(S.O.F. Save Our Forum!) This has now been addressed by MSE (see link in OP) 4 June 2021 at 10:40AM edited 23 June 2021 at 9:39AM in Compers chat corner 53 replies 3K views

Blulu

I think we can consider this resolved now, thanks to the MSE team's input. See MSE Kirsty's post on Page 4 of this thread, or follow this link:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78407012/#Comment_78407012

Thank you to everyone who shared their views about the forum changes, and thank you to Kirsty and MSE Towers for explaining some of the background bits, while reassuring us that you are doing what you can to address our concerns.

This is a great site and we love our comping forum - long may it live

Blu XXX

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It is now time to launch a new campaign to try to get MSE to address some of the major issues here?

Our cornishpasty1 opened a discussion a couple of days ago about our flagging forum, here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6204908/forum-update-re-changes#latest 

That led to me and Rahven chatting about where we are with this whole forum changes thing. We agreed that we feel cheated and fobbed off by MSE. Our forum is still 'not fit for purpose' and hasn't been for ages. Rahven worked out that it's around 16 months since the forum upgrade/downgrade, and around 7 months since she'd sent them her excellent spreadsheet that pulled together our issues with the 'new' forum ("Our" being everyone here who had commented on the problems).

MSE conducted interviews with some of us, where we explained the issues. They responded by assuring us that we were a valued part of the MSE community and they they would do what they could to help sort things. They said it might take a while. Well, it flaming well has!

The least they should've done was to update us every now and then about what was/wasn't happening - which is what the pinned thread in CCC "Forum Update Re Changes" was opened for.

Is it time to try again? People are still signing the petition about this: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6196788/petition-for-mse-re-the-forum-changes#latest

We know that we have lost many long-term users over this, and that the forum is quite simply nowhere near as good as it was.

So...what should we do about it then?

My gut feeling is that fresh blood is needed to take on the campaign now. I don't mind doing whatever I can behind the scenes to help, but I don't think it would be productive for me to contact MSE about this again. I think they would fob me off because I've already said 'my bit'. But fresh blood could start from scratch, perhaps building on what we'd tried before?

That's it then. Consider the gauntlet well and truly thrown down.

Over to you lot...

Blu XXX

cornishpasty1

Personally I feel really let down by MSE. They changed the forum format, I think for the benefit of the other areas within the site.  They promise us things that they don't deliver on, and think and/or hope we'll go away.  Well unfortunately a lot of people have gone away, and the ones like me that have stuck around hoping things would improve are absolutely frustrated that we can't even do simple tasks like 'search' or 'sort, in any order we choose, like we used to'!!!!!

I'll be honest and say that I have look at the 'duck site' and quite like it as it is very like our old format, and actually has other things that we didn't have i.e. click in settings to disable things you don't want to see like gleam/rafflecopter etc. but I started here on this site and would prefer to stay here.

I honestly don't think things are going to change, and before we know it we'll be at Advents again (I know a lot of you liked what they did last year with the sub-forum).  

I would love it if MSE could set us up a forum for us of our own, like we used to have, and link it to their main site, therefore still being part of the 'family' without us disrupting other forum areas.

Other than mass exodus, what else can we do? Perhaps go on strike? I wonder if they would even notice?

libra10

I think the real problem is that the forum type no longer supports the type of features that compers need - reliable, trustworthy search engine, ability to hide comps, hover over threads etc.  

In my opinion, there is no way that MSE can make the forum work as we need, they just don't want to admit it!  We have had many promises about sorting out the numerous issues, yet little has been done, resulting in more members leaving the comping area.

It's up to us whether we continue to accept a dysfunctional forum, or try other websites.

There are some brilliant competition posters on here, and members are so helpful providing answers and discussions, personally I don't want to leave.

sarah1972

I will flag this to the forum team guys x 

Blulu

Sarah, thank you loads for that.

Blu XXX

[Deleted User]

 They've not paid attention so far, can't see them starting to. 

Gave up comping ages ago as the forum is useless and almost abandoned by regulars. 

I don't really get on with another comping forum and not a clue if any others. 

Blulu

Soooo...as the MSE team will hopefully get to peek at this thread, I thought I would restate my major issues with the (now old) new look forum:

1) The main issue by far, in my humbles, is the naff search facility. It makes it so hard to search to see if a comp you want to post is already here. Apart from it being a pain to list comps now, it also increases the likelihood of posting dupes, meaning folk are more likely to enter a comp twice, meaning they will probably have invalidated their entries.

2) That hovering over a link no longer shows a snippet of the thread 'under' the link. This means it takes longer to work through the board.

3) That you can't increase the number of listed threads as we used to be able to. It's hard to explain, but changing from one page of lists to another is a pain to do, as it could mean you miss the odd comp while doing it. That's why it's easier to comp when you can list more of them on one page.

4) Not being able to see more than 10 names who have ticked "Compliment" on threads. This makes it harder to see if you have entered or not. This especially applies to regular competition threads, where you will probably have green ticked them, but the green tick doesn't help you to see where you are up to on the thread.

