Feature Discussion: New Features, Feature Requests, Feedback

@vincentt how do you have a count down to revision?

@AJfinance @Mattjuniper thanks! If you have any quotes to add feel free to send them to me 🙂

It’s kind of implemented already. Waiting for someone to discover how to request it… 😀 😀 😀

Challenge Accepted.

@sophie, i rather like the hypnotic nature of it!

@lulu123 the poll was designed that way so that more people would participate. In certain instances (such as yours) this does have a drawback, but in the past how I’ve countered this is to include a ‘not applicable’ field.

This also keeps the results within forum members which is nice 🙂 But obviously there are good sides to both methods. I’ll see what I can do.

On a profile of a member it says the number of likes and lols and all that….

not to be a grammar nazi, but the word “Like” should become plural once it’s above one haha

@mattjuniper

Are you a punctuation nazi? :p

I don’t want to get all technical @lulu123, but punctuation isn’t the same as grammar, you’re right. But punctuation IS a part of grammar.

Did a little redesigning today to include a bit more space in the forum, as well as some aesthetic alignment with the blog…

@Diya. I’m counting on your failure 😛

@Zee. Those were my thoughts exactly. I don’t always read the signatures (probably because i’ve pretty much read everyone’s on the forum) but it does help differentiate the conversation from the signature.

@Diya What a co-incidence! So was i 😛

@Zee you have an extra ‘l’ so I wasn’t sure
I’m starting to have mad respect for you.

@Zee But what you could is make the thread names in Bold Black instead of Grey.

@marc I don’t think charging the forum members will work for two reasons:
1) There will be such a huge influx of people that the current team will not be able to handle it
2) People will not sign up because they don’t think the fee is worth it, especially if they have already paid for other prep material (PS to the 300 hour team I no way am I implying that the forum is not worth it).

@diya why would there be a huge influx of people if we started charging? Seems that both points are contradictory…

And no I don’t think charging for a forum is necessarily a good idea 🙂

You are coming for a pure economical point of view. Sometimes people don’t value free things properly. Dan Ariely. Behavoiural economics. =D

@diya ah got it. Basically you’re saying it won’t work because of X OR Y, not X AND Y. 🙂

@diya I’m just a bit thick, don’t mind me 😀

@marc

lovely comeback

nobody has reading comprehension problems here

how about getting a sense of humor?

@AJFinance awesome. I’ll have a think about how to structure it and get back in a few days. 🙂

Take your time @Zee. I think we better keep it till after June 1st as we require people to contribute 🙂

It aligns perfectly now. Even on my cellphone. High five. :-bd

@Marc I was thinking the same thing with the few level 2 chapters I’ve read. I supposed it was because they were being friendly to their neighbors but maybe it is because Toronto has such a high concentration of CFA charted holders?

BTW why does Toronto has so many charterholders? Our capital market is so sleepy!

@christine

the States would probably file a lawsuit against the CFAI if their country’s name wasn’t the largest on the logo

Exciting development coming soon!

How about a badge when one passes a level? That would be a great reward (besides passing of course!)

Good idea @Mikhail. How ever would it be some information overload? I think what level, study material, job industry/function and educational background should be more than sufficient.

How about a few more practice tests for all levels?

Yeah it does seem strange @sophie, I guess they are just trying to protect their own interests! Like most say on that thread, it probably wouldn’t stand up in court, however after all the studying and effort you put into the exam, is it really worth taking the chance?

We were considering the countdown, but wondered if it was too stressful an aspect. We settled for displaying the key dates for each exam instead – you can see that in the left-side panel below!

I love the quote selection. I hit refresh a bunch of time so I could go through them. Virtual high five from me.

@zee sure! I sometimes like to write down stuff that comes to my mind. I’ll send those across to you. If you like any of those lines you can put it up. Alternatively, if you want, I’ll just send you one at a time. Let me know 🙂

@christine – this is the most responsive and helpful CFA forum ever!

