Is WSO serving its purpose still?

Helpful to me? Not really. I try to help others when I can but this isn't an intellectual environment like the Mises forums were, for example. So I won't say it's helpful to me but it's definitely entertaining. Somewhat of a distraction from work.

Brofessor - I've had some similar thoughts to you in recent months. If I remember correctly I joined WSO sometime around 2013-2014 when I was thinking of banking as a career path. At the time there was so much discussion and new ideas for me that I truly found myself reading it every day, all day and always learning. I found myself with a slight edge on perspectives when having real conversations in my life because of the people here.

That being said, I think there is also an end point of where information stops being new or interesting to you. I think this may be where you are at and I know I definitely have been at times.

I've always been more of a lurker on this site than a contributor, but interesting content has died down a lot since I joined and I'm not sure if that is because people are not as focused on commenting with their ideas, having something new and interesting to discuss, or what.

I think the site is largely the same, but you’ve changed. Take it as a compliment from the universe. Of course, the political threads are more persistent, because politics are unusual at this point. Same with Bitcoin. You’ll notice that 75% of the comments in Trump threads are from 5 or so users. You still get the opportunity to poke fun at people, so it’s largely serving the same purpose for me. Also, to give back to the youth...yada, yada, yada.........

Alternately: A) Maybe we just need to bring back more Bombay Sapphire talk/subliminal advertising B) I ruined the site when I came out as ‘fake’ C) the site was ruined when Brady4MVP was banned

Reports and company database are good. Would agree there has been a lot more political and current event news vs internal firm news/gossip.

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that's because S&T is DEAD!!!!!!!!

Joined the site in summer '08. Great timing, I know. DickFuld hits it on the head that long-time users have changed more than the site itself. I don't find a lot of the threads relevant to me anymore, having completed my IB Analyst program and transitioned to industry. That being said, the body of knowledge on this site has grown to the point that opportunities to provide new input is few and far between. In some ways, I think the site has become a victim of its success.

I do miss some of the more eccentric personalities from years past, and think that the forum is lacking in finance discussions (think somewhere between Damodoran's posts and the formula for FCF).

The site still is entertaining enough for me to pop in daily, and laugh at the shitposts/zingers, and enjoy the occasional opportunity to weigh in on others' career decisions.

I remember being a kid in college trying to figure out what the hell life was. I would come on WSO and read about professionals working at institutions during the crisis talking about what they think will come, what was happening, and who was left when it was all over.

Over 10 years of coming to this site, from a college freshman to now working at an E&F, I now browse for RARE posts containing any valuable content I can consume, contribute, or otherwise get a pulse of the insanity of today's culture.

I'm a student and I've found it helpful. There's some really good threads when I sort by Best- All Time and the summer analyst recruiting threads are very helpful regarding timelines.

This forum still serves its purpose. Ranging from different topics to people who need help, it is a different outlet to read then the traditional media (FB, CNN, KPBS, etc).

I find most of the topics posted very informative and highly valuable. The contributions, discussions, and debates are what makes WSO worth visiting and reading in, day in, day out.

Well, brofessor, as a younger dude I can definitely answer for my demographic.

As the site grows it is bound to have a higher volume of trolls/polititards/cryptotards because that's just what is relevant/being talked about the most right now.

However, the resources, guides, database, and network that WSO provides is literally unparalleled. I'm someone who had a sub 3.0 GPA in high school in a no-name town that discovered WSO right as they graduated HS. Since then i've visited every single day, and now when I speak to my best friends that go to targets like Georgetown & UVA, I'm the one speaking most fluently about finance, the markets, business news, etc. Granted, they are not as driven and don't use WSO. Still - I'm the one who's taken leadership positions and scored internships I still can't believe are actually mine, and it was ONLY possible for me thanks to WSO.

I guess what i'm trying to say is, like everyone else above has said, maybe you've outgrown what this site has to offer. The motto is "master your finance career," and WSO is truly guiding me on the right path to my dream of being an IB analyst. So yes, WSO is at it's best for me right now and I believe that all the resources on here are priceless. As a matter of fact, a lot of your old posts have aided me with knowledge I use today.

