MSE has closed the Money Saving Arms.

accorian

I've now -- at last -- caught up with the announcement about the closing of the Money Savers Arms and with it, the shutting down of Discussion Time.

Speaking personally, I don't believe a word of what was said by way of justification for the sudden closure.

From time to time since the acquisition of moneysavingexpert by a new commercial owner, I've wondered when the 'free speech' element of the site would be closed off because it contributed nothing to the business's financial performance.

I'd have had rather more respect for MSE had it admitted that instead of this blatant self-serving nonsense about too-many-complaints-to-deal-with-at-this-time-when-we're-trying-to-help-everyone; it doesn't tale hours to follow up one 'report' or even a dozen; it doesn't require a massive expenditure of labour or time or effort.

Seems to me that MSE was looking for an excuse to be rid of an inconvenience, in the same way and with almost the same pious excuse as eBay UK did with its community discussion boards several years ago and has now done so. It has also got rid of many regular posters and supporters in the process, and permanently devalued MSE's worth and reputation.

At this time of lockdown, a facility such as 'Discussion Time' that provided an opportunity for vigorous, intelligent debate and discourse (for those seeking such) was invaluable; you could learn more from the insights and information provided by some of the regulars on there than ever you could from mainstream media or from juvenile junk like Twitter and Facebook.

But the new owners of MSE couldn't care less about that. So, then, I'm amongst (or so it seems) many others who are saying goodbye to MSE and Martin's emails and the EnergyClub etc etc. The departure of MSE regulars will have no impact at all on the management of this forum but at least I'll feel better at not being treated as a halfwit who will readily believe the blatantly absurd excuses contained in that oh-so pious MSE announcement.

sweetsand

_shel said:

peachyprice said:

That was the problem though, it wasn't 'us' who ruined it, it was one or two disgruntled banned members coming back time and time again, posting nonsense/offensive/divisive the reads with the sole purpose of forcing MSE's hand into closing the Arms. The worst thing MSE did was post that threat, it was taken as a challenge. 

It's not difficult to work out who these people are, it doesn't take long for them to revert to their normal writing style once they're in. One even boasted that as they were using a VPN there was nothing MSE could do to stop them. It was sabotage pure and simple and the same disrupters will now follow MSE members over to attempt to do the same on Digital Spy. Hopefully DS has more robust protocols. 

 They may well have been banned members posting those threads but many other regular posters joined in the nonsense, offensive threads when they could've ignored them. 

Sadly, the ignorant will always find someone else to blame. MSE policy is clear if you disagree with a poster, or dislike what they say, post and if you feel it breaches the T&C's report them or ignore them. Many claimed many times they were "ignoring" a poster when they were NOT. Like you said, they joined in, ganged up some of them to mock, abuse a newer poster just because they disagreed with their stance or could not take on board being corrected. Wore still they got their mates to report them, join in the mocking, the faux outrage, the faux support of their indefensible comments, etc, etc.
It's easy to blame others but you need to look at yourself in the mirror. I'm only aiming this post at those where the cap fits and you know who you are.
I've said it before and on this thread - new posters raise a question, a good/serious question and they are often mocked, belittled and told to do this that and the other and none of what is said was helpful other than to take the thread OT have their own laugh.

The 3mobile fraud warning about a text I posted the other day, the very first response by  so called long standing poster was taking the p and another followed. I posted a response about the seriousness of these types of messages via text and how real people had lost their life savings - credit to these posters they did not respond which is a lot better trying to make a faux defence.

Hope fully MSE will be a better place now for people needing asap help from others and there are many on MSE long-standing or not that do give good directions.  IMO where newer posters and other were fearful of raising a genuine question for fear of being mocked, now there will be many more questions and these questions can help others withoit joining in when they do an internet search on the subject.

Thanks MSE

miriamac

DT was never a 'free speech ' forum.  It wasn't set up as a 'free speech ' forum, and that is stated clearly in more than one of the 'Please read' stickie threads at the top of the forum.  The first one is from 2004!