Just curious but I was wondering why the weekly leader board hasn’t reset yet.

It’s kind of implemented already. Waiting for someone to discover how to request it… 😀 😀 😀

Answer’ badges are earned when someone Asks a Question, and then chooses your response as their Answer.

The difference between Asking a Question and a normal discussion is that Unanswered Questions will continue to show up in the Unanswered section (one of the fields in the left panel) so you have a higher chance of getting your question answered (not that it’s a problem here!).

So far only one person Asked a Question, and I think I got it, so I get a badge for my First Answer. @christine randomly got a 250 Answers badge, which I have no idea how it happened (it shouldn’t have since we don’t have 250 Questions anyway!).

@Zee I noticed that @christine has 250+ posts now. Maybe that was read as 250 answers and she got the badge that way? Some kind of glitch? I could be wrong.

If only I put as much effort into studying as I did badge-hunting…

@MattJuniper at least when you answer a question that particular concept stays with you forever…

Love the new countdown clock face!

Thanks @mattjuniper! I quite liked the grunge feel of it 🙂

I think, we as CFA candidates, go through as much (or more) force/pressure as F1 drivers. 😛

Damn. I honestly cannot think of a reply to that. None whatsoever. My mind, Y U DO this to me?!

Another feedback: when I put up a poll, I cannot see what others said UNLESS I also answer the poll. Not a biggie but you know, the person asks to know what OTHERS would say lol so maybe make it unnecessary to answer yourself? Just an opinion!

@diya I understand your logic. However, when I asked, for instance, a poll about what topic people found most difficult, I obviously did not do the exam yet so how can I answer my own poll at that point? I am distorting the poll results for other people who will drop by later to see the poll. Therefore, I should not absolutely have to answer the poll in order to see other peoples’ answers.

@zee good idea with the N/A

@Zee The font seems a tad bit smaller too?

Yeah i noticed @Zee. Lookin’ good! B-)

I thought grey for signatures would work better because you don’t really read signatures every single time. That way when scanning down a conversation the eye latches on to the darker words (i.e. the actual conversation)!

Thoughts?

Also, i have very long legs @Diya. I take “yeti” steps!

@Zee But what you could is make the thread names in Bold Black instead of Grey.

@SidMenon Grey is to show the ‘read’ threads. Unread threads or new threads are Bold Dark Blue…

@Zee no problem. I have no qualms about beating my point into you until you get it. :p

My god, what has been happening in this thread? :-/

@Zee fair enough!

p.s the function is very fun to use. Love it it <3

We can add a market update/financial news section on the side. Maybe some really interesting/important news update can be uploaded. Or if people come across some interesting piece of story, they can share it. Sounds Good? @Zee, @Sophie, @Christine

@Sophie yea that can work as well. But I was thinking of a more organised way to posting key events.

Can you elaborate @ajfinance? I’m interested!

It would be great to have a detailed comparison (with supporting evidence, including references to specific passages or page numbers) of the different study guides available (Schweser, Elan, Finquiz, etc)

We were considering the countdown, but wondered if it was too stressful an aspect. We settled for displaying the key dates for each exam instead – you can see that in the left-side panel below!

I’ve always have 2 count downs, one to revision another to the actual exam day.

@vincentt how do you have a count down to revision?

nothing much it’s just counting down to 4 weeks b4 the exam (or till the first day of May).

@Diya it resets in a few hours’ time – the servers run on a separate schedule. We just didn’t want to stay up in the wee hours to announce the winners! 😀

Here’s the link to the Question asked before: https://300hours.com/f/cfa/level-2/t/level-2-wrongly-marked-optional-segments-in-some-volumes/#latest

@lulu123 thanks for the feedback! That’s not a change I think I can easily do though, which is why we have the notifications page for extended viewing 😀 However I’ll look into it.

Keep the feedback coming!

