Future of boards.ie debate stuff..

Earthhorse

To be honest with you, more administrators is about the last thing this site needs.

In fact, a few user representatives who are neither mods nor admins would be a nice antidote to the ones we currently have.

Wibbs

Earthhorse wrote: »

To be honest with you, more administrators is about the last thing this site needs.

In fact, a few user representatives who are neither mods nor admins would be a nice antidote to the ones we currently have.

I agree.

dr.bollocko

Earthhorse wrote: »

To be honest with you, more administrators is about the last thing this site needs.

In fact, a few user representatives who are neither mods nor admins would be a nice antidote to the ones we currently have.

Bring back thanks in feedback! That is an excellent idea.

WindSock

Good suggestion. I went to thanks it but couldn't.

dr.bollocko

Boston wrote: »

I've long thought that there should be someone outside of the administrator structure who can post on helpdesk in support of complaints as a user representative. Someone knowledgeable enough to say "actually that ban is harsh, here's examples a -g where said mod acted different. I mean we have commercial representative and political representative, why no user representative.

This has been something concerning me of late also. The need to have an input from a non invested 3rd party. The current helpdesk system is far from perfect but the lads have said it's a bit of a compromise and things are going to change with it. There needs to be a middle ground between old feedback where mods got hounded and new helpdesk which can be an unfriendly place to air a gripe or issue with a ban.
That said I fail to see why you seem to delight in taking pot-shots at others on here. It weakens your arguments. People don't remember your salient points because you parenthesise them with dickish personal statements rather a lot. People tend to note that more than whatever point you're originally trying to make.

Rev. BlueJeans

In fairness to DeV, he has raised the (very constructive IMO) idea of "user representatives" before.

As usual, there's an agenda behind some of the sh1te slinging here, which is a shame, 'cos there's some good ideas coming out of the gunsmoke.

Boston

I don't think I was taking a pot shot at the community managers, and I apologise if my post came across that way. I just don't like the concept of "Managing a community" it has far to many parallels with manipulating a community. The announcements forum is a particular bone of contention with we as you can quiet clearly see all those that support what ever is being announced via the thanks system but you cannot see detractors. I was assured that all feedback on that forum would be made public as soon as the issues where fully digested, however months on and this had proven not to be the case. This tends to make me not trust them as much as I would if there was full transparency, but that isn't have a pot shot.

I can tell you now that the changes they planned to introduce to the feedback system were to;

A) Move Helpdesk to a "Talk to" forum like kompletts. This changes you from a user to a customer and frankly I think its a terrible idea designed to marginalise people with who challenge things. Just feeding them into a big machine.

Remove a users ability to lobby on Feedback. Feedback would become helpdesk in that users could no longer seek general support for anything. While the technical details of how this is to be implemented are still being debated one could imagine a system whereby Earthhorse putting forwards the "User rep idea" would have to start a thread outlining the idea and no one bar administrator would be allowed post in that thread.

I find it interesting that you interpreted the comments by administrators that the current system was imperfect to mean that they were going to increase user freedoms, when the trend over the past few years has been to systematically decrease user freedoms. Currently I'm doing a case study into a moderator, compiling a list of bans, infractions, and passes as they relate to the users being punished. Then examining the trends in this moderators actions to demonstrate the presence of absence of bias. At this point of time this is no medium I could use to convey the results of my little case study. Many users would be affected so helpdesk with its restrictions on posting won't work while feedback is off limits to moderator criticism, valid or otherwise.

As all this related to this thread, I think the correct choice in administrator could stop the rot and provide a "moral compass". There is a serious move on this site towards removing or nullifying anyone who thinking is slightly on the fringes of what what the average accepts. And I'm not talking about me. It's hard to find anyone whose genuinely passionate about boards anymore, anyone who I passionately agree or disagree with. Everything is kinda conventional and characterless. Thats why I suggested people like tallaght01 as an administrator even though he'd ban me in a heart beat, its because he has his strong beliefs and has never shied away from expressing them. I'd rather see people I disagree with run this site, then the meandering lethargic sheep I've seen fill the moderator ranks over the years.

dr.bollocko

Boston wrote: »

I don't think I was taking a pot shot at the community managers, and I apologise if my post came across that way. I just don't like the concept of "Managing a community" it has far to many parallels with manipulating a community.

