thx for the links @Bojack, I did after asking read through more threads already indeed. sorry for my stupid question and for all the trouble!
Just to answer about the forum :
As a moderator i am aware that good quality posts tend to get lost with time. The big limitation of the forum engine is its pinning system. Once a thread is pinned, for a given user it will be shown as pinned only the first time the user visits the forum.
If I put myself in the shoes of a new member discovering mustachianism, the steps would be in this order :
1- i have to learn how to save money
2- i have to learn how to invest money
3- once i know what to invest in, what are the practical details? i.e which brokers, which all world ETF, and so on
Issue is, when the newcomer is at step 3, he has already spent some time on the forum and all the pinned topics on brokers are already not showing anymore due to the forum engine.
I will spend time to see if we can tackle this issue, but this is the main pain-point since the forum inception…
@nugget : if you log out, you will see that your thread “guidepost to the forum” is among the the first to be shown. Problem is, the forum engine thinks that once the user is here for some time, there is no need showing it as pinned.
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The mentionned order makes sense. At the same time, people come with all sorts of questions and might be on a different tangent. @nugget tried to create a “table of content” for good stuff (guidepost). I would be ready to create a number of FAQ posts, summarizing the good stuff - if this is what people want. With the goal of starting this whole process and working out some standards together.
How, by whom and where this FAQ would be posted in the end is also to be determined (thread, subfolder, wiki…).
Are you sure it works like this? I remember when you started pinning some topics, I was annoyed, because they would appear by each visit. And this reminded me of the old PHPBB forums, where half of the screen is always covered by the same pinned topics, which do not interest you, and you have to scroll down.
So I found the option in the settings: “Automatically unpin topics when I reach the bottom”, and indeed, when I scroll down to the bottom of the topic, then it is no longer in the top, which I find cool. I’ve read it, so I don’t need to see it. Wouldn’t like for this to change.
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it takes 2 minutes to install a simple wikimedia/wikipedia (or whatever they are called) site.
The problem is how to make it visible from the forum.
There will always be a problem with a forum, since the information is not correctly categorized. I might get Nugged opinion about IB at one point by reading a random post about an ETF and then miss that he later changed his mind about it on another. Or read it upside down if I don’t check the timeline.
It is possible to create wiki-like open for edits posts in this forum engine, for example check out the thread with books recommendations:
I think a separated wiki would be better. The wiki would be the central place for information, and the forum would still be here for discussion.
Another possibility could be having a new forum category Wiki with all (and only) FIRE wiki posts.
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A wiki like this would probably have to be hosted outside of this forum. And people would have to have their logins there and maintain it. Let’s be realistic, there are not enough of us to need a separate wiki site. If this forum has a wiki functionality then let’s use it. Let’s see how it goes, if really anybody cares enough to organize our knowledge. If it proves to be too limited for our needs, then we can easily port it.
Your second idea I like more.
But honestly, let’s start small. I would like to see one wiki FAQ post answering top 5 questions. That would solve the problem for now.
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Let’s make a poll:
- Separate wiki site
- Forum posts-based wiki (wiki threads)
0 voters
I also like a lot Sparrow second option. That way pinned topics will not disappear in the limbos of the forum once read and would be easier to retrieve.
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It looks like voters would prefer Wiki Posts IN the forum.
For this, I agree that to keep it easier to find we should have a new category in the forum, as @sparrow suggested.
@_MP : what are your thoughts about it? Can you create such a new section?
Hey there,
Thank you @Julianek for pinging me. I will create such a section right now.
Hopefully such Wiki/FAQ helps the newcomers!
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So the new Wiki section has been created.
Together we’ve @Julianek we defined 4 top topics which hopefully represent well the journey of a newcomer in our Swiss FIRE Community. Any input welcome if you see need for adaption.
Also, good to know is that any new post in the Wiki category will be a wiki-post automatically.
Let me know what you think about this new setup.
Cheers,
MP
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Thanks @_MP! Personally, I’m not sure about this 1,2,3 numbering. I get the point, it’s shows the order in which it should be read, but this could be achieved with a separate wiki topic (e.g. the pinned one), where other topics are linked. Also, maybe this “I have to learn” is too long for a topic name.
I was wondering if it’s better to keep a separate category for the wikis, or make one wiki topic for each of the most popular categories (Investing - Brokers, Investing - Portfolios etc.). Maybe that’s a step for later. If we copied the most important knowledge from the topics to the wiki posts, then we could unpin the topics, and just pin the FAQ wiki posts for each category.
How does it work with preventing vandalism? Is there a way to lock threads for review, or block specific users who keep making unwanted changes? Is it easy to rollback to a previous version of the post?
Too long and patronising. We better restart.
Why not start small and adress the FAQ?That was the plan, wasn’t it? With descriptive, short, clear titles.
I also moved the important already existing wiki posts in this new category, where principally Nugget already summarized a lot of the important information on this forum. Please notify me if I missed some.
Regarding the new topics in the section:
- of course we can change the topic name if users think another name would be more relevant
- the idea is to see if users feel the need to contribute to such topics, which are usually important for newcomers. Of course only experience will tell if it is relevant. In the case it is not, they will be removed.
@Bojack : regarding vandalism, I am not aware of such a protection. However most of our most important topics are already wikis, and people on this forum proved to be well-mannered so far 
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The forum belongs to all Swiss Mustachians, and I much appreciate your feedback.
Feel free to reframe — or ask me if you need to remove/rename something. I’ll gladly do it!
As you can see in the documentation, we can easily revert: What is a Wiki Post? - users - Discourse Meta
And I’m not that afraid about vandalism, I trust people around here. But worst case, yes, we can revert and have the entire history. We can even block such persons.
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I will tackle the topic of Brokers in the coming days. This will provide a specific opportunity to talk about structure etc.
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I’m not a believer in discourse wiki posts, I’d suggest instead to just contribute to bogleheads wiki, the biggest wiki on the topic. They have a section for some EU countries already - https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Category:Non-US_domiciles - might as well start something for switzerland.
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Hi @hedgehog,
Why don’t you believe in discourse wiki posts?
Or what are you missing to believe in it?