On a profile of a member it says the number of likes and lols and all that….

not to be a grammar nazi, but the word “Like” should become plural once it’s above one haha

And your last sentence should start with a capital letter and have a full stop. 😉

@MattJuniper That is really interesting! Do you know why?

Yep I’ve tweaked things around. 😀 Also included alternating colours for easy visual separation of comments.

@Marc I guess you could call it a non-profit. 🙂 We do have to think about costs but the objective first and foremost is to help candidates.

What expansion plans were you thinking about?

@zee

I’m not exactly sure. See my new comment about the idea of an online portal as a monthly fee-based service above the amazing free service that you are already providing.

I guess I just find it difficult to believe that people would go to the time and expense of not only creating a forum like this but spending countless hours as essentially unpaid tutors/psychiatrists.

I mean, I don’t know anybody that nice… and I live in Canada!

@diya but you said in your first point that loads and loads of people would come, but in the 2nd point that they wouldn’t bother. Which is which…???

@diya, @zee, @sophie,

I most certainly did not diss my compatriots. I basically said, “I didn’t think there were such selfless people out there, and I come from a country full of selfless people.”

I suggest people brush up on their reading comprehension skills before June 1st.

Hey @Diya! This feature is meant to facilitate a specific and pointed question – therefore the selected answers would be brought to the surface so that future viewers can simply view the selected (i.e. “right”) answer to the question.

In your LIFO and Cash Flow question, this should work – a future reader would read your question and proceed straight to @sophie’s answers that you selected, thus getting the learnings straightaway.

Hence if you ask a Question it’s not really about the discussion, but finding a right Answer 🙂

I woke up to a different layout! Impressed! Does @Zee never sleep o.O

@zee (tagging you since I believe you are the tech person here?)

The “Careers & Networking” category is too long and it pushed the number of posts grey square down a line…
reformat?

@lulu123 this should be fixed now.

@Sophie yea that can work as well. But I was thinking of a more organised way to posting key events.

Updated the Topic Picks – we now have:

• General CFA
• Level I
• Level II
• Level III
• Careers & Networking

The idea is that as time goes by, we’ll have a series of great discussions on almost any aspect of each CFA topic!

@Zee was perusing the “best of…” under the discussion tab and the tables are messing with the formatting. At least on my laptop…..

Awesome responsiveness @zee! I can see the topic picks evolving into something quite useful!

Thanks! There’s more exciting stuff coming @sidmenon! 😀

Did you disable them by any chance @AJFinance? Which notifications do you mean?

Strange. Seems to be working fine now. But let me know if it happens again!

How about job profiles related/applicable to CFA? It will be helpful for people who are considering or researching about different careers. Interview style? e.g. “A day in the life of xxx” would be awesome I’d think!

That would be pretty great actually.

I really like the idea of badges as rewards for passing the exams!

Agree with passing badges and more information on profiles!

We have now implemented some more detailed information that members can fill in in their profiles. Just go to ‘edit profile’ to check them out!

Thanks @christine! That’s a great start. For the career profiles, based on the community here, we would love to learn more about a career in investment banking, equity research (portfolio manager @Maroon5 ?), trading (@james010 ?)… anyone else want to add?

Would it be useful to have a kind of marketplace for candidates to buy/sell materials?

Would it be useful to have a kind of marketplace for candidates to buy/sell materials?

This would probably cause issues with the publishers…I seem to remember a story about someone being sued by a publisher for selling their prior years material on eBay. I think the publisher apologised in the end, but not after several strongly worded legal letters from both sides!

Interesting – technically the publisher shouldn’t have a case against the seller as long as the material was acquired legally. Selling second-hand materials isn’t illegal in the slightest. Do you have more info about the case @MattJuniper?

@christine I remember seeing something about it on AF…took me ages but I managed to find the link!

http://www.analystforum.com/forum/s/back-office/back-office/91303206

I think it worked out Ok in the end, but do you really want the hassle of dealing with something like this?