But you also said:

Being an administrator means you can affect serious change on this site.

Now swap out administrator for community manager and affect serious change for manipulation and you have essentially the same point.

I can tell you now that the changes they planned to introduce to the feedback system were to;

A) Move Helpdesk to a "Talk to" forum like kompletts. This changes you from a user to a customer and frankly I think its a terrible idea designed to marginalise people with who challenge things. Just feeding them into a big machine.

Remove a users ability to lobby on Feedback. Feedback would become helpdesk in that users could no longer seek general support for anything. While the technical details of how this is to be implemented are still being debated one could imagine a system whereby Earthhorse putting forwards the "User rep idea" would have to start a thread outlining the idea and no one bar administrator would be allowed post in that thread.

I never heard mention of B. But I think A is similar to what we have now but at least there is a public face there to represent boards. I guess it could be a one stop shop for technical queries. Doesn't solve the problem of user issues with mods or bans or where the site is going as a whole but that's not a problem to be solved too easily either.

I find it interesting that you interpreted the comments by administrators that the current system was imperfect to mean that they were going to increase user freedoms, when the trend over the past few years has been to systematically decrease user freedoms.

I think that you view the move towards helpdesk as a silencing of user freedom. IE on a specific challenge to a specific mod decision not every poster can throw in their 2c. Straight feedback has its benefits and you can learn quickly from it. However a hardcore of posters were using feedback to air a greivance they had with a particular mod at every opportunity. That's still happening in feedback now. That kind of poster or else a big gang up thread helps nobody and just leaves a mod, a volunteer poster after all, to be fed to the lions. It wasn't always what was happening but it happened a lot. Too much. I think it sat unconfortably with many people. HD as it is now doesn't really lend itself the air of fariness as it would have if a poster was able to back up the original posters arguments. That's my take on it. I don't know what the admin take is on it tbh but I'm not really worried that they're just going to silence everything down for the sake of sanitizing boards.

Currently I'm doing a case study into a moderator, compiling a list of bans, infractions, and passes as they relate to the users being punished. Then examining the trends in this moderators actions to demonstrate the presence of absence of bias. At this point of time this is no medium I could use to convey the results of my little case study. Many users would be affected so helpdesk with its restrictions on posting won't work while feedback is off limits to moderator criticism, valid or otherwise.

It strikes me that you're attempting to apply a metric to a person's interaction with an organic community. I don't think fairness comes about from looking at what you did the last time and simply repeating that either. Posters and mods POV's change regularly. The style which they use to post or mod also changes. If you take even one specific example of a specific post that one mod took action on one forum well you'd get many other mods who would have done things very differently. Hell on a different day maybe mod one would have done things differently. If mods were held to a standard or series of metrics to evaluate their modding why in the hell would they bother? After all its not a paying job we have here.

As all this related to this thread, I think the correct choice in administrator could stop the rot and provide a "moral compass". There is a serious move on this site towards removing or nullifying anyone who thinking is slightly on the fringes of what what the average accepts. And I'm not talking about me. It's hard to find anyone whose genuinely passionate about boards anymore, anyone who I passionately agree or disagree with. Everything is kinda conventional and characterless. Thats why I suggested people like tallaght01 as an administrator even though he'd ban me in a heart beat, its because he has his strong beliefs and has never shied away from expressing them. I'd rather see people I disagree with run this site, then the meandering lethargic sheep I've seen fill the moderator ranks over the years.

The way I view it now is that boards is ever changing and some of that will affect how posters feel about it. Look at the number of people who have left us of late, as they have done in the past. I think what we have now are a load of individual discussion communities under the one boards banner. So I know for a fact many people feel passionately about boards as a whole. Others feel passionately about the poker forum or AH or whatever other community that exists within but don't move and post about further than that. Passion for an entire community to my mind is not something that you really need to have to be a good moderator on a single given forum. Passion for the forum is important. And I don't think that there has been a movement towards appointing sheep as mods either. We're here to do what we do for whatever places we mod. I don't think you can take a bunch of individual issues you have with moderators and try and make that into a systematic sanitization of the system. It just doesn't scan. At least not to my mind.

