Liberty Insurance AMA

Barry Badrinath

I would like to use this forum to give my feedback on the recent "AMA" with Liberty Insurance in the Ask Me Anything forum.

Link

http://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057633673


I have a few issues with it, many may disagree with me but here they are. I would particularly be interested in a response from the person who thought it was a good idea to host it.


Giving a company who already has a dedicated Sponsored Talk To Forum, more exposure.....why?

On the surface, it is nice of Boards HQ by either approaching Liberty Insurance about taking part or that Boards HQ facilitated a request by Liberty Insurance to host it. It makes sound corporate sense but in a purely user based sense.....it annoyed the conkers off me.

In my opinion, the decision to use the "AMA" Forum for an obvious marketing ploy was poppycock and took away from the entertaining and genuine AMA threads. It was disrespectful to think that the community would respond positively to such an overt attempt to drum up business for Liberty Insurance under the guise of an innocent "AMA" for younger drivers.

As a simple Boards lay person, I would consider that a sticky thread in their own sponsored forum would do exactly the same if not a better job. ESPECIALLY since they were only permitted or interested in answering certain questions.

I would also accept the placement of a Liberty Insurance sticky to be located in the Insurance section in the Motors Forum.

It certainly was not appropriate for the Ask Me Anything Forum...as it was more of an "ask me specifics and I'll ignore you" forum.

Now, before my points are brushed aside by "the management" by using lines like "the AMA'er was being harassed" or "the AMA'er can't answer broadly or specifically...for reasons".

What was he there for? To help young drivers? Nope. To answer reasonable questions? Nope. To get Liberty Insurance money? Yep.

Let me plainly ask, why bother doing the AMA in the first place if he CAN'T answer questions.

Sure, he even wanted to answer questions by PM, not very AMA like.

Another bad decision, Gearbest was bad enough. Now silliness like this. Are other companies who have a Talk To forum going to be popping up in AMA with question restrictions too?

Can the Community Managers for once get on side with the Community instead of getting weak at the knees at the flash of a Euro.

I like this site but I hate seeing something I like, slowly die.

I'd like an honest, no BS response that doesn't point fingers at the user first.

Thank you

Lovely Bloke

It shouldn't have been called AMA (Anything?!). It should have been called AMALOSQTIMATINRAARIS

Ask Me A List Of Specific Questions That I Might Answer, This Is Not Really An Ad Really I Swear

Bit of a mouthful, sure, but a lot more reflective of what actually went on.

It's high time the office stopped trying to pull the wool over user's eyes, and outright lying to them.

It's unbecoming of the overall Boards.ie legacy.

Boards.ie: Niamh

Thanks for your feedback Senor Fancy Pants. Instead of referring to me as "The Management" or "The Community managers" I'd appreciate if you'd just use my name - it's Niamh

Liberty Insurance wanted to engage with the community in a way that wasn't just customer service Q&As or banner advertising and an AMA with one of their insurance experts was suggested as a possibility. He was there to hopefully educate people on how to reduce their insurance costs. Perhaps they hadn't anticipated so many questions that they would be unable to answer and that is both of our faults and something we'll make sure doesn't happen in the future in sponsored threads, AMAs or anything else. Part of your issue with it appears to be that it was in the wrong forum; AMA instead of in their own Liberty forum. We thought about both and chose to put it in the AMA forum. Some users found the AMA who may never have known of the existence of the Liberty Insurance forum. That is not a bad thing for those users, for Liberty Insurance or even for Boards in general. Nobody cared in March (only five months ago) that we had a Bank of Ireland AMA in the AMA forum - perhaps it was the angle that that one had that made it different? Or is it something else?

I don't agree that it has taken anything away from other AMA threads. They are still standalone, fantastic threads. People still read the ones they are interested in and disregard the others. We've had some fantastic AMAs and I plan to organise some more as soon as possible.

Boards is first and foremost a community. Without you lot, there would be no need for a community manager or any of the other office staff. But the reality is there is a need for them and also a need to keep the site running which does not happen for free. We're trying to balance between keeping the community happy and keeping some cash coming in. Sometimes we get it wrong, it is a learning curve and you guys waste no time in telling us when we're off the mark. Thank you for that.

IITYWYBMAD

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Thanks for your feedback Senor Fancy Pants. Instead of referring to me as "The Management" or "The Community managers" I'd appreciate if you'd just use my name - it's Niamh

Liberty Insurance wanted to engage with the community in a way that wasn't just customer service Q&As or banner advertising and an AMA with one of their insurance experts was suggested as a possibility. He was there to hopefully educate people on how to reduce their insurance costs. Perhaps they hadn't anticipated so many questions that they would be unable to answer and that is both of our faults and something we'll make sure doesn't happen in the future in sponsored threads, AMAs or anything else. Part of your issue with it appears to be that it was in the wrong forum; AMA instead of in their own Liberty forum. We thought about both and chose to put it in the AMA forum. Some users found the AMA who may never have known of the existence of the Liberty Insurance forum. That is not a bad thing for those users, for Liberty Insurance or even for Boards in general. Nobody cared in March (only five months ago) that we had a Bank of Ireland AMA in the AMA forum - perhaps it was the angle that that one had that made it different? Or is it something else?

