Now that Chrismas has gone can MSE look again at the shopping forums?

dinglebert

There has been over the Christmas period a lot of discussion (arguements at some points) over the use of the grabit and shop till you drop sections of the site. Shop has now become in essence a different forum from what it was at the beginning of December instead of showing offers available it has now become more of a question and answer forum. The "blame" for this was put down to Christmas. The I wanna forum is well away from the others and if shop is being used for I wanna purposes then perhaps is not required any more.

I'm not advocating any particular solution only that it would be useful to have a way forward. It could be that all the forums revert back to their original purpose or that shop continues as it is now and I wanna is dropped. However the situation as it stands now is in my opinion messy and confusing.

LesD

Thanks Dinglebert for expressing this so elequently. If it had been left to me, I'd have been much more robust in my criticism of the situation.

No one has come forward on any of the discussions on this subject to put the 'official' view.

None of it is satisfactory. Viewing stats on SBDD have been falling and very few at all seem to go to WANNA now.

Those of us that try to retain to 'old' logic and post on WANNA don't get many replies (if any at all!) and GRABBIT is getting loaded down with all sorts of offers.

Most other forums seem to have everything lumped together - deals, offers, questions. So the simple solution would seem to be to move WANNA into the 'Bargain Buys/Shopping' group and try to get folks to put their shopping questions in there.

mcallister1

I agree- if 'wanna' stays the way it is it is pointless to post on it and it is frustrating to find questions on grabbit.

mountainchrisriver

Perhaps the forums in question just need a rename by folks in MSE towers to make things a little clearer for everyone??

Nile

mcallister1 wrote: »

I agree- if 'wanna' stays the way it is it is pointless to post on it and it is frustrating to find questions on grabbit.

Thanks for the suggestion to make me redundant.:o

We board guides are volunteers to help Martin and the MSE Team.

We board guides are not online 24 hours a day...........for every day of the year and so there will be times (eg at Christmas) when threads are not moved quickly to a more appropriate board.

Even if Martin decided to have paid staff working a shift pattern to ensure coverage around the clock, 365 days a year..............we would still struggle to keep up with the massive amount of threads and posts on the boards.;)

The 'Shop but don't drop' and 'Quick! Grabbit while you can' boards attract a huge amount of threads and posts and I think that the volunteer board guides do a great job for this site.

I wouldn't criticise any of my fellow board guides. I know that we volunteers try to do our best for the site.

jo_b_2

Nile wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestion to make me redundant.:o

We board guides are volunteers to help Martin and the MSE Team.

We board guides are not online 24 hours a day...........for every day of the year and so there will be times (eg at Christmas) when threads are not moved quickly to a more appropriate board.

Even if Martin decided to have paid staff working a shift pattern to ensure coverage around the clock, 365 days a year..............we would still struggle to keep up with the massive amount of threads and posts on the boards.;)

The 'Shop but don't drop' and 'Quick! Grabbit while you can' boards attract a huge amount of threads and posts and I think that the volunteer board guides do a great job for this site.

I wouldn't criticise any of my fellow board guides. I know that we volunteers try to do our best for the site.

I think I read the thread differently to you Nile and didn't see the criticism being directed at Board Guides. I just read the thread to be pointing out that many site users seem to be confused as to the purpose of the seperate shopping boards and tend to use Shop But Don't Drop as a 'question and answer' board rather than a bargain spotting/ money saving tips board.

I think most people appreciate the level of (voluntary!) work that goes into helping the boards run smoothly, but SBDD does seem to have evolved into a board with a different purpose to that intended. It's still a valuable board but it has taken over a lot of the content that would be expected on 'I Wanna' - presumably because that board has more traffic.

If BG's moved every thread from SBDD that was a 'question/looking for' thread, there wouldn't be that many left!!

Personally, I do think some reorganisation of the shopping boards would be useful and maybe SBDD and I Wanna could be amalgamated or something. We don't won't to make you redundant though Nile!!! :A

MORPH3US

Agreed, I don't see any criticism of you in any way Nile, I think people are trying to help you by preventing these problems before you have to deal with them.

M

LesD

If I had a penny for every time I've seen the bleat about volunteer board guides, I'd be a rich man!

Harry S. Truman had a phrase about that.

Everyone else seems to understand the problem, so why isn't anything done about it???

Former_MSE_Andrea

Can I just say, we are aware of this discussion, have been for some time (I posted on a thread somewhere on Shop But Don't Drop about it some time ago) and know where you're all coming from.

At the moment this is on the list of things the team needs to discuss but there's so much on that list that's much higher up in priority, such as researching new ways to save money and keeping articles updated, that it has to wait.

I do understand your frustration though, it is hard looking through the boards for threads to go in the email when there are off-topic discussions to wade through. We will try to get to it as soon as possible but in the meantime your patience would be very much appreciated.

Thank you!

Have a good weekend

Andrea

a11waysindebt

May I ask how many board guides there are in total covering all of MSE.

LesD

Thanks Andrea. That's the most constructive response we've had.