Tuesday, July 30, 1996
Acting Foolishly
or
Maybe I Had One Chocolate Chip Cookie Too Many
by MF Runkle

This week, something unusual happened. A Fribble I wrote was out-and-out rejected. Oh, I've had others that kind of disappeared, with a note back saying something like, "got your Fribble, George, I'll get back to you," but never a flat rejection. What did I write? A Fribble fairly dripping with sarcasm about some very unFoolish behavior. Of course, my Fribble itself wasn't very Foolish either. Just like you shouldn't shop for groceries when you're hungry (last time I did, I filled the cart with Chips Ahoy cookies and Cap'n Crunch Cereal), you shouldn't write Fribbles when angry.

What aroused my anger? Oh, I let some very unFoolish behavior in a chat room get to me. So, now that I've had a week to calm down, I'm going to rewrite this Fribble with an attempt to encourage more civil behavior in Fooldom. Unfortunately, I'm not completely innocent (see me hide my face in shame), and I'll point out some of my errors, too.

The stock message boards sometimes get ridiculous; we all know that. Sometimes the idiocy is amusing, like on one board where a poster began physically threatening others. Of course AOL didn't think it was funny, and that user has no profile anymore (kicked off AOL?). Most of us aren't into picking fights physically, since it's uncivilized and terribly embarrassing to get beat up, especially long distance. However, it's easy to beat up on someone verbally when you disagree. I know I don't like it when people don't see things my way (what do you mean DRiPs are a bad investment? want to go outside, fella?). Disagreement is good, because if nothing else, it makes you really think about your opinions.

Sometimes we misinterpret what others say on the stock boards. For example, one time I made a post on a board in jest and offended another user. He sent me an e-mail message, and unFoolishly, I told him I didn't care what he thought. (It still embarrasses me just to think that I was so ignorant!) I apologized later when I realized my error, but I could have saved myself the humiliation had I thought about the impact of my post at first, and failing that, had some consideration for the other user's feelings.

Finally, we shouldn't jam the stock boards with garbage posts, bragging about how much we made, taunting others for losing money, stating outrageous opinions in order to irritate others, and the like. It doesn't make you look smart, clever, or witty. It tells others you are immature and inconsiderate of their time and money.

Now let's turn to the chat rooms. One very foolish (small f) category of chatters are ones who like to ruin conversations with four-letter words, sexual comments, scrolling, and other disruptive tactics. They usually appear late at night, and until AOL tightens up more on TOS violators, we'll have to bear with them. Most of these are children (mentally if not chronologically), so I save my ire for another type of unFoolish behavior. The other type of disrupter is more subtle and isn't violating TOS, but simply isn't very Foolish.

I'll admit it right now, having an MF designation doesn't mean I know everything. I don't know which way the market will go tomorrow, and I only personally follow a handful of stocks. I can't give my opinion on an alphabet soup of stocks. I'm also reluctant to give my opinion on stocks I know in the few lines available in a chat room. Inevitably, someone in a chat room will grill me, "I thought you Motley Fools knew everything." Hey, we don't and I don't even pretend to.

On the Fool, we have a lot of chat rooms available, from Fool Stock ones (read Iomega), general ones, short-term trading, etc. It is very disruptive to a chat when someone comes in and keeps pushing it off subject. In some chats, especially ones geared toward novice investing, it can be quite intimidating to the newer people. How's a new investor going to feel when they think they are going to learn how to buy stocks, and a group of people in the chat room are discussing short selling, options, and the like? While these may be good subjects, it's more Foolish to discuss them in their proper place.

Finally, snide comments towards others in the chat room who may just be learning don't make you look more clever. It makes a person look much more noble when he shares his knowledge with others.

If there is one thread through all these things, acting Foolishly is simply having some consideration for the feelings of others. Manners and etiquette developed from this need, and came about from the desire we had of avoiding killing each other over minor altercations. In our civilized society (and it gets harder and harder to call us that these days), we can't kill each other over on-line media, but we need to preserve order in our different forums so people will continue to use them. Let's all try to get along and stay Foolish. Then, maybe the next time I host a chat I won't eat a whole box of Cap'n Crunch afterwards. (Of course, that did get us down to a mere half dozen boxes.) Anybody want a chocolate chip cookie?

Transmitted: 7/30/96