I don't agree that it has taken anything away from other AMA threads. They are still standalone, fantastic threads. People still read the ones they are interested in and disregard the others. We've had some fantastic AMAs and I plan to organise some more as soon as possible.

Boards is first and foremost a community. Without you lot, there would be no need for a community manager or any of the other office staff. But the reality is there is a need for them and also a need to keep the site running which does not happen for free. We're trying to balance between keeping the community happy and keeping some cash coming in. Sometimes we get it wrong, it is a learning curve and you guys waste no time in telling us when we're off the mark. Thank you for that.

Hi Niamh,

Was this part of some commercial arrangement with Liberty?

The comparison with the BOI AMA is way off the mark as it was managed by a free advisory service for business on energy and all questions were addressed.

Boards.ie: Niamh

IITYWYBMAD wrote: »

Hi Niamh,

Was this part of some commercial arrangement with Liberty?

Everything any company does with us on the site is part of a commercial arrangement. It was a somewhat new departure for us to do one in the AMA forum.

IITYWYBMAD wrote: »

The comparison with the BOI AMA is way off the mark as it was managed by a free advisory service for business on energy and all questions were addressed.

Thanks, that was what I was asking in my question above. Although you could say that the Liberty AMA was also a free advice service - some people got that value from it by asking questions about their own personal situations.

Starokan

I can't see a problem with Boards having an AMA with Liberty, if they pay for the privilege all the better as money obviously keeps the site going which benefits every user.

What was needed here was a better performance from Liberty, they did the AMA because they wanted more exposure , like their dedicated forum it was an advertising experiment designed to promote their brand and get more customers.

To be honest I think they underestimated the depth of disgust people feel towards insurers at present due to the insane increases we are all experiencing. Sometimes I think the companies advertising here don't give a toss about the members and their views, Liberty messed this up not Boards, they could have engaged and given honest answers as to the reasons. FFS if its company policy to do something just say it, if prices are up because of some bonds scenario just say it instead of just ignoring or evading. There was another shambles of a thread recently with Tesco Mobile, same thing, evasion or just avoidance.

In short no problem with the AMA, let as many companies pay for one as possible, if not interesting no one will view them, I would advocate holding more than one AMA at a time to be honest.

Perhaps boards needs to be more engaged in letting the companies know the type of ****storm they can sometimes face and you could argue that the company should consider removing the likes of Tesco and Liberty for an altogether appalling use of the sites resources but given the fact that the cash they inject is essential that is not likely to happen and I can understand that to be honest. The site can only survive through everyone subscribing or through advertising and in today's world of free social media the chances of increased subscriptions are slim so the money must come from somewhere.

Barry Badrinath

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Thanks for your feedback Senor Fancy Pants. Instead of referring to me as "The Management" or "The Community managers" I'd appreciate if you'd just use my name - it's Niamh

Hi Niamh, thanks for the reply.

First off, I used the terms "The Management" and "The Community managers" as I see "Employee" under your name so was not sure what to be addressing you as. I didn't want to say "Niamh" as I wasn't sure if it was your idea or not either. I wasn't being an ass even though it may have looked like that.

Just to respond to your points. Before that let me say, I am not, never have been and obviously never will be a customer of Liberty Insurance.

I have no axe to grind against them but just the manner in which this AMA was conducted by both parties.

Advertisement saturation is enveloping the site. I understand money needs to be made but there has to be a limit. Inventing new ways to force it on your community is frustrating.

Sponsored Forums, sponsored threads, sponsored posts, banner ads....what other advertising methods do you guys offer to clients? No need to answer that, it's not an AMA .

I'm just hoping that personal information and email addresses are not being sold to third parties through Distilled Media etc to keep the lights on.....tongue in cheek rhetorical comment.

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Liberty Insurance wanted to engage with the community in a way that wasn't just customer service Q&As or banner advertising and an AMA with one of their insurance experts was suggested as a possibility.

If Liberty Insurance wanted to engage with the community, that's fine. The problem I have are the restrictions which were put in place throughout the course of the thread. It did Liberty Insurance no favours and frankly, it didn't do the site any either.

Look, the community here are not inept fcuktards sitting on chicken coops with one finger up their nose and another one pointing at the bright hot thing in the sky.