Ignore the tards & keep your eyes out for the real silver posts. They're still out there just as much as they used to be, if not more than they were; just in a much more flooded market. I would never give up on WSO, and think the entire community would be at a loss if you did.

Agree the board is dominated by mainstream topics (Trump, Bitcoin, etc) and the usual BS threads like "which is better - Duke vs. Ivy vs. NYU." I generally choose to ignore those.

To your point, wish we had more discussions on the topics you noted or something along the lines of Investing in Unsexy Businesses or whatever that thread was titled.

The reports and database are solid for market intel/comps. Also still enjoy reading AMAs. Otherwise, primarily trying to pay it forward and help the younger folks choose the career path with the most potential given their starting point.

Sorry about the delay in responding, I just saw this.

I think this is a fair question to ask. Is time on WSO time well spent? I think for some people the answer will be a resounding "NO", others a resounding "YES" and others will be "it depends".

IMO, a lot of that depends on what stage you are in your career (not just seniority but also if you transitioning). I think the community is great at helping members break into competitive careers and I think it is relatively weak on generating intellectual/interesting discourse targeted to more senior members (although FB and other sites set a very low bar).

It's a real problem. One, quite frankly, I've struggled to solve over the years with limited success. But I think we have two interrelated problems here and it's helpful to split them out:

1. MODERATION: I think one of the most difficult parts about managing this community is moderation. We want to do it in such a way that we don't over censor, but we also try to cultivate intelligent debate/discussion without alienating or offending those with different opinions.

Unfortunately, that is not an easy task with such a wide variety of opinions and sensitivities on display every day in the forum (and those you don't hear from lurkers that may get turned off by some of the more immature or insensitive members)...and such a wide variety of posting patterns (like certain users that turn certain threads political with no need, for example) -- this is the reason if/when political posts start to dominate too much (like maybe now again), we reserve the right to block/remove them. It's actually against the WSO TOS to post political content, but this is where we try to be lenient if the discussion/debate is respectful/constructive.

2. QUALITY & RELEVANCE: If someone isn't violatiing a user guideline and they are just a moron, what do we do? Well peer reward system with bananas helps, but it doesn't prevent the tracker or forums from being cluttered with topics that aren't necessarily interesting or relevant to you.

We've tried to address this by having seniority filters above each table and on the Recent Content tracker...just not sure if anyone is using those or how helpful they are?

Honestly, losing a member like you would be a big hit to the community because I see you as one of the more level-headed and knowledgeable members. I'm sure if you are not happy, others feel the same way so I'd love to hear how/what/where we can change to see if we can improve.

I don't ever think it will be perfect, but we can always get better. Maybe we can chat offline?

Thanks, Patrick

I feel it lacks validity which is probably how it has stuck around. I find myself not finding things that interest me and I agree on why do I come back? I want old school wall street to be a thing again with all of its prestige but I do not see it coming back with how people my generation think. I would like more of a personal society of finance instead of forums like this laced with sarcasm and people who probably shouldn't be giving advice. This site is great for advice. I would possibly be interested in a addition to this site that could be a way for others to be part of a club or society based less on job offers or trends in the world and more of a place to bring back old wall street.

It’s just not a small exclusive community as it was years ago. That has its pros and cons. The ability to crowdsource is at its peak, but so are the number of members that haven’t even started college. I think this is the same type of progression that most platforms and businesses inevitably follow. Facebook is one example

I used to frequent WSO daily when I was recruiting for and was in IB because it was relevant to me. And there have been some really quality posts that have been extremely educational (re: modeling, interview q’s, debt structuring, mba, etc) and a lot of posters have also provided terrific advice / perspective. It was also good for getting a sense of how others in the industry think (getting the male perspective for a female banker so to speak). I think WSO continues to provide an amazing knowledge base for young individuals to learn about banking and other roles in finance - regardless of his or her socioeconomic background, ethnicity, school, etc. it evens the playing field somewhat for people that are willing to learn and hustle hard, even if their “start line” is miles behind Chad Wexington III’s.

Today, I check out WSO once a week or maybe once every other week, mostly because there’s less intel on my current career path vs IB/PE/CF. But I come on to just do a quick skim on topics where I may be able to provide advice as a way to give back, however small the contribution.