Those threads also state clearly that DT is/was an add-on to the main site and the money-saving boards.  It isn't/wasn't the be all and end all of MSE.

chris_m

naee_shuruaat said:

Stop blaming "newbies" and accept that many of you are responsible for parts of the forum closing yourselves.

The "newbies" with the word in speech marks are not real newbies, but banned people who've signed up again under a new name so appear to be genuine newbies when they aren't - or people who've signed up under a new identity to try and draw others into  arguments by arguing with their other selves.

Those are the ones being blamed, not genuine new joiners.

NeilCr

I thought some of the posting in DT was rather aggressive. I always try and be polite (as I can be) and, these days, I don't want to get into heated exchanges. So - if I get an aggressive looking reply I just step away

The written word can be a problem, anyway, as it is open to misunderstandings but I do think some posters were determined to have the last word and prove that they were always right, 

sweetsand

Sapphire said:

sweetsand said:

Sapphire said:

Grumpelstiltskin said:

Now the troublemakers have got their way and got the Arms closed what are they going to do with their spare time?

I can't see them wanting to stop making trouble somewhere, I'm sure that's how they get their kicks, so are they going to try and cause trouble on other boards on here or are thy going to migrate somewhere else?

Many are probably being paid to infest forums all over the place, and to spread their propaganda and cause disruption. That's why I won't join any other social media concern. I'll stick with MSE for information on financial matters, though – which is why I joined in the first place.

Quiet a nasty comments and one that lacks foundation no matter how you look at it. Are you saying that because you've been here longer than many but was not able to accept the fact of being corrected, pulled up etc? On the other hand, I know what you are going to say so forget it!

MSE is a fantastic forum for questions but you have to bite the bullet to get the answer as many will spoust rubbish EG "did you not goolgle, why not pay taxes, why not get a job, why not pay up, etc,etc"
The other day I posted a heads up re 3mobile fake texts asking people to click on a fraudulent link - the first poster posted totla rubbish. I did pull it up and it worked,  Why should someone that has been here for more than a few month feels it's ok to take serious threads OT or just post inane rubbish.

I don't know how it can be said that 'it lacks foundation', looking at how the nature and style of posts changed over quite a short period, which is very regrettable. If a comment sounds 'nasty', it reflects the annoyance I feel about how the Arms was hijacked by people clearly wishing to goad others.  And it isn't clear what a 'heads up' fraudulent post was (I wouldn't click on it anyway), so no idea what is meant by the statement relating to that. In fact, the rest of the post is rather unclear, too. It just sounds like another attempt to create friction.

And that's the end of it. 

Just as well the Arms was closed.

Incredible! "hijacked"? You think you could have run the board better than MSE? Can I safely assume you are an adult? As an adult if you genuinely feel someone has "hijacked, goading others" could you not ignore, skip, put on ignore or just ignore, report and not join in??
"create friction" in you mind dear poster. I was clear about the example I gave re some so-called long-standing posters and their attitude that they could at will take OT a thread, post inane comments and at times be rude then gang up at times but about this I'm not referring to my heads up 3mobile thread as there were just two inept comments there the first and second.
The closure of the board/section is down to the people I've mentioned that thought they ran the forum just becuaase they'd been there longer, chatted with mates via PM and picked on those they did not agree with. Even when a so-called long standing poster makes a seriously crass comment, rather than say the poster is wrong, you get friends coming out of the wood work saying they've been here for a long time and did not mean that, etc - of course they did. I've noted that on many threads when looking for advice, ifo re fincial items .

As I said before, IMO the forums will be a batter place as more people may now ask questions and have less fear of being mocked.

END

sweetsand

Just before I go out for a walk.
People calling others "trolls" when they could be just that themselves.
They bang on about "don't feed the trolls" and post about it by keeping the thread going
and inviting others to comment.