I can only presume someone thought that the "best" way to "subtley" get more exposure would be through an AMA. No one pays attention to banner ads and the Talk To forum obviously isnt having the desired effect.

They didn't want a true AMA as they were correctly pre empting, genuine questions which they would be unwilling to answer.....so much for wanting to engage with the community.

The way around that was to target a specific market, the learner driver, which would tailor the AMA in Liberty's favour. It would easily shut down questions which were not relevant to learner drivers.

Call it like it was, don't imply I am reading too much into it. That's what happened.

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

He was there to hopefully educate people on how to reduce their insurance costs

Well, not from what I saw. I gave my details and asked how I could get a cheaper quote. Many others did too. Do you stand by your above quote?

Barry Badrinath

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Perhaps they hadn't anticipated so many questions that they would be unable to answer and that is both of our faults and something we'll make sure doesn't happen in the future in sponsored threads, AMAs or anything else

I highly doubt it. Are you saying that Liberty Insurance contacted you looking to engage with the community, agreed to an AMA, structured it in their favour but did not anticipate genuine questions?

Seriously?


"...and something we'll make sure doesn't happen in the future in sponsored threads, AMAs or anything else"


Am I translating the above as your intention to put caveats of topics and questions on the opening post of future company AMAS?

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Part of your issue with it appears to be that it was in the wrong forum; AMA instead of in their own Liberty forum. We thought about both and chose to put it in the AMA forum.

Not an issue, merely an appropriate alternative location as it was not a bonafide AMA.

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Some users found the AMA who may never have known of the existence of the Liberty Insurance forum. That is not a bad thing for those users, for Liberty Insurance or even for Boards in general.

While I can't argue with that, I can't dismiss the ineffectiveness of the AMA and the ignorance in some parts of the AMA'er.

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Nobody cared in March (only five months ago) that we had a Bank of Ireland AMA in the AMA forum - perhaps it was the angle that that one had that made it different? Or is it something else?

I presume you mean me when you say "nobody". I was not aware of it until now. Was it a fairly run and transparent AMA?

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

I don't agree that it has taken anything away from other AMA threads.

For me it has. The previous AMA's which I have read and enjoyed were hosted by people who were not being paid to be there. They were imparting their own conscious thoughts, experiences and opinions of their subject matter. They still answered questions as much as their boundaries allowed but they also weren't looking to profit from the AMA.

Can you not see the problem with companies using the AMA forum for business purposes?

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

They are still standalone, fantastic threads. People still read the ones they are interested in and disregard the others.

True

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

We've had some fantastic AMAs and I plan to organise some more as soon as possible.

Excellent. I know that people previously volunteered in to host possible interesting AMA's. Was that list dismissed or exhausted before deciding to run the Liberty Insurance one.

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Boards is first and foremost a community. Without you lot, there would be no need for a community manager or any of the other office staff

Why did Dav decide to turn on the community and accuse them of harassing the host? Most of the questions were reasonable. The fact that Liberty had no intention of answering them does not make the questions harassing in nature. That was Liberty and Boards fault, not ours.

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

But the reality is there is a need for them and also a need to keep the site running which does not happen for free.

I have no problem with Boards employees.

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

We're trying to balance between keeping the community happy and keeping some cash coming in.

Catch 22, huh? How did boards manage before the merger pre DM? There is a limit on advertising avenues. We all know it's either shut the site down or charge a subscription fee for all.......is that in the pipeline if alternative advertising methods are exhausted?

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Sometimes we get it wrong, it is a learning curve and you guys waste no time in telling us when we're off the mark. Thank you for that.

I've no problem with people getting things wrong. Sure I'm wrong a lot.

We mainly tell you because we enjoy the site so we will tell you when we don't enjoy it too. It's not an excuse to piss and moan but to compromise.

All I want (and hopefully others) is not have the wool pulled over our eyes, and Boards putting a penny in our hands but telling us it's a fiver.

Be honest, keep the level headed communication up and treat us like adults not gombeen revenue generators for companies that pay you to suck our brains out.

Thanks Niamh, I'll be quiet now.

Barry Badrinath

J.pilkington wrote: »

I can only imagine that if dav is reading this thread he will feel leaving this site was the best desicion he ever made,

ie not having to deal with awkward anonymous posters who publicly attack staff members actions (you surely must realise that your comments / personal attack are hurtful as you are questioning / attacking a persons professional judgement) and not only that but this anonymous poster repeats the attack via multiple 800 word replies where they twist that employees replies and the employee has no choice but to be polite in their reply and thank the anonymous poster(a recent reg too(like myself!)) for the attack. You just can't win with some people.

Dav, enjoy that Friday night beer, Niamh you have the patience of a saint, life is too short to be dealing with crap like this

It's not a personal attack on Niamh, I would hope she wouldn't see it as such. What an idiotic statement to make J.pilkington. Jaysis; I hope I don't feel you are personally abusing me with that post. That would be awful.

