Please read - new Forum homepage and rules are live

moneysavinghero

MSE_Laura_F said:

Hello,

Well, it's been a busy day! BUT before we temporarily close this thread so that the Forum Team can take some much-needed time away from the screen, we just wanted to say thanks to those who've spotted and told us about some really good tweaks we can make to improve the experience of the Forum. We understand that whenever we change stuff on the Forum it can be a bit tricky to get used to it, but we're here to help you find the bits and bobs that you like.

Screaming out at us from the feedback are a few issues:

• You're not liking the big space on the left.
• It looks like we all need to go to Specsavers because the font's a bit too small.
• The layout is looking weird on different devices.
• Compers - don't worry, we've got your stuff logged too. 

This isn't an exhaustive list but they're the main things you're telling us about. We're already talking to our developers in Canada to get it sorted ASAP.

We just want to say to all those who provided constructive feedback in a friendly way: thanks for your support. The Forum Team love the Forum just as much as you do, and we'll be back responding to your posts when we reopen the thread. In the meantime, we ask that you do not start random threads because we really want to keep everything in one place. Please use the feedback form.

Best wishes,

MSE Laura F

Isn't this supposed to be a money saving forum. How is sending money to developers in Canada to turn a forum that worked into a forum that doesn't work in keeping with MSE logic. If you could explain what benefits you have gained from this update then it might be easy to understand the logic. Spending more and more money asking the developers to do 'tweaks' is just throwing more good money after bad.

mjm3346

artyclarty said:

If I use my primary monitor, the posts are just stuck in no man's land in the middle that look even worse, especially when you scroll down past the "useful" menu tab.

Initially I thought it was a lot more streamlined than before, but the more and more I try to navigate, it become a lot more obvious that it takes twice as long since the update and numerous more clicks to get around. Surely a drop down menu in the top/bottom right would be a lot easier than wasting all the space on the left?

That's exactly the view I get, approx 16 cm to the left, 8 cm to the right and the thread/thread titles 23 cm - the text to left is unnecessary and if any of it was wanted it could easily fit in one line at the top so allowing the threads that people actually want to look to increase their size by 1/3.
Why does the chunk about signing up for the mse e-mail appear all the time, regardless of whether signed up or not

Former_MSE_Laura

Norman_Castle said:

MSE_Laura_F said:

 we ask that you do not start random threads because we really want to keep everything in one place.

New threads are started because you keep closing the old ones!

Hi Norman_Castle,

We want to be able to read everybody's comments about the Forum. We have millions of threads, so if you give feedback about the changes in lots of different threads and someone puts a useful comment in there, we might miss it, which would be a real shame. Thanks very much for putting this post in this thread because that's exactly where it should be. And please remember, keep it kind.

Many thanks,

MSE Laura

MSE_Laura_F

epm-84 said:

It's a shame the referrers board has been deleted.  That gave those on low incomes the chance to get things like a free month on their mobile phone bill but I suppose having it there means less money for Money Supermarket (owners of MoneySavingExpert) as people would use the referral links opposed to MSE's affiliate links.

Hello epm-84,

What you’re suggesting would be a direct contradiction of MSE’s Editorial Code and founding principles, namely that we put the consumer first and that our editorial stance remains independent from any commercial objectives. The decision to remove the Referrers board came down to the fact that it only comprised 0.36% of the Forum’s content yet required many hours of managing per week.

Thank you,

MSE Laura F

stellar

I can't find Advanced Search and no comments referring to it, has it been removed or is it staring me in the face?

Umkomaas

Having only been 'live' and been used by me over the past 24 hours, here are a couple of my observations. 

Initially, I too was a bit perplexed about the left-hand side and can understand the frustrations around it. I am working on an iPad in landscape format, because I find that to be the best and most comfortable way to read and type with the iPad sitting on a cushion across my knees. I've found that 'stretching' the page fills the landscape space very nicely, gets rid of the unwanted grey areas (although they reappear as I move to subsequent pages of the thread - but, rinse/repeat above) and with the font at a very reasonable size for reading without the need for specs. 

I've found that if I rotate my iPad to portrait (as mentioned a few times here previously by others), all the 'superfluous' no longer shows, and the forum posts fill the page. The 'down side' is that (for me) the font is too small to read comfortably and if I stretch it to make it more readable, only a portion of each sentence/paragraph is shown, requiring a scroll across to continue reading each line. Even if I were to find portrait format comfortable, the scrolling backwards and forwards to read each line would be far more of a pita than the compromises I am learning to make for landscape viewing. 

Hopefully there will be tweaks that can be made economically, and satisfactorily for the majority. 

soolin

Strangely I seem to have a different view on my iPad to that being reported , I’m using Safari as well. I’m terrible at cut and pasting but I’ll try and add a photo as my view is quite clear and I don’t have any wasted space.

Jenni_D

Which orientation do you use your iPad?

MSE_Laura_F

While you're settling down to your lunch, you might like to see the little Forum homepage video tour we've put together.

Thanks for continuing to fill out our feedback form.

Best wishes,

MSE Laura F

ripplyuk

Does anyone know where the health board is now? It used to be under ‘Marriage, relationships and families’ but it’s gone. Has it been removed?