New website is not popular

General TSP Discussion.

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mjedlin66
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Re: New website is not popular

Post by mjedlin66 »

LarryBoy wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 9:02 am I have been coming to this site for years but would not call me a Market savvy person. The major thing I do not like about the new site is the charts. The old ones where easy to read and made sense. I do not understand the new one with all the extra bar and lines on it. I waste a lot of time playing with them trying to figure them out. I also like the bears vs bulls chart. I will admit when you changed it did take some effort to find the things I like looking at.

Thanks for providing the site.

Update: I just enabled the Fantasy part of the site and found the charts! Not sure why you hide them in Fantasy but glad I found them.
The FantasyTSP charts were my highest priority. They are more useful than the old FantasyTSP charts were, although the IFT indicators are missing as another user pointed out.

Creating a separate page just for tsp charts is just a duplication of charts that already exist within Fantasy. I don't like duplication. But I also understand that not everybody uses Fantasy, and if all you want is the fund charts, it would be easier
If there was a page that stripped out all the fantasy stuff.
Owner/creator of TSPcalc.com - "Know your numbers"

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bloobs
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Re: New website is not popular

Post by bloobs »

mjedlin66 wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 12:06 pm
bloobs wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 8:47 am MJ
Have you compared this YTD monthly data with last years? It's possible that the observed decline is, no pun intended, "seasonal" in nature. The assumption that traffic is typically higher in Jan than April since Jan is when investors do their yearly financial planning checkups, and tapers off as the summer vacation months approach.
I don't have spring data from last year because I didn't own it in spring of last year.
I looked at your chart. Notice how "unique visitors" counts are fairly consistent. So it is possible there there are NOT really less visitors to your site-but these visitors ARE USING LESS CLICKS TO GET TO THE INFORMATION they seek.

If so, then this chart is actually GREAT NEWS, right?

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Aitrus
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Re: New website is not popular

Post by Aitrus »

I'll second Regularguy's point about the calculators. I liked using those. I can still use the ones on tsp.gov, but I preferred the ones here. But if there's a lot of programming involved to get them up and running, then the juice isn't really worth the squeeze, IMO.

MJ, is this setup just a forum only? Or can we add other things to it? I wonder if we could produce some good general information pages on TSP, civil service / military retirement in general, a "helpful links" page, or something similar. Here's an example from equityclock.com that is just a page of handy info: http://www.equityclock.com/seasonality/ ... investing/

Maybe by offering a mini-wikipedia of civil service / military pages consisting of investing / retirement information we could attract more eyes? It would be a lot of work, but I'd be willing to put in some time writing it.
Seasonal Musings 2022: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=19005
Recommended Reading: http://tspcenter.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=13474
"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters" Epictetus

anomadtoo
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Re: New website is not popular

Post by anomadtoo »

Thank you for continuing the website; please know it is indeed very helpful; and I also look forward to TSPCalc improvements. I can understand why for some, the change in design and features pushed them away; sometimes after several several years of being used to one simple layout it was easy, and them not wanting to relearn it. Can't help that group.

I like Aitrus' suggestions above; those sticky's for relevant retirement options.

I too miss the projection calculator(s); very useful and utilized often.

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TopNotch
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Re: New website is not popular

Post by TopNotch »

Matt, I thought at some point the amount of time a person could stay logged in on the site was increased to at least 24 hours. Could that be skewing the numbers?

I really appreciate all that you have done for the website.
David Tepper - "There is a time to make money and a time to not lose money."

Warren Buffett - "Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1."

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mjedlin66
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Re: New website is not popular

Post by mjedlin66 »

TopNotch wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 10:54 am Matt, I thought at some point the amount of time a person could stay logged in on the site was increased to at least 24 hours. Could that be skewing the numbers?

I really appreciate all that you have done for the website.
I want to say I set it to 3 days without any activity. The idea being that if you don't use the site for a couple days, you would still be logged in when you return.

That might reduce the page hits if people don't have to log in so often. But it shouldn't reduce the "unique visitors"
Owner/creator of TSPcalc.com - "Know your numbers"

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ubascuba
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Re: New website is not popular

Post by ubascuba »

bloobs wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 11:28 am

Uba, if you missed an IFT it's very easy to generate an updated TSPCALC strategy number based on the last one you used. Remember, TSPCALC strategies are "crowdsourced" meaning you can roll your own special strategy; and most of custom strategies are based on the more popular ones anyways. The crowdsourcing is the genius of TSPCALC.
I'd like to stay as close to my real TSP plan as possible. If I miss a move on my fantasy account, changing it won't keep it as accurate.
Ubascuba
Strategy:167054

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” ~ Winston Churchill

zenquest
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Mar 12, 2013 8:17 pm

Re: New website is not popular

Post by zenquest »

First off, thank you for keeping this platform up and running. I have been coming here for well over a decade and been an active member for nine years. The amount of great content on here is amazing and my TSP balance has been saved more than once because of it.

That being said, last year was pure insanity and the forum at times mirrored it. I stopped coming daily because all of the political loudmouths (on both sides) were getting too aggressive and completely missing the true intention of this forum. Now that things have cooled somewhat I'm back to "checking in" daily. Yes its quieter now, but its also more welcoming.

