What is the point of this!!

Tojo_Ralph

MSE_Jenny wrote: »

Thanks for your feedback. If you’re not loving the idea of a holiday planning board, we’d would welcome any other suggestions about how we can separate the deals’ from the ‘I wannas’!

The problem is a very simple one that is easily solved ..... All Martin has to do is stop trying to reinvent the internet.

Having general travel boards as a side issue to the core finance element of the website is a fair enough idea, but trying to subdivide this and other subjects into sub sections simply leads to a Jack of all trades, master of non situation.

What Martins target audience need is to be guided in the right direction, to have their hands held, to be made aware of websites who specialise in a given subject and who offer quality information..... after all, one only has to look at the questions posed on the travel boards and just how many of those questions can be answered with ..... "Google is your friend"..... "Did you think to try the search facility?"...... "Did you read the Terms and Conditions?"
....

jackieblack

markymoo wrote: »

duchy, jackieblack

having 7 board instead of 1 would really dilute how many posts are on each board..

2 or 3 is the target, i personally see no reason splitting USA/Canada - Europe - Rest of World into 3 boards, leave it as overseas travel. (1)

Budget airlines is a must, (2)

ferries and cruises, well there ain't many posts on them, so they can sit on the main board no problems,

as for train and coach, well, there is a motoring & public transport board, so you really shouldn't be duplicating...

maybe at a push, passports, visa, travel insurance and currency could be a 3rd (3)

you've got to think about the traffic to the boards, people might miss a bargain flight to somewhere they might not have considered going to, if they only sit on the europe board etc, so i really don't think that the world should be split up.

Ok Mark , I do see your point however I, for example, have absolutely no interest in Europe whatsoever, ditto Cruises or Budget Airlines.
I think having boards specific to what I'm actually interested in/ looking for would save alot of time and having to trawl through pages of posts that are irrelevant to me.

pcg2001

jackieblack wrote: »

Ok Mark , I do see your point however I, for example, have absolutely no interest in Europe whatsoever, ditto Cruises or Budget Airlines.
I think having boards specific to what I'm actually interested in/ looking for would save alot of time and having to trawl through pages of posts that are irrelevant to me.

Sorry, but I have to concur with someone who mentioned money saving travelling isn't about specific destinations it is about travelling at the lowest cost. So if there is a deal for a destination in the UK, Europe, or rest of the world I would like to see it easily without visiting several subthreads. Most of the time I just book where it is value for money to travel, be it Scotland, be it Orlando. I already find the split in the Travel Holidays thread between Uk and the the rest too much for me since for me travelling is leaving my home, not going abroad. I can see how removing cruises or low cost airlines from the main thread would help some people, but I don't believe this would be in the interest of true moneysavers.

Personally I like to look at the forum as a whole and have a glimpse of the different offers and perhaps today I have a bit more time and will read all about trip planning for destination I MAY one day visit. The next day I only have a few minutes available and will only look at the NY thread to check for tips and deals since this is the trip I am currently planning. The same goes for shopping deals - I like to see grocery, electronics, cashback, books, etc at the same time.

Finally how do you distinguish itinerary planning from money saving tips? If someone is on this forum I am sure they are planning an itinerary with a small budget trying to save as much as possible - it's not like the tripadvisor forum where you often find daily budgets of $500!!

So my opinion is that the threads should not be divided, this only wastes everyone's time, and will ultimately makes contributors spend less time on specific subthreads and the help given will be much less, so everyone looses out.

Note. in the shopping threads posting in the "I wanna" subthread gets a lot less replies than posting "incorrectly" the same request in the "Quick grabbit". I think they same will eventually happen here. There used to be a "Days Out" subthread which rarely had any replies. Too much division in the past had not been a good thing...

dmg24

jackieblack wrote: »

Ok Mark , I do see your point however I, for example, have absolutely no interest in Europe whatsoever, ditto Cruises or Budget Airlines.
I think having boards specific to what I'm actually interested in/ looking for would save alot of time and having to trawl through pages of posts that are irrelevant to me.

But surely you could use the search facility to avoid having to trawl through less relevant posts?

M4RKM

jackieblack wrote: »

Ok Mark , I do see your point however I, for example, have absolutely no interest in Europe whatsoever, ditto Cruises or Budget Airlines.
I think having boards specific to what I'm actually interested in/ looking for would save alot of time and having to trawl through pages of posts that are irrelevant to me.

trawl through pages of posts? well if you get rid of the budget airlines into 1 board, and currency / insurance into another, then you've taken off *counts* 9 threads on the current front page, which then bumps 9 from page 2 onto page 1...

