My REHP Post on Our Upcoming Debate on SWRs
Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2002 10:22 pm
Set forth below is the text of a post I plan to put to Motley Fool's Retire Early Home Page board (REHP board) Wednesday morning at 10:00 AM. If any members of this community have questions or concerns, please try to let me know before then.
The text of the planned REHP board post begins here:
New Board to Study SWR Issues
There has recently been some discussion of this board's difficulty in dealing with the issue of safe withdrawal rates (SWRs) at a new FIRE (financial independence/retire early) board that has been formed at NoFeeBoards.com. Here is a link to a listing of recent threads at the new board:
http://nofeeboards.com/boards/viewforum.php?f=2
As a result of my participation in these discussions, I have come up with a new idea on how to arrange for constructive discussion of the realities of SWRs at this board. The purpose of this post is to explain the idea, and to invite members of this community interested in playing a constructive role to join in a debate on SWRs that will be initiated at the NoFeeBoards.com board on Monday, January 13, 2003.
First, some background. On May 13, 2002, I put a post to this board suggesting that the board consider some realities of SWRs that had not been discussed at this board until that time. My claim was that the intercst study on SWRs was constructed to provide a theoretical "on-paper" SWR, not the one that applies to real-life investors constructing investment plans that need to survive in the real-life world. Initially, the board expressed great enthusiasm for the discussion that followed, with over 80 community members endorsing two of my key posts on this question, and with many observing that my posts kicked off the most interesting on-topic debate this board had seen in many months.
As the debate continued, however, the discussions became increasingly contentious. It is my view that the reason for this is that intercst was engaging in posting practices not permitted under the Motley Fool posting rules, and inciting others on the board loyal to him to do the same. On November 23, I requested that intercst's posting privileges be revoked, and the debate became even more heated, to the point at which constructive debate on other board business became virtually impossible for a time.
On December 2, I put up a post titled "Community Rules!"
http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=18233436
in which I argued that there is not enough support in this community to justify moving forward on the revocation idea, and that a better solution would be for two community members to serve as "board referees" who would step in to address future claims of dirty posting practices. Several community members offered at least some measure of support for the concept (JWR1945, BenSolar, StubbleJumper, Galagan), but the community as a whole did not express a desire to adopt this proposed solution at this time.
In the "Community Rules!" post, I described a Plan B that I would pursue in the event that there was not a consensus in favor of the board referees idea. Plan B is to use the transcript of the Debate About Having a Debate that we have been holding for the past seven months to show why there is a need for the board to take action to limit certain posting practices and thereby allow community members with an interest in knowing all there is to know about SWRs to be exposed to both sides of the story.
I have prepared drafts of a few of the posts that I planned to put forward as part of the Plan B strategy, and am concerned that putting them to the board at some future date (my plan was to allow a few months of cooling-off period before doing so) might cause further board friction, which I don't see as being in anyone's best interest. So I have been trying to come up with an alternative approach, and the recent discussions at the NoFeeBoards.com FIRE board have given me an idea that I believe holds some promise for bringing this matter to resolution in a more constructive way.
The idea is that REHP community members interested in a debate on the realities of SWRs will head over to the other board to have their discussions with the purpose of crafting a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) statement on SWRs that, when finished, will be presented for the consideration of this board. The ultimate goal would be to have this FAQ on SWRs added to this board's FAQ post so that newcomers to the board could be brought up to speed on all of the work product that this community has completed on the subject of safe withdrawal rates.
There are two big advantages to having the exploratory discussions at the NoFeeBoards.com board. First, this approach addresses the concerns of those community members here who do not like the idea of having any discussions on the limitations of the intercst study until every last detail of the explanation of those limitations has been ironed out. The plan will be to come up with concise statements of those limitations, backed by reference to data-based studies, prior to an airing of those limitations at this board.
Second, those concerned that attempts to have discussions of the limitations of the intercst study at this board have been disrupted by a segment of the board community that does not want these questions explored here will not need to deal with disruptions at the NoFeeBoards.com FIRE board. Over there, the board moderator (ElSupremo) has the power to delete any messages that in his judgment are disruptive and to revoke the posting privileges of any poster who posts such messages. ElSupremo has assured the community of people interested in early retirement that congregates over there that he will be quick to act in the event that any disruptions take place.
