A question for the Budget Board

Should we add a Community Sub Forum to the Budget Board?

  • Yes, I want a community sub-forum

  • No, I like the Budget Board the way it is now.


Results are only viewable after voting.
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I think the lack of a full-time, dedicated moderator is what enables some posters (who have never mentioned anything Disney) to come here, post their financial woes, and hopes we will solve all their problems.

Thing is, the Budget Board has evolved into something way different than it's original intention (to plan Disney trips on the cheap, which is what brought me in) -- anymore, it's become something of a place where some are seeking financial advice/airing their financial "dirty laundry" while there are others who come here to vent about anything that bothers them (which was made evident by a thread that was recently locked and caused me some issues because of a comment I made).
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You have a very different definition of what this board is about than I do. It never occurred to me that you were only supposed to discuss ways to save money at Disney on this board. The description of this board says "Learn the 'in and outs' of smart earning, saving, and spending your money. Our motto: 'Any dollar saved or earned is another dollar for Disney!' Be sure to visit our DIScounts Page for more Disney money saving tips!"

If a person want tips on how to get a $300 for a cheaper price or how to make the $25 they have left to feed the family till payday, they should both be able to come here for advice. I do feel that there are quite a few Off-topic posts on this board. I think part of that is that the posters feel comfortable and know a lot of the personalities on this board AND they also feel that these people are more like minded with them. I cant see the harm in having a budget community board.
 
You have a very different definition of what this board is about than I do. It never occurred to me that you were only supposed to discuss ways to save money at Disney on this board. The description of this board says "Learn the 'in and outs' of smart earning, saving, and spending your money. Our motto: 'Any dollar saved or earned is another dollar for Disney!' Be sure to visit our DIScounts Page for more Disney money saving tips!"

If a person want tips on how to get a $300 for a cheaper price or how to make the $25 they have left to feed the family till payday, they should both be able to come here for advice. I do feel that there are quite a few Off-topic posts on this board. I think part of that is that the posters feel comfortable and know a lot of the personalities on this board AND they also feel that these people are more like minded with them. I cant see the harm in having a budget community board.

I'll leave it up to the DIS powers-that-be to determine what course to take with the board (after all, it's their money/website to do with as they see fit). I know if I were the owner, I would be a bit cautious with having financial advice dispensed from my board (coupon clipping is one thing, but sometimes, this board explores what I call "life-changing" financial advice, such as investing, which should be left to financial professionals). Just my take on it -- no need to read into it...

My main beef is that this board, one of the busiest on DISboards.com , has not had the presence of a dedicated host/moderator in well over 2 years and there are some people who take full advantage of that fact and continuously and throw-out the occassional post asking "how to transfer money to their PayPal account quickly".

In fact, it's going-on, right now, as you read this very post.

(The correct answer, BTW, is "buy a GreenDot Money Pak at nearly any convenience store/drug chain", but whenever that option gets suggested, the conversation suddenly takes a different direction by the OP).

But then again, if you're a regular around here, you already know what I mean...
 
I have lurked on this board for many years, although you will notice I just joined a few months ago. I joined when there was a similar issue about what direction this board should take, and at that time I stated that I like it as it is. If something is not of interest to me, i simply skip it. I have found much useful information and good ideas on this board - some related directly to Disney and some not. I say if it isn't broke, don't fix it.
 


It's such a busy board that I can see it benefting from subforums.

I don't see the point of a community subforum though - other than that some folks just feel more comfortable posting in only one board and get to know the people. I have spent many years on forums and I remember my first year or so, that's what I did too. I had no idea who else was posting other than my own forum. Eventually I discovered "view new posts" and found out about everyone else.

What i'd like to see would be several subforums:
- Disney-related budget talk
- Coupons, sales, and freebies

The main forum would be budgeting in general
 
Why doesn't someone just moderate this board and move off topic posts to the community board, with a trailing flag to show that it has been moved?


Seems like if someone actually was involved in moderating this board then this wouldn't be a problem.

It's such a busy board that I can see it benefting from subforums.