I suppose another reason I’ve turned away from WSO a bit is because it’s gotten a bit old (or I’ve gotten old, or both). The crazy Trump supporters, super anti-liberal rants and circlejerks (some that read like shit from a red pill subreddit) don’t help. I think if people read my posts they’ll know I’m not what these folks term a “fem-nazi” or whatever the fuck nomenclature they use, but I also think some of this shit is extremely disheartening. I suppose this also speaks to some of the truth of what guys in the industry are like (which is also disappointing). I think it probably scares people away (men and women) that are new to and considering the industry. But I have been fortunate enough to work with some good guys throughout my career, so I’m aware this isn’t representative of Wall Street, and just choose to focus on reading quality posts from guys like CompBanker who make this forum better. However, newer readers may not have the same context.

Not sure what you (Patrick) could really do about those kinds of posts... if they are in “off-topic”, and solely reside there, I think that’s all fine. Part of the past charm of WSO is that there isn’t over-moderation so that you’ll occasionally have some fun shitposts. These days though, they just feel weak, or redpilly. I personally try to skip any political posts for either side.

Maybe there should be more promotion of thought-provoking threads. I’ve noticed you already do it (bringing back old greats), but maybe they (educational) could be highlighted in a different color vs. the usual “bank A vs bank B” or “why my political party is better than yours” thread.

I know this is for advertising reasons, but I’m also not a fan of those suggested ad comments telling ppl to sign up for IB or PE packages that pop up every 5-10 comments. This is just a minor point though.

I see a lot of complaining here about political threads, but in reality there really aren't that many (maybe 3 active discussions at the moment?) and they're almost exclusively in the off-topic section. Also, no one's forced to participate in those discussions. You can entirely avoid the content if it doesn't interest you.

We live in a very unique time, politically, and that's being reflected on these forums (as well as in work offices around the country). So yeah, I don't see the value in squelching that sort of discussion, particularly because there's a lot worse on here (topics about infidelity, prostitution, drug use, etc.).

Finally, where can I find the WSO TOS?

EDIT: I found the terms and conditions. Don't see where it says that political discussion is prohibited.

I suppose I'm a couple days late to this thread, so my apologies for reviving it. As someone who joined in 2006 and has slowed down in participation over the last few years, I can truly say "it's us, not WSO." I'll explain based on my perspective:

I certainly have plenty of insights to offer the community, but I'm increasingly removed and not the best suited to do so. Five years ago I was very much on top of recruiting trends, the inner-workings of financial modeling, and other related topics. Nowadays I'm far better suited to answer questions regarding things such as serving on the Board of a portfolio company, Limited Partner interactions, legal negotiations, and deal sourcing. These topics are rarely discussed on WSO because most of the community is just not at that stage yet and those that are have developed mentors throughout their career that can assist live.

Another challenge, and I hate to say it, but some of the topics do get quite repetitive over the years. I've been PMed so many different variations of "what should I do??" from undergraduates and recent graduates over the years. I try to respond to every one, but it is a challenge because the advice is nearly identical and repeated frequently on the public forums. When I do make contributions, I often do so only on specific topics that I feel uniquely qualified to offer my perspective. Those aren't too frequent these days.

The last category would really be the changes in my own personal interests. I'm no longer 100% career focused as I feel I've reached a point where I have substantial security. I'd rather spend my free time playing sports, traveling, seeing friends, reading, etc. I feel bad because I've invested an unbelievable amount of time into WSO over the years and consider Patrick a friend (even if you did leave Boston!). I suspect this may also be the case with other more seasoned users that are established in their careers.

So there you have it. I do hope to continue to be a member of the community, just on a continued limited basis, for many years going forward.

The site is what it is. It is mainly useful for kids recruiting and the people who can provide the best content (experienced financial professionals) either move on to other things or get bored answering drug test questions for the millionth time.

As far as eliminating political posts, I am all for it. But the sour grapes about pro-Trump people is so facetious. Plenty of pro Obama posters or people who create posts to shit on Trump. End politics for both sides or grow a thicker skin.

Incentivizing people would be interesting as it would give more experienced users a reason to answer rudimentary questions. That being said, someone with 10 years of industry experience is going to have a pretty high opportunity cost.