I will commence the debate on SWRs at the new board on Monday, January 13 by putting up a post with my thoughts on some agenda items. My expectation is that we will want to begin by determining the purpose of conducting a safe withdrawal rate analysis, since obviously knowing one's purpose is key to knowing what sort of factors one needs to take into account. I'll offer more details in the January 13 kick-off post, and will put up a cross-post here to remind interested REHP community members of the debate about to begin over there.
My plan will be to post here occasionally, but generally to avoid getting involved in extended debate at this board. Most of my posts here will probably be links to discussions at the NoFeeBoards.com board put up here with the goal of keeping this board informed of our progress and inviting participation from interested parties who continue to use this board as their primary source of information on strategies to achieve early retirement.
I particularly want to encourage any posters who consider themselves in the "middle-ground" re this debate to participate in the discussions to begin January 13. It is my view that the key to bringing harmony to this board is to have some members of this community who have not taken positions placing themselves firmly in either the intercst or the hocus camps to come forward with some constructive ideas for how the two camps might be able to co-exist in the same discussion board community.
Splitting off the board into two segments is a bad idea, in my opinion. That approach makes the surviving board weaker and less interesting than it was before. Out mutual goal should be to come up with procedures by which this board could permit expression of a variety of viewpoints on this critical question, without each thread on SWRs being turned into a circus event. The only realistic means of achieving that goal is for more of the middle-ground posters to express their views on the question.
The purpose of the debate at the NoFeeBoards.com board will be to produce a statement that addresses the key questions on the use of SWR studies in a clear and succinct way, so that all members of this community will be able to appreciate the reasons for the differences of opinion that have been voiced here and their significance. My initial thought was that the focus would be the intercst study, but <JWR1945 has suggested that we take a broader focus, and I think that makes sense.
The community congregating at the NoFeeBoards.com site is particularly well-suited to taking on the task of developing a statement to help this community come to terms with this issue. A large number of former outstanding REHP board posters congregate there, including such names as JWR1945, wanderer, ataloss, raddr, FoolMeOnce, and MHTyler. There are also already a good number of current REHP board community members signed up there, including such names as Dagrims, Andrew61, Nas90Skog, RJMcDonald, PeteyPerson, CrazyLegs883, and Bill2975. I hope that there will be a good number more who give the new board a try as a result of hearing about the debate to commence on January 13 (while not giving a second's thought to quitting this board in the process, please!).
If this approach bears fruit, I see a way that this matter that we have been struggling with for seven months now can be turned to the good. Already, this debate has been responsible for the birth of a second thriving discussion board on strategies for early retirement. That in itself is a plus. But there is no reason why anyone interested in this subject should be required to choose between Board A and Board B. The best of all worlds is that we all get to participate in the development of and enjoy the work product of both boards.
The new board is a smaller board for the time being, and that allows for a different sort of debate experience. Perhaps a small board is a better place to hold exploratory talks on how to best make use of SWR research. But there are big advantages to the large board experience that is made possible by the things that Motley Fool does to attract a large community of discussion board users to this site.
I can see this working out in a way in which both this board and the new board become rich resources for those planning early retirements in the future, with the new board focused on the controversial debates better held in a small-board atmosphere and this board providing an introduction to the Retire Early concept to the larger community that congregates at the Motley Fool boards. The natural way for this to evolve is for people to learn the basics here, and then go to the new board as they become interested in exploring controversial issues in more depth. The best way for this to work is to have a group of posters who serve as "go-betweens" sharing useful insights developed at Board A with the community of Board B, and vice versa.
I am looking forward to the debate that will be beginning on January 13, and hope that a good number of members of this community pay at least occasional visits to the new board to help us develop our FAQ statement. I suspect that all who participate, including those of us who believe that we already know a good deal about the subject matter, will learn a lot from participation in the upcoming debate. It has been my experience that crafting posts for consideration of a board community forces me to reconsider my initial impressions and sharpen my thinking.
