Review of Posting Guidelines on Askaboutmoney

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

This useful discussion was started off by Legend99 and descended quickly into fighting and name calling, all of which has been deleted.

We don't discuss individual editing or moderating decisions, but we are happy, from time to time, to review the moderation policy. This is a good thread to do it in.

Please keep the discussion civil.

My personal view is that Askaboutmoney is a serious questions and answers forum. Those of us who wish to ask and answer such questions find the rubbishy posts very distracting. I believe that they damage the reputation of Askaboutmoney.

We can ban them altogether. Or if there is a huge demand for them, we can include them in the Craic.

But why can those who see some value or entertainment in these posts not go to P45.ie where there are thousands of such musings?

If we can have a civil discussion, the moderators will review the views expressed and make the final decision.

Brendan

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

Can we keep the discussion on topic please? We are trying to inform the moderatorship policy of Askaboutmoney. Don't use the thread just to abuse other posters and raise all your complaints.

I will review the thread later and delete all posts which make no contribution to the subject matter on hand.

Could anyone who is attacked please hold back from responding in kind? We don't want another meaningless discussion. Abusive posts will be deleted. I will not be wasting my time editing out the offensive bits. The entire post will be deleted.

Brendan

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

Firstly I wouldn't visit so regularly if there wasn't also an entertainment aspect to the site.

Secondly I do not like the way posts are edited or deleted without a PM to say what has been done. I have often had the titles of my threads changed.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

AAM is now a big place. I am sure that the work load on the moderators has grown as the site grew. Because of that I am very slow to criticise how they run the site. Having said that there is really very little that I see to complain about. There have been threads closed that I was enjoying but I could always see the reason why they were closed (even if I did not fully agree with it). The one thing I have not seen is moderators abusing their position to score points of win arguments with other posters. Some have been accused of this and I find that utterly unfair.
What I would say to moderators is that even though you guys do most (if not all) of the work here there is a real sense of community on AAM and if posters like Lenend99 etc didn’t care they wouldn’t be posting on this thread. I do think that moderators can be a bit defensive, and in this case a bit flippant, about concerns voiced by people who have been contributing here for a long time. I understand why moderators must get a pain in their backsides from time to time but a bit more understanding might not go astray.
In the few years that I have been posting here the site has grown and developed and I think that icantbelieveit makes some good points in his/her earlier post.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

Why not extend the LOS and Craic rules to the entire 'Don't askaboutmoney' section i.e. access is only for regular AAM members/contributors, with a specified number of posts, currently 50, (perhaps a %, or all, of these should have to have been posted in the financial section?) who are familiar with the Posting guidelines.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

That's alright for people like me who posted enough crap in LOS before the rules changed to get 50 posts up but what about the newbies? The one thing that the current rules have done is keep posters' from posting under numerous names in LOS (which was a problem in the past). There are plenty of posters who are really helpful in the DAAM sections but post very little above the line. I don't think that sort of contribution should be closed off.
Therefore I think that the current system is about right.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

As one of those who tends to post on mainly non-financial topics (my only real financial expertise being in sharing my tale of woe re managing money badly and ending up in debt and how I'm dealing with that) I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand I do enjoy the non-financial questions but on the other I don't really like a lot of the threads which fit more into the category of "I'm bored in work, let's start a thread to find out more about each other". I used to post on ivenus.com a lot but stopped, partially because I got a bit older while the crowd there seemed to be getting younger but mainly because I was sick of the "what you doing for the weekend" type threads. As has been said there are lots of other places for those kind of threads. Lots of people (myself included) who post on AAM also post on boards. I don't see any reason why AAM should be catering for every single type of discussion. As someone (Brendan I think) said above AAM is a forum for questions and answers and I take that to also mean "not just for chatting".

Perhaps a distinction could be made between those threads which are asking for help with a question and those which are more just to while away the time (the creme egg thread for example). I wouldn't be sorry to see that type of thread disappear or be referred to other more appropriate websites (although have to admit maybe choosing the creme egg thread as an example was wrong as I found that quite amusing. Perhaps occasionally threads such as that could be allowed but moved to The Craic).

There is plenty of opportunity for people's personalities and humour to come through in the course of answering "real" questions which is, I think, enough to keep the community aspect alive and well.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

I think this thread is trying to determine exactly how "freely...it is intended" for AAM to be used.

For what it's worth I find the questions and answers format very entertaining and the more "fluff" postings there are the less likely I am to come back as the amount of posts to wade through to the interesting stuff is too many.

Re another point someone made about thread titles being changed, that's one of the things I like most about AAM - that I can see immediately what a thread is about. Can't stand thread titles like "Does anyone know..." with the rest of the question in the thread itself.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

Thanks Janet,

Brendan said earlier that he was going to edit out material so just ignore the extraneous stuff for now.

Does anyone have any comments on the substantive issue?

aj

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

I wasn't going to post here, but then saw the invitation from Brendan above. I have a few observations based on all that's going on recently.

1. I don't care how people eat their creme eggs, nor do I even like porridge never mind how people eat theirs either. So, I don't understand how one discussion was allowed continue, while the other was stifled. Neither, in my view of the excellence of AAM, belonged or should have been allowed continue.

2. To my mind, many people here are overly sensitive to comments made and to moderators decisions. Forums are impersonal formats of communication, and people should allow leeway for comments that may appear not to be to their liking. No one knows who you are, so don't take things so personally.

3. I look at AAM as more of a learning tool rather than anything else. I've learned loads here, and have passed on one or two tips myself in my time. However, seeing how other people eat their creme eggs, or how many bugs people found under a tree stump isn't adding to anyones learning.