5) Not being able to untick the green tick/red cross button, without ticking the other one. Sometimes, after ticking you can realise you'd rather leave this blank and come back to it later to enter or red cross it.

6) Not being able to add new comments to threads in Game Over. I honestly don't see any good reason to prohibit this. Sometimes it's useful to comment on a Game Over thread, for a variety of reasons.

7) Bookmarking a thread doesn't always work anymore. I no longer get emailed for new posts on the regulars board.

8) Not being able tick a box for MSE to send me chocolate. OK, I can't really justify this one, but while we're asking, I thought I might as well try it on.

Don't know if anyone else wants to add any more to the list? Feel free if you do.

Blu XXX

jeanmd

Blulu said:

Soooo...as the MSE team will hopefully get to peek at this thread, I thought I would restate my major issues with the (now old) new look forum:

1) The main issue by far, in my humbles, is the naff search facility. It makes it so hard to search to see if a comp you want to post is already here. Apart from it being a pain to list comps now, it also increases the likelihood of posting dupes, meaning folk are more likely to enter a comp twice, meaning they will probably have invalidated their entries.

2) That hovering over a link no longer shows a snippet of the thread 'under' the link. This means it takes longer to work through the board.

3) That you can't increase the number of listed threads as we used to be able to. It's hard to explain, but changing from one page of lists to another is a pain to do, as it could mean you miss the odd comp while doing it. That's why it's easier to comp when you can list more of them on one page.

4) Not being able to see more than 10 names who have ticked "Compliment" on threads. This makes it harder to see if you have entered or not. This especially applies to regular competition threads, where you will probably have green ticked them, but the green tick doesn't help you to see where you are up to on the thread.

5) Not being able to untick the green tick/red cross button, without ticking the other one. Sometimes, after ticking you can realise you'd rather leave this blank and come back to it later to enter or red cross it.

6) Not being able to add new comments to threads in Game Over. I honestly don't see any good reason to prohibit this. Sometimes it's useful to comment on a Game Over thread, for a variety of reasons.

7) Bookmarking a thread doesn't always work anymore. I no longer get emailed for new posts on the regulars board.

8) Not being able tick a box for MSE to send me chocolate. OK, I can't really justify this one, but while we're asking, I thought I might as well try it on.

Don't know if anyone else wants to add any more to the list? Feel free if you do.

Blu XXX

A like wasn't good enough.
I admit to rarely comping now as I find it too hard to navigate the forum. 

becky004

I started comping in 2010, but had been a member of the site for 5-6 years before that. It is so sad to see what has happened to this forum, no complaints are being addressed, nothing has been improved, the powers that be have pretty much destroyed everything. We have lost so many prolific posters, the loss of Laks in particular has hit the forum hard, although there are many others that deserve a mention also. I only ever used this forum, I had no need to go anywhere else, now this forum is my last port of call. I don't post anywhere else, but with the search facility as it is and posting dupes, I don't feel comfortable posting anything. Don't fix what isn't broken springs to mind, but this is broken with no fix in site, which is really sad as we have a great community here xx

spotit

Signed S Quinn

cornishpasty1

Blulu said:

Soooo...as the MSE team will hopefully get to peek at this thread, I thought I would restate my major issues with the (now old) new look forum:

1) The main issue by far, in my humbles, is the naff search facility. It makes it so hard to search to see if a comp you want to post is already here. Apart from it being a pain to list comps now, it also increases the likelihood of posting dupes, meaning folk are more likely to enter a comp twice, meaning they will probably have invalidated their entries.

2) That hovering over a link no longer shows a snippet of the thread 'under' the link. This means it takes longer to work through the board.

3) That you can't increase the number of listed threads as we used to be able to. It's hard to explain, but changing from one page of lists to another is a pain to do, as it could mean you miss the odd comp while doing it. That's why it's easier to comp when you can list more of them on one page.

4) Not being able to see more than 10 names who have ticked "Compliment" on threads. This makes it harder to see if you have entered or not. This especially applies to regular competition threads, where you will probably have green ticked them, but the green tick doesn't help you to see where you are up to on the thread.

5) Not being able to untick the green tick/red cross button, without ticking the other one. Sometimes, after ticking you can realise you'd rather leave this blank and come back to it later to enter or red cross it.

6) Not being able to add new comments to threads in Game Over. I honestly don't see any good reason to prohibit this. Sometimes it's useful to comment on a Game Over thread, for a variety of reasons.

7) Bookmarking a thread doesn't always work anymore. I no longer get emailed for new posts on the regulars board.

8) Not being able tick a box for MSE to send me chocolate. OK, I can't really justify this one, but while we're asking, I thought I might as well try it on.

Don't know if anyone else wants to add any more to the list? Feel free if you do.

Blu XXX

Another biggie you've missed as far as I'm concerned @Blulu is being able to sort threads like we used to i.e. by end date (ascending/descending) etc. At least if we could do that we could search by date for a particular comp we're trying to see if has been posted.