Time Magazine

Boston wrote: »

Edit, there's a world of difference between Dr Bollocko's saying my statements are dickish, and what you said. Hence me objecting to your comment and not his.

I agree there is a world of difference. He made a personal judgment about your posts; I interpreted your posts. I quasi-quoted you, if you will.

I did not call you a dickhead. I said it seems to me that the primary point of your Boards-posts (and by that I mean posts about the running/moderation of boards.ie, as distinct from your posts on boards.ie) is provide a persona of being a dickhead that you don't have in real life. You're not the same person as you are on boards.ie as you are in real life. Just as the boards.ie poster Time Magazine is different to "real life me", Boston is a character. An online persona. There are things you say on this website that you would not say in real life, imho. You say things that could be deemed offensive not because you want to insult people -- I don't for a second think you actually intend to really upset people -- but you say these things as character-development of Boston. Boston is amusing to you. That's fine. But as far as I can see, you're trying to make Boston into a dickhead with these borderline comments and wink-and-nudge remarks. And you do that to amuse yourself. And, as I said, that's fine. I'm pretty sure Pighead doesn't talk in the third-person in real life: he makes his character into a subject of comedic ridicule. (That's not to say that I think Pighead is funny (though I do) -- it's just saying he's trying to create a funny character.) I'm far more laid-back in real life: Time Magazine is a pretty boring economist (which is not to say that I'm boring in real life). These are not insults, they're descriptions of what the posters are trying to achieve themselves. Similarly when I say I think you're trying to create a persona for Boston as a dickhead, it's not actually personally abusing you.

Boston

Ah yes but a community manager is a member of staff, a paid employee and as such ultimately an extension of the god head. They don't come up with policy, they don't argue against the god head. They're the trigger men.

The problem with helpdesk being a talk to forum is that 1) it further restricts the scope of helpdesk and 2) It increases the commercialisation of the end user experience.

dr.bollocko wrote: »

I think that you view the move towards helpdesk as a silencing of user freedom. IE on a specific challenge to a specific mod decision not every poster can throw in their 2c. Straight feedback has its benefits and you can learn quickly from it. However a hardcore of posters were using feedback to air a greivance they had with a particular mod at every opportunity. That's still happening in feedback now. That kind of poster or else a big gang up thread helps nobody and just leaves a mod, a volunteer poster after all, to be fed to the lions. It wasn't always what was happening but it happened a lot. Too much. I think it sat unconfortably with many people. HD as it is now doesn't really lend itself the air of fariness as it would have if a poster was able to back up the original posters arguments. That's my take on it. I don't know what the admin take is on it tbh but I'm not really worried that they're just going to silence everything down for the sake of sanitizing boards.

Take this thread. I highlighted a post by a moderator which contained personal abuse, highlighted the hypocrisy of allowing such abuse and invited the administrators to split the thread off into a new helpdesk one. The insult was deleted, as was mine calling on administrators for action. Now maybe the moderator will be reprimanded (I doubt it) maybe he won't but whatever happens it will happen behind closed doors to maintain the good image of the collective moderators. What relevance does this have to your point you maybe asking? It was never the users having a go at moderators unfairly which was the problem as these people were quickly put it their place, rather it was all the times a fair accusation was levelled. It was the Helix incident, it was the Poker forum incident, it was the Pighead incident. These were the problem threads as they demonstrated problems in the system publically and generated real debate with merit. The only time I've seen a major change in the forum is when someone has pushed the boundaries of what the powers that be feel comfortable being discussed.