I answer MSF questions still because I like to. I answer very little basic accounting or drug test questions though. I just don't have the time. This site has so much information if only people would search and do some leg work.

Is this site still one of the best places to find out about interviews and different groups? Yes. Therefore it is still valuable and worth it. And lets be real, kids coming to break into banking is what the place is for - just look at the products offered.

The camaraderie and ranting about stuff keeps older people coming back as it is a time kill for people. This site is pure gold and has help thousands of kids. As long as it remains a place where kids can exchange information on recruiting, buy relevant services to increase their odds and remain entertaining enough for people to kill some time, it will remain relevant.

As someone who just went through recruiting and (finally) accepted an offer into IB, I can say WSO played a huge role. Specifically, the interview/review databases. These not only helped me prepare for interview questions but also help shape the conversations I was having and allowed me to come off as someone who was already picking up on the language of the industry.

Others have already mentioned that some of the older threads are the most helpful, which I agree with. I often find myself searching certain topics/keywords and every time I find myself glued to a discussion I look up and it was from 3-5 years ago. I'm not sure what this means for the forum, but hopefully at some point more people revert back to well thought out discussions. Nonetheless, I would 100% recommend this site to someone who is just starting out. If being the go-to site for entry level beginners is the ceiling for WSO, then I still consider this website more valuable than 90% of the other trash on the internet.

This site was extremely helpful when I was considering entering business school and banking in 2013-2014. Now that I'm a bit experienced, I try to contribute substance where I can, but many topics I have some knowledge about (Los Angeles investment banking, financial sponsors) rarely come up and I know next to nothing about recruiting to New York as an undergrad (probably 90% of the userbase).

That being said, I'm probably guilty of using the platform too much as a twitter-length standup comedy outlet and will try to seek out more areas to help those who were in my situation before.

I am no longer in the college/early career stage when I frequented WSO more, but I imagine it is just as useful for those users as it ever was. There is so much knowledge and information here to sift through. Like some of the more experienced users have noted, I find myself spending less time as there are less topics that are interesting/relevant to me. I still try to contribute on topics I feel I can add a helpful perspective, but I think that naturally shrinks as I get further from the college recruiting game. I used to be more open to different threads, as I wasn't sure what I wanted to do and was casting a wider net than now where I am settled in a specific career path (for now) and see little use in other career posts.

Not sure how these issues can be fixed. Only thought would be something like a certified user forum section where posts are limited in some way (experience, career path, etc). If some of the more in-depth/nuanced conversations between experienced users can be "preserved" by barring lesser experienced users (particularly non-experienced college/HS users) from taking the discussion off track, maybe we could generate some content that is more enticing to the later career people, while also providing great reading/learning content for the rest of the user base. I'm not sure what the success rate of this would be or how exactly you could implement it, but I'd much rather read some of the markets/investment/AM type threads if they were coming from people who have been around for years or at least worked in their field for more than a year or two. I'm only 5 years into my career and I find the most interesting posts are when modelsandbottles/bprofessor/compbanker type users are leading the discussion. I don't want to hear market perspective from a kid in college or a fresh IB analyst and I imagine most users are in the same boat. Just my 2 cents

DickFuld said it most succinctly ...

:

I think the site is largely the same, but you've changed. Take it as a compliment from the universe.

To make it more succinct, the 'best' content gets ignored on here in favor of the most sensational. This mirrors the evolution of the broader Internet as a whole. People engage over the things that make them feel the strongest emotion.

WallStreetOasis.com Patrick, each time this gets brought up, you go through a public display of hand-wringing but ultimately take little action to steer the site in any direction. This is like Twitter taking over a year to respond in any real way to numerous users pointing out how awful the platform was at putting protocols in place around harassment.

(I am not saying there's one right option between keeping Twitter entirely agnostic and making it much more subjective through moderation and censorship. I am simply saying that doing nothing allowed the issue everyone was discussing to progressively worsen while making their users more frustrated because they weren't getting a clear-cut signal about the future course of the site that would let them make a 'today' decision about whether to stay or to go.)

People want to see it being steered so they can choose whether to stay or not based on how they feel about the direction laid out.

