Wiki or book for the Permanent Portfolio?

[Indices]

I was wondering if perhaps we as a forum should write a new book on the permanent portfolio. Or maybe a Wiki. I've been reading Harry Browne's old books, and while they are wonderful, a lot of the material is out of date. Also, the fact that they are out of print means few people are reading them.

A new book/wiki would give advice on the best way to hold the portfolio, such as what ETFs and funds to pick. We could discuss how to hold the portfolio if you live in different countries. And we could talk about how the portfolio is relevant to investing in light of recent events that prove its usefulness. We'd probably need permission from Browne's widow and possibly the permanent portfolio mutual fund (which we could mention in the book as free publicity).

Any thoughts? I see this as an effort akin to what the Boglehead's forum has accomplished. There are a lot of talented people on here who deserve a bigger audience. I have experience self publishing and could share that experience, or we could go the published route.

[MediumTex]

I like to think that this forum is such a resource.

Anyone who Googles "permanent portfolio" will find us.

[l82start]

the boggle head book was a very helpful resource for me when i started out, i don't know how necessary it would be, but a book like theirs that is a introduction to investing, from a PP perspective might be a real nice addition to the resources that already exist, 

[BearBones]

Fantastic idea! This forum is a wonderful asset for exploring ideas, but the real gems get hidden among a lot of mundane discussion. That's why the same questions seem to get posted so many times.
I like the wiki concept for this.

[KevinW]

I think a wiki would be helpful for archiving information that answers common questions with objective answers.  For example the list of suitable funds for each asset, and the list of brokers with free treasury trades.

Also I have a pipe dream of transcribing all the radio shows, and a wiki would be a good place to store the transcripts.

Of course someone would have to actually do the work of setting it up.

[Indices]

If we could copy and paste (with permission of course) relevant text from this board and from Craig's blog, it would be easier than writing everything from scratch.

[rhymenocerous]

If anyone is really serious about writing a book, I actually work for a large publisher that does a lot of trade investing books (think people like Bogle, Swedroe, Ferri).  I don't actually work in books or have any specific knowledge of the books publication process, but I may be able to provide a contact.

[Gumby]

There are some legal issues to consider in terms of book publishing. The estate of Harry Browne and the Permanent Portfolio Family of Funds may have some claims to the "Permanent Portfolio" concept and trademark. I know that Craig got permission from Harry Browne's widow for some of the content (recordings, etc). I imagine the estate has made a lot more money due to Craig and MT's hard work at spreading the word on the subject. And, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe gyroscopicinvesting.com was specifically named to eliminate any potential legal issue with The Permanent Portfolio Family of Funds.

You might be able to publish a book on the subject, but you'd have to tread very carefully. A wiki seems like a much better idea: Wikis are easy to set up, easy to update and correct, etc. It wouldn't take very much effort to add a wiki onto gyroscopicinvesting.com — which Bogleheads has done as well.

[Storm]

I think the idea of starting a wiki would be very appealing.  The forum is a great resource, but too often I find the same questions are asked and answered in multiple topics.  A wiki that anyone can contribute to and edit would really create a great resource for the entire community.  Knowledge could be captured and stored in a format that future readers would benefit from, rather than falling off the end of the forums threads into history.

[Storm]

Craigr could also decide at a later date if the wiki was worth cleaning up and publishing in a book format.  I think a lot of the articles on the crawlingroad website itself are suitable for publishing, but a wiki tends to allow disjointed forum posts to be cleaned up and formatted in a way that is much easier to publish.

After all, who wouldn't love to buy a book full of MT's thoughts?  I know I would.

[Gumby]

Exactly. And a very generous public domain license (or similar) would ensure that the knowledge was freely available to others, for generations to come. I'm happy to help with setup if necessary.

[MediumTex]

I think there is a lot of potential value to be captured in an updated, more detailed, and perhaps more expansive presentation of Harry Browne's basic investing philosophy and how to implement it in the form of the permanent portfolio.

