MSE has closed the Money Saving Arms.

WillimS2020

Cornucopia said:

Realistically, a small relatively balanced, relatively well-behaved forum with tens rather than thousands of members is unlikely to attract attention from anyone sinister.    There are some social media PAYG sites that can simplify set-up and funding.    

It's not sinister, its politically motivated, and there is very little point hijacking sites or media outlets that don't draw vast crowds to promote your agendas, so the obvious targets are the popular 'free' sites to target.

WillimS2020

Discussion time was doing fine same old members same old stuff, it wasn't until the 'newbies' came along and changed the tone and direction, the problem possibly could be that the MSE team don't have the manpower to monitor all 'new' members, which should have been on some sort of 6 month probation period, these newbies came along dictated Discussion, reported reported reported and got it closed down....... job done. 

tghe-retford

Cornucopia said:

Realistically, a small relatively balanced, relatively well-behaved forum with tens rather than thousands of members is unlikely to attract attention from anyone sinister.    There are some social media PAYG sites that can simplify set-up and funding.    There's the possibility of self-funding from the outset to avoid dependency on squeamish advertisers (and the costs are such that it would be a micro-payment sized contribution). 

Crowdfunding websites and payment processors (the ones who would allow self-funding) are just as much not keen on funding websites with free speech and comments sections in the same way Google aren't keen to fund the same websites with their ad platform. If I were to ask for funding on a well known membership platform for my proposed discussion forum, it would be taken down quickly because any negative press would smear them for allowing it to be funded via them. Same with payment processors. The free speech social media website I mentioned above has had real difficulties finding someone to fund them. They have someone but are reliant on people joining their subscription programme and it ain't cheap. It also helps that the founder has a lot of money behind them. Your average Joe has not got a hope.

It's no wonder why websites across the board have strict no politics, no religion, no current affairs and no news policies!

WillimS2020

tghe-retford said:

Cornucopia said:

Realistically, a small relatively balanced, relatively well-behaved forum with tens rather than thousands of members is unlikely to attract attention from anyone sinister.    There are some social media PAYG sites that can simplify set-up and funding.    There's the possibility of self-funding from the outset to avoid dependency on squeamish advertisers (and the costs are such that it would be a micro-payment sized contribution). 

Crowdfunding websites and payment processors (the ones who would allow self-funding) are just as much not keen on funding websites with free speech and comments sections in the same way Google aren't keen to fund the same websites with their ad platform. If I were to ask for funding on a well known membership platform for my proposed discussion forum, it would be taken down quickly because any negative press would smear them for allowing it to be funded via them. Same with payment processors. The free speech social media website I mentioned above has had real difficulties finding someone to fund them. They have someone but are reliant on people joining their subscription programme and it ain't cheap. It also helps that the founder has a lot of money behind them. Your average Joe has not got a hope.

It's no wonder why websites across the board have strict no politics, no religion, no current affairs and no news policies!

To be fair this site and many more forbid the Madeleine McCann discussion, it has worked well, so why can't they successfully implement the same rules with politics?

203846930

tghe-retford said:

I would also assume that the Funny Money and Discussion Time forums being read only but still available to view is an oversight and one that will be rectified shortly?

No
Keeping these two threads open in Site Feedback is an oversight and will be rectified shortly.

Closing a board but leaving it read only is not new on these forums, the house prices and economy board has been closed over a month and there was another board held for viewing for years (cant remember the name)

I see that Money Saving Polls has been rescued from the arms closure and dumped on the essential money board.
another nail in the coffin that was The Arms

Quasar

LOL thread gone suddenly quiet. I expect, in view of the previous post, a dozen or so fora are being created right now by disgruntled users. I already now which way it will pan out for all of them...  You just can't re-create the Arms and DT from scratch.  It has been tried five times, that I know of.

redux

Too much of this discussion, on this and a couple of other threads, is working against persuading MSE to reconsider the decision at a suitable time in the future. 

SingleSue

My one is still going although that wasn't a recreation of DT or the Arms. We've got an 88 page thread as an example, we do go through some quieter times but that pretty much reflects what it was like when we had our home here in the later days.

It was never intended to be a large site, just somewhere where the regulars (we had all become friends), could continue to have contact.

Pyxis

Quasar said:

LOL thread gone suddenly quiet. I expect, in view of the previous post, a dozen or so fora are being created right now by disgruntled users. I already now which way it will pan out for all of them...  You just can't re-create the Arms and DT from scratch.  It has been tried five times, that I know of.

I got a PM from someone enclosing a link to a 'new' version of DT on another site, Tapatalk.  However the person sending the link had only posted three times before, on the same day in March, all three in DT.

I hate AEs.☹️

peachyprice

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.