The Top Regular Savers Discussion Thread

friolento

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82066207#Comment_82066207

I like the idea of a sub-forum for Regular Saving accounts, for the reasons you have given

clairec666

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82066282#Comment_82066282

Thread organisation etc….

Thanks, glad someone else thinks the same way as me, although it sounds like others like the single thread structure so I'm prepared to be outvoted.

Honestly I could never understand why ISAs got their own sub-forum but regular savers were not deemed worthy.

Example of how the ISA forum makes things work - there's still a "main" thread, but it isn't clogged up with endless comments along the line of "how do I transfer out of Trading212 when it doesn't have an account number and sort code" 😁 Anyone who frequents the ISA forum will be familiar with this….

masonic

Organisation

A couple of other points to remember are that the search function is rubbish regardless of forum layout, and we periodically go through periods where notifications stop working or are substantially delayed.

I personally don't like that there is a separate ISA sub-forum, as new threads there get a lot less attention. Often I feel OPs would get a better set of replies if they posted to the main section. Whereas it is almost certain that any relevant question posted here will be very visible to knowledgeable folk.

alfred64

One of the problems has been the interminable discussion of a single topic answered and argued against: gone over again and again ; repetitious back and forth answers that quite frankly had become very tiring to many members.

Bridlington1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82066315#Comment_82066315

I'd agree with those points. On your point about ISAs having a separate sub-forum, I must confess I never noticed it till I'd been using the forum for a while, if I didn't notice it for so long I'd be surprised if I was the only one this applied to. If RSs had their own subsection, I almost certainly wouldn't've discovered @Special_Saver2's RS thread as early as I did.

We should also consider, and I find this is too often missed in these discussions but is an important one, that not all users of this forum have been frequenting these threads as often as we have, there are also brand new users logging on all the time who are unfamiliar with how the forum operates, where to find everything or might not even know what a regular saver is etc, we should also cater to them, and make it easier for them to find things.

Whilst it's good to have some structure to the forum (which the three main RS threads offer), I fear it could be taken too far.

username2026

I would like to make a suggestion, if I may. I’ve been following this thread and the previous iterations for quite some time, and indeed this thread was the reason I signed up for this forum - I hoped that I’d be able to sign up to be notified when a post was made in the no-chat thread, but it doesn’t seem that the bookmark option does that. I’m not sure what it does to be honest…

Anyway, my point is, could that thread be updated only when there’s an update to make, rather than also repeating it all at the end of every month? It seems to me that as it’s a “no-chat” thread, it already serves as a summary. Having long posts every few weeks repeating what’s just been posted seems a bit counterintuitive to me, and suspect this creates extra unnecessary work.

I’d also ask if it’s possible to revert to the old way of showing the basic facts of an account instead of the table? I only use this forum on mobile and it’s already very user-unfriendly, but where there are now tables, it messes up the screen and the previous way I found much easier to view.

Thanks for your consideration.

qbadger

Re the bookmark option, go to Notification preferences

Bridlington1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82066344#Comment_82066344

On the point about being updated on posts in the archived thread, you should get notifications on it, I know I get notifications on bookmarked threads. The only thing I can think of that might be causing it to not give you notifications is that notifications may not be switched on in your notification settings, other than that it may be a technical issue that the forum team need to look at (they should sort it if you email them).

On the point about showing the facts as a table, I'm afraid that was one of those casualties of the new text editor as it made the formatting look worse in the old format, so a table became the workaround. It also has a few organisational benefits (such as allowing past listings to be more easily backed up to a spreadsheet, making copying/pasting easier etc).

Moreover I have received some feedback from other users that they prefer the look of the tables to the original format so I think this is another good example of why I cannot please everyone simultaneously.

I've found the tables do come out better on a phone if looking at it on a landscape rather than portrait view. As a workaround though I could always make the tables narrower so that they fit on a phone screen more easily, it would come with the trade off of creating a lot of blank space when looking at it on a laptop, so there is that trade off that would need to be considered.

As ever though I appreciate the feedback and it is taken into consideration.

clairec666

Another minor point - could this thread be pinned to the top of the forum, in the same way that the easy access discussion thread is? This thread rarely drops below mid-way down the first page, even when we're having a dry spell, but if it's pinned it'll be easier for newcomers to find.

Bridlington1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82066375#Comment_82066375

Or it could counterintuitively make it harder to find, unfortunately many sites have a habit of putting ads and generic info in those places so if I'm looking at a wall of threads, I subconsciously skip over the pinned ones and go straight to the top of the list below it.

I don't know how many people are the same, but I certainly find that pinning threads makes it less likely that I'll actually see them, especially if I'm new to a site so that could also be a risk of that approach.

This thread naturally floats close to the top of the page anyway, even in a dry spell it's rare it slips onto p2 and even then it doesn't stay there for that long so I personally see little benefit to pinning it versus leaving as is so personally I would be opposed to pinning it.