What is the future of the forum after we join the MoneySupermarket group?

Thanks for some of the kind comments above, now let me answer some questions

1 Will there be adverts?

Will the site start having "google style adverts on it" - no please dont worry as you'll see in the Editorial Code, no one can purchase ad space on here. There won't be any ads.

Please do read the editorial code it answers all these questions

2. Will the Arms and Discussion time disappear?

No and can't imagine why you'd think they would.

No need to worry, again its covered in the Ediorial Code taht states the site will operate consistent with how it works right now - and that's all part of what makes the forum work

3. What else will be changing in the forum?

Let me reiterate the key point from my original post - the forum WONT CHANGE!

4. How watertight is the Editorial Code.

Let me assure you the majority of the negotiation was about ensuring the Editorial Code was watertight.

Any major breach leads to a multi-million pound penalty clause. That wasn't because I think MSM want to breach it, but I wanted to ensure prevention in all eventualities, eg the unlikely event of change of managment there.

The worries you come up with are the same ones as I had in doing this. That's why I've spent over a million pounds of the deal in legal fees to ensure there are no holes in this.

Remember I didnt have to get an Editorial Code, I could've said "it'll all be fine".

Yet we're now locked in to a very public code of how we will work, that's deliberate. This isn't a normal business as some have used analogies - we're highly scrutinised by the press who I am sure would love to catch us out - and even more highly scrutinised by our forum users.

And remember of all the places I sold to, its not 'barclays' or 'lloyds' or 'Wonga' its a price comparison site that I suspect many of you have use anyway.

As for those who've been in buy-outs where things change. They tend not to happen where the buyer is very very keen for the previous managment to stay on board and associated with the company in the way they want me to be.

4. Will it become an "advert arm for MSM".

Again please read the Editorial Code. There is absolutely no favouritism here, MSM is only included where merited.

We have relationships with their competitors too - other comparison sites when they're better and they're a big part of the site continuing to work - do you really think they'd stand for it, never mind our users.

5. How come MSM says improve 'direct to site revenues' if no favouritism.

Good question. That means people who come to them (and us once we're in teh group) and transact without going via Google, as Google is launching its own comparison.

The main relationship MSE has with MSM is they are are key provider of links to product providers (the affiliate links with the *) not to their own site.

You dont see that they're the provider, as its irrelevant as you get to the same page on the product providers site. This is the mainstay of our relationship with MSM - not about linking to their actual comparisons.

This deal is about them securing that provider of links revenue and using their technology expertise to bring more people to this site - an easy win onas we've a lot to learn on that side of things. That's the key driver of this, not about us suddenly using their tools for everything.

6. The "90% of info comes from the forum anyway".

That is absolute tosh and hugely insulting to my team. The forum is great, but it ain't close to what we're doing and the amount of checking, researching, analysing, tool building, writing, rewriting, rewriting again that we do.

It does often provide us with good case studies and the odd good idea or tip - and we're very greatful (as does faccebook and twitter) and the wow deals feed.

Yet it does exactly the same for hundreds of journalists - we dont have any special access to the forum. I know many who trawl here daily for stories - generating a lot more than we do from it - because this is an unparralleled resource for human interest stories (which isnt our style)

The only difference is we pay to keep it free, for a lawyer to deal with the 100s of legal letters we get a year with threats to sue us over content, that we fight off, for the servers, for a dedicated developer, and forum manager and team.

My team and I work incredibly hard to produce guides, daily updated articles, product analysis, mental health booklets, scores of tools, images, weekly email and more. I'm not doing the forum down, I love it, but its far from the engine room of the MSE main site.

7. The forums contibution.

The forum is hugely important to me and I'm very proud of it.

Yet (and we've tried) it is not a huge driver of traffic to the main site, and has an enormous bounce rate (ie people come from google and leave within seconds) and is a huge cost sink.

However it is an important entity in its own right. I've always ensured that even though its never been close to covering its costs (and even with skimlinks is very far from it) its always been resourced and cherished.

And even though some of the comments I've read in here may tempt me not too - the forum is too great a resource for consumers to allow anything to interfere with that. I wont allow it to happen and I know MSM don't want it to happen either.

______________________

I hope i've answered your questions. This really is a non-issue in terms of the forum (and mostly for the main site too except we are hoping for much improved navigation and tools)

Yet some people will not believe it, and want to see the worst. I can't change that, but I can ask that you react to what happens, not to what you predict happens.

Again the proof of the pudding is in the eating, not in the forum discussion about whether people think it'll taste nice or not (apologies for the stretched analogy)

Martin

PS As for people making nasty remarks about my wife, nasty remarks about anyone aren't welcome on this forum. Thankfully I haven't seen them, but thank you to those who have reported them. I consider them to be a "request to leave the site" and I'm sure my forum team will grant that request