This is genuine feedback not a bitchfest. If you have no opinion on the subject matter, maybe you should go somewhere else.

Calling me awkward and insinuating that I am repeatedly attacking Niamh anonymously is incorrect.

The beauty of this place is that the people who run it; will field questions from the posters. They reply to clear things up then posters can reply if they want further clarification.

Niamh and the team have faced a lot worse than anything I have queried, this will be locked and forgotten about pretty soon. I doubt it would faze her one bit.

Since you are a self confessed new reg, welcome to the site. I've been here since '07 in some form or another. Feedback has always been welcome, even tough feedback.

Are Boards obliged to give you an answer? No but all most of us ever want is a straight, honest one.

Now, enjoy your weekend J.pilkington, don't let lil ole me rustle your jimmies.

Wibbs

J.pilkington wrote: »

Dav, enjoy that Friday night beer, Niamh you have the patience of a saint, life is too short to be dealing with crap like this

I hate to break it to you "recent reg", but that's part of her job and what she signed up for. Or are you happy with Boards encouraging using AMA's as commercial advertising without y'know answering actual questions the community pose?

I have zero problem with any company having a sponsored AMA, if they actually answer the obvious damned questions put to them. Liberty didn't and they did little for confidence in their company, the insurance industry in general and Boards.ie for hosting it. Was there any point in whatever meeting held that someone had the thought that "hmmmm insurance, particularly car insurance has shot up in cost, maybe this AMA might cause trouble if we don't address that"?

That thread was summed up for me by

CantGetNoSleep wrote:

So ask me anything as long as it is an easy question where we have a pre-prepared corporate response?

Pelvis Parsley

It was like something that was thrown together by a couple of interns, on the part of both Liberty AND boards.

D0NNELLY

This is a bloated vbulletin site. Just trim the fat from the office, move to somewhere with lower rents, forget about the 6 yr old new site, have one dev and that's it's..

no need to envelope the site with covert advertising.

Pelvis Parsley

D0NNELLY wrote: »

This is a bloated vbulletin site. Just trim the fat from the office, move to somewhere with lower rents, forget about the 6 yr old new site, have one dev and that's it's..

no need to envelope the site with covert advertising.

They did it before, when they started monetising it first. It was grand. Wages were paid, hardware was sourced, even the admins made a few bob (the original admins and shareholders, that is, not the voluntary lot that fulfil the role today).

Then they decided to move into a prime price of city centre real estate-worthy of Apple, with hipster nonsense on the walls and take on reams of people, to drum up sales leads and design sites that no one asked for.

(It's a corporate, rather than just a boards thing, there's a ridiculous amount of people working for thejournal etc. also)

As a result of these ongoing and in my view unsustainable overheads, it seems many parts of the DM empire are losing money. Pressure is brought to bear to make the site wash its face, and we end up with unjustifiable nonsense like wall to wall ads, stealth hyperlinks, sponsored posts, talk to forums who won't, Gearbest, and this latest silliness.

LoLth

Guys, this thread was started for feedback on the Liberty Insurance AMA . Some drift to AMA threads in general is to be expected but lets not turn it into a "lets-slate-boards-in-general". we've had several of those threads recently and it detracts from the actual new feedback that is being given.

despite SFP's claim this thread wont be locked and forgotten about as it does provide genuinely useful feedback on the recent AMA. please dont detract from the OPs contribution by diluting the topic under discussion.

Smondie

There is zero interest in posters experience on this site. Cash is king and the posters an inconvinence. I look forward to more sponsored AMA's.

LoLth

I just posted not to take this into a general "lets bash boards" direction. And tagging "i look forward to sponsored AMA's" is just playing the rules.

If you wont participate in feedback the way it is intended, then please dont participate at all.

cyning

I really like the AMA forum and have no problems with sponsored AMAs either: like the BOI one. I enjoyed that. They engaged, didn't cherry pick their questions (and I don't expect every question to be answered). It's just this wasn't an AMA. It was more like sponsored content. But it shouldn't mean there is never a sponsored AMA again. But there should be clear rules put in place so as not to have a repeat of this again. Something was tried, it went badly, hopefully lessons learned

kneemos

An AMA thread is just that,ask me anything,I suppose they're not obliged to answer,and often don't.
Struck me as odd when I saw it and it probably detracts from the spirit of the forum . It's yonks since anybody started a thread in there,can't believe it has many followers or they paid much for the privilege.

Boards.ie: Niamh

Senor Fancy Pants wrote: »

Hi Niamh, thanks for the reply.

First off, I used the terms "The Management" and "The Community managers" as I see "Employee" under your name so was not sure what to be addressing you as. I didn't want to say "Niamh" as I wasn't sure if it was your idea or not either. I wasn't being an ass even though it may have looked like that.