M

I like! (I also like countdowns in general. I started exam day countdown the day I started studying).

We’ve just added a ‘quote of the day’ box to the top. Feedback appreciated!

The number of days appears higher than “days to the June exam”?. Maybe it’s just because I’m using an ipad? Would post a pic but dunno if I can?

@zee Like the Daily quote 🙂

Me too!

I also like the countdown system! 😀 Sorry, but i replied earlier before i saw the second page >_>

I totally liked the idea of getting a badge on the basis of exam cleared. Its like getting a ranking badge as one gets in police force.

@imdnextbuffet we are implementing such a system! 😀

Waiting for it to get implemented
^:)^ 😀

@Zee thanks! Next time I’ll ask a question properly. Especially since you answered my notching question so well!

It’s kind of implemented already. Waiting for someone to discover how to request it… 😀 😀 😀

Challenge Accepted.

Well that didn’t last long.

@Zee I noticed that @christine has 250+ posts now. Maybe that was read as 250 answers and she got the badge that way? Some kind of glitch? I could be wrong.

Maybe – I’ll have to hunt it out at some point.

@Zee Every mirosecond counts, just like in F1 😀

@lulu123 nice job with feedback btw – thanks! 😀

@MattJuniper, you read my mind! I was going to do the EXACT same thing.

@sidmenon

Mind you, punctuation =/= grammar!

I confirm that nazi doesn’t have a capital ‘N’ too. Yes I did look this up. Yes I am that sad.

@sidmenon

There normally is a comma before a “but”. 😛

I think because it is not referring specifically to the party itself, but is used as an adjective to describe someone with similar strict beliefs.

Haha @Diya @Sophie. You guys are getting old! *runs in the opposite direction as fast as possible* ^#(^

@Zee I like the grey signature because you’re right sometimes when I would be looking for something the signatures would cause a hindered. I just wanted the font size for the comments to be slightly larger.

@SidMenon I used to be a sprint racer. I’ll catch you and beat you with experience 😛

@diya allakazam! 😀

@christine @zee

Quick, make Marc an admin. That way he isn’t running against me for the weekly winner!!!!

I guess I just find it difficult to believe that people would go to the time and expense of not only creating a forum like this but spending countless hours as essentially unpaid tutors/psychiatrists.

I mean, I don’t know anybody that nice… and I live in Canada!

@marc well the idea is that members will help members too, not just us! 😀

@diya why would there be a huge influx of people if we started charging? Seems that both points are contradictory…

And no I don’t think charging for a forum is necessarily a good idea 🙂

@Zee I’m thinking binomial trees…
basically I think there can be two paths that can be taken 300hours were to implement a fee for forum members.

One option would be that the current 300hours fan base values the forum initiative correctly and decides it is worth paying $xx of dollars to get a reply back to their query within 6 hours but with such a huge influx the team might not be able to handle it.

The second path that this fee could have is that it drives people away because they are like damn we are already paying for so much preparatory material from prep providers that have a licence and have been around for much longer and I don’t want to pay more money.

That being said if it was a month-fee structure people might just be tempted to try it out for a month and see if it is worthwhile.

Basically I you can argue it either way.

@marc interesting thought! Unlikely that we’ll ever charge for the forum, but I like the creativity 🙂

@Zee I like the answer feature but if you move all the best of the answers to the top it gets a bit confusing to follow the conversation. Example the question I just asked about LIFO and Cash Flow.

@diya 😀

Man, i had a great idea in my dreams last night! And now i can’t remember.

sadtrombone.com

Hi @AJFinance

A news curation / discussion feature sounds awesome! My concern would be curation and information posting though – members will have to curate and post, unless I can come up with some new-fangled version of Google News (which I doubt!).

I spent the last 1.5 hours trying to find an automated solution (i.e. extracting news digests throughout the week to discuss in this forum but I couldn’t really find a great solution.