A few months back in response to points raised by myself and others the administrators eased up on locking threads and closing down discussion on this forum with the inevitable influx of cat pictures and general muppetry. The idea was to then point to this and say "See, you need us to control debate, otherwise the muppets take over". They don't care about what excuse is used to control debate, once it's controlled. I refuse to believe that the only way forward are these two extremes, a free for all or rigid protectionism.

dr.bollocko wrote: »

It strikes me that you're attempting to apply a metric to a person's interaction with an organic community. I don't think fairness comes about from looking at what you did the last time and simply repeating that either. Posters and mods POV's change regularly. The style which they use to post or mod also changes. If you take even one specific example of a specific post that one mod took action on one forum well you'd get many other mods who would have done things very differently. Hell on a different day maybe mod one would have done things differently. If mods were held to a standard or series of metrics to evaluate their modding why in the hell would they bother? After all its not a paying job we have here.

Two points:

1. Wouldn't it be great to have this debate though? X mods hands out 2 day infractions and 45% less likely to ban a moderator for personal abuse, Y moderator is 75% more likely to infract a female poster, Z moderator is 90% more likely to ban someone they previously infracted. This discussion would is not allowed on boards.ie LTD. That has nothing to do about protecting users and everything about image. Thats one of the problems with this site becoming a business.
2. Moderators should be and are held to a standard. It has to be flexible, but its there. Spectre, for example, holds himself to a high standard as do the users I recommended to be administrator. If I was a moderator tomorrow I'd personally feel that my diskish comments wheren't appropriate regardless of the forum I posted on. There is a standard, its like porn, undefined but you know it when you see it.

dr.bollocko wrote: »

The way I view it now is that boards is ever changing and some of that will affect how posters feel about it. Look at the number of people who have left us of late, as they have done in the past. I think what we have now are a load of individual discussion communities under the one boards banner. So I know for a fact many people feel passionately about boards as a whole. Others feel passionately about the poker forum or AH or whatever other community that exists within but don't move and post about further than that. Passion for an entire community to my mind is not something that you really need to have to be a good moderator on a single given forum. Passion for the forum is important. And I don't think that there has been a movement towards appointing sheep as mods either. We're here to do what we do for whatever places we mod. I don't think you can take a bunch of individual issues you have with moderators and try and make that into a systematic sanitization of the system. It just doesn't scan. At least not to my mind.

1. I think there a lot of users passionate about their little section of boards and who feel their section is the site. Thats not the same as people being passionate about the site as a whole. The mentality that "my forum is all that matter" has become extremely pre-fluent. A few months ago I raised an issue about a management intervention on a particular forum. I was perfectly polite, there was no politicking and the response I got from the administrators was "Why do you care, you don't even use that forum". Being passionate about this place has become so rare among the jaded masses that when they see it they think "Christ, yer man is weird, we should get him banned".
2. I don't have a problem with any moderators (bar a recent misunderstanding with Silverfish). I have a problem with several users who happen to be moderators. Theres a world of difference. If you look at the moderators who are most vocal about me being a troll/a muppet / a whatever, they'll be moderators of forums I never post in. If you look at the moderators who are vocal about me not being a troll/a muppet a whatever, they'll be moderators of or contributors to forums I regularly use. To imply that my opinion about the moderator class on boards is as a result of infractions / bans, equally does not scan. I am severely disappointed with some of the decisions being made up on high in relation to the moderator class. Week by week I see moderators I respect leave to be replaced by absolute dross, guys who wouldn't have been allowed use this site two years ago. The really scary thing is that more and more I see the management say "His opinion counts because he's a mod".

So I say no. Select your admins from a better calibre of user. Select the Spectres, the oscarbravos, the Seamuss, the tallaght01s, the "tbh"s of boards and give moderators someone with class and decency to aspire towards, someone who doesn't need a standard or series of checks & balances because their own moral compass already surpasses any one we on boards.ie may need. Select the best of us.

Rev. BlueJeans

Excellent post Boston.

dr.bollocko

Boston wrote: »

Ah yes but a community manager is a member of staff, a paid employee and as such ultimately an extension of the god head. They don't come up with policy, they don't argue against the god head. They're the trigger men.

They don't really have a say in boards day to day community stuff as the admins do. Their remit is entirely separate. Most of your average posters wouldn't have a strong opinion on the community managers. They're trying to add revenue streams whilst not upsetting the poster experience which is a tough balance. It's also the best way boards can grow as a community.
Words like "trigger men" adds a sinister edge to your argument that doesn't really add up when you look at what they've done so far with the community.