Not at all, I just prefer Niamh - no one else is likely to be replying to this thread at the moment, just myself. Contrary to popular belief there is no large, faceless management team here

Advertisement saturation is enveloping the site. I understand money needs to be made but there has to be a limit. Inventing new ways to force it on your community is frustrating.

Sponsored Forums, sponsored threads, sponsored posts, banner ads....what other advertising methods do you guys offer to clients? No need to answer that, it's not an AMA .

You may not believe it but we are doing our very best not to interrupt the user experience with any of the advertising so that if users don't want to engage with it, they don't have to. We've avoided pop-ups and autoplay audio videos for this reason and will continue to keep them as separate as possible. Sponsored content is clearly marked as such so that if users want to, they can avoid it entirely.

I'm just hoping that personal information and email addresses are not being sold to third parties through Distilled Media etc to keep the lights on.....tongue in cheek rhetorical comment.

I know you aren't being serious but for anyone in any doubt we are a) not a part of Distilled Media any more (check out their website if you don't believe me) and b) very definitely NOT in the business of selling any emails or personal information. We take user privacy very seriously.

Look, the community here are not inept fcuktards sitting on chicken coops with one finger up their nose and another one pointing at the bright hot thing in the sky.

I can only presume someone thought that the "best" way to "subtley" get more exposure would be through an AMA. No one pays attention to banner ads and the Talk To forum obviously isnt having the desired effect.

No one was trying to be subtle or sneak something by the users...it was very clearly a Liberty Insurance AMA, manned by a member of their staff. And I know that our users are smart, in fact probably smarter than your average user on other sites.

They didn't want a true AMA as they were correctly pre empting, genuine questions which they would be unwilling to answer.....so much for wanting to engage with the community.

The way around that was to target a specific market, the learner driver, which would tailor the AMA in Liberty's favour. It would easily shut down questions which were not relevant to learner drivers.

Interesting suggestion.

Well, not from what I saw. I gave my details and asked how I could get a cheaper quote. Many others did too. Do you stand by your above quote?

I do still stand by this as that was the intention for the AMA at the outset. I can't tell you why the question you asked wasn't answered because I simply don't know - it would seem like an opportunity missed to impart some insurance knowledge.

Boards.ie: Niamh

Senor Fancy Pants wrote: »

I highly doubt it. Are you saying that Liberty Insurance contacted you looking to engage with the community, agreed to an AMA, structured it in their favour but did not anticipate genuine questions?

Seriously?

I'm not sure in what way you mean it was structured in their favour? It was set up for questions about insurance from young drivers. We probably should have narrowed that down in the OP to what kinds of questions they were there to answer and what constitutes a 'young driver' and, in hindsight, perhaps should have versed them in the questions they were likely to be asked other than the ones they were hoping to be asked.

"...and something we'll make sure doesn't happen in the future in sponsored threads, AMAs or anything else"

Am I translating the above as your intention to put caveats of topics and questions on the opening post of future company AMAS?

Not exactly, see above, we will be more focused on the subject, e.g. Ask me anything about how to reduce the cost of my insurance rather than ask me anything about insurance for young drivers. At least then everyone knowns what is what from the first post. Also to advise whoever is taking on the questions of all of the possibilities, good and bad.

I presume you mean me when you say "nobody". I was not aware of it until now. Was it a fairly run and transparent AMA?

I genuinely didn't mean you specifically, I mean it didn't raise any eyebrows or Feedback posts at the time. I think you can see for yourself that it was transparent and fairly run.

Can you not see the problem with companies using the AMA forum for business purposes?

I can see the issue that you have with it.

Excellent. I know that people previously volunteered in to host possible interesting AMA's. Was that list dismissed or exhausted before deciding to run the Liberty Insurance one.

The list has certainly not been exhausted yet. I'll be contacting some people on the list as well as looking for new applicants. These more personal ones are not in the same category as the Liberty AMA so it was not a case of having them on to fill a gap or anything like that.

Why did Dav decide to turn on the community and accuse them of harassing the host? Most of the questions were reasonable. The fact that Liberty had no intention of answering them does not make the questions harassing in nature. That was Liberty and Boards fault, not ours.

The questions may have been reasonable but the manner in which they were being asked were possibly not. I'm not going to speak on Dav's behalf and he's not here to speak for himself now.

I have no problem with Boards employees.

Great

Catch 22, huh? How did boards manage before the merger pre DM? There is a limit on advertising avenues. We all know it's either shut the site down or charge a subscription fee for all.......is that in the pipeline if alternative advertising methods are exhausted?