Those interested in doing some reading in preparation for the debate should acquire a copy of the book by William Bernstein titled "The Four Pillars of Investing" and read Chapter Two prior to January 13. If you have the time, you also might want to check out some of the nine key posts that I offered during Phase One of the SWR debate held here. Here's a post by tmeri providing links to those posts.
http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=18226683
The text of the planned REHP board post begins here:
New Board to Study SWR Issues
There has recently been some discussion of this board's difficulty in dealing with the issue of safe withdrawal rates (SWRs) at a new FIRE (financial independence/retire early) board that has been formed at NoFeeBoards.com. Here is a link to a listing of recent threads at the new board:
http://nofeeboards.com/boards/viewforum.php?f=2
As a result of my participation in these discussions, I have come up with a new idea on how to arrange for constructive discussion of the realities of SWRs at this board. The purpose of this post is to explain the idea, and to invite members of this community interested in playing a constructive role to join in a debate on SWRs that will be initiated at the NoFeeBoards.com board on Monday, January 13, 2003.
First, some background. On May 13, 2002, I put a post to this board suggesting that the board consider some realities of SWRs that had not been discussed at this board until that time. My claim was that the intercst study on SWRs was constructed to provide a theoretical "on-paper" SWR, not the one that applies to real-life investors constructing investment plans that need to survive in the real-life world. Initially, the board expressed great enthusiasm for the discussion that followed, with over 80 community members endorsing two of my key posts on this question, and with many observing that my posts kicked off the most interesting on-topic debate this board had seen in many months.
As the debate continued, however, the discussions became increasingly contentious. It is my view that the reason for this is that intercst was engaging in posting practices not permitted under the Motley Fool posting rules, and inciting others on the board loyal to him to do the same. On November 23, I requested that intercst's posting privileges be revoked, and the debate became even more heated, to the point at which constructive debate on other board business became virtually impossible for a time.
On December 2, I put up a post titled "Community Rules!"
http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=18233436
in which I argued that there is not enough support in this community to justify moving forward on the revocation idea, and that a better solution would be for two community members to serve as "board referees" who would step in to address future claims of dirty posting practices. Several community members offered at least some measure of support for the concept (JWR1945, BenSolar, StubbleJumper, Galagan), but the community as a whole did not express a desire to adopt this proposed solution at this time.
In the "Community Rules!" post, I described a Plan B that I would pursue in the event that there was not a consensus in favor of the board referees idea. Plan B is to use the transcript of the Debate About Having a Debate that we have been holding for the past seven months to show why there is a need for the board to take action to limit certain posting practices and thereby allow community members with an interest in knowing all there is to know about SWRs to be exposed to both sides of the story.
I have prepared drafts of a few of the posts that I planned to put forward as part of the Plan B strategy, and am concerned that putting them to the board at some future date (my plan was to allow a few months of cooling-off period before doing so) might cause further board friction, which I don't see as being in anyone's best interest. So I have been trying to come up with an alternative approach, and the recent discussions at the NoFeeBoards.com FIRE board have given me an idea that I believe holds some promise for bringing this matter to resolution in a more constructive way.
The idea is that REHP community members interested in a debate on the realities of SWRs will head over to the other board to have their discussions with the purpose of crafting a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) statement on SWRs that, when finished, will be presented for the consideration of this board. The ultimate goal would be to have this FAQ on SWRs added to this board's FAQ post so that newcomers to the board could be brought up to speed on all of the work product that this community has completed on the subject of safe withdrawal rates.
There are two big advantages to having the exploratory discussions at the NoFeeBoards.com board. First, this approach addresses the concerns of those community members here who do not like the idea of having any discussions on the limitations of the intercst study until every last detail of the explanation of those limitations has been ironed out. The plan will be to come up with concise statements of those limitations, backed by reference to data-based studies, prior to an airing of those limitations at this board.
Second, those concerned that attempts to have discussions of the limitations of the intercst study at this board have been disrupted by a segment of the board community that does not want these questions explored here will not need to deal with disruptions at the NoFeeBoards.com FIRE board. Over there, the board moderator (ElSupremo) has the power to delete any messages that in his judgment are disruptive and to revoke the posting privileges of any poster who posts such messages. ElSupremo has assured the community of people interested in early retirement that congregates over there that he will be quick to act in the event that any disruptions take place.
