Market Roulette

Public:

First, I'd like to say hello to everyone and express how glad I am that so many people are interested in playing. As a reminder to everyone: this game is played on paper, so no actual money is required to play. Some people have expressed interest in doing so. If you are, it's not required or expected for you to disclose that. For the purposes of playing, it makes no difference.

Second, I'd like to introduce jamethiel (she says to call her jame), who has graciously agreed to be co-mod. jamethiel is also mod of actyourwage, a community for people looking to talk about, and shape up, their finances, get and give advice, and other things related to adulthood and money. I joined the comm a few months ago at her advice and have finally started catching up on reading it. She and I will be discussing how to split up moderator duties on the comm and what areas of investing and finance we want to cover and how. There is always the exciting potential we'll suddenly hate each other and force all the members to take sides and sabotage each other vengefully, but we probably won't. Or if we do, it will be very passive-aggressive.

Third, since some of you may not know me--and seriously, thank you for joining up to see what this is all about!--jamethiel and I will both do introductory posts next week and hopefully will have our times and dates of availability of comm coverage for the next few weeks as well as availability for the first three months of gameplay. Ideally, if someone needs one on one assistance or has an urgent question, we'll have coverage to get to you quickly. For a lot of you, this is totally unfamiliar and I want everyone who wants to play to start on January third assured that the moderators are available for assistance and support. Some of you are using this as a no-stress way to learn a little about stock investing, some are just in for the sheer adrenaline glee of competition, and some of you may be both, and I want to accommodate all of that as much as possible. Yes, it's a competition, but since I'm not competing, part of my fun in this is pretty much watching everyone else have fun and doing my best to help people do that. The rest of it is admittedly the power trip.

Fourth, yes, at the end of the year, there will be prizes for the top two playsers. Depending on the total number of participants, there may be a third place also awarded.

For Next Week

This will be the last post until Monday, when we'll poll the community to decide if the the public spreadsheet showing how everyone is doing uses lj handle or a number to represent each player. The public spreadsheet will reflect the name (or number) of the player, the total amount of their investment so far, and how much they've made or lost. This spreadsheet will be available to all comm members at all times and will be updated every time someone reports buying or selling a stock within twenty-four hours, barring router explosions, DDoS attacks, zombie apocalypses, or Adam Lambert doing a surprise concert in Austin. I mean, it's Adam Lambert. The poll will run from Monday to Sunday night and the comm's decision posted the next Monday.

Below the cut is a rough draft of the coming few weeks and what to expect; none of it is vital, just more to keep the community up to date and allow for changes now if anyone foresees a potential conflict (Christmas, Yuletide, fic exchanges, etc). jamethiel and I will be going over details together on future posts, discussion topics, and introductory posts to the wide and wonderful world of stock trading on the open market. This post will be under revision as jamethiel and I decide on a final schedule. We'll also invite comm members who are familiar with investing, stock trading, or community relevant topics if they would like to post on their experiences, a specific topic, or a tutorial. That part is completely voluntary, by the way; if you might be interested in doing so, next week we'll start taking volunteers, but there's no expectation that anyone should feel obligated to do so.

For now, there are only two hard dates: December 14 will be the last day to join the comm and January third will be when gameplay begins.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving if you celebrate it and have a great week. And as a request from the moderators, if anyone feels deeply inspired to make an icons for the community, we'd appreciate it.

( rough draft: what to expect in the next few weeks )

Note from Seperis: I wrote most of this before jamethiel volunteered, so a lot of those 'I's should be read as 'we'. Again, this is only a rough draft; since we have time to do it, I want to anticipate and correct as many potential problems as possible so by the fourteenth, everyone will be comfortable with the rules and ready to pick their first stocks.