Dory36 Is "Town Sheriff" at Early Retirement Forum

Research on Safe Withdrawal Rates

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hocus2004
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Dory36 Is "Town Sheriff" at Early Retirement Forum

Post by hocus2004 »

I put a post today to the Early Retirement Forum today that I view as a signifincant development in the larger community's ongoing SWR discussions. It is the sixth post at the page linked below.

http://early-retirement.org/cgi-bin/yab ... 4;start=30

Hocus: "I am going to continue to report honestly what the historical data says re SWRs, SalaryGuru. William Bernstein reported honestly what the historical data says in his book "The Four Pillars of Investing," and the world did not come to an end when he did so. So my guess is that our little discussion board community will not come to an end if I just continue to tell it the way William Bernstein tells it.

If you put up a post saying that you disagree with me and Bernstein, I think that's good. The expression of honest differences of opinion often generate good discussions that we all learn from. If you support intercst's position on this question, that Bernstein did not say what Bernstein in fact said, I will feel compelled to report to the board community that you are posting dishonestly. Busted retirements are not a joking matter. The board deserves to know the facts of this matter so that it can make up its own mind.

I believe that dishonest posting hurts the board. It has driven away many fine posters from other communities and in all likelihood it has caused us to lose some too. If we continue to see large numbers of deliberately dishonest and deliberately disruptive posts on SWR threads, I am going to ask that Dory36 take action to deal with the matter. TH isn't the Town Sheriff and Intercst isn't the Town Sheriff and SalaryGuru isn't the Town Sheriff. Dory36 is the Town Sheriff. It is going to be Dory36's call as to whether honest posting on what the historical data says re SWRs is going to be permitted here.
hocus2004
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Post by hocus2004 »

Here's a thread put to the Early Retirement Forum today in which I urge that intercst be banned from that forum.

http://early-retirement.org/cgi-bin/yab ... 1111092842
beachbumz
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Post by beachbumz »

Hocus, you failed to mention that the thread was started by a person requesting that Dory36 ban you. It's past time to stop this nonsense.
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hocus2004
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Post by hocus2004 »

I've been banned before, BeachBumz. I thought the intercst angle was more newsy.
beachbumz
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Post by beachbumz »

:D
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hocus2004
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Post by hocus2004 »

Here is a thread that Dory36 put up today titled "What Shall We Do?"

http://early-retirement.org/cgi-bin/yab ... 42;start=0

I'll post only the thread-starter by Dory36 and my response below. But I urge all community members to read all comments posted at the thread as this is a matter of obvious long-term significance to our community.

Dory36: olks, we have a good bit of disruption in the ranks.

Some of the disruption is in the form of a Baptist running occasionally into Methodist services, and claiming that some of their beliefs are heresy.

This seems to generate (a) almost zero real dialog about the merits and demerits of the beliefs, and (b) a strange combination of ad hominem attacks and defensiveness. It is all compounded by a refusal to allow "the other side" to have the last word.

We're all too old for this stuff -- even the "young dreamers" among us.

It is also certainly a turnoff to newcomers looking for a congenial group of like-minded ERs and ER wannabees.

So... to those who believe that some of what we talk about is wrong, please note that your style of delivery is preventing your message from being heard. And to those who object to that style of delivery as being disruptive, please don't descend into personal attacks to show your displeasure.

There have been a number of public and private requests for me to do something about this recurring problem. I'm open to all ideas. You can post suggestions here, or send me a private message by clicking on my name at the left, and then clicking "send this member a private message".

Dory36, the forum dad

-----------------------------------------

Hocus: I've posted what I think is the best long-term solution elsewhere.

If there is a desire for a second-best solution, I believe that it would be a plus to set up a separate board for discussions of the Data-Based SWR Tool. The key to making this solution work is that there must be a clear understanding that disruption of the conversations that community members are trying to hold there will not be tolerated. There need to be consequences that all understand will follow from violations of the rules of civility at that board.

It is not realistic for intercst supporters to think that they can permanantly "ban" discussions of what the historical data says re SWRs. Are we going to hunt down every last copy of Bernstein's book and burn them all? Are we going to get Rob Arnott removed as editor of the Financial Analysts Journal? Are we going to crash the web site for the Dallas Morning News when the Scott Burns column endorsing JWR1945's research appears?

The desire to learn how to win financial freedom early in life evidenced by the 100-plus members of the Motley Fool community who asked that intercst kindly knock off the nonsense will be realized. We can slow down realization of that desire by piling more nonsense on top of all the nonsense that we have allowed to accumulate for 34 months now. All that we will be doing by taking that step is delaying the inevitable.

When you get a number wrong in a study, the smart thing is to acknowledge the error, put it behind you, and move on. Any person with common sense knows that. Intercst has demonstrated that he lacks common sense. He is a failed leader.

This is not an intercst board. It is a Retire Early board. We need to get about the business of governing it as such. It's all part of the process of growing up. Is it hard sometimes? Sure. Is it worth it? You bet.

I've seen a glimpse of the other side and I can offer a few tantalizing words to end this post on an optimistic note--It gets better.
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Post by hocus2004 »

You gotta have faith in our community, guys. We are a good people, a smart people, a generous people. I never let myself forget that.

http://early-retirement.org/cgi-bin/yab ... 11;start=0
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Post by JWR1945 »

This is a much better outcome than I expected when I visited the site earlier today.

I expect quite a few people to be embarrassed in the future when they look back at their recent posts.

Have fun.

John R.
hocus2004
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Post by hocus2004 »

You worry too much, my good friend.

And I don't think anyone is going to be embarassed in days to come. Everyone is going to be too excited about the learning experience they are enjoying to be spending time looking backwards.

I've been telling people for a long time now that we were gaining traction with this thing. But does anybody ever listen to anything that old hocus has to say about it? Oh, no!

Well, here were are--Traction City! Beers for everyone on me!
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