The timeline for public rollout

[Viktor]

@Diversify

I’d prefer it if you exercised such judgment with considered responses rather than editing posts.

Hey Diversify, just checking in from my travels (hard to keep me away from the forum!) to say I agree with this sentiment!

A caveat is, a few types of sensitive information will still have to be removed, think e.g. account details, personal information, etc. But in general, this is a solid suggestion, and will be in the next iteration of our guidelines, including exactly when we’ll remove anything at all. I agree this has to be a defined list.

Let us discuss the information posted within the team, and we’ll come up with a solution - please bear with us!

Also, very good shout @szb. This is a setting we could change on Discourse, but we went for extreme transparency when we launched the forum.

[CTE (#REF!)]

It seems to me that there’s a fundamental disagreement between what is considered sensitive within the context of @Cgwinning’s post. To be 100% clear, Chris’ post contained a screenshot of the projections from the R3 Crowdcube pitch deck.

Perhaps one solution could be the creation of a closed category for crowdfunding investors to provide a private space for investors to ask the team the types of questions that :freetrade: consider sensitive enough to be kept private. Then it’s a simple matter of moving the post to the closed category, rather than deletion or editing. Given the use of investor flairs to identify crowdfunding participants I imagine it’s a fairly easy implementable solution?

Granted it’s not totally transparent, but could make for a good compromise?

[saf]

This isn’t a easy thing to read.

I felt @Cgwinning post didn’t need forced moderation, I think if asked he would have revised it. The line that has been crossed needs documenting. Overall it appears as miscommunication. Worth bearing in mind Chris has spent a lot of time engaging with the community and he was super supportive in the CrowdCube discussions. Having said that it’ll be a shame if this alters how active he is here or elsewhere. Besides we’re waiting for follows ups on https://community.freetrade.io/t/cryptocurrency-the-beginning-part-1/749

On the other side of things I don’t think the Freetrade team are actively looking to shy away from challenging discussions. @Freetrade_Team and the rest of the team have really engaged with the wider community, it could be so much simpler to phone this in.

Having said all of that, I would like to see:

1. Notes on moderated posts, so if something is removed, a note saying why by the admin.
2. Some sort of placeholder for posts that have been deleted by moderators with a note on why.

Thoughts?

[MakAttack (Mak K)]

It took me 3 months to open my Barclays Smart Investor account. I can wait a couple weeks to get my hands on FreeTrade!

Can’t wait to start trading!

[DaveTMG]

@Diversify

This info was no longer private once you conducted a public crowdfund.

I agree - how is the info that anyone was allowed to access considered sensitive? Once you are public you have to give the same info to all else it is insider dealing. I’m surprised that isn’t the case with this crowdfund.

[Rob14 (Rob)]

I think it’s as this forum is searchable on google and lasts forever but the documents etc on Crowdcube are only up for the duration of the raise and restricted to people who request to view them.

I guess that limits the audience somewhat as a competitor may be unaware of the raise at the time especially if it was over quickly…

[anon2636484]

I think the point is that the information that was shared is sensitive. It wasn’t meant to be made publicly available to everyone, which is why investors had to request access to it. So it seems reasonable to ask you not to then share it with everyone & anyone.

I agree that you should be able to ask the questions that you asked, although I respect the fact that there are a number of reasons why it might not make sense to answer them at this point. It was possible to ask the questions without sharing the information that you did.

Hopefully the team will explain their guidelines on this soon.

[CTE (#REF!)]

@anon2636484

I think the point is that the information that was shared is sensitive. It wasn’t meant to be made publicly available to everyone, which is why investors had to request access to it. So it seems reasonable to ask you not to then share it with everyone & anyone.

I am afraid this altogether misses the point. The issue of whether what Chris initially posted was actually sensitive is not the purpose of my post, maybe nor his after reading his latest reply again. That being said I am happy to share my view on this elsewhere on the community. Frankly I’d welcome :freetrade:'s initiation of this discussion the community as it raises important questions about transparency, information asymmetry and access to information for the purposes of making sound investment decisions. All topics at the core of Freetrade’s mission. Be the storm…

So what is the point? This whole episode has been mishandled from start to…

@Diversify

I’d prefer it if you exercised such judgment with considered responses rather than editing posts.

