Why all the arguing .... this forum is supposed to support people??

Werdnal

Why are many perfectly legitimate and honestly asked questions posted on threads here lately, turning into utterly childish and puerile slanging matches, which are neither use nor ornament! I work with 3 year olds who have more patience and manners than some members here!!!!

FGS people, this is a grown up forum for genuine questions on very serious subjects but some members act like spoiled children. People sometimes do post things which are opinion or maybe very misguided advice which they feel is helpful but may be incorrect. But why do a small minority of otherwise helpful posters then allow the thread to degenerate into a pathetic tit-for-tat argument to see who has the most sarcastic insults and abusive comments at their disposal. They are the ones making themselves look stupid, and rather than correcting the mis-information given in a polite, respectful manner, are perpetuating the silly disputes at the expense of perfectly sound and helpful advice from other posters in the thread. Take a good look at yourself guys and girls, back off and grow up! Keep the silly, petty arguments for the Playground and lets get back to supporting the people posting here for help and advice with good old-fashioned dignified replies ... get over yourselves or get out!

Mods, this forum is going down the drain, and I for one am getting utterly fed up with my well intended and hopefully helpful replies getting lost in a sea of utter tripe generated by a few at the expense of many ...

Carl31

From what I have seen, there has been a lot of requests for help from amateur landlords that are panicking that things haven't gone as expected in their attempts to run a letting business, or their attempts to use their property as a cash cow, dependant on the view

I would imagine there are a number of legitimate landlords on here that are concerned about the reputation damage to there own business that these people can have, and maybe get fed up with people going into this industry with their eyes closed.

I'm a professional accountant, hence know where my experience and knowledge is. As such, I probably wouldn't go head first into a construction business, as I have no idea how that industry works, although I could probably get hold of a few tools. It seems nowadays that just because someone owns a property, they think they can run a tenancy business, and in a few cases on this website it goes wrong as no research is done properly first.

I'm not surprised people with legitimate business interest get annoyed

kingstreet

What've I missed?

chris_m

Werdnal wrote: »

Mods, this forum is going down the drain, and I for one am getting utterly fed up with my well intended and hopefully helpful replies getting lost in a sea of utter tripe generated by a few at the expense of many ...

It might help if there were sufficient mods to be fairly sure that one or more would be available most of the time.
I reported two particularly abusive and unnecessarily obnoxious posts at 09:13 this morning - both obnoxious comments are still there almost 9 hours later.

googler

kingstreet wrote: »

What've I missed?

The thread that broke Werdnal's back, so to speak...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4772011

Guest101

Hold my hands up - guilty of this today. One of those days i guess - must remember to not feed the trolls and just give good advice.

Werdnal

Carl31, ITA with your comments, but its not perhaps the OP's that are getting grief over their lack of knowledge, its more the tittle-tattle further on, sometimes between posters who are just making rude one-liners about other members, and not actually contributing anything useful in the way of correcting other poster's errors or mis-information. Several have got very abusive with to-and-fro arguments between a few individuals, and taken over the entire thread with their own agenda to barrack each other with personal comments.

Kingstreet, for fear of perpetuating things, I won't link to any particular threads here, but there are a couple running over the last day or so that have just turned into pathetic arguments, with only maybe half a dozen replies in 4 pages of posts actually relating to the OP's queries or offering any constructive advice on their questions.

chris_m, I too have reported posts in the past, even suggesting mods monitor a thread which is becoming abusive or possibly heading in a racist direction, and had the reply that they do not monitor the forums, and only act on reports as and when. Perhaps they do not agree that the comments you have reported fall foul of forum rules?

Werdnal

googler wrote: »

The thread that broke Werdnal's back, so to speak...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4772011

It wasn't just that one, there are others .... and sure I am not the only one who wonder why we bother to reply, as the genuine advice, gets lost in the midst of all the !!!!!iness! I dread to think what the OPs think, having to wade through all the crap to get to the relevant and helpful bits!

chris_m

Werdnal wrote: »

Perhaps they do not agree that the comments you have reported fall foul of forum rules?

Well, at least one of the two comments I reported would not have survived 5 minutes, let alone 9 hours if it had been made on a site for which I have been a mod, and it wouldn't have survived much longer on just about any other forum site I frequent.
I could be wrong but my perception is that all the mods "appear" to do is delete spam.

Before anyone suggests that I volunteer, I have - several times and each time I've been roundly ignored, no response other than the automatic email.

[Deleted User]

My personal approach (although I sometimes find myself guilty of poor quality posts) is that unless what I am typing is going to provide genuine value to the person asking the question or someone who may find the topic in the future via google, I don't post.

This problem is unfortunately one that all forums experience, people become active and enjoy posting and helping people, but then their activity out paces the rest of the forum and they're forced (by their desire to post) to engage in arguments and other poor forms of posting.

There's also Eternal September but this forum is less susceptible to that because of the nature of the content. I manage forums professionally and the only real solution is indeed good quality moderation, moderators need to be active and not afraid to remove posts / people that spend time being angry or argumentative. People can police themselves to some degree but once a forum grows enough (as this forum has recently) all it takes is a tiny minority to derail and reduce the quality.

G_M

Unfortunately Martin's forum, and we posters, are pretty much on our own. The rationale is that the site as a whole has minimal funding due to its refusal to take sponsorship or advertising.

I certainly support the independent stance - that is what makes the site so much better than many others(even the so-called 'comparison sites' are all owned by insurance companies).

Consequently virtually no cash is spent on mods, and mods have minimal involvement with the forum.

Over the years there have been periods of 'quiet', when advice has been sought, and given, and the house-buying forum has served a really useful purpose.

And periods, as now, when there's been an influx of trolls, egotists, point-scorers etc.

It will pass.

Beyond reporting the obvious posts/posters, and continuing to provide advice as sound as we are each able, there is little else we can do except migrate to landlordzone, mumsnet or whereever!

Which will not help people with genuine questions who continue to post here.

guest101:

Hold my hands up - guilty of this today. One of those days i guess - must
remember to not feed the trolls and just give good advice.

I notice you are still posting 'over there', responding not to the OP, but to other posters - thus perpetuating the thread without assisting the OP (who actually no longer needs advice).