finiki, the Canadian financial wiki

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Peculiar_Investor
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Re: What would you like to see included in finiki?

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

One area that I don't see covered in finiki is targeted for those just starting out in the financial world, opening their first bank account, saving for university, student loans and then paying them off, getting your first credit card (and managing it responsibly!), ...

Many of us are long past those days but may have children and/or grandchildren that are embarking into that part of the financial world. If you wanted to give them a financial education, would you point them at finiki?

What parental (grandparental) advice would you or are you giving them and how could it be incorporated into finiki?
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Re: finiki: The Financial Webring Wiki

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

If you haven't visited http://www.finiki.org lately, you might take some time to wonder over and take a look. The Main Page has been revamped with a new (and hopefully familiar) colour scheme and re-organized content to improve interaction with users. Like most Wikis, the content continues to develop and improvement, but there is still much that can be added, clarified or fixed.

For those who use "View unread posts" or "View active topics" as a means to navigate the forum, Recent changes - finiki provides a means to follow what is changing on finiki.

Should you happen to see a typo that needs fixing, or some missing facts, perhaps you might consider fixing them for us. Check out Inviting finiki editors/ Hi, I'd like to be an editor and Guide For Contributors - finiki for details.
Imagefiniki, the Canadian financial wiki New editors wanted and welcomed, please help collaborate and improve the wiki.

Normal people… believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet. – Scott Adams
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Re: What would you like to see included in finiki?

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

Might something like Bogleheads® financial start-up kit - Bogleheads be useful for finiki? Personalized to Canadian investing/financial information of course.
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Re: What would you like to see included in finiki?

Post by AltaRed »

Seems like a huge amount of work, even if we simply Canadianize BH and give them the appropriate credits. ISTM that there would be a lot of repetition with other content in finiki, no?
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Re: What would you like to see included in finiki?

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

AltaRed wrote:Seems like a huge amount of work, even if we simply Canadianize BH and give them the appropriate credits. ISTM that there would be a lot of repetition with other content in finiki, no?
If done correctly, it would link in the other finiki content, not repeat it. Information should live in one place, with references from other places -- the original purpose of the world-wide-web. From what I can tell, the Boglehead's financial start-up kit is setup in nice bite size chunks, each chunk could be developed over time.

My thinking was the Bogleheads financial start-up kit answers the question I posed up-thread and no-one had answered.
Peculiar_Investor wrote:One area that I don't see covered in finiki is targeted for those just starting out in the financial world, opening their first bank account, saving for university, student loans and then paying them off, getting your first credit card (and managing it responsibly!), ...

Many of us are long past those days but may have children and/or grandchildren that are embarking into that part of the financial world. If you wanted to give them a financial education, would you point them at finiki?

What parental (grandparental) advice would you or are you giving them and how could it be incorporated into finiki?
As I stand back and look at finiki, and the forum, the level of material is written for those how already know about investing and finance, not Joe Q. Public, who needs some hand-holding to get started. I'm thinking that's a gap worth filling and I'm thinking that a chunk of it is already posted within the forum, it is just not easily accessible.

Think about the number of times a new member comes to FWF and posts a "newbie" question. The answer often given is something along the lines of 'here is the basic answer, and you might want to consider searching the forum for ...'. What if they came first to finiki, could read through the information, and then come to the forum to start or join a discussion about the nuances or differences in opinions on the subject, say like the current OAS policy discussion.

How many times have you thought that the forum's near 125K posts in View forum - Your Money ... already contain almost all Canadian financial information, so there's nothing left to contribute.
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Normal people… believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet. – Scott Adams
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Re: What would you like to see included in finiki?

Post by LadyGeek »

The BH wiki "Start-Up" kits were something we created to help solve the problem of wiki organization. You have a LOT of information, but what's the first thing you want to show a new investor who does not even understand the concept of a stock or bond? Start here...

The BH approach starts out with: 1) set your level of acceptable risk (stock/bond ratio) which is the single most important investing decision you can make 2) invest in the entire market 3) costs matter 4) stay the course. That sort of thing.

Once those concepts are understood, then you can branch out into index funds, stocks, bonds, etc.

The idea of a "Start-Up Kit" came from my former financial advisor. We (myself and spouse) signed up with him and got a huge pile of papers in the mail. What do I do with all this stuff? I have no clue. Part of the package was a small brochure called a "Start-Up Kit." It gave a plain English description of the material, along with a guide on how to fill out everything. Two years later we dumped him and went to Vanguard.

The Financial Start-Up Kit is at "top level," as it's split into investing, retirement, and personal finance. Use anything you like from the BH wiki. Note the videos, which are probably the easiest way to start: Video:Bogleheads® investment philosophy - Bogleheads (thanks to a member who was into video).
Imagefiniki, the Canadian financial wiki To some, the glass is half full. To others, the glass is half empty. To an engineer, it's twice the size it needs to be.
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Re: finiki: The Financial Webring Wiki

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

Happy 3rd Birthday (Anniversary?) to finiki.

finiki can always use more contributors, so if you've been thinking about it, be bold, we could use your help.

Some Statistics - finiki: Views total: 353,502, Content pages: 169, Page edits since finiki was set up: 3,783, and User list aka contributors: 34

Most viewed pages
  1. Main Page: 53,624
  2. Portfolio Design and Construction: 11,461
  3. Real Return Bonds: 9,515
  4. Annuities: 7,710
  5. Norbert's Gambit: 7,104
  6. Creating a Financial Plan: 6,796
  7. Tax-Efficient Investing: 6,480
  8. Common shares: 5,290
  9. RRSPs versus TFSAs: 5,173
  10. Cross-Border and Expatriate Issues: 4,635
New pages since the start of 2012: Some of these pages are just getting started, so are in need of help to develop them more fully.
Imagefiniki, the Canadian financial wiki New editors wanted and welcomed, please help collaborate and improve the wiki.

