Give us your ideas for the new Forum homepage

dealyboy

Agree with others re. visiting homepage, I never do, so I just visited it and thought what is that and why?

The answer is new visitors, but even then the most obvious way of entering the forum is via a 'google' search to a particular thread and then Bob's your uncle.

The MSE forum is open air, a 'front door' is largely irrelevant.

Okell

cymruchris said:

MSE_Laura_F said:

For those who do want to see the homepage, 

... I'm an avid supporter of the forum, it's a very useful place, but we seem to be moving away from being able to find things easily, having to use workarounds, bookmarks, sideways steps, extra clicks just to see what we want to see...

I agree.  It's really annoying that the forum is not more straightforward and easy to navigate around.

cymruchris said:

MSE_Laura_F said:

For those who do want to see the homepage, 

... It's been a while since the new changes were implemented - and you'd expect a 'posting blip' downwards while people get used to change - but I'd be interested to see some stats around say the month before the change and the month after the change showing post quantity/thread creation quantity etc to see if we're near to pre-change levels.

My gut instinct is that board posting/thread creation is considerably down. My own interaction is certainly down. I don't see some of the 'old' regular posters so often. I'm sure we're stuck with it - but is it one of those nail in the coffin moments? It might not be the final nail yet, but feels like we're heading towards it.... 

I think you're right here too.  My own participation - mostly on the Consumer Rights board - has dropped off a cliff since the changes, and that board doesn't seem to be anywhere near as lively and active as it used to be.  As you also say, it's very noticeable that a lot of posters who used to give really helpful advice to consumers no longer seem to be around.  I'm sure the website changes are partly responsible for this.  I suspect it has been a nail in the coffin moment so far as the forums are concerned.

Didn't there used to be an area on the old board (or one from two or three iterations ago) where you could view some sort of statistics relating to board usage?  It would be really interesting to be able to see some key indicators of site usage from both before and after the changes.

I know forum members won't have any "rights" to see this data, but as forum members contribute quite a lot of time and effort towards helping consumers and money savers on this website I think it's only fair in return that the MSE team be a bit more transparent in sharing usage statistics.

Okell

J_B said:

cymruchris said:

MSE_Laura_F said:

For those who do want to see the homepage, 

Are there any? I haven't seen anyone yet that says 'Ooooh I like this new homepage'.

... They are in the business of gaining income from referrals so if poster A comes along and gives a better option and MSE don't get the click, then it's counter intuitive for them.

However, a long time ago ML set up MSE to help people to save money  .......

I suppose this is the problem.

But if it is, then yes - the idea of also having a forum where consumers can ask for advice isn't really compatible with that business model, is it?

Isn't there potential for a conflict of interest between generating income and forum users giving (hopefully) impartial advice that is in the consumer's best interests?