Has Newstalk ruined boards?

Havermeyer

I don't know if this is the place to post such a thread, so Mods, feel free to move to any appropriate forum. Anyway, to get straight to business; Does anyone think the publicity given to boards on newstalk earlier this year has potentially doomed it, in the sort of way that an influx of new people can be too much of a bad thing? I won't be replying on this thread because I want other peoples views on this, rather than a pro/anti slagging match. So please, just try and post opinions, rather than slandering attacks on fellow posters. Cheers. All opinions/views welcome.

What possibly could be bad about more people contributing to a fantastic resource? Out of curiousity - what's your opinion on this?

Havermeyer

Myth wrote: »

What possibly could be bad about more people contributing to a fantastic resource? Out of curiousity - what's your opinion on this?

Just to verify. this isn't a personal view. I have had conversations with a few of my mates and it has come up. I was just wondering what everyone elses view was.

And as I said...

I won't be replying on this thread because I want other peoples views on this

so no more questions, just views please. Thank you.

Agent Smith

as long as they keep sean moncrief and George hook in the afternoons


they are alright by me

Rb

Not "ruined" Boards, but it's increase in popularity (main stream?) as a consequence has certainly seen an influx of idiots alright. That is of course not to say everyone who joined after hearing about it on Newstalk is an idiot, they're probably a minority, but I suppose it's a consequence of the site gaining more exposure which at the end of the day, regardless of the amount of muppets that appear, is a good thing for the site as a whole.

Oh and in before Dudess jumps in to shill Newstalk :pac:

Since I still don't know what you're really talking about, I'm going to give a big fat Ian Paisleyesque 'No'.

Havermeyer

Rb wrote: »

Not "ruined" Boards, but it's increase in popularity (main stream?) as a consequence has certainly seen an influx of idiots alright. That is of course not to say everyone who joined after hearing about it on Newstalk is an idiot, they're probably a minority, but I suppose it's a consequence of the site gaining more exposure which at the end of the day, regardless of the amount of muppets that appear, is a good thing for the site as a whole.

Oh and in before Dudess jumps in to shill Newstalk :pac:

Yeah, that's what I mean.

Thrill

Newstalk?

Wasssat then?

/Google here I come..

nice1franko

i reckon theres an optimium headcount for communites such as this and beyond that number it just badly degrades - it loses its community feel and becomes more like a city. or something, im mickey monk./

nice1franko

nice1franko wrote: »

i reckon theres an optimium headcount for communites such as this and beyond that number it just badly degrades - it loses its community feel and becomes more like a city. or something, im mickey monk./

And within the Boards City you get loads of neighbourhoods, and will get more people contributing therein.

randylonghorn

Meh, it didn't need Newstalk ... site is well-known, word of mouth probably brings the majority of people in. I remember DeV pointing out somewhere that Boards goes through continuous cycles ... numbers of users rise until the load is too heavy for the servers, and everything slows up, which discourages new users / referrals and frustrates everyone, then they upgrade and there is another surge. (Rough summary from memory: may not be 100% accurate)

No matter what someone's involved in, be it Boards or whatever, as it grows and new people come in, people say "OMG! It will never be the same again, it's a disaster!" The first is probably technically true, the second seldom is ...

And the idiots / muppets we will always have with us, whether they be new recruits or the home-grown variety, and they will always be high-profile and in your face. I seriously doubt if the proportion of muppets as a percentage of new users varies all that much from year to year. I guess though that as the number of new users rises each year, that does mean an increase in the number of actual muppets who appear on the screen.

However, I suspect that a lot of it is that as people get older in RL and embed more fully in the Boards community / way of doing things, they notice muppets more than they would have before.

nice1franko

yeah but the bigger the group the less people care about the group... it falls to shambles. like digg, break and loads of others. it wont hapen boards tho.. there'd have to be hundreds of thousands

randylonghorn

Hmmm ... not sure that any of them had quite the same model though. And there always seems to be a very strong commitment around here to keeping it on track, from the admins down though the mods and even many of the ordinary members.

Who knows ... but I'll declare myself optimistic!

Dave!

No, not at all..... Just no.

monkeyfudge

Haha... I was one of the people who spoke on that Newstalk feature... do you really think I could encourage new people to join the site?

Come for the monkeys.. stay for the lolcats indeed...

As randylonghorn said.. Word of mouth will always be the absolute largest factor in bringing new people to the site... a 'micro feature' on Newstalk simply won't have all that big a lasting impact.

Thrill

randylonghorn wrote: »

Hmmm ... not sure that any of them had quite the same model though. And there always seems to be a very strong commitment around here to keeping it on track, from the admins down though the mods and even many of the ordinary members.

Who knows ... but I'll declare myself optimistic!

Me too.

I was thinking along those lines myself. Also I think that anyone who doesn't give a toss about Boards or it's rules generally end up breaking them and get a swift banning.

Zaph

I fail to understand why the OP won't give his opinion. It really písses me off when people throw a question out there looking for opinions but won't give their own. Do you really think you're so important that giving your opinion at the start of a thread will influence others? Or is it that you wait to see what the majority view is so you can agree with it without fear of ridicule?

