Recent blog entries have reported on my e-mail correspondence with www.IndexUniverse.com in which I tried to get an article on Valuation-Informed Indexing published at the site. Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent to Jim Wiandt on January 30, 2008, and Jim’s response.
Jim:
I’ll send an e-mail to Matt to connect with him on this (we have already exchanged a few e-mails on the problem of the abusive posters).
Yes, this is what the “fuss” is about. I of course understand that many do not agree. I also of course understand that this does not constitute a “wild new idea.” Valuation-Informed Indexing is essentially a combination of Buffett’s core idea (that value matters) with Bogle’s core idea (that market returns are good enough).
The “fuss” resulted because there were two individuals (John Greaney and Mel Lindauer) who were not willing to permit discussions of such ideas at “their” boards and there were many who were afraid of what these individuals would do to them in the event they pressed too strongly on their desire that such discussions be permitted.
The “how” issue from my standpoint is that each member of a posting community should state his or her views honestly. The fact that these views cannot be stated at the “Bogleheads” board means that the integrity of the discussions held at that board has been severely compromised. That’s part of the story that needs to be told about that board. It’s an important aspect of the story that was not told in the article that you published re the Bogleheads board. The intent of the comment that I posted to that article was to let interested parties know about the part of the story that was not being told.
Rob
Hi Rob – thanks for your thoughts. I’ll let Matt take it from here. Our goal is an open and informative discussion on our boards. The personal stuff is a waste of time, so that’s the kind of thing we’ll nip in the bud to ensure that the discussion is, sure, lively, but also civil and substantive.
Best,
Jim Wiandt
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