I can see why possibly 50% are closed. Going round in circles far away from the OP and less relevant seems to be most common reason which I agree with.
I think if any super fans sat back and took a look at the bigger picture then they may be able to reflect in a better more moderate response.
Monzo are good but not great, however look closely at any organisation and there will be people unhappy with it. Negative experiences are generally louder and at times stronger and sometimes not very pleasant to read.
Closing threads because you disagree with the posts isn’t a good use of your ‘rights’.
My personal view is it seems mods are very strict. It was always going to boil down to this with their heavy handedness and my personal belief is they’ve enforced a level of toxicity without really knowing they were doing it.
See it’s now at a stage where the mods have sided with a small number of toxic Monzo users in the forums and now because of this, the toxicity in the community has taken precidence.
An example of this would be on the /r/Scotland sub-reddit where the mods have been pro-independence and now tory or anti-SNP material is shot down. (this comes from someone who is a proud user of r/Scotland and a proud supporter of SNP and independence). It might not be direct, but there is a bias which slowly over time causes a big problem. Closing one or two threads here and there is how it starts.
The moderators have done this, not the community. I believe it’s similar to why Starling shut their forums down, we’re heading in the same direction and I can pretty much guarantee they’ll be terminating the community within the next year. Since I started using the forum years ago, things have definitely gone south. It’s no longer a light hearted place of content but instead it’s a lot of ‘us vs them’.
No toxicity from me, I’m just explaining how it works from my experience of running online communities and what I’ve observed in my time doing it.
It’s a fair observation to think that of me though. You might be right, even I have a bias that makes my posts what they are. I’ll admit that. But it will be the toxicity of the community to flag and filter my content because they do not agree with it, which will be the outcome. Which is what my whole post is about
I think when you bring in Politics to any discussion it will naturally …unfortunately in these times bring in toxicity , seems very hard nowadays to accept differing views.
I wasn’t thinking that of you , it was merely an observation of how many times you used toxicity and toxic in the first two paragraphs
The “toxic” members are what drive the arguments round and round and round. That’s why threads are locked. That’s why there’s yet another thread about Monzo’s decline or something else negative. Mods are just trying to keep order.
If you banned maybe a dozen people, there would barely be any arguments on here. I’m not saying anyone who dares to say a critical word should go, but some people post here purely to rile.
If you banned maybe a dozen people, there would barely be any arguments on here. I’m not saying anyone who dares to say a critical word should go, but some people post here purely to rile.
So ban the people you do not agree with?
a joke btw
but again I do believe that’s the point of my writing. If you banned those people you mentioned, you might further an agenda unintentionally. And suddenly anyone that disagrees is now toxic.
lol in all seriousness though its fine to disagree , its fine to challenge , its fine to not be able to get people to change to your viewpoint , thats an online “community” its not really the real world where you stand face to face , see peoples expressions so you can judge what they are trying to say
I think the toxicity comes from over flagging and people clearly trolling or making up stories that are then torn apart by logic.
Maybe there should be stricter rules on flagging? Like: you flag three posts in a day and you can’t post for 24 hours?
Or as I said earlier, maybe clearer rules on when a thread will be closed.
But as with many things, it seems Monzo doesn’t have the resources to invest in the forum anymore, so absolutely none of that will happen. At the moment, it’s all down to the goodwill of the Coral Crew and the 2 or 3 staff on the forum.
I think things went sharply downhill for the forum after @simonb left. He was not afraid to say why a thread was closed, but also not afraid to say when Monzo were in the wrong. Now it feels like ‘I don’t like this thread so I’m closing it’ is being done by people who have no day to day running of the forum. Of course, in some cases thread closure is more that justified however.
Flagging has also become a serious issue, they need to look into the weight that flags carry from the various Trust Levels in discourse. Examples of settings available (of course I don’t know what Monzo have theirs set to)
I feel this thread is a more than worthy Topic of discussion and there’s definitely been some food for thought in here. I’ll put together a more comprehensive section of our Code of Conduct to highlight why and when we’ll close a Topic.
As it was detailed, the intention of this Topic by @urban was not to “bash” our Coral Crew as they do so much for the Community wether or not you agree with the decisions or comments they make.
Circular discussions would get closed down and we do cover that already in our Code of Conduct.
Repeatedly making the same arguments, instead of moving on. We’ll lock threads that end up going in circles.
TL:DR
I’ll write more context for closure reasons but circular Topics with no true progression will be closed.
That’s the real shame with the world right now. It’s a shame when it happens here too, especially in the rare instance it appears to flow over into moderation choices.
I don’t understand why so many people can’t seem to grasp that you don’t need to agree with someone’s point of view to accept their view and the validity of it. That’s why so many things seem to depress into a cesspool of toxicity rather than what could be a respectful engagement.
Far too many people care more about telling you why they’re right and you’re not, and if you don’t agree then your opinion is worthless and should be expelled. I have to tread so carefully these days when challenging a friend’s opinion, or offering my own, because we’ve devolved into a society whereby if you don’t agree with them, you’re not their friend, and you’re not a good person.
To be fair, the bad customer service thread wasn’t going anywhere fast — people were just repeating themselves. It was slowly turning into a slanging match.
Perhaps if there was a more obvious, gentle friction still, ‘have you searched’ before people posted it might reduce what can be mostly ‘more noise’. All posts are valid, of course, but regardless of their descent into various levels of toxicity (is that a word?) I’m all for closing posts that are repetitive and are covering topics that have already been discussed.
This keeps the forum open for debate style posts, and new questions that will always arise.
haha true! Sorry about that.
