Unfortunately...

[barry_1]

...i see the day when Standard,simply throws in the towel and simply closes the Chat forum.We can all be witty and smutty or both and freedom of speech is great,but realistically no company in business with the general public can allow all the inuendos to fly,that of late appeared onthis forum.Standard started this forum originally to bring problems with this platform quickly to their attention,which it does as we all find the telephone unsatisfactory at times.Now the boundries of what can be said are being pushed and this is becoming frankly tiresome.STANDARD LISTEND TO OUR SUGGESTIONS on how to improve the site,which is great.PLEASE STANDARD DONT CLOSE THE SITE!

[#2]

I agree with Barry. Essentially this isn't a forum but more a comments page. A proper forum allows you to edit your text and appoint moderators amongst the prominent forumites if they are willing, to weed out trolling, inappropriate language and spam if need be. As South Africa is still in it's Internet Infancy we cannot expect much, but you have to start somewhere. A small forum, but nevertheless interesting and informative is being run on PSG.https://www.psg-online.co.za/DiscussionForum/forum//default.asp Standard Bank's Online Share Trading site is commendable, but let's be honest this Remarks/Comments Chat Page leaves a lot to be desired. A well run forum is an Asset in my opinion and people can share information. At the moment comments that become stale disappear. Recently, I asked about a few improvements to the site and the thread moved to the bottom of the page and was gone and Standard Bank didn't respond as they likely didn't even see it. Regards, BTTB.

[webster_1]

Agree and recommend that Standard Bank should look at ways to further improve the management / structure / functionality / standard of the forum. Self-editing and moderation is the hallmark of many on-line chat communities. Members should have a sub-area for banter / nonsense. BUT the main focus of this forum should be respected by all members irrespective of their daily "trading feeling".

[SimonPB]

Barry, we're very unlikely to close the forum. In fact I'd say never, but my grandmother always said never say never. That said what we're seeing now is what tends to happens on chat forums. (I joined my first email based share chat forum in 1996, web based in 1997 and have owned/moderated share chat forums for the last 7 years). This tendency to push the limits will happen from time to time and I suspect this time it will be resolved by my having to ban a user, then we will have an outrage from other users and then things very quickly quieten down and return to acceptable levels. Hopefully people will head the warnings and we won't have to ban anybody. Naturally banning is far from what we want to do, but if pushed we will. So one warning and then banned and as mentioned elsewhere once banned the only way to ever post here again would be to change your name & ID number and then open a new OST account.

BTTB, I did see your suggestion from March (also made by others) regarding a better forum, in particular the vbulletin system. Frankly I don't see the benefits nor do I like the format. What is important is that this is a vibrant and happening forum, the format is the least of the issues - it is the users that make a forum, not the software. To my mind the only thing really missing here is perhaps an ability to page further back and maybe a search. But also note that this forum is viewed by less then 1% of our clients and probably around 0.1% of our clients actually ever post here.

Now I be in the garden province, so off to the beach for a surf.

[#5]

Hi Simon. Thanks for the feedback. Hope by the time you read this you had a great weekend, although I expect the weekend weather to be cool with rain, which may be great news for surfers hoping for those big waves from the passing cold front. Re the Forum. Perhaps you could explain the existing forum and its design as it looks like integrated coding of the Standard Bank Online Share Platform, in which case it cannot be altered unless the people who designed it make it so. If this is the case and Standard Bank and to your mind seem to be happy with the format there isn't much we can do about it, except suggest things like what you mentioned about a search and paging back option. You could add to that list an Edit Option where members can correct grammar and spelling mistakes and add more sub forums to include an Off Topic Section, Announcements Section, Suggestions, Share Tips and the like. Simon you say that only 1% of Standard's Clients use the forum. Isn't that perhaps telling you something? There was a time when less that 1% of Standard Bank's Clients were using Internet Banking and what is that situation now. I did mention that South Africa is in its Internet Infancy and that can explain many things in regards to why the usage is so low. I could also say that perhaps some people would rather read and observe than share their tips. Perhaps some people have been put off because the forum wasn't moderated properly and the Forum Trolls were spoiling it for the rest. Did you know that the most popular forum in South Africa called MyADSL, which currently has 24,788 members, runs on vBulletin? http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/ I am not saying one should only use vBulletin. There is a host of other Forum Software Products available on the internet. I suspect that Standard Bank would need to register a new or sub domain to run this software and this could be the reason why there is resistance to it? Mark my words Simon that in time Standard will have a proper Forum with many members sharing information and tips. In the interim I shall use PSG's Forum as the layout and functionality is far superior to this. Would you care to provide an email contact and/or CC this comment to someone at Standard Bank that might take notice of a few clients suggestions? Lastly. If there was anything that gets my goat about Standard Bank's Online Share Trading Website is the default timeout/logoff period. It is far too short. One has to constantly log on during the day. I understand that idle clients will be dropped, but the period is too short. Hope my comments are viewed as constructive. Take Care. BTTB.