Theo’s sentiments. I genuinely expect Freetrade to answer rather than simply respond to challenging questions, such as the one Chris posed, fearlessly and honestly. Instead, the reaction has been defensive and at times belligerent.

Rather than attempting to repair a clearly strained relationship, a damage limitation exercise has ensured, in which a new narrative has been presented (“it’s sensitive information, stupid!”) and the original spirit of @Cgwinning’s valid, if a little sceptical, post has been lost. And so the net result is that a valued community contributor, investor and long time (two years and counting! bravo!) promoter of the business has expressed the feeling they have been presented in an unfair light to the point in which they feel they have been libelled! It strikes me as thoroughly bizarre that this either been ignored or has gone unnoticed by the team. Aside from @viktor’s welcome reply, the silence has been deafening.

I expect the team is under a lot of pressure, and l, like everyone here, am realistic when it comes down to expecting a few balls to be dropped along the way, and holycow have I presided over some monumental ups, but it’s not the mistake I care about, it’s the recovery. Yes, we know the company is young, yes it’s finding it’s voice and yes it’s a journey but let’s not set unhappy precedents of the type we’ve seen in the past few days with the response Chris has received.

And for the avoidance of any doubt, I am behind you. My agenda is Freetrade’s success and domination of this space. As an investor, and as an individual that genuinely believes in the importance of financial inclusion I, more than anyone, want you to FSU, which is why I am here replying at 19.45 on a Friday evening.

That’s my 2 bps.

[anon2636484]

@CTE

I genuinely expect Freetrade to answer rather than simply respond to challenging questions, such as the one Chris posed, fearlessly and honestly.

We’re just going round in circles now, I’ve already mentioned why I personally don’t think that it makes sense to answer Chris’s questions now -

@anon2636484

At the same time, although I’d be curious to hear the answers to the questions you asked, I’m not sure there’s a lot of benefit in sharing new guidance about the impact of the delays on their projections now. We couldn’t act on that information anyway and by their nature, any predictions now would be less accurate than predictions that’re made later which will be based on more solid information. So it seems sensible to wait until before the next crowdfunding round, when we’ll also be able to use any information that they’re able to share.

[Diversify (Radical Candor)]

@anon2636484

I personally don’t think that it makes sense to answer Chris’s questions now

I disagree because there’s never a perfect time really. The present is salient here and we’re no longer prospective investors, but actual shareholders who have a direct interest in knowing relevant info in a timely manner. Whether or not it can be actionable is an irrelevance/cop-out in my opinion. No point in kicking the can down the road.

[Viktor]

Hey Chris! Just as you’d think, we’ve been hard at work: launch plan, solid progress on hiring, etc. - and that’s sort of what the announcement was about as well.

We haven’t spent time finding and crafting answers to the questions in Chris’s comment because all of them fall into either of these categories:

1. too specific to a selected screenshot from our first Crowdcube round. As Adam said, just about everything changed since: the team, the business model, regulatory permissions, even the product. I personally don’t understand parts of the comment, e.g. “increased engineering hiring” - the premise of our last raise was scaling up engineering and customer ops.
2. The answers will be available when the financial reporting cycle is complete. And even then, we won’t answer every question, if answering the question would harm Freetrade and by extension, our investors.

In general, while we are fans of pushing transparency as far as possible, we may not be able to answer each question you might ask, especially not straight away, for a number of reasons:

• the data is not available
• the answers are commercially sensitive (these tend to help competition, but not our beloved community)
• the answer is only reflective of the short-term situation and therefore misleading
• we simply don’t have time to answer every single question we get asked

(Apologies for any typos here. I’m on holidays and swiping this out on mobile.)

[adam]

@anon2636484

Hopefully the team will explain their guidelines on this soon.

This is in the works. Guidelines for sharing of investor information is something we should have had up earlier.

Believe me, there are vastly different views among our investor base on what company information should be shared on a public forum. Some think we’re a public company (we’re not) while others aren’t comfortable we’re talking about this stuff here at all.

We want to find the right balance and for me, that means putting the company’s interests first. See what you think of the guidelines.