The thing I struggle with is I don't want to put anything out there that isn't really good, which means that it needs to be readable, informative, entertaining and simple enough for anyone to understand without just re-writing "Fail Safe Investing."

I think about writing such a book, not that it would be a big seller, but it might be a good tool for some of us here, and perhaps a few others as well.

There is also the option of using the home page of www.gyroscopicinvesting.com as the repository of the information we are talking about assembling.

I'm certainly open to any suggestions that anyone has for how to make permanent portfolio information more widely available to anyone who is looking for it.

[BearBones]

I am going to restart this discussion. Two things have happened since the last time i signed on:
First, i drifted away from following the discussions on this forum last winter, since I found many to be chatter, and i found that the time invested reading posts on the site was not worth what i was gaining. Second, several of my relatives have become curious about the PP and asked for useful sites. I directed them to Crawling Road, particularly the FAQs, but i paused in recommending this one. This is unfortunate. There is extremely valuable information on this site, but it takes a lot of time and effort to sort through the rubble, especially for someone just getting started.
Having a wiki would allow us to separate the conversations from the more factual information that most of us would agree on. This could be done on this site, under the FAQs of Crawling Road, or on Wikipedia.
What do others think?

[stone]

Couldn't they just use this site as somewhere to ask about anything that didn't seem clear to them from the FAQ craigr has put on crawling road and on this site? Those provide all the factual information but I suppose the chart of inflation adjusted returns that Gumby made would make a good addition.

[Tortoise]

Regarding the conversations that already exist on this forum--I can think of two great ways to separate the wheat from the chaff:

• Use the Search function to find threads containing specific keywords or phrases
• Filter the threads in decreasing order of number of replies or views by clicking on the "Replies" or "Views" headings twice.

In general, I've found some of the most informative and on-topic discussions to be the ones that end up going on for pages and pages and generate the largest number of views. (Discussions that veer way off-topic often wither and die before going on for multiple pages.) The informative, on-topic discussions are some of the ones you see first when you filter in order of decreasing number of replies or views.

Of course the two methods above are not perfect, but unless and until a PP wiki is created, they're a great start for new users who have made it through the FAQ and want to start digging deeper.

[smurff]

Not everyone likes searching forums like this, and people are very busy and may not have time to filter through all the postings.  A wiki is a good idea, but I would not dismiss the idea of a book.  We on this forum often consult HB's books, and we have some idea of what we're talking about!

So it's good to talk about a  book.

One way to approach it would be to update one of the Harry Browne books for 2012.  It would be re-issued with HB as the author, with updates and new material by one or more of our resident experts.  This is often done to give new life to classics of all genres.  (Think Benjamin Graham/David Dodd, George Orwell, Napoleon Hill, "The Joy of Cooking," Joseph Heller, and Dale Carnegie.)  Depending on which of the H.B. books is selected, the updates could show up as a new preface and/or epilogue, one or more additional chapters, and as material data (new date ranges, performance data, names of funds, etc.) included throughout the regular chapters of HB's work.

Permission would have to be obtained from Browne's heirs, and a new contract made with the publisher.

[MediumTex]

Several of my relatives have become curious about the PP and asked for useful sites. I directed them to Crawling Road, particularly the FAQs, but i paused in recommending this one.

I'm surprised to hear that.

As internet forums go, I think this one is pretty good.  We have a lot of friendly, knowledgeable and courteous people here and almost any question will get a prompt answer.  

Of course, the starting point for any PP novice should be HB's books.  The big BH PP thread is also a good resource.

***

[BearBones' Nephew]: "So, UncleBones, have you told me everything you know about the PP?"

[BearBones]: "Pretty much, CubBones.  That's about all there is to know."

[BearBones' Nephew]: "Are you sure UncleBones?  Isn't there any other resource out there to learn about the PP?"

