Can I Post Here or Not?

[JWR1945]

The last time that I checked: the agreement was that the Motley Fool had a copyright and that the author had a copyright as well. The Motley Fool can use posted material in their own promotions. The writer can charge a royalty fee to anybody other than the Motley Fool who uses his material.

The details can be found in the written material at the site. There are some contradictory statements that make it sound as if writers give up all of their rights. Posts on Improve the Fool make it clear that people can sell their own material. They just cannot restrict the Motley Fool's use of it. [This issue comes up about one a year.]

Have fun.

John R.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

*****

Nords, the dictionary reference is cute, but ***** does have quite a respectable history of thoughtful posts / essays. I'm sad to see there's such a row, but from what I've read it appears he's on a crusade to make his SWR point and make everyone understand if not agree with it.

bongo2 et al: Before TMF went pay I wrote a script to grab posts from the REHP board. I got the most highly rated ones (many of which were *****'s) and about half of the rest in order of date posted. (I don't recall if I got the last half or first half--probably the last since that's where my posts were.) They are all in one big file in concatenated raw HTML; sooner or later I'll write another script to convert them into a more readable form.

I am not a lawyer, but I believe the author of the message should be able to give permission for the posts to be copied here. However, even if someone did that and was in the right it wouldn't necessarily stop TMF from taking him to court to argue about it. So I guess it comes down to a poker staredown of rights, tort and public relations.

Edit: I'd like to clarify that I'm not forcing this copyright issue. After rereading my post it almost sounded like I was on a mission of my own, and I'm not. (Also corrected a typo)

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I'm not of the lawyerly inclination myself, but it seems to me that you could give ***** the text, he could slice and dice it and choose which bits he would like to re-post here. Since he is the originator, and said posts would not be cut and pastes from TMF, I cant see how there would be any legal basis.

On the other hand, I wouldnt chip in for any lawyers if it did hit the fan, but I would certainly let TMF know that they are out a customer for life and due for some fairly bad public relations post haste.

 

[arrete]

I do not believe that TMF has any problem with anyone reposting their own work anywhere they wish. ***** has told me that people can post URLs to his posts on TMF, but that defeats the purpose since most people on this forum don't have access. He could repost his own posts here if he wished, but that's up to him.

I think he is only interested in the SWR issue and isn't interested in posting some of his earlier stuff, but that's my own take.

arrete

 

[BigMoneyJim]

TH, I agree with your interpretation. I also agree with arrete's assesment of the situation.

However it would be fair use for me to post quoted snippets from various posts. (And not just *****'s...there are many who posted valuable info there.)

I'm suddenly getting paranoid about bringing it up, though. I saved copies for my own personal reference, but I don't want to give the impression that I'm itching to post as much of it as I can. I just brought it up because I figure "someday" I'll convert it into a locally readable format and then I may look through every now and then and post useful snippets with links back to the original (assuming the old links still work).

 

[hocus]

I think he is only interested in the SWR issue and isn't interested in posting some of his earlier stuff, but that's my own take.

I spent three years writing a book that deals solely with non-SWR issues. Of course I care about the non-SWR issues. A lot.

There are two reasons why I don't personally want to re-post my old non-SWR stuff.

One, I believe that the SWR issue is the most important issue before the Retire Early community at this particular point in time. I respect the right of others to hold other points of view, and thus I have no objection to anyone else putting up links to any of my non-SWR posts. I don't personally want to be responsible for taking attention away from the SWR issue, however. I personally think it would be best for the entire community if that one were brought to some sort of resolution. So I don't want to be putting my personal energies into causing any distractions from it.

Two, I believe that a poster who puts up a thread-starter incurs an obligation to the community to respond to questions that arise in connection with the issue he brings to the table. That's why I continued answering questions re the SWR matter for so long. I brought that issue to the table and I think it would have been wrong for me to have just have walked away from it so long as there were people continuing to pepper me with questions on it. It's put a bit of a burden on me that my SWR thread-starter generated tens of thousands of questions and 22 months of debate so far. The experience has put me behind on a lot of other projects that are important to me. So I am reluctant until such time as I get caught up to raise any new issues that might require me (as a result of my personal posting philosophy) to spend additional time responding to questions from the community.