Pre-Distilled Media was long before I worked here but to my knowledge at that point the site was under-funded and under-staffed. The people who ran it had other jobs and there were just two employees, both devs (Conor and Ross for anyone who remembers that far back).
The third option you've left out there is to continue to find ways to make money without annoying the hell out of the users. We're still working on that one.
For clarity - neither shutting the site down nor charging users to use the site are in the pipeline.

I've no problem with people getting things wrong. Sure I'm wrong a lot.

We mainly tell you because we enjoy the site so we will tell you when we don't enjoy it too. It's not an excuse to piss and moan but to compromise.

All I want (and hopefully others) is not have the wool pulled over our eyes, and Boards putting a penny in our hands but telling us it's a fiver.

Be honest, keep the level headed communication up and treat us like adults not gombeen revenue generators for companies that pay you to suck our brains out.

Thanks Niamh, I'll be quiet now.

Cheers and thanks for taking the time to give some level-headed, straight talking feedback. I'm taking it all on board. It's very refreshing and it's clear that you care about the site

Boards.ie: Niamh

Pelvis Parsley wrote: »

They did it before, when they started monetising it first. It was grand. Wages were paid, hardware was sourced, even the admins made a few bob (the original admins and shareholders, that is, not the voluntary lot that fulfil the role today).

Then they decided to move into a prime price of city centre real estate-worthy of Apple, with hipster nonsense on the walls and take on reams of people, to drum up sales leads and design sites that no one asked for.

(It's a corporate, rather than just a boards thing, there's a ridiculous amount of people working for thejournal etc. also)

As a result of these ongoing and in my view unsustainable overheads, it seems many parts of the DM empire are losing money. Pressure is brought to bear to make the site wash its face, and we end up with unjustifiable nonsense like wall to wall ads, stealth hyperlinks, sponsored posts, talk to forums who won't, Gearbest, and this latest silliness.

How many people are in a ream? It sounds like an awful lot. And I think you are confusing the hipster office of another website with ours to be honest.

We are no longer part of Distilled Media, for the record. It's just us, Boards.ie.

Pelvis Parsley

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

How many people are in a ream? It sounds like an awful lot. And I think you are confusing the hipster office of another website with ours to be honest.

Loads and loads

If yourself and adverts no longer share a floor, then I may well be. Anyway, I'll leave other sites out of it from now on.

We are no longer part of Distilled Media, for the record. It's just us, Boards.ie.

Forgive me (seriously), the seemingly constant mergers and unbundling has left me gasping to catch up.

Nonetheless, my point stands with regard to sustainable financing (and in all fairness to you, I know that's not a conversation suitable for here, or one that anyone could expect you to get into).

I look forward to you making your mark here Niamh, and I wish you the best of luck.

Boards.ie: Niamh

Thanks Pelvis! Much appreciated.

CantGetNoSleep

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

You may not believe it but we are doing our very best not to interrupt the user experience with any of the advertising so that if users don't want to engage with it, they don't have to. We've avoided pop-ups and autoplay audio videos for this reason and will continue to keep them as separate as possible. Sponsored content is clearly marked as such so that if users want to, they can avoid it entirely.

That was not really the case for this AMA and I think that is the problem a lot of people have with it. Rather than being an open and frank discussion where you might get some insights (the only reason why users use boards), it was a case of us having to sit by and get fed bullsh1t marketing crap from Liberty while ignoring or giving absolutely useless answers to genuine questions.

Tom Dunne

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

That was not really the case for this AMA and I think that is the problem a lot of people have with it. Rather than being an open and frank discussion where you might get some insights (the only reason why users use boards), it was a case of us having to sit by and get fed bullsh1t marketing crap from Liberty while ignoring or giving absolutely useless answers to genuine questions.

Honestly, I think it was more their lack of understanding of the ethos of the AMA forum than anything else.

CantGetNoSleep

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Honestly, I think it was more their lack of understanding of the ethos of the AMA forum than anything else.

If that is the case, then it is Niamh's fault for when she suggested it to them and took the cheque

Tom Dunne

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

If that is the case, then it is Niamh's fault for when she suggested it to them and took the cheque

Whoa, careful now.

Do you honestly think Niamh works directly in soliciting business from these people and handles payment from them? Do you seriously think this falls within the remit of a Community Manager?

Boards.ie: Niamh

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

That was not really the case for this AMA and I think that is the problem a lot of people have with it. Rather than being an open and frank discussion where you might get some insights (the only reason why users use boards), it was a case of us having to sit by and get fed bullsh1t marketing crap from Liberty while ignoring or giving absolutely useless answers to genuine questions.

You didn't enjoy it or see any value in it. I understand that. We've already established that it did not turn out as it was intended from either side and lessons have been learned. Is there any other constructive feedback you'd like to add?

Boards.ie: Niamh

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

If that is the case, then it is Niamh's fault for when she suggested it to them and took the cheque

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Whoa, careful now.