2 of those 9 threads (22%) that would be moved into a subforum are BOTH talking about BMI Baby and the hold baggage, so we have 2 threads on the same thing (imo, they should have been merged!), we have 2 about ryanair, (22%) 1 on insurance, and 5 on currency (55%)

there are 31 posts on the first page, 11 being sticky, so that's 20 posts that people have made, so you're basically moving just about half of the forum into sub forums, which means that deals are easier to spot.

But, we're discussing this, and it's all down to if TBTB decide to listen to what the regular people here want!

remember, last time they didn't.....

bagand96

I think people are trying to overcomplicate the situation here. To be honest I had no problem with the board how it was; although I definately could see the benefit of splitting off a board for questions/issues surrounding budget airlines.

Having general travel boards as a side issue to the core finance element of the website is a fair enough idea, but trying to subdivide this and other subjects into sub sections simply leads to a Jack of all trades, master of non situation.

Couldn't agree more. At the end of the day this is MSE; split the board up into different sections/destinations and are we then trying to be a Travel Board? MSE is great at what it does, but it is MSE, there are plenty of other boards on the Internet regarding travel and holidays...

lorweld

Guys I think ye all have to calm down a little

As Martin has said this board is only a trial. The only reason changes are made like this are to make the board more user friendly for US. I don't think Martin sits in his office thinking up ways to annoy users on the travel board. It's all trial & error. All I can suggest is put forward your idea for the travel board in a calm & rational manner. There has been some great ideas in this thread already

Now in response to do us Bg's make any contribution to the Travel Board? Yes Myself, Crabman & Savvy contribute a lot of time here. We mightn't post every day but we do do a lot of behind the scenes work that you mightn't notice e.g moving/merging & dealing with spam. I don't think any of us would mind getting a pm to request a move/merge of any threads/posts we missed.

dmg24

lorweld wrote: »

Guys I think ye all have to calm down a little

As Martin has said this board is only a trial. The only reason changes are made like this are to make the board more user friendly for US. I don't think Martin sits in his office thinking up ways to annoy users on the travel board. It's all trial & error. All I can suggest is put forward your idea for the travel board in a calm & rational manner. There has been some great ideas in this thread already

Now in response to do us Bg's make any contribution to the Travel Board? Yes Myself, Crabman & Savvy contribute a lot of time here. We mightn't post every day but we do do a lot of behind the scenes work that you mightn't notice e.g moving/merging & dealing with spam. I don't think any of us would mind getting a pm to request a move/merge of any threads/posts we missed.

I find many of your points on here quite patronising, and maybe if you took any interest in the board you would too. Nobody on this thread has acted irrationally, and all points have been made in a calm manner.

I'm really not having a go at you personally lorweld, but your statement that you do not post everyday is not even close to the truth - the last time you posted on the Overseas board was over a month ago!

lorweld

I'm sorry if I've come over across as being patronising, was not my attention.

And there is no rule to say that bgs have to post on the boards they board guide on

M4RKM

lorweld wrote: »

Guys I think ye all have to calm down a little

As Martin has said this board is only a trial. The only reason changes are made like this are to make the board more user friendly for US. I don't think Martin sits in his office thinking up ways to annoy users on the travel board. It's all trial & error. All I can suggest is put forward your idea for the travel board in a calm & rational manner. There has been some great ideas in this thread already

Now in response to do us Bg's make any contribution to the Travel Board? Yes Myself, Crabman & Savvy contribute a lot of time here. We mightn't post every day but we do do a lot of behind the scenes work that you mightn't notice e.g moving/merging & dealing with spam. I don't think any of us would mind getting a pm to request a move/merge of any threads/posts we missed.

We put our bleeding ideas forward when there were changes for the whole of the forums, and we got totally ignored, and NOT ONCE during that process did I see anyone suggest a Holiday Planning board..

and the thing is, you might be busy merging threads and stuff like that etc, threads that are so damn obvious in need of merging

1 - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1626455
2 - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1674599

have sat in the forums, both of them going on at their own pace since the 7th May when the 2nd appeared. So you've had 48 hours and 13 minutes, and it still hasn't been merged. However, I noticed the duplication, around 48 hours ago, and wondered when things might get merged.... (answer, probably after this has been read!)

I'll never get recommended to be a board guide, because i'm too sarcastic at times, but you really can't say that are moving and merging and dealing with spam, when things like this are NOT happening.. that is enough from me on that point of your post

And my last point... surely the point of the forum is to make it user friendly to the fricking user, not the board guides, mods or the owner.. the user.. hence being called user friendly, not mod friendly... not martin friendly, user friendly, user.. aka.. me, and everyone else who is complaining about the stupidity of the idea..

and now i've actually had a rant, which i haven't before, i will take your advice and calm down a little..

M