[webster_1]

Simon surely these serious recommendations / suggestions from your own client base should take SBK to the drawing board. And while I am at it - for me ditto goes for the limited functionality / isolation of Price Streamer. Every morning I must log in separately and many times (in early trading) it require manual relogin to update the graphs. When I want to trade I must go back to the main site and with frustration log back in there sometimes. Or wait 15 minutes occasionally if in a hurry et al I "forget" to log-out.

[chas]

I beg to differ - i think this chat forum is great - especially to new traders like myself - I read what I want to and ignore the rest...keep it going.

[#8]

BTTB & Webster recommendations would be useful certainly. And the timeout/logoff period needs to be longer. I trade on the LSE via Natwest and they have 30 min before timing out.

[cfm]

Just a warning to all calling for a longer time-out period. If you accidentaly close your browser, or it crashes, the you will have to wait the full time-out period before you can log in again. I can much easier live with having to log in a few extra times a day, than to be in a situation where I want to trade, but can not.
I have seen other sites that have a message box that pops up when one is close to the time out period. This then reminds you to quickly refresh or risk being logged out. Something like that would be much more usefull than just increasing the time-out period.

[PaulC]

Although I agree that the forum is somewhat archaic, I agree with Simon that the content is the important part. I rarely post as I generally dont have any information I consider to be useful to anyone else. However I would like to take this moment to ask SFM to eliminate the 15 min unable to log in post no logout restriction. I have found myself unable to logon a number of times and it is frustrating. Other than that Im quite happy with the forum, I read it multiple times daily and enjoy the the regular posters banter with oneanother. - Paul C

[555]

Simon. I am one of the ones that has been making some of the noise about a proper forum. I've been checking out the one at http://www.traderji.com and the ongoing discussions and help about TA, Amibroker, etc, etc that are there in perpetuity for all to read, are what makes this valuable. Yes, there are the occasional posts to downloads of pirate software, books, etc, but these can be moderated out. I agree with the formite who said that the reason why only 1% of people use it is because its basically useless. A discussion was started a couple of weeks back about getting your lazy trading system into Amibroker. That must be of huge interest to more than 1% of the OST clients. But where is it.....Gone, into the murky depths of your database, never to be seen again.

[SimonPB]

BTTB, re the 1%. The format is not going to make many more users frequent the forum - the content will be the main driver of users. I frequent some very ugly and un-user friendly forums, but the content makes me return. Editing posts, not going to happen, spelling/grammar is minor. We'd be worried about users changing what they said (buy changed to sell or what ever). Categories are great - but even the few we have here are not used much at al.

That all said, what do people want? Searchable (agreed), paging back (agreed), layout (how so?), blogs, ???

The time out, we are looking at increasing slightly and giving a warning. But really t is a small thing? Surely?

[#13]

Barry I think you presuming too much with regard to SFM's intentions with this forum. Not passing a value judgement...I dont think SFM have ever stated their intentions explicitly. If thats all intention they had I would say thats very shortsighted. The fact that only a small % of clients use the forum is irrelevant as far as I am concerned and shouldnt even be mentioned. If SFM wants to be a customer facing organisation and thats no reason to give customers a half baked solution. Maybe there is a reason for this low usage of the forum. Its an indictment on SFM as a moderator of this forum and on no way indicated whether a forum is needed or not. Maybe time to ask your customers what the want?

[barry_1]

Right in the beginning they did state that as their intention,however the site has evolved into much more over time and i think they accept this now,however if u read their CONDITIONS FOR USE OF CHAT FORUM RULES ,its still pretty restrictive,if strictly applied we would hardly be able to greet each other!I think of course this is just to cover their ...... er themselves(almost got meself into trouble there!)So that no one could take legal action against them.

[Clembo]

The forum suits me perfectly just as it is. Some members don't make use of the 'Topic' or Heading properly, BB overstepped the mark, I think SB were too hasty cutting the Roffey thread but generally very good - IMHO.

[#16]

Timeout is important and 30 minutes would be better - it gives us the time to go of somewhere else on the internet do whatever and then come back with out having to log back in.

[#17]

on that point - possibly when the outcome of the FSB investigation is finalised SFM will replace that thread? Maybe it would be useful to know who is entitled to take your money and who isnt?

[mwk]

Searchable: yes, Paging back (archive): yes, Layout: presently ok, Blogs: not necessary. Yep, it's certainly possible to add mucho bells, whistles and eye candy to the forum, but IMO *content* is most important. Having the forum searchable would be a significant enhancement, because much discussion about shares and warrants is not in the relevant forum category. Searching would find comments about a given share even if posted in the wrong forum category. BTW, does anyone know what HTML tags, if any, are allowed in posts? (Testing HTML test, just wondering if HTML tags get stripped, ignored, or rendered.)

[mwk]

Ah, HTML tags get stripped.

[SimonPB]

some html is possible. Bold, italic, live break.