[BearBones]: "Well, CubBones, there is this one place.  It's a place where a lot of huge PP fans from all over the world come together almost every day and discuss every imaginable facet of the PP from every conceivable angle.  Let me get that web address for you."

[BearBones' Nephew]: "Thanks UncleBones!!!"

 

[BearBones]

Another quotable post, MT. That was clever.

Don't get me wrong. I love this site. So much so that I had to put it away during the spring because I was spending too much time reading the posts. I began neglecting my kids, inconsistently going to work, forgetting to brush my teeth, and no longer changing my underwear. Soon threadbare, emaciated, and nameless, I was known on the street simply as BareBones.

My point is simply that it would be fantastic to pull out some of the important information that gets buried so deeply in posts, such as how to invest in ibonds, bond ladders vs TLT, best options for holding/storing gold, holding assets overseas, tax strategies, useful google spreadsheets, etc. Kind of the "best of" gyroscopicinvesting.com.

[barry barnitz]

Hi:

I have pm'd Lady Geek, our BH wiki's technically gifted wiki administrator regarding your interest in creating a wiki.

For those of you who are not familiar with our BH experience, our forum's wiki was partially accidental. In addition, my offer to our Canadian cousins over at the Webring to set up a Canadian section of our wiki for their use was declined, but served as motivation for the creation of their own wiki.

Recently, bogleheads.org. upgraded their servers and forum. The webring administrators were very helpful with the upgrade, and Lady Geek returned the favor by helping them set up the newest version of the wikimedia software for finiki. The finiki administrators requested that Lady Geek and yours truly become administrators with finiki, which we accepted; on my part mostly to add some templates that we were using over at the BH wiki.

We added citation footers to finiki pages, which allow readers to simply copy and paste a citation of the wiki page into forum conversations, as well as navigation sidebars that allow for easy navigation between related pages.

Here is an example (note sidebar and footer, and yes I copied and pasted the footer): Finiki article link: Real Return Bonds.

We would easily share anything useful should you decide to set up your wiki.

regards,

[rickb]

If Craig and MT decide to set up a wiki here, I'd strongly recommend it be set up as an openly editable wiki.  The BH wiki is read-only (write access requires at least a PM exchange). I noticed the BH wiki a while ago, thought "that's a cool idea"' looked at it and noticed some things I wanted to change, and searched high and low for the "change" button - alas it's simply not there unless you're one of annointed ones.  Rather than pursue obtaining permission, my response was to abandon the idea of editing the content.  Maybe we wouldn't want to let anyone with an internet address edit, but restricting editing to anyone with a login seems plenty restrictive.  I mean, Wikipedia allows anyone with an internet address to edit and it seems to work pretty well. 

[edsanville]

I think an openly editable wiki would work.  The wiki idea relies on the assumption that the people who care about the quality of the content are more obsessive than uninformed people and random vandals... which is usually true.  I'd say definitely true in this forum.

[barry barnitz]

Hi:

Lady Geek sends along the following:

To be clear, I just acted as a consultant with the Financial Webring Forum site administrator. Both the Financial Webring Forum wiki, "finiki" (love that name  ), and the Bogleheads' wiki are running MediaWiki.

The look-n-feel of the Bogleheads' wiki is from templates and formatting styles copied from Wikipedia. We also follow the Wikipedia Five Pillars for content and policy guidance (this is important).

On the legal side, the Bogleheads wiki operates under the GNU Free Documentation License, and finiki to the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License. You'll have to decide on licensing rights for whatever is done.

To start, someone with site access should download and install the latest copy of MediaWiki. I recommend to install and test on a local PC first to understand what's needed, then move to your server.

The wiki is designed for collaboration, and can handle any situation. It's intended to work as a book format - tables and images are part of its design. You can't do this in a forum. If anyone has any questions, please PM me over in the Bogleheads forum.

[craigr]

Thanks for the note, Barry. We'll check it out.