I don't see the point of a community subforum though - other than that some folks just feel more comfortable posting in only one board and get to know the people. I have spent many years on forums and I remember my first year or so, that's what I did too. I had no idea who else was posting other than my own forum. Eventually I discovered "view new posts" and found out about everyone else.

What i'd like to see would be several subforums:
- Disney-related budget talk
- Coupons, sales, and freebies

The main forum would be budgeting in general

I would like to see a sub-forum but not as a "community board" type thing. I would really like to see a separation of Disney/Vacation Budgeting and Family/Home/Life budgeting. I have seen so many threads that turn into "why are you coming to a budget board to ask about spending thousands on your Disney vacation?"

I agree with these posts. I would love to seperate Disney budget topics from household budget topics and if we have to have non-budget related stuff on here I would rather have a sub-forum for that as well, though i would prefer to just move it to the community forum in the first place.
 
:thumbsup2

I come here for budget advice, great deals and cool people. In fact, I come her to ESCAPE the CB! :thumbsup2

I would welcome a subforum...with open arms!!
smiley_hug.gif

Glad to see I'm not the only one wh does that. :) I am all for a sub forum too.
 


INHO, I think its best to leave it the way it is. I think fundamental issues prevent the board from ever being 100% on topic, and attempts to create that type of environment will just destroy the appeal of the budget board.
1) Money is involved in EVERYTHING! Maybe you can't buy love, but you can buy/sell pretty much everything else. That fact makes almost any topic budget related. i.e. Should I declaw my cat... / no that's abuse so buy this product/yes that's best if the cat is destroying your property etc..
2) When I look around I see most of "off topic" info in the REPLIES to the posts. We start off talking about what grocery store near disney has the best deals and 2 pages later someone is getting flamed for not putting shopping carts back while simultaneously getting praised for creating jobs, because college kids need to work at supermarkets cleaning up shopping carts or the economy will collapse.

If the concern is getting your users to the correct information... tweak your search. I notice one word key phrases don't yield the results I'm after when I try to search threads. Maybe make more search parameters? ( date range , sort by most replies etc.. )

I happen to work in internet marketing and I'm wondering what the push for relevancy is about ? Just a lot of complaints?
 
I happen to work in internet marketing and I'm wondering what the push for relevancy is about ? Just a lot of complaints?

being in marketing you should have an idea about the important of things being relevant. you aim to hit the intended audience with hopes of gathering more interest.

we come here for budget related things, and some stay for the familiarity of the people who have discussed in the threads. And if some people just want to wish pixie dust on people or know who has filed taxes, they can should that in a sub forum, not the main budget board.

the goal is not 100% about money, it is staying the most relevant about how you budget your money. i.e.if you are looking to purchase or sell some things, tips on saving, investing and or managing. when things do go off topic, people can just say, "lets get back on topic" and if they do, great but if they dont, just move the post to the off topic forum and it can continue there.
 
being in marketing you should have an idea about the important of things being relevant. you aim to hit the intended audience with hopes of gathering more interest.

we come here for budget related things, and some stay for the familiarity of the people who have discussed in the threads. And if some people just want to wish pixie dust on people or know who has filed taxes, they can should that in a sub forum, not the main budget board.

the goal is not 100% about money, it is staying the most relevant about how you budget your money. i.e.if you are looking to purchase or sell some things, tips on saving, investing and or managing. when things do go off topic, people can just say, "lets get back on topic" and if they do, great but if they dont, just move the post to the off topic forum and it can continue there.

well yes , you are correct. However from an internet marketing perspective the end game normally is to create conversions. That can be a product sale, a click on a banner, a sign up to a mailing list... etc. From a search marketing perspective in particular you want the words ( content) on each page of your website to be relevant to the ads that are served up this is a best case scenario for conversions. So lets say a lot of content and links use the word " dog" that can make an ad server put petsmart advertisements on that page. Which is something you want to avoid because for one when that ad is taking up the space of a relevant ad you are losing money for paid search and if the site you created is optimized for terms that have nothing to do with dogs you can loose organic search rankings etc.... Anyway that's kind of irrelevant in this case as I'm pretty sure they aren't thinking of creating a sub forum to aid advertising revenue... I was just curious. :-)
 
I don't think an off-topic subforum is necessary. You already have the Community Board for that purpose.