Normal people… believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet. – Scott Adams
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Re: finiki: The Financial Webring Wiki

Post by kcowan »

I am surprised at the number of hits for Norbert's Gambit. Maybe it is time to trademark it?
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Re: What would you like to see included in finiki?

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

The Boglehead's wiki editors have been busy with some work geared towards new investors. See Category:Getting started - Bogleheads which leads to Getting Started - Bogleheads.

Perhaps we need to look at whether finiki could benefit from this line of thinking and development.
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Re: What would you like to see included in finiki?

Post by LadyGeek »

It's still in development, but we're going to modify the main page to add a "Getting Started" entry as the first line in the table (which would appear right above "Financial Management" if it was finiki). Apparently, the icons we put under the blue header were still being missed.

Finiki has a very strong selling point in that you have a low-cost investing approach that doesn't involve Vanguard. Many investors think that the BH investing principles are related to Vanguard. They're not, it just so happens that Jack Bogle started Vanguard using these principles. So, how do you do low-cost investing without Vanguard? That would be a good first principle - keep costs low, and here's how to do it.

To prove this point, we recently added E-Trade and TD Ameritrade to the BH wiki. Why hasn't it been added before? I don't use these brokers. It's all up to who's doing the editing.

Questions of this nature - "what would you like to see in finki" may be better served by asking in the general access forum, such as Financial News, Policy and Economics. It's recommended reading, after all.

(This marks FWF Post #100 for me. 8) )
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Re: What would you like to see included in finiki?

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

More praise from Boglehead's.
Simplegift wrote:
Barry Barnitz wrote:Hi:
Our confederates over at finiki have a general risk section that may serve as a model for a similar section on this page, supposing we wish to expand it.

Portfolio Design and Construction - finiki.
Wow, what a spectacular page. This would be a much better introduction to investment risk on our Getting Started page than our existing Bogleheads risk page. Plus, it's an excellent introduction to portfolio design for beginning wiki users.

I'd be more than willing to help transform the page from Canadian into U.S./Boglehead form, once a working version was set up here on the Bogleheads wiki. Two thumbs up!

PS. LadyGeek, I agree that our existing risk page isn't much help for beginners. Glad you moved it.
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Re: What would you like to see included in finiki?

Post by Shakespeare »

Thanks. (Mike and I put a lot of work into that page.)
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Re: What would you like to see included in finiki?

Post by LadyGeek »

The updated BH wiki home page has been deployed: Bogleheads

I also made an announcement in the forum: Wiki - Easier to Navigate for New Investors

BTW - The work to update the BH wiki's risk section seems to be picking up steam. The work is being done by some new editors. Myself and Barry Barnitz are helping.
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Re: What would you like to see included in finiki?

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Is there any interest in creating a "Getting Started" addition to finiki? After a few days, the announcment thread (Wiki - Easier to Navigate for New Investors) got 416 views and 6 complements. I'd call that a resounding success (anything more than 1 complement).

Main page: Bogleheads

Updated table: Table of contents - Bogleheads

New category, which helps new investors find the tutorials: Category:Getting started - Bogleheads

The new investor landing page: Getting Started - Bogleheads
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Re: finiki, the Canadian financial Wiki

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

A minor change that will hopefully increase our ranking in search engines. The tagline for finiki becomes finiki, the Canadian financial Wiki from "finiki, the Financial Webring Wiki".

This impacts the Main Page, as well page titles.
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Re: finiki: The Financial Webring Wiki

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I think it's a better name, but the front page may have to be redone to get it reindexed.
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Re: finiki: The Financial Webring Wiki

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From what I can see, it looks like the Google robot has re-visited and the change is reflected. The Bing bot is partially (hasn't fully picked up the page title change) showing an update, as is Yahoo! which uses the Bing data.
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Re: finiki, the Canadian financial Wiki

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For those that may not have recently ventured over to our wiki, aka finiki, there's been some work done to Help:Navigation - finiki, the Canadian financial Wiki. If you haven't visited lately, or ever, why not use this opportunity to see the collective knowledge that finiki holds.
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Re: finiki: The Financial Webring Wiki

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I would think that link would be useful next to Getting Started, where it may be more obvious to newcomers.
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Re: finiki: The Financial Webring Wiki

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

If you have ever printed an article from finiki you might have noticed the formatting leaves something to be desired.

We are pleased to announce that the capability to Download to PDF is now available on finiki. When viewing a finiki article, in the left sidebar there is a Print/Export menu level that contains the various options.

To see the difference, here is finiki's most popular page, Portfolio Design and Construction - finiki, the Canadian financial Wiki printed using the two methods:
The capability is provided by the same third party back-end used by Wikipedia (see Press releases/Wikis Go Printable - Wikimedia Foundation if you want more information).
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finiki, the Canadian financial wiki turns 9 years old today

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

Our wiki turns 9 today.

Here are some statistics about finiki: there are currently 212 content pages and there have been 15,599 page edits completed by our 45 registered users. In 2017, there were about a quarter million visits to finiki, with about 1.1 million pages viewed.
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Re: finiki, the Canadian financial wiki

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🎈🎉🎂🎉🎈
Variable Percentage Withdrawal (finiki.org/wiki/VPW) | One-Fund Portfolio (VBAL in all accounts)
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Re: finiki, the Canadian financial wiki

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Kudos to those who have done all the work!
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Re: finiki, the Canadian financial wiki

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AltaRed wrote: 14 Feb 2018 10:50 Kudos to those who have done all the work!
+1 :thumbsup:
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Re: finiki, the Canadian financial wiki

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🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈
🎈 🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎈
🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈
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