Disclaimer: This blog is to share the interesting observations I made in i3investor. Nothing in this article should be considered as investment advice nor is intended to be investment advice.

The i3investor is a great place which offers a wealth of information at the mere touch of your fingertips. However, anyone who has spent minutes on comment sections will have come across the abusive and offensive comments. In this article, I have done some analysis on what make them to be so negatives against writers.   

Many choose to mask their identities for many reasons. Some do not want to hold themselves accountable for their actions.  Some are embarrassed of the things they want to write about because they know their opinions are not popular with their family members and friends. Some use working hours to write and the reveal of identity can cause them losing their jobs.

My personal experience tells me that both KYY & Icon8888 receives more abusive comments than other writers. These negative comments really hurt as their objectives of participation in the i3investor are noble, i.e. to promote the correct ways to invest.

Because of this, I felt compelled to probe deeper to unearth the underlying reasons for this phenomenon. If we understood the problem, we will know what needs to be done to prevent the same from taking place in the future.

Due to space constraints, I can only analyse the big 4 by compiling their past actions and analyse them one by one, see below table.

My observations and findings:

1. Writers are from diverse backgrounds and they sometime offer different opinions for the same issue as a result. This does not prevent them from learning from each other though. Their fund sizes also differ, but I don’t think this can cause one to receive more offensive comments than the other.

2. All of them have been genuine in educating the public about correct way to invest. They are the magnet for the investing community seeking advice. They have a large pool of followers. None of them feels proud when their followers lose money. Because of their diverse backgrounds, they form their own investing strategy and preach quite differently.

3. Free access to education is clearly not appreciated. That is possibly one of the reasons why both KYY & Icon8888 receive most abusive comments.

4. Sifus are no saint. Sometime they make bad buy calls. All of them are quick learners and unlikely to make the same mistakes again and again. Out of the four, the only writer issues sell calls is KYY. To him, sell calls are necessary as soon as he discerns any early formation of danger (often the non-obvious) in investment. To him, he cannot watch people losing money. It is just like he cannot watch people committing suicide. KYY forgets that he is an influential savvy investor. His past sell calls have caused those who still have the position to bleed profusely. This may be the only reason that makes him unpopular perhaps.

5. All Sifus make money in the stock markets. KYY is a well-known philanthropist and he donates to the society in a significant way. I don’t think this is a reason for him to receive more offensive comments than the other.

Conclusions:

1. To avoid the receipt of abusive comments, KYY must stop issuing sell calls in the future.

2. Free education is not appreciated. Both KYY & Icon8888 can start to charging perhaps. I'll be their first subscriber.