Another solution is if someone (or a few someones) volunteers to be news reporters, i.e. posting news to a dedicated category. @AJfinance? 🙂

@Zee Sure I can contribute. The idea is for everyone to contribute to it. A weekly feature is apt I think.

Loving all the changes @Zee.

@Zee I don’t seem to be getting the notifications. Its not updating with the latest ones.

I got the previous one where you tagged my name. But I didnt get notified when my name was tagged in How to be Awesome at Job Hunting Part 2: Networking. Strange.

May be we could add some descriptions around our work profiles…this would be helpful for freshers and experiences alike to network and know more about their possible future profiles 😀

The user and all related content has been deleted.

How about job profiles related/applicable to CFA? It will be helpful for people who are considering or researching about different careers. Interview style? e.g. “A day in the life of xxx” would be awesome I’d think!

I think members’ profiles should have some more detailed information such as cfa level to date, how many attempts were taken to pass each, maybe gmat or other tests scores as well, what was the main study material used. Also job industry and function, educational background. That would be great to see in profiles.

@abhishekkumar, I’m not sure if practice exams by providers can be shared as its a breach of copyright. I do know that the CFA mock exams are available for practice.

@abhishekkumar If we do get access to any free material from providers we will of course make it available to all members!

Interesting. Went through the thread – it seems that they (Schweser) were trying to prevent something else (either commercial resale or counterfeit resale), but personal resale is perfectly fine.

If enough people want some kind of facility here on 300 Hours we’ll have a look further but I’m guessing eBay is going to be more than enough.

How about a countdown clock within the ‘Exam Dates’ section?

I see you’ve now added a different kind of countdown…. 😀

It would be great to have a detailed comparison (with supporting evidence, including references to specific passages or page numbers) of the different study guides available (Schweser, Elan, Finquiz, etc)

A comparison guide would be great!

Surely that would stress people out? I do think its great a month before though.

If you don’t like stress, these are not the exams for you ~X(

Hey guys! I’ve just added a countdown to the messaging box (see bottom of left panel). I’m trying to strike a balance between:

1) trying to have 2 countdowns for June and Dec as we have both types of candidates here,
2) not pushing the countdown too hard, but yet still remaining there whenever candidates need to see it
3) and still providing other important dates (such as exam tickets, results dates etc)

Feedback welcome!!

Hey guys! I’ve just added a countdown to the messaging box

I like! Because I’m exceptionally picky the alignment seems slightly out, but I’m a perfectionist 😀

The alignment is perfect. X(

You mean the black countdown box?

@zee Like the Daily quote 🙂

I agree with @CFAin80Days!

Oh @Sophie, you’ve already cleared all the levels. I’m sure you are the fittest out there!

Two cents of feedback: when there are new notifications, it shows like the last 5 or so. But sometimes I have 8 new and I can’t scroll down or see which I saw and which I didn’t. So what I end up doing is opening the page with all the notifications and going through them lol. Maybe you can improve that aspect somehow!

@lulu123 A grammar nazi is a punctuation nazi too 🙂

@sidmenon
And now we also have a definition nazi!

@SidMenon old but not so old that I can’t chase you down ….

@Zee for a second I thought you wrote alakazam

@Zee for a second I thought you wrote alakazam

I did….

@diya @zee

did Marc just diss Canadians?! lol

@diya @zee

did Marc just diss Canadians?! lol

I dunno, did he?

:-” “

BTW – the floating menu is pretty cool @zee @christine!

@Zee I thought that generally we try to go fishing for information on the internet. There are various sources offering financial news. We could just start a feature on the website that posts only key news and events(Not all).

There should be an option for others to post an update or a link, in case they came across something that was not already mentioned on the website. If not daily, maybe we can make it a weekly feature. (Summarising key events during the week)

I’m sure all of us keep a tab on financial news. But sometimes, there might be a few key issues which someone had missed out on. It would be more like information pooling, so it benefits all of us. Having made that a feature of the website, maybe going forwards we can include an opinion poll in the section. It would be interesting to hear different perspectives on the same piece of information.

