The MoneySavers' Arms is a special area of the forum set up for any off-topic, non-MoneySaving discussions. The area includes two boards, one for fun chat, the other for more serious discussions:
- The MoneySavers Arms has been set up for fun, more lighter-hearted chat (although do still remember this is a family forum; please keep it clean).
- Discussion Time is for discussion of current affairs and issues. It's only viewable if you're registered and logged into the forum.
The non-MoneySaving boards are add-ons, non-core, here for fun, to build community. In terms of user percentage they are very small, but the resource drain from them is huge, often accounting for 50% of reports to the Forum Team.
The MoneySavers' Arms/Discussion Time are not priority boards, they don't help people save money, and so the resources can't be spent on them. We won't justify deleting posts and cannot explain every decision. This isn't a democracy or a free speech site. I can't afford the legal bills if they were. The forum already costs over a 6 figure sum a year to run. You don't pay to use the site and I never want to charge.
So for this area I've given the Forum Team the following remit: "We can't afford to spend too much time on these. If you have to delete or lock threads on a cursory glance, and focus resources on MoneySaving boards, which provide benefit to many more people and life changing information then so be it."
PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WON'T ALWAYS AGREE
Please behave like adults on these boards. Not everyone will get on, but this is an open site; please don't hurt it by taking up my and my Forum Team's time dealing with your posts.
Please be careful. If your posting privileges are removed, it will be final, for both your main username and any others you may have. See What's "PPR" under some people's usernames? for the reasons you may have been banned.
We will not be engaging in discussion about this, you will be informed via an email to your registered email address and then correspondence will end.
What is acceptable language on the forum? We will follow BBC guidelines for pre-watershed language as indicated on the BBC website.
Is this a Free Speech Forum?No. This isn't a 'free speech' forum. It's important the main purpose of the site is protected, and having a 'say anything' forum does the opposite. There are plenty of other sites with those type of forums available, so if you want hotly contentious debate, we'd prefer you do it there.
So what are the limits?The basic rules are keep it courteous, don't stray too far into counter cultural or near the knuckle territory. The aim is for fun, friendly debate, that doesn't offend others.
In the past the Discussion Time board has become heated and upset people with some polemic debate. This takes too much of our resources away from the core MoneySaving part of the site, therefore quite simply if there are problems in Discussion Time the whole thread will just be deleted to save time, regardless of the issues/opinions being discussed.
It's important to note, correspondence won't be entered into regarding the decision made, again as a resource issue. Also, the decision won't simply be on a 'one post' basis, it will be the overall generality of 'strife' caused. While the aim is that this applies in the MoneySavers' Arms/Discussion Time, if it simply moves elsewhere on the forum, or via PM, the same stance will apply there.
Banned Discussion Topics:Several topics on here have constantly ended in argument and taken up Forum Team and MSE Team time so will be removed automatically without question if they're reported. If you want to discuss these there are many free speech forums that allow people to voice their views. This isn't one of them.
Subjects that are removed when reported to the Forum Team include Madeleine McCann and contentious religious issues.