Any poster here is free to post links to Motley Fool material. It's true that those who are not registered would need to register to view the links. But Motley Fool provides one-month free trials of their discussion boards. You don't need to provide a credit card to take advantage, so no one would need to worry that it was going to cost him any money to view the links. I think that that is the best way to go for those with an interest in viewing old material from Motley Fool (whether it be old material generated by me or old material generated by any of the hundreds of other fine posters who have posted at Motley Fool over the years).

 

[sgeeeee]

I remain amazed at all this discussion of if and when and how to post old TMF posts. I really can't imagine what old TMF posts would have to offer that could not be addressed with as much wisdom and value by this board today. I was a member of that board for years (before they went over to the dark side) and I enjoyed the boards. But, really, they weren't filled with wisdom beyond the abilities of the Early Retirement Forum.

Does anyone really have some burning interest in some issue discussed years ago at TMF? Or is this just some exercise in mental masterbation?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I'm only interested because I dont know what it is that I might be missing. All I've heard are statements made that said if you were becoming FIRE'd, go read *****'s posts, and that they did and they were terrific.

Frankly I'm done with SWR. I've viewed and understand the various approaches. I'm boatloaded with calculators and spreadsheets. I know that more than 4% on average is bad. I know that less than 4% is better. I know that reallocating my investments based on relative valuations (aka rebalancing) can help.

Its all rendered irrelevant for me by two facts:
#1: I need 4% of my current egg to live
#2: I dont know whats going to happen in the future, neither does anyone else, its unlikely to match exactly with anything thats happened historically, and no approach to predict the future based on history has ever worked.

So as far as SWR goes, I'll keep sipping at my nestegg as little as possible while enjoying my life as much as I can, I'll manage my money with my eyes wide open, and if I run out, I'll go back to work!

I could be wrong, but I'm betting most folks have access to pretty much all the information they need on SWR's, and there is no right or wrong approach, just opinions. Those have been expressed.

So no chance of hearing about some other interesting stuff about ER?

 

[charlie]

Amen, TH ....... except that part about going back to work.

Charlie

 

[sgeeeee]

. . . I could be wrong, but I'm betting most folks have access to pretty much all the information they need on SWR's, and there is no right or wrong approach, just opinions.  Those have been expressed.

So no chance of hearing about some other interesting stuff about ER?

TH,

That sounds like a pretty good summary of SWR.

So here's a little bit about other stuff I do in retirement.

Yesterday I spent the day working as an election board member for a City of Mesa election. We elected a mayor and voted on a bunch of bond issues. They actually pay you $75 for this service and another $10 for going to a 1 hour training sesstion, but I clearly don't do it for the money. Election work gives you an appreciation for the political process. You spend a long day (~14 hours) with 5 or 6 of your neighbors and meet hundreds of others as they come to vote. Most people are pretty upbeat and happy when they come to vote, so it's a nice experience.

Tomorrow I will spend the day exploring a canyon in Tonto National Forest. The canyon is in an area that was occupied by Hohokam indians from about 500 AD to about 1300 AD. I'll be looking for architectural features and artifacts and mapping them using GPS. Some sites are known to exist from previous archaeology surveys but typically on a day like this I will find dozens of prehistoric features that were previously undocumented.

I know it's not fishing or golf or sailing, but these are a couple of activities that I spend my SWR on. So . . . can anyone figure out how I can include used dryer sheets in either of these?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I believe expired dryer sheets can be used as absentee voting sheets, and you can use their mildly abrasive surface to gently remove bits of dirt and sand from prehistoric features you discover.

 

[wabmester]

can anyone figure out how I can include used dryer sheets in either of these?

Sure, start your own dryer sheet midden for some future archaeologist to discover. Leave a petroglyph or two demonstrating the many uses of dryer sheets. And wrap a couple of fossils with dryer sheets -- it keeps the carbon-14 smelling fresh and stops the fossils from clinging together.

 

[haha]

This is going to seem stupid, but what are dryer sheets?
It taxes my domesticity to deal with bed sheets, dryer sheets may put me over the edge.

Mikey

 

[haha]

I do know about Downey, though. You put it in the washer, not the dryer. A month ago I was out dancing, and my partner kept raving about great I smelled. I finally figured out it was the Downey still in my shirt. So now I buy huge jugs of the stuff at Costco.

mikey

 

[hocus]

You wore me down, TH.

I put up a Golden Era post of mine over at the Young Dreamers section of this forum. It's called "The New Luxuries."

http://www.early-retirement.org/cgi...d=young;action=display;num=1079001928;start=0

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

And here I thought I was building you up.

I'm off to read!