I think if properly devised, it can be a great information tool as well as a way to learn more and have a better opinion on key financial issues.

@AJFinance awesome. I’ll have a think about how to structure it and get back in a few days. 🙂

Should look better now @diya. This might be a recurring problem though…hmm.

Updated the Topic Picks – we now have:

• General CFA
• Level I
• Level II
• Level III
• Careers & Networking

The idea is that as time goes by, we’ll have a series of great discussions on almost any aspect of each CFA topic!

Useful for catching up on topics and discussions. Thanks.

It aligns perfectly now. Even on my cellphone. High five. :-bd

I came for my high-five a bit too late…

Did anyone else happen to notice this graphic on the CFAI website?

We’re not quite on top the world, but we do get the largest font. Look out Trinidad and Tobago, we’re coming for you – both of you.

By the way, it might just be the Level 3 curriculum, but has anyone else noticed that a disproportionately large ratio of example involve Canadians?

Did anyone else happen to notice this graphic on the CFAI website?

We’re not quite on top the world, but we do get the largest font. Look out Trinidad and Tobago, we’re coming for you – both of you.

By the way, it might just be the Level 3 curriculum, but has anyone else noticed that a disproportionately large ratio of example involve Canadians?

I daresay the US actually takes up more space, but has more letters to squeeze in, so… 😀

That’s because I initially misspelled @AJFinance as @AJFianance :p correcting my post doesn’t send out the notification again…

But I still didn’t get the notification when Diya tagged me in the comment. Maybe she misspelled as well
8-|

I second that and could we potentially incorporate time-zones?

Surely that would stress people out? I do think its great a month before though.

Surely that would stress people out? I do think its great a month before though.

If you don’t like stress, these are not the exams for you ~X(

Hey guys! I’ve just added a countdown to the messaging box

I like! Because I’m exceptionally picky the alignment seems slightly out, but I’m a perfectionist 😀

Ah, got it. It’s most probably an issue with the dynamic nature of the countdown (as it updates automatically each day). Depending on your zoom scale, it might appear slightly smaller or slightly larger. But only slightly.

I’m also a perfectionist.

We’ve added a handy link at the quote box if anyone wants to suggest a quote. 😀

@christine – this is the most responsive and helpful CFA forum ever!

@imdnextbuffet we are implementing such a system! 😀

@Zee I am on the hunt *_*
I also noticed an answered badge but I can’t seem to figure that one out either
Request by pm’ing you
I don’t see it anywhere!

@lulu123 before you can receive other people’s opinion you must first share yours!

@Sophie I used the zoom function as a work around lol….I’m getting old…

@Zee But what you could is make the thread names in Bold Black instead of Grey.

@SidMenon Grey is to show the ‘read’ threads. Unread threads or new threads are Bold Dark Blue…

Yeah, just noticed. That’s cool.

@Christine, @Zee,

Out of curiosity, what are your plans for this site? Am I correct in assuming that this is a business?

It’s a wonderful forum, but I suspect that there are expansion plans. Is this just a figment of my imagination?

@marc we have thoughts on how to expand the site, but generally I doubt we would become prep providers…

I’ll speak to you about this in the other thread then 🙂

@Zee exactly! I’ll try to be less confusing next time and more straight to the point.

@diya you’ll make a good teacher here in the forum then, lol

I suggest people brush up on their reading comprehension skills before June 1st.

That’s because I initially misspelled @AJFinance as @AJFianance :p correcting my post doesn’t send out the notification again…

The best way you can help CFA candidates is – by providing a FREE video/audio on every topic contributing by each of 300 hours members.

hi @GBrianGarrison‌ we’ll cancel it for you. Just let us know if you want it done!