Do you honestly think Niamh works directly in soliciting business from these people and handles payment from them? Do you seriously think this falls within the remit of a Community Manager?

Niamh has neither the time nor the inclination to be involved in that side of things (soliciting business). The community keep me busy enough as it is, even more so now that Dav is gone

Barry Badrinath

Thanks for the replies Niamh

B00MSTICK

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Honestly, I think it was more their lack of understanding of the ethos of the AMA forum than anything else.

Agreed with this.

To be fair I think part of the issue was that the AMA really didn't offer anything a well read regular of the new Motor Insurance forum couldn't answer.
There were a lot of "here are my details, why is my insurance so high" too which were just a waste of time.

Restricting the topic to insurance for young drivers really narrowed the scope of the discussion (and why clearly it overflowed into other aspects)
I can't really think of any questions related to young drivers that can't easily be found.

The fact that Michael was limited to replying to all queries with the Liberty blurb was also an issue. Clearly we couldn't ask for his opinion/views on anything in case it be construed as Liberty's which again limits discussion to whatever can be found on Liberty's site or in their policy documents.

Having an anonymous/independent/retired individual would have made for a much more interesting discussion IMO as was done previously.

LuckyLloyd

I would never expect interesting content from a company "AMA".

Special Circumstances

Senor Fancy Pants wrote: »

In my opinion, the decision to use the "AMA" Forum for an obvious marketing ploy was poppycock and took away from the entertaining and genuine AMA threads. It was disrespectful to think that the community would respond positively to such an overt attempt to drum up business for Liberty Insurance under the guise of an innocent "AMA" for younger drivers.

QFT.

Complete poppycock.

Canned responses to cherrypicked "safe" questions - and even then any queries on the blatant inconsistencies between Liberty's parallel universe and ours were discouraged.

Pathetic.

LoLth

I think any AMA with a company is going to have limitations. Any company representative, posting in public on behalf of the company has an obligation to not open the company up to legal action or to damage its reputation. Thats fair enough and is a common social media policy across many organisations. Some go further and say that any employees of the company cannot post anything bad about their employer from their own personal accounts and others go even further and police employee behaviour in general on social media.

So, now an employee of Liberty Insurance is participating in an AMA. Of course he cant answer questions on quote specifics - if it disagrees with what was provided by the company elsewhere it could leave the company liable for wrongly charging.

He also cannot comment on hypothetical situation as these may be based on claims under consideration and may negatively impact the decision process.

He cannot comment on company views on the differences between regions (do you park your car in Killinarden or in Shrewsbury road?) because this might give rise to claims of the company being discriminatory.

He cannot clarify back-end procedures to any great degree because these may give away competitive advantage that gives the company its ability to make profit (which is the entire purpose of a company after all. they have shareholders that expect a return on their investment)

He CAN answer questions that are on the list of "safe" and "approved" topics.

These questions would probably be fine in a general setting but in an AMA the audience generally demands more clarity and makes inquiries that require more detail in the answers.

So yes, Liberty Insurance AMA would have been useful to the casual browser with a vague curiosity about their upcoming insurance quote but I think they were suprised, and unprepared, for the degree of scrutiny they came under.

Were they protected? No. I dont think so. Dav posted that they obviously could not answer everything that was being asked and asked posters to stop pressing them. I think that's fair enough. Continuing to press only aggravates those not getting answers and takes away from the actual answers that were being provided.

Did they cherrypick the questions they wanted to answer? I think so. I think they had to and I understand why this is so even if I don't like it.

I think any AMA from a company in future needs to have a list of topics that cannot be answered or at the least should acknowledge that a question has been asked that cannot be addressed. To ignore a question completely - if it has been asked in a reasonable manner - is against the spirit of AMA.

As has been said already, lessons were learned in this that will need to be considered if this type of sponsored AMA is to take place again. Companies need to be aware that an AMA is not an advertising platform, its putting themselves up for intelligent questions from people who quite possibly dont actually like them or their product or their entire industry.

Users need to be aware that AMA is also not a platform to publicly crucify those they have an issue with.

Trojan

I think the only person who can do a completely no-holds barred AMA for a company is the owner for a small business, and maybe the CEO of a larger one - if they have the political power within the company (e.g. Branson, Musk, Zuckerburg, etc).

However, I think the onus is on anyone who steps up in a spokesperson role, including for AMA's, to be prepared to answer every question they get in a reasonable fashion. Sometimes that answer will be a logical presentation of the reasons why they can't answer the question in full, and I'm fine with that, if they present it well.

I think the biggest issue here is that the Liberty rep didn't have a few years of battle-hardened online discussion experience and know how to deal with those difficult questions.

