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TopStocks ASX Blogs |
Blogs are a great way to express your indepth research as they are not lost in the flurry of posts on the main discussion board. |
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Our Company Ethos and Operating Principles |
| Category: Other |
Published: 28-08-2008 |
By: Moderator |
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The Rules by Which We Run This Website
There seems to be an increasing awareness and publicity given to the way stock forums operate. Some are getting good press, others not so good.
TopStocks has always remained the market leader when it comes to providing full transparency into our members (via the stock tipping, statistics and profile pages) however I feel it important to re-iterate our company ethos when it comes to running this site. I've mentioned it in posts before, but never really formalised it on the site - so this blog is probably the most suitable please.
To the best of my knowledge, we are the only company in Australia that can and do provide this operational ethos.
TopStocks Ethos Rule #1
No TopStocks moderator will ever own, either directly or indirectly, any ASX Instrument, including traditional shares, options or derivatives of any sort. No moderator will ever directly benefit by any movement made on the ASX. This includes any family member, any company or trust owned by the TopStocks moderator. In short, there is to be ZERO conflict of interest when moderating this website. Moderation is to occur for the sole purpose of unbiased regulation and maintainability of this website and for that purpose to be upheld, the moderator of the site must not be tainted by ulterior motives and opportunities. This a contractual agreement between the moderators of this site and TopStocks itself. Breach of this agreement will result in termination of the offending moderator and possible legal recourse.
TopStocks Ethos Rule #2
TopStocks will never accept scrip, shares or options for advertising. Period. Either directly or indirectly, the company will never advertise another company in exchange for interest in that company (neither public nor private entities).
TopStocks only accepts cash payments from its advertisers. Sometimes TopStocks may engage in cross-promotions (offering free advertising to another party who is offering free advertising to TopStocks) and even less frequently, may run affiliate based advertising (where TopStocks is paid per lead or conversion of sorts that is generated via advertising on the TopStocks website.
TopStocks Ethos Rule #3
Should TopStocks itself one day become part of a public company, or should a public company ever own interest in TopStocks, the moderation of the site will be outsourced to an unbiased third party who will be contracted to deliver on TopStocks Ethos Rules 1 and 2.
In Short. There is to never exist on this site, any activity that may be considered or construed to be a conflict of interest. The TopStocks moderation will exist only to improve the content, interaction and vibe of the website - nothing more - nothing less.
What? Why is all that important?
I do actually occasionally get asked why that is important.
We are running a stock forum. If I owned a lot of, say, BHP shares. Would it not be tempting to moderate in favour of the postive BHP postings. Would it not be tempting to just delete those who don't agree with my sentiments on BHP?
True, sites like these rarely affect big blue chips such as BHP. But on the smaller, speculative stocks - its niave to think even 1 trade cannot trigger events that can effect members on this site (to major proportions).
We believe it should be LAW for all sites of such nature as TopStocks to abide by similar rules and regulations - anything else is just to tempting for those with nothing to loose and everything to gain.
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