I have posted, rarely these days on DS - if i see a troll, a newbie or oldbie, I IGNORE, No Comments, simple as that!  I have two friends cyber mates on DS, when they are wrong I never support them online and tell them via PM. Oldeis call newbies "tolls" on DS,  just makes lol. Most of the time the oldbies get wound up just becuse they have been corrected for the wrong info or crass comment/s, etc. I've got it wrong and if someone says so and I am wrong , i accept 

JohnTeapot

TheNickster said:

For those suffering withdrawal symptons try this:-
https://forums.digitalspy.com/categories/general-discussion-forums

I have tried there before but found it rather heavily moderated.

This forum was set up as an alternative to MSE a while back but it does not have a lot of members really, not enough passing traffic.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/discussion_time/discussion/all

I don't know why MSE don't include a link to it. or did not do so in the past as they would not have to spend resources moderating it.

JohnTeapot

peachyprice said:

duncanthedog said:

_shel said:

peachyprice said:

That was the problem though, it wasn't 'us' who ruined it, it was one or two disgruntled banned members coming back time and time again, posting nonsense/offensive/divisive the reads with the sole purpose of forcing MSE's hand into closing the Arms. The worst thing MSE did was post that threat, it was taken as a challenge. 

It's not difficult to work out who these people are, it doesn't take long for them to revert to their normal writing style once they're in. One even boasted that as they were using a VPN there was nothing MSE could do to stop them. It was sabotage pure and simple and the same disrupters will now follow MSE members over to attempt to do the same on Digital Spy. Hopefully DS has more robust protocols. 

 They may well have been banned members posting those threads but many other regular posters joined in the nonsense, offensive threads when they could've ignored them. 

Very much this^^^^
It was not how returning AE's behaved and posted, it was how the regulars interacted with them.
I was guilty of getting drawn in to daft conversations and paid the price so then just ignored any thread started by a suspected AE, if only others had done the same.

Very true, more than once I replied to a thread then deleted it when I realised it had been posted by a 'newbie',  to find later on that it had descended into a bun fight. 

What have you got against new posters? Without them a forum dies.

JohnTeapot

Sapphire said:

peachyprice said:

Pyxis said:

peachyprice said:

Ageing_Disgracefully said:

colinw said:

It is a bit shocking really to cut off a online community at this time especially, it might be the only contact some shielded people have with people

This is the big concern and I feel sorry for those who have suddenly lost the one bit of contact that have with others.

Sadly, there was one particular poster with more than one AE who was reporting every post that they didn't agree with and causing huge problems for the mods.  Ban one AE and another was added.  That person should be seriously ashamed of the harm that they have caused to a small number of people who it was clear relied on the forum.

I said, several times, that the aim of that member was to create discord and division in order to get the board closed altogether, and here we are.

That may be true, but if people refuse to rise to the bait, it wouldn't succeed in creating discord, would it?
A bit more biting of lip or shrugging of shoulder would have prevented the problem, but so many people seemed to feel they had to have the last word.

It was getting to the point where 'new' users were outnumbering regulars, posting nonsense thread after thread, making sure meaningful threads fell off the first page, which in turn due to a glitch meant they were inaccessible, leaving only the nonsense threads to comment on.

I had so many profiles on 'ignore' recently it made threads hard to follow with chunks of conversation missing. 

Yes, I agree. The threads were OK for a long while (even if people's opinions differed), but it seemed that recently newbies (or 'newbies) kept signing on with the sole intent of disrupting the threads with attempts at politically motivated propaganda, and that they deliberately set out to provoke people. It's only since the boards were redesigned that I noticed this, and it is only since then that I started putting people on ignore.

I agree that MSE had no choice but to close the Arms, even though there were some threads that were useful/fun. The Covid data threads were good (where they didn't degenerate into politically motivated sniping), as were a few threads about people's experiences during the crisis, and funny pictures of cats, Marisco (and others), etc. There's still a chance to post things like this on the third thread down when you open up the forum (so to speak, can't remember the title of the thread) … 😺

A discussion forum is just that a forum for discussion, you have to be tolerant of others, nothing upsets me because I am a tolerant person. I'd never ban anyone if I ran a forum but it seems there are a lot of intolerant people about.

I think it is sad that initially the internet was a great place for free speech and has now have became the opposite, censorship everywhere, people banned for life for expressing an opinion.