Special Circumstances

Trojan wrote: »

I think the only person who can do a completely no-holds barred AMA for a company is the owner for a small business, and maybe the CEO of a larger one - if they have the political power within the company (e.g. Branson, Musk, Zuckerburg, etc).

An anonymous experienced poster could give their knowledge of the industry. But yeah, any verified rep of a company is bound to be on some script or other.

Trojan wrote: »

However, I think the onus is on anyone who steps up in a spokesperson role, including for AMA's, to be prepared to answer every question they get in a reasonable fashion. Sometimes that answer will be a logical presentation of the reasons why they can't answer the question in full, and I'm fine with that, if they present it well.

To be honest, I would have been happy with 25% of them answered in a way that stood up to some scrutiny in the real world and weren't instantly shown to be false by multiple posters.

Trojan wrote: »

I think the biggest issue here is that the Liberty rep didn't have a few years of battle-hardened online discussion experience and know how to deal with those difficult questions.

Poor guy drew the wrong straw that's for sure.
Being put in front of people and not being allowed say that €3k insurance for "a 40year old engineer with perfect driving record in a 07 1.4 focus" is anything other than complete horse manure... that's called being thrown under a bus by your manager.

Cookie_Monster

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

I would never expect interesting content from a company "AMA".

This really, doesn't matter what company it is it will inevitably be too restricted to be an AMA and in future there shouldn't be this type of thread in the forum.

You already see this in spades on the talk to forums, questions simply don't get answered as the staff are just too restricted in what they are allowed to say

LuckyLloyd

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

This really, doesn't matter what company it is it will inevitably be too restricted to be an AMA and in future there shouldn't be this type of thread in the forum.

You already see this in spades on the talk to forums, questions simply don't get answered as the staff are just too restricted in what they are allowed to say

Right. Discussion sites are great and interesting places when people speak their mind; lend freely of their expertise and aren't afraid to engage in robust conversation. Company reps acting in an official capacity are the antithesis of what good discussion board content is about. Threads like this are sorry moments for the site imo.

eman66

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Right. Discussion sites are great and interesting places when people speak their mind; lend freely of their expertise and aren't afraid to engage in robust conversation. Company reps acting in an official capacity are the antithesis of what good discussion board content is about. Threads like this are sorry moments for the site imo.

A commercial bias or purpose has no place in an AMA. Not saying it's a good or bad thing but Boards have chosen to commercialise the site. It does appear to be an extremely difficult thing to do, to be successful commercially without wrecking the community foundations on which the site was built. Until that problem is solved more situations like the Liberty AMA will arise (and have risen).

blackwhite

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

I know you aren't being serious but for anyone in any doubt we are a) not a part of Distilled Media any more (check out their website if you don't believe me) and b) very definitely NOT in the business of selling any emails or personal information. We take user privacy very seriously.

Sorry for going a bit off-topic on the thread, but isn't boards still under the same ownership as Distilled Media Group? Just the legal structures have changed and boards no longer sits under DMG? Legally distinct, but still under common control and ownership

Otherwise why are the various DMG sites all still listed across the bottom over each page on here?

Boards.ie: Niamh

blackwhite wrote: »

Sorry for going a bit off-topic on the thread, but isn't boards still under the same ownership as Distilled Media Group? Just the legal structures have changed and boards no longer sits under DMG? Legally distinct, but still under common control and ownership

Otherwise why are the various DMG sites all still listed across the bottom over each page on here?

You are correct, the site owners haven't changed but we are no longer part of Distilled Media.

mahamageehad

My problem with the AMA is that is wasn't differentiated (on mobile at least) as being sponsored. I've seen sponsored threads in The Ladies Lounge for example and it was clearly different. Why wasn't (sponsored) or Liberty in the title? I felt cheated after clicking through, I also thought it would be someone anonymous or retired.

Boards.ie: Niamh

mahamageehad wrote: »

My problem with the AMA is that is wasn't differentiated (on mobile at least) as being sponsored. I've seen sponsored threads in The Ladies Lounge for example and it was clearly different. Why wasn't (sponsored) or Liberty in the title? I felt cheated after clicking through, I also thought it would be someone anonymous or retired.

Thanks for the feedback. It wasn't really the same as a sponsored thread which usually have a distinct company message/promotion, however retrospectively I can see why that might have been how it appeared to users and will take the feedback on board

mahamageehad

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback. It wasn't really the same as a sponsored thread which usually have a distinct company message/promotion, however retrospectively I can see why that might have been how it appeared to users and will take the feedback on board

Thanks Niamh, appreciate the response. I think marking it out as a sponsored thread would be a great way to sell them in future without pis$ing the users off. That way you could also clearly state the constraints in the OP without too much hassle. At the end of the day that thread or any sponsored AMA would inevitably have a distinct company message/promotion (in this case why young drivers should go with Liberty.)