I will commence the debate on SWRs at the new board on Monday, January 13 by putting up a post with my thoughts on some agenda items. My expectation is that we will want to begin by determining the purpose of conducting a safe withdrawal rate analysis, since obviously knowing one's purpose is key to knowing what sort of factors one needs to take into account. I'll offer more details in the January 13 kick-off post, and will put up a cross-post here to remind interested REHP community members of the debate about to begin over there.
My plan will be to post here occasionally, but generally to avoid getting involved in extended debate at this board. Most of my posts here will probably be links to discussions at the NoFeeBoards.com board put up here with the goal of keeping this board informed of our progress and inviting participation from interested parties who continue to use this board as their primary source of information on strategies to achieve early retirement.
I particularly want to encourage any posters who consider themselves in the "middle-ground" re this debate to participate in the discussions to begin January 13. It is my view that the key to bringing harmony to this board is to have some members of this community who have not taken positions placing themselves firmly in either the intercst or the hocus camps to come forward with some constructive ideas for how the two camps might be able to co-exist in the same discussion board community.
Splitting off the board into two segments is a bad idea, in my opinion. That approach makes the surviving board weaker and less interesting than it was before. Out mutual goal should be to come up with procedures by which this board could permit expression of a variety of viewpoints on this critical question, without each thread on SWRs being turned into a circus event. The only realistic means of achieving that goal is for more of the middle-ground posters to express their views on the question.
The purpose of the debate at the NoFeeBoards.com board will be to produce a statement that addresses the key questions on the use of SWR studies in a clear and succinct way, so that all members of this community will be able to appreciate the reasons for the differences of opinion that have been voiced here and their significance. My initial thought was that the focus would be the intercst study, but <JWR1945 has suggested that we take a broader focus, and I think that makes sense.
The community congregating at the NoFeeBoards.com site is particularly well-suited to taking on the task of developing a statement to help this community come to terms with this issue. A large number of former outstanding REHP board posters congregate there, including such names as JWR1945, wanderer, ataloss, raddr, FoolMeOnce, and MHTyler. There are also already a good number of current REHP board community members signed up there, including such names as Dagrims, Andrew61, Nas90Skog, RJMcDonald, PeteyPerson, CrazyLegs883, and Bill2975. I hope that there will be a good number more who give the new board a try as a result of hearing about the debate to commence on January 13 (while not giving a second's thought to quitting this board in the process, please!).
If this approach bears fruit, I see a way that this matter that we have been struggling with for seven months now can be turned to the good. Already, this debate has been responsible for the birth of a second thriving discussion board on strategies for early retirement. That in itself is a plus. But there is no reason why anyone interested in this subject should be required to choose between Board A and Board B. The best of all worlds is that we all get to participate in the development of and enjoy the work product of both boards.
The new board is a smaller board for the time being, and that allows for a different sort of debate experience. Perhaps a small board is a better place to hold exploratory talks on how to best make use of SWR research. But there are big advantages to the large board experience that is made possible by the things that Motley Fool does to attract a large community of discussion board users to this site.
I can see this working out in a way in which both this board and the new board become rich resources for those planning early retirements in the future, with the new board focused on the controversial debates better held in a small-board atmosphere and this board providing an introduction to the Retire Early concept to the larger community that congregates at the Motley Fool boards. The natural way for this to evolve is for people to learn the basics here, and then go to the new board as they become interested in exploring controversial issues in more depth. The best way for this to work is to have a group of posters who serve as "go-betweens" sharing useful insights developed at Board A with the community of Board B, and vice versa.
I am looking forward to the debate that will be beginning on January 13, and hope that a good number of members of this community pay at least occasional visits to the new board to help us develop our FAQ statement. I suspect that all who participate, including those of us who believe that we already know a good deal about the subject matter, will learn a lot from participation in the upcoming debate. It has been my experience that crafting posts for consideration of a board community forces me to reconsider my initial impressions and sharpen my thinking.
Those interested in doing some reading in preparation for the debate should acquire a copy of the book by William Bernstein titled "The Four Pillars of Investing" and read Chapter Two prior to January 13. If you have the time, you also might want to check out some of the nine key posts that I offered during Phase One of the SWR debate held here. Here's a post by tmeri providing links to those posts.
http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=18226683