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Aitrus
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Re: New website is not popular

Post by Aitrus »

zenquest,

As one of the aforementioned "political loudmouths", thanks for providing your perspective and being willing to come back to the site.

Ditto to everybody who has thus far commented on the popularity of the forum. It's something that's worrying to MJ and I. We don't want to see the forum die. We truly appreciate all the comments and suggestions for how we can improve the site and keep it up and running.
Seasonal Musings 2022: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=19005
Recommended Reading: http://tspcenter.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=13474
"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters" Epictetus

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mhende2
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Re: New website is not popular

Post by mhende2 »

I had some initial problems with the new layout, but now I check in everyday, unless traveling without internet access, and fully know my way around now with no problems. I'm now retired and not adding more to my TSP, but I'm primarily interested in tracking gains and hopefully few losses in my TSP balance. We all hate change at some point, but I see a lot of good changes in the work MJ has done. Thanks to all involved in keeping it running and monitoring the forums.
In investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable.
-Robert Arnott

KTSPcalc
Posts: 37
Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2021 5:22 pm

Re: New website is not popular

Post by KTSPcalc »

I just wanted to pile on the praise and chime in with everyone else. I joined this January and come every day.

I am (probably) one of the many people that pulled out of the market at the beginning of the pandemic and then lost out on many of the gains from last year after the surprisingly (to me) quick recovery. I am hoping that the much smarter people than me here following a seasonal strategy will help me stick to a plan regardless of the bumps and bruises along the way (like today).

In short, thanks for all your work. We appreciate it.

Mike0223
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2020 6:12 pm

Re: New website is not popular

Post by Mike0223 »

Have been quietly enjoying this site. Appreciate all the work put into it. Favorite forums are the Anticipation and Seasonal Musings. Thank you Matt for keep it going.

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gbnooks207
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Re: New website is not popular

Post by gbnooks207 »

People don’t handle change well. Some just don’t want to invest the time in learning something new. If they didn’t keep up with the “New Website Status & Bug Reports “forum they missed a lot of information.

There might be issues that people are not sure if it is the website or an operational error thing. An example is when using Firefox over Chrome or Edge as a browser, in the Leaderboard area you can easily switch between the All/Watchlist buttons when using Chrome or Edge. When using Firefox nothing happens when clicking on the Watchlist button until you select a different item under the “Leaderboard sort:” tab. Maybe people were trying to keep up with the “New Website Status & Bug Reports “forum but then stopped after struggling a couple of times on the website.

I agree with the political item mentioned before in this forum. My TSP money is green. Any retirement/financial forums with political tones (red or blue) are a waste of time because their advice/opinion is clouded over from their political thoughts. I prefer stats over opinions for TSP information.

Another thought … there use to be a time when a Seasonal Strategy produced far better results than a blend (L Funds, etc.) used over the course of a year. The last couple of years, this has not proven to be the case. People are ok using a blend that produces a few points less in returns for the year because it is a lot less work on their part. I enjoy both sites because I am still looking for the prefect model!

So there are people that don’t like change (30% that left?)and then there are people that are happy with the yearly returns of the easy blend method. I am at a lost from where you can find an audience to gain back viewing.

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12squared
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Re: New website is not popular

Post by 12squared »

It could be due in part to a change in color scheme. My human factors brethren once told me about a company selling root beer that switched from brown/tan cans to blue - and lost a lot of sales. The "cool" palette, dominated by pastel blue-grays may be subconsciously uninviting. Ask an artsy type.
It could also be too many changes all at once, i.e. extreme makeover vs. new paint, roof & siding vs. rearranging the furniture. Or Win8 vs. Win7. Or maybe just not enough red, white & blue.
“The genius of investing is recognizing the direction of the trend – not catching the highs or the lows.”
- Dean Witter

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- Andrew Carnegie

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mjedlin66
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Re: New website is not popular

Post by mjedlin66 »

12squared wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 12:13 pm It could be due in part to a change in color scheme. My human factors brethren once told me about a company selling root beer that switched from brown/tan cans to blue - and lost a lot of sales. The "cool" palette, dominated by pastel blue-grays may be subconsciously uninviting. Ask an artsy type.
It could also be too many changes all at once, i.e. extreme makeover vs. new paint, roof & siding vs. rearranging the furniture. Or Win8 vs. Win7. Or maybe just not enough red, white & blue.
I think I am going to change the text blocks to white in the forum. That should help.
Owner/creator of TSPcalc.com - "Know your numbers"

Post Reply

Fund Prices2024-03-28

FundPriceDayYTD
G $18.15 0.05% 1.05%
F $19.08 -0.06% -0.74%
C $82.21 0.11% 10.55%
S $82.43 0.30% 6.92%
I $42.57 -0.24% 5.95%
L2065 $16.38 0.02% 8.37%
L2060 $16.39 0.02% 8.38%
L2055 $16.39 0.02% 8.38%
L2050 $32.73 0.01% 6.95%
L2045 $14.91 0.02% 6.58%
L2040 $54.38 0.02% 6.22%
L2035 $14.34 0.02% 5.79%
L2030 $47.67 0.02% 5.38%
L2025 $13.15 0.03% 3.43%
Linc $25.61 0.03% 2.82%

Live Charts

Pending Allocations

Under development. For now, you may view Pending Allocations by going to "fantasy TSP" and selecting "Leaderboard sort" of "Pending Allocations".