 at 21:34

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