I do have some sympathy with Dod's view on this, although I also think that trying to force some sort of '
TLF convention' into this area of the discussion boards is probably just going to get people on
both sides of the issue wound up over it, so whilst that 'convention' discussion is ongoing (and good luck with it Dod..), I just thought I'd try to describe in a bit more detail just how the simple
browser-related solution mentioned by BobbyD in an earlier post actually works in practice, because it's quite a simple solution to this issue, all things considered...
In Dod's opening post on this thread, he uses the
SCIN ticker, so the screen-shot below shows what happens in most modern browsers where someone
double-clicks on the
SCIN ticker, where it will usually become highlighted on the page, and then the user right-clicks the mouse to reveal the
right-click context menu, where there's usually a clear option to '
Search Google' using the highlighted ticker (or generally any other word or phrase, of course..).
The additional screen-shot below on the right is then the
Google search page returned for that particular ticker, which opens up in a new, separate tab on my Firefox browser, and we can see that it's captured the correct '
Scottish Investment Trust' details quite adequately -
Source -
https://www.google.com/search?q=SCINThe above process will usually work for the great
bulk of UK-based equities, but
sometimes there's odd tickers that defy it (and I think Dod quite rightly highlighted one yesterday in a separate discussion on this topic), and in those cases, the solution is usually found by simply adding the word 'LON' to the returned Google search page, as shown in the example search-box entry below, and this will then drive the Google search to concentrate on
LONdon markets for the returned search results -
Source -
https://www.google.com/search?q=SCIN+LONOut of interest, I would ask Dod if he can remember the ticker that he used yesterday as an example that didn't work with the first process, and try it with the second process above, adding the word 'LON' to the Google search box - I tried it yesterday and it worked fine for me on that slightly more awkward example...
So yes, I suppose in an ideal world there would never be any ambiguity where people are using EPIC codes in their posts, and I'll happily observe how this thread develops into trying to find a 'convention' that everyone is happy to work under, but in the
meantime, if people find themselves struggling to find out just which company people are talking about, then I'd suggest giving the above processes a go and seeing just how simple and quick it is to normally find a solution to the problem using tools that are usually already available in most modern browsers...
Finally, I suppose we should also recognise that if all else fails, and people find themselves taking an interest in a thread where EPICS are being used that are alien to them, there's always the option of asking the people involved to please just
name the company...
Cheers,
Itsallaguess