It’s GoActuary, at least in my browser. Congrats guys.
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I see the AO as #2, but that will extinguish over time, as people realize it’s not a useful place to go.
for my browser on “actuarial forum”:
- casact.org
- forum.theactuarialclub.com - did not know this existed
- southwestaf.org
- some actuarial forum from DePaul university
- www.actuary.com
- theactuarymagazine.org
- actuaries.org
- www.actuaryhub.com - had the catch line “Miss the AO? - Join the new Actuary Hub forum”
this forum doesn’t appear at all even on the 2nd page of results, nor does the new actuarialoutpost or averageactuary.com that i’m on there with the dude who started it and some racist dude who i think got banned from the ao and possibly here.
You have some weird search results. and #8 is an ad. The guy running actuaryhub is running google ads for traffic. Which is a smart idea since ads will be dirt cheap on a term like that and it gets you to either the top of the page or the bottom. I bet he can throw down a few hundred bucks and have it last months. And, I like that he’s got an automated job posting feed (I think). Not sure it’s a useable idea in practice, but it’s a neat implementation.
Our emphasis on ‘marketing’ spending will be on educational material (contributing to educational resources is one of the purposes of the forum). I offered a bit of money to the folks at the open actuarial text project but they didn’t want cash, they wanted volunteers (so, anyone who has the horsepower to contribute to something like that, should. Why we are not using open texts in 2020 is beyond me).
In terms of rankings, eh, shrugs shoulders. I am expert-level at getting ranked in google but didn’t do much here. Most of the rankings are the result of:
- a bit of social media activity
- actuarial outpost slaying their rankings.
- some organic background activity, site getting mentioned here and there.
- lots of content.
- proper site setup.
Now the fact that we’re ranking on ‘Actuarial Outpost’ on the front page, yeah, I did tweak some stuff to see if that would happen easily.
So nothing very overt. When I have a moment I’ve got some low hanging fruit I can do that will assure top rankings. But it’s backburner right now. I’ve got a co-op working at my startup come january, if we have a slow day I may have them spend some time on the rankings.
i was having internet problems recently and finally got it to stop being annoying by rebooting it more than once. maybe that threw off google results. based on my activity i would have expected goactuary.com, averageactuary.com, and actuarialoutpost.com to be my top 3.
So… who is running actuary hub?
Because this is a very small community.
A very small person?
The reason we’re not using open texts in 2020, is because the people who can do this sort of thing don’t do that sort of work for free.
I mean, maybe you can get some people to do it for free, but you will have a lot more luck paying somebody to do it.
They get exam markers to volunteer, seems like they could get some volunteers for this. If I had the ability, I’d be volunteering for this myself. But it’s likely got to come from academia, which I’m not.
Paying someone is difficult. I think it’d likely take 10’s of thousands to get a paid text developed plus the coordination that would take. And the only way that’s likely to happen is a for-profit textbook entity. It’s certainly beyond anything we can do here right now.
I like the way the CAS does it. Most of the texts are free to download, but they do sponsor people to write them.
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Yup, the CAS paid the authors, just as the SOA pays various people to do research, and write things like this:
Anyway, some things are easier to get people to do for “free.” One way the SOA gets people to volunteer is that they usually “pay” us by giving us a nice trip somewhere. Doing exam stuff, I’ve had SOA-paid trips to Seattle, Denver, Savannah, and Baltimore.
Then there’s stuff like getting people to do webinars & write articles. In general, we have no trouble getting consultants as volunteers for this - it’s a way to promote their services - and I usually have to track people down at insurance companies and try convincing them to do this stuff. It really depends on how much people enjoy writing.
Writing textbooks isn’t fun (well, actuarial textbooks). I’ve done math textbook editing, etc., before (as a job as a grad student), and that’s really not fun. You’ve got to check all the details, and it can be a bit grueling.
Don’t bring me problems. Bring me solutions!
Don’t you worry about blank, let me worry about blank.
:snort:
I’m arguing with a huge racist named BigPeePee on averageactuary.com. I NEED BACKUP!
oh, nobody is interested and i’m a sucker for getting lured into this? okay then…
I’m a lover, not a fighter. 
Most of the CAS syllabus material is free to download.
Sometimes. A lot of the syllabus material comes from articles in Proceedings (unpaid) and another chunk was written by people doing review courses (not sponsored by the CAS) who agreed to let the CAS adopt it for free. Some others were custom written, sometimes for pay (not much) and sometimes for free. In every case, “supporting actuarial education” was a significant motive for the authors.
Back to the OP: why can’t i find this site when i search for “goactuary”. I don’t always remember how to type the name, and I’ve had trouble finding this place on every new device I’ve used. Weirdly, i have better luck searching for “actuarial forum” than for “goactuary”.
The biggest open source softwares (Ubuntu Linux, RStudio, etc.) are developed by paid engineers working for companies. IMO the CAS model of paying people to write papers and then making them free to download is good, although monetary constraints, time, and lack of people prevent them from being as good as they could be. There’s also the issue of companies not wanting to share too much of their practices.
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