In a way, this site is a victim of its own success. When the membership was smaller (e.g. 10,000 users), 1,000 serious users could really set the tone of the forums. With 500,000 members, though, you don't get linear growth in serious users; it's 5,000 instead of the 50,000 if it had scaled pro rata.

The second half of DickFuld's point is the one CompBanker unpacks. Those of us who have progressed well in our careers and now hold positions with a greater level of responsibility have way less time to come on here and write meaningful stuff, but amazingly, we all want to.

That's all I see behind posts like this: "Hey, it's starting to feel less fun, help me want to be here please."

Additionally, given the tenor of the forums, we have less incentive. This is what I think @I'm done" is trying to say. Unless you can find a way to reward (or incentivize or motivate or engage) those 'serious' users, they'll drift away.

Interestingly, this is exactly what happened to Vine. A core set of ~20 users drove over 80% of traffic on the platform. Those users' experience started to suck, however, and they got together in a private meeting with Vine leadership to discuss simple UX and product features as well as some strategy components that could turn that around. (A few of them demanded equity or some other form of profit sharing, but that wasn't a primary point the main group cared about.) Vine said they'd think about it, ultimately balked, and within a month those users engaged less and the overall usership of the app cratered over 30% (then reached a cumulative 50% the following month).

WallStreetOasis.com Patrick, you should actually look into the post-mortem writing on that. [The Verge / Mic / Business Insider]

@ai215" has a promising idea. Could you make a private forum for Certified Users?

I get that you're inherently disincentivized to silo the forums because pageviews equals ad revenues, so perhaps a solution is to add an option where if a Certified User is creating a new thread, he can choose whether comments can be made by any registered user or only by Certified Users.

Then you could make the font color that the thread title is shown in within the main list of threads in each forum be different than the default blue, like a dark gold (to match the Certified User star, but slightly darker so it contrasts well enough with the site background).

I would learn a lot about an industry I'm unfamiliar with if we could get @jjacobs06" and RealEstateNerd doing an AMA. That 'mega developer' thread was one of the most educational I've read in a long time (I am simply unfamiliar there).

I'd love to be able to further that by being the one to originate a question, then tag the people I want to hear from (and rest assured knowing I'm not going to waste any time parsing through people who aren't verified users or the now 30-50% of replies that are from troll users getting a quick laugh [and bloated silver banana count] by making a pedophiliac, homosexual, or other infantile joke).

This is actually a really good idea. None of us want to meet each other offline (when you're deeper into your career you don't want to risk anything), and no one really uses that Certified User chat because it isn't permanent like threads are.

If you add an option for Certified Users to limit replies, then visually differentiate between those limited-reply-only threads and all-reply-permitted threads in the forum listing, you strike a balance between giving Certified Users the narrower experience we all want while still keeping your site engagement metrics as high as possible since everyone can view everything.

A really striking example of how tough it's gotten is that I missed one of the other 10 most prominent users here choosing to leave by two whole months. I hope we get thebrofessor back.

hello all,

thanks for the kind words DickFuld APAE and for the nice email patrick WallStreetOasis.com

forever is a long time, and I don't think I'm gone forever. I'll still check PMs and if I find something worth commenting on, I'll do it. the tipping point for me was market-related discussions that get turned into shit flinging fests. you don't like my points? fine, challenge them, let's have a dialogue. but if a thread about the stock market turns into identity politics, maybe it's best I don't comment.

also, I think I'm at the point in my career and life where I don't have much more to say. yeah, it's fun reliving college days and commenting on threads like how to plan a bachelor party, how do drink a 6 pack every night and still crush it at work, but most everything that can be said on those topics has been said.

finally, the longer I'm there, the more I realize PWM isn't really a huge draw. so if I have to choose between an hour of "me time" and authoring a post on the PWM industry, I think I choose the former. if there's more interest, I'm happy to opine, but I just don't see where I'm adding a lot of value anymore.

so sorry for the scorched earth thing, I was just pissed off, had a mountain of stuff from clients, and said "ight, I'm done with WSO." I may come off of that, but for now I'm just a bit jaded, and I think it's me, not WSO.

until next time...