As for the question itself, I've never once listened to Newstalk, but judging by the people I know who do listen to it I reckon it's got quite a different demographic to most of Boards. The serious muppets probably listen to the likes of Spin rather than a talk radio station, and the majority of Newstalk listeners that discovered Boards after the feature will probably be able to hold a reasonable discussion.

ntlbell

Zaph wrote: »

The serious muppets probably listen to the likes of Spin rather than a talk radio station, and the majority of Newstalk listeners that discovered Boards after the feature will probably be able to hold a reasonable discussion.

Yea, because everyone knows people who like pop music can't hold a reasoable discussion..

Wertz

I'd be a lot more worried about the people a recent mention on liveline may have introduced :pac:

I found this place through google...but what does it really matter how you get here? randy summed it up well above...saw other (smaller) forums I used to use go like that, older members getting tired of too many n00bs, place not being the same etc, but they always settle back down...generally people acting like dicks get shunned when they're found out and either end up banned or move on...for the most while, anyone that likes it enough to stay here and rack up the posts usually ends up becoming part of the community.

Zaph

ntlbell wrote: »

Yea, because everyone knows people who like pop music can't hold a reasoable discussion..

Well that's not really what i meant. More that Newstalk, in my experience, tends to attract older listeners who would be less likely to act the muppet if they started posting here. Not all of them, of course, Brian Nolan probably listens to Newstalk.

randylonghorn

Actually, he probably listens to re-runs of TLLS with "here is your host, Gay Byrne!" :pac:

the_syco

nummnutts wrote: »

in the sort of way that an influx of new people can be too much of a bad thing?

You is newer than I. Is your signing up a bad thing?

leninbenjamin

i'm just surprised people listen to radio.

randylonghorn

the_syco wrote: »

You is newer than I. Is your signing up a bad thing?

Me is newer than either of you.

Me is still all shiny and well polished.

Well ... bits of me anyway ... >_>

leninbenjamin wrote: »

i'm just surprised people listen to radio.

Why?

leninbenjamin

randylonghorn wrote: »

Why?

because it's outdated? poorly produced? ****? i've ran out of imaginiative things to say before this post was started butt you get the idea. if you want to listen to something download a podcast of something you know will be half decent and not presented by a bunch of pretentious mongoloids who will probably start talking about picking their noses in the lead up to the next ad break...

Thrill

I think a lot of people listen to the radio when travelling by car. Quite a few people at work are always on about what they were listening to on the way in.

randylonghorn

Thrill wrote: »

I think a lot of people listen to the radio when travelling by car. Quite a few people at work are always on about what they were listening to on the way in.

Yep. And some factories / workplaces leave it on constantly to stop people going out of their skull with boredom, homemakers leave it on in the background as they go about their day ...

Don't think podcasts etc. will catch on in those scenarios just yet.

Somewhat akin to elevator musak, I guess, but more varied ...

mike65

Newstalk does not ruin boards - boards ruins Newstalk. :pac:

Mike.

Sherifu

Same old same old since that newstalk piece as far as I can see.

The site gets plenty of exposure *cough* salman *cough* as it is without newstalk.

Dyr

"A man has an idea. The idea attracts others like-minded. The idea expands. The idea becomes an institution. What was the idea? See, that's what's been bothering me, boys. But I'll tell ya, when I used to think about the idea itself, it'd put a big old smile on my face...


The idea has become an institution, boys. Time to move along. "

AckwelFoley

As a wise chineese Midget once said:

"Theres no such thing as bad publicity"

Case study: Ryanair - Michael O leary.

teaman35

Id usually have newstalk on in the background while on Boards...

Dont see the problem tbh
as someone said no such thing as bad publicity:cool:

projectmayhem

i don't think newstalk would be able to ruin boards. only pighead can do that...

...but on the flip side i think boards has ruined newstalk. now i know everything they're talking about, and it annoys me that "our" discussions are paying some lazy researchers' wages

kowloon

If the researchers didn't take it from here they would go somewhere else, even the BBC use wikipedia these days.
Personally I was never inclined to actually join a message board until I joined here, I read boards for a long, long time before I bothered registering. I've noticed a lot of the original members are people I used to play quake with.

Nevyn

I think making boards paged to be searched via google has had more of an impact of bringing in new people who dont' have a clue then that radio station.

Sully

I dont think it has at all. Iv noticed little difference in Boards since that. IF anything it gets a lot of new people watching, and some new registrations - but it dies down then and goes back to normality.

zAbbo

Zaph wrote: »

I fail to understand why the OP won't give his opinion. It really písses me off when people throw a question out there looking for opinions but won't give their own. Do you really think you're so important that giving your opinion at the start of a thread will influence others? Or is it that you wait to see what the majority view is so you can agree with it without fear of ridicule?

Yeah it annoys me too, one of the main reason I stay away from AH.

You'd be surprised at the number of journo's and reasearchers who use Boards.ie in this manner.

SheroN

Boards hasn't been the same since 1999. Once it became boards.ie it changed forever.

seamus

There have been no major spikes in user sign-ups in the last year. Just the same old vertical growth.

http://www.big-boards.com/board/108/

You'd be surprised at the sheer volume of Irish people who now know about boards, whether or not they've signed up. I don't think a radio piece can encourage more people to join up.

It's useful to realise that boards's membership is almost three times the daily listenership of Newstalk's breakfast show.

mike65

The difference is most boards accounts are pretty dormant (only 10,000 core?) while Newstalks 40k listeners will be current.

Mike.