I very much appreciate the on-topic threads in this forum about saving money, creating budgets and advising, not just "how to save money at Disney" topics. The almost-free ballet slippers thread was a great find.

Most of the members are good about providing advice with a caveat of "check with a professional," so the Disboards aren't at jeopardy of someone giving out bad investment advice, lol.

However, I agree that more moderation is needed on an ongoing basis. I remember when a whole bunch of threads were moved to a more-appropriate forum and some protested, but after looking at the topics, only a few were moved in error (imo.)

Some people are new or careless about the forum they start a topic in initially. They get an idea and just post it here because they already had the forum open, not necessarily because they thought it was the right place. Others see it and think "well, it was okay for them, I'll do the same." By moderating regularly and enforcing the rules fairly/consistently, the "wrong forum" topics will be more manageable.

I don't often go to the Community Board, so I can't speak to the atmosphere there. Could it be that some of the off-topic posts here were deliberate, to try and avoid CB regulars? I have seen that on other boards, where they create little cliques. That is a more difficult issue.
 
I missed the vote, but I would have voted FOR a community sub-forum. It works on the Camping Board, it works on the disABILITIES Board... why wouldn't it work here?

Tuesday at 10:30 PM I see at least a dozen posts that have nothing at all to do with budgeting and would be more appropriate on a Budget Board (because the posters are comfortable here) subforum. How to learn to use a Mac book, how to use Amazon Prime for downloading, Disney wedding...
 
Why doesn't someone just moderate this board and move off topic posts to the community board, with a trailing flag to show that it has been moved?


Seems like if someone actually was involved in moderating this board then this wouldn't be a problem.

I vote for this option.
 
I don't often go to the Community Board, so I can't speak to the atmosphere there. Could it be that some of the off-topic posts here were deliberate, to try and avoid CB regulars? I have seen that on other boards, where they create little cliques. That is a more difficult issue.

deliberately posted in the forum is a blonde joke thread. that was the first thread i see when i logged in. I have yet to go to the community board and at this point I feel there may be more budget speak there. By having any different forums at all creates cliques. So by having a separate OT forum within the forum just gives the budget board cliques the specific place just to chat
 
I vote for leave it the way it is. I've been frequenting this section of the board for years and years and consider the budget board followers my friends - I've gotten great advice, great recommendations, etc. If a post doesn't appeal to me I don't need to click on it nor read it.
 
We don't need another community board - anything that off topic can go to the regular community board. (ok - they are way nastier there, but it is what it is) The mods can hardly police what there is now, I don't think they need another board to watch.)

If there was going to be a subforum then it should be all budget info that is not Disney. I love all of the budget items and have benefited from great deals by reading the budget board regularly, but it would just be easier if when I was planning a Disney vacation , I could go to a "Disney related" budget forum and not have to weed thorugh so many posts. I 'd like to see it separated as "Disney trips on a budget" and "everything else budget"..

I don't really see many topics that are not at all budget related. SOmetimes the title looks that way, but if your read the threads, they almost always are somehow budget related.
 
Pete,

Thanks for asking!

Personally, I come to the Budget Board to find deals at Walt Disney World or the Disney Cruise Line. Lately, I've been discouraged because most of the items on the board, while possibly valuable, have nothing to do with budgeting at Disney. Budgeting for Disney? Yes. Budgeting at Disney? Not so much.

Some have suggested simply enforcing the original meaning of the board. First, this has not worked (for one reason or another) up to this point, so I don't think it would fully work in the future. Second, and as I said before, the non-budgeting at Disney posts may be valuable to others. As you said, the board is a popular one.

I suggest having a separate board. It would allow those that want to budget for Disney to go to their own board, and those that want to budget at Disney to go to their own board. In the end, everyone wins.

Thanks again and keep up the great work.
 
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