AF is mainly related to the three designations,from time to time in career section people taunt each other saying it has to be related to these designations.Do you guys know any other forums with the same rate of chill factor/person ?
Nothing compares to AF.
There are none.
Actually there is nothing compared to it.I totally agree
CVM-Just imagine finding the same usernames on both plumbers forum and AF 
There used to be a chinese site that was basically a ripoff of AF. It had all our coversations, but we were all renamed. It was a bit like going into a Star Trek Mirror Mirror Universe.
There’s Wall Street Oasis, for fresh-out-of-college banksters, and there’s Wilmott forums for quantheads. Aside from that, I’m not sure what else is out there.
There used to be another place where Off-topic discussions were to be had. I forget where that was and don’t know if it still exists.
It was called fnaag, but not sure if it still around or not
How can you say this if you have never been to the sites? lol
Are you giving us the “it’s not you, it’s me” speech?
@former-nah in fact I am realizing the fact that the exam is focusing on these 3 credentials is helping this forum,just imagine the amount of unrelated stuff posted here ,now think the content of the forum would be broadened in terms of what could be posted and what could not
In Careers, Investments, and Water Cooler, the number of topics can be pretty darned broad. I’m not sure what you are thinking of when you say that you think the content of the forum would be broadened. There’s a lot here.
It’s true that Careers doesn’t have that much to say about other designations. We’re typically not all that qualified to talk about CPA and CA (though there are some people here who do know, it’s just that there are better forums for those qualifications). There is a certain amount of disdain for things like Claritas and CFP (some justified, in my opinion, some not). A little bit of knowledge of ACCA and CQF as well, but those guys have fora that are more suited to their specific interests.
Investments is fairly open to discussions of all sorts, though not spam, advertising for trading courses, etc… We also tend to sneer at people who invest solely on “gut feel” and do not do any risk control analysis, but we don’t delete their posts. (Gut feel can be relevant, but most investors here feel that it is only a contribution to an investment case built on other analysis, and not the main driver of decisions).
Water Cooler is kind of a free for all, as you have no doubt noticed.
What do you think is missing? Maybe we can address it, or offer reasons why we wouldn’t?
I know very little about the CAIA or FRM, but it seems to me that a CFP section would be better than either of those, because it’s more common and affects everybody. We all have to pay taxes, and have questions on retirement, life insurance, estate planning, etc. I don’t see anybody in the WC asking risk management questions.
@Bchad-I agree that most of the stuff regarding actuall exams (perhaps apart from general discussion) are specific-to the point and mostly efficient (both in the question itself and the answer).
In my very limited and biased view,there are no forums for finance professionals out there in terms of quantity &quality.Although there has been alot of trolling still I believe even the stupidest threads in WC are of some quality compared to other forums.So thats the good thing about AF.
What could be added ?
It made me think that if you were to some how make the audience of this forum and the topics a little more general woulf it affect the quality that much ?By general I dont mean adding sections on dating or some other non relevant issue,I mean sections for CPA exams ,CQF,Big Data etc.
I know this is not a CPA or someother worthwile designation forum but what if I want to practice in Finance oriented companies ?What if my goal is to become a CFO of an IB ?What if I am an data miner wanting to enter finance? I think with all respect I have for this forum,it is focusing way too much on the 3 designations and not on the actual worlf of fiance.But you may argue that this forum is made for these types of people which is correct also.
@Bchad-I agree that most of the stuff regarding actuall exams (perhaps apart from general discussion) are specific-to the point and mostly efficient (both in the question itself and the answer).
In my very limited and biased view,there are no forums for finance professionals out there in terms of quantity &quality.Although there has been alot of trolling still I believe even the stupidest threads in WC are of some quality compared to other forums.So thats the good thing about AF.
What could be added ?
It made me think that if you were to some how make the audience of this forum and the topics a little more general woulf it affect the quality that much ?By general I dont mean adding sections on dating or some other non relevant issue,I mean sections for CPA exams ,CQF,Big Data etc.
I know this is not a CPA or someother worthwile designation forum but what if I want to practice in Finance oriented companies ?What if my goal is to become a CFO of an IB ?What if I am an data miner wanting to enter finance? I think with all respect I have for this forum,it is focusing way too much on the 3 designations and not on the actual worlf of fiance.But you may argue that this forum is made for these types of people which is correct also.
^Given the relative lack of attention to FRM and CAIA, I think it would be hard to justify sections for CQF, Big Data, etc. (What the heck does “big data” mean, anyway?) Maybe do what “Another 71” does, and just have one section for other alphabet soup.
@Greenman-I agree,my point was not to make a section for designations in finance.My point was this forum is too restricted to CFA.From what I have seen a guy like you is much more likely to become a CFO of a whatever finance firm,than becoming ER,trader,PM,etc. I think there should be sections or if I want to rephrase myself higher tolerance and not sections for people who intend to enter finance or move to othter positions but do not want to become analysts.
I myself dont see the point in adding sections anout every godforsaken designations,but I think a section about CPA should be added with a dose of finance(those who have CFA and want the CPA or vice versa).You know better than me that accountants tend to stay within specific industries over time ,the same is true for marketing guys or any other title within an industry.Heck I have even seen janitors who tend to stay in the same industry over time,shouldnt there be sections for CPAs or the like who want to enter IB and become CFOs?
Or even given the lack of a good forum for CPA`s ,or highly quant finance jobs I think there should be sections added here (I know that the high demand does not justify this but I think over time the exchange of information and ideas shall compensate this).
But then again who am I to decide ?
If I am lucky I will pass the FRM,Most guys here have far more experience than me so I will bow to their knowledge/wisdom
we don’t like accountants much here unless they’re CFA candidates…
I think what you’re saying is that the forum is too unwelcoming to non-CFA types. Is that what you mean?
The history of the forum (as I understand it) is that the site owner was studying for the exams in a non-core finance area and wanted to create a site to build a community to be a kind of online study-group.
As the years went by, the community grew. In recent years, we added CAIA and FRM because a fair number of people who were doing CFA decided to switch to those exams or do them in addition. CFA general discussion used to comprise what is now Careers, Investments, and Water Cooler, a separation that is basically good, but which has made the original General Discussion forum shrivel a bit.
One reason that CFA General Discussion is a little lost these days is that there just arent all that many questions that are CFA related that are not specific to an exam level, and so there isn’t that much traffic there. A lot of those questions end up getting asked in WC or careers, which is where people who aren’t doing the exams anymore but are likely to know CFA-related stuff hang out.
I’m not sure if it’s such a great idea to try to be an all-things-finance forum. I agree that CFA types tend to undervalue things covered by the CFP program, but it is true that the CFA covers things like asset valuation better, and I think that drives a fair amount of the unfriendliness to CFP stuff. After putting in all the work to pass the CFA exams, it is often perceived as a step down to be compared to a CFP, even if we don’t know much about things like insurance, trusts, tax law, inheritance planning and stuff.
It’s also true that there are likely orders of magnitude more CPAs and CAs that would be involved if we directly addressed that audience. I’m not sure we would have the resources to be a forum like this for the CPA community. And I would be surprised if the CPA community didn’t already have something like this, and possibly better funded and with more bells and whistles.
Perhaps forging more linkages and/or partnering a site like that is a better strategy, and perhaps partnering with a site like Wilmott makes some sense too, though they are likely to sneer at us the way we sneer at CFPs.