To the moderators and administrators, most of us here appreciate the service provided by AAM.

I personally would suggest banning the people who constantly question decisions etc. There are 3 or 4 at the moment who are always doing it and are wasting peoples time, either having to moderate these posts or have to read over them before moving on to more worthwhile posts.

Maybe, to enforce the community spirit of AAM we can have a vote on these top 3 or 4 names and if they get more than x number of votes, bar them completely from AAM.

I find myself that the amount of unnecessary posts is increasing, not adding further value, and is causing me to use the facility less and less, unfortunately.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

Hi, feel free to delete this Brendan, it's probably a stupid thing to ask anyway.
How exactly does it all work. I know absolutely nothing about the workings of this, except - Brendan started a site a few years back, and as more people that logged in, he needed moderators to keep an eye on things, and these people are unpaid. So, now there is loads of people here, and there is all sorts of rubbish posts starting up. Am I right so far?
So, how do the other websites survive, do you get any income from this increase in people logging in? I know we don't pay a fee, that's probably why it's so popular, is there any other way of making money from this? How exactly does it all work and could you potentially start paying the moderators (because the more rubbish, the more work they have to do)
I know if I had invested so much time and money into a thing, I wouldn't want it turning into a load of crap like P45 and I can totally understand where Brendan is coming from, it's like his baby.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

I think this site is moderated very well and generally I have had no complaints about threads being removed. (BTW - did find the porridge one interesting as try to have it most mornings and would love to see how other jazz it up but not heartbroken it's closed either)

Do find the non-financial questions very handy but often do wonder when to post in misc. non-financial questions as opposed to the other non-financial threads. THis is maybe the one title that may be misleading to people as it is a thin line between something going her or LOS.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

pricilla said:

Brendan started a site a few years back, and as more people that logged in, he needed moderators to keep an eye on things, and these people are unpaid.

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Correct.

So, now there is loads of people here, and there is all sorts of rubbish posts starting up. Am I right so far?

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Well it's hard to objectively gauge the amount of rubbish being posted but some people feel that there has been an increase.

do you get any income from this increase in people logging in?

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No.

is there any other way of making money from this? How exactly does it all work and could you potentially start paying the moderators.

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There is no plan to make money from the site or remunerate moderators.

The fact that the site costs (Brendan and voluntary donors last time around) money to run and the moderators are unpaid is not really the issue here. The issue is the editorial/moderation policies and the real or perceived problems with these as they stand.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

The issue as I understand it, is to what extent should AAM allow discussion about non-financial topics & how should such topics be moderated?

This seems to have generated a parallel discussion on moderators policy & possible abuse of powers, but is probably as a result of mis-understandings over the general policy as stated above.

AAM has added don't ask about money, the craic, LOS, etc. to cater for this, which I think is good. The problem I see it that it is trying to apply the same high standards of moderation to these other forums.

A solution would be to have different policies for each section (and possibly different moderators) ?

The danger is that askaboutmoney no longer becomes a financial issues site.

If it's a growing pains issue, some lessons might be learned from boards.ie
- each forum has it's own posting guidelines
- each forum has it's own moderators
- some forums even require membership or to be pre-approved (e.g. soccer)
(the result is an unevenness in the quality of the forums, and different sub communities)

On the changing thread title issue, I understand why it's done, but I find it annoying when a thread I'm following seems to disappear.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

I have recently found this site and find it invaluable for information on many topics in relation to house building and buying.
I have no interst in some of the silly posts which appear from time to time, so don't really mind if moderators choose to delete them.
I find the site is well run and doens't allow trolling or personal attacks or multiple user names so I fo one think the editorial policy is spot on.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

tiger said:

On the changing thread title issue, I understand why it's done, but I find it annoying when a thread I'm following seems to disappear.

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I must check if vBulletin has an option or hack that allows the original thread title to be retained for reference purposes - e.g. displays the new thread title but includes a reference to what it was previously/originally known as. On the other hand if people are interested in specific threads then they can subscribe to them to get email and/or PM notifications of changes/additions.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

Brendan said:

Has the sense of community been damaged by heavy handed moderation?

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Yes. It's one of the main reasons I've chosen not to post here in quite some time.

Re: Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions posts

Brendan, imo, abandon guideline 13 altogether or abandon the don't AAM section ( which I think would be a mistake ) - you can't have the two together. For example the op in the tree trunk post was quoted "the purpose of AAM was to ask and answer questions about personal finance in Ireland " - surely that is the purpose of the AAM section on the AAM site otherwise why would you have a dont AAM section in the first place - the op didn't put the thread in the AAM section , it was put in a section of don't AAM which is a substantial part of the overall site .

I like this site and think for the most part you and the mods. have got it right but in the overall context of the two main categories, AAM and dont AAM , guideline 13 just doesn't add up.

My 2cent:

I see no problems with AAM, it strikes quite a good balance between community and just being pure reference site. I also have no problems with the mods either, I think they do a great job.

My suggestion is to just make the criac a free-for-all forum where all the crap goes, completely unmoderated. Anyone can post there. At the end of every week just prune it back to 3 pages. Send all the unwanted threads there from the other forums, with a fist of iron.

I've seen this aproach work quite well on other BBS. (Totse.com, one of the oldest boards on the internet has adopted this with their half-baked forum)

Posting Guideline 13 which was totally out of date has now been removed.

Non financial questions and answers have been welcome on Askaboutmoney for some time.

Brendan