The problem with helpdesk being a talk to forum is that 1) it further restricts the scope of helpdesk and 2) It increases the commercialisation of the end user experience.

Well you don't know how they are planning on implementing it as yet. I'm interested as to how it's going to go. I think with a lot of tweaking at the start and constructive poster input we could get something that's an improvement. If the people who care about boards post enough indicating what's right and wrong maybe the new system will work before the rules are set in stone as they are now with regards to the feedback / helpdesk system.

Take this thread. I highlighted a post by a moderator which contained personal abuse, highlighted the hypocrisy of allowing such abuse and invited the administrators to split the thread off into a new helpdesk one. The insult was deleted, as was mine calling on administrators for action. Now maybe the moderator will be reprimanded (I doubt it) maybe he won't but whatever happens it will happen behind closed doors to maintain the good image of the collective moderators. What relevance does this have to your point you maybe asking? It was never the users having a go at moderators unfairly which was the problem as these people were quickly put it their place, rather it was all the times a fair accusation was levelled. It was the Helix incident, it was the Poker forum incident, it was the Pighead incident. These were the problem threads as they demonstrated problems in the system publically and generated real debate with merit. The only time I've seen a major change in the forum is when someone has pushed the boundaries of what the powers that be feel comfortable being discussed.

Now we're looking at specifics from your perspective. Say each of those contentious threads we are well aware of. The whole reason they were contentious is because they operated in shades of grey. It wasn't automatically black or white what the best course of action was in any case. Regardless of whether it's a democracy or an autocracy people will have problems with the decisions made there.

A few months back in response to points raised by myself and others the administrators eased up on locking threads and closing down discussion on this forum with the inevitable influx of cat pictures and general muppetry. The idea was to then point to this and say "See, you need us to control debate, otherwise the muppets take over". They don't care about what excuse is used to control debate, once it's controlled. I refuse to believe that the only way forward are these two extremes, a free for all or rigid protectionism.

I don't read any sinister admin action into what happened there. There were a few too many threads locked. Somebody said so and there were less threads locked.
Now onto controlling debate. You're talking about admins that are moderators on a bulletin board site. Surely their function is controlling debate?

Two points:

1. Wouldn't it be great to have this debate though? X mods hands out 2 day infractions and 45% less likely to ban a moderator for personal abuse, Y moderator is 75% more likely to infract a female poster, Z moderator is 90% more likely to ban someone they previously infracted. This discussion would is not allowed on boards.ie LTD. That has nothing to do about protecting users and everything about image. Thats one of the problems with this site becoming a business.
   

I have to say I love boards stats. I like to see as much of it as I can. It is interesting to measure something on a scale that we can all relate to. However to do this as you are looking at is not possible. For example, say a moderator posts personal abuse. 4 mods ignore it. 1 mod infracts or bans. Did the 4 mods ignore it because he's a mod or because they didn't see it? Did they not act because they were replying to say, a spammer or a gimmick racist poster on a deleted / locked thread? Was it really personal abuse? How do you measure personal abuse? For example you said what I said wasn't personal abuse but what Time Magazine said was because of a semantic difference in how the posts were made. How do you measure on a scale what that semantic difference is and when it is right to act and when it is not? It's not actually that straight forward when you look at the reality of what you're suggesting.
Now take the example of measuring potential sexism. Take any forum on boards. It will not have a gender divide that even approaches 50/50. it would be pretty easy to take a particular mod for a particular forum for a particular month and indicate by cold hard figures that they are working with a gender bias. It's just too open to abuse and too simple to indicate a bias where there isn't one. Do the tLL mods ban more women than men? Probably. Does AH ban more men than women? Probably. Also it's not like there is an indication of gender coming from the poster. We don't have to tell anyone on here our gender and so often you are surprised to find x poster is male or female.
Now look at user history. You say measure if a mod is more likely to act on a poster with a history of problems with their forum. Surely that is just intuitive? Somebody has been banned in the past and returns unrepentant to do the same stuff. Surely the next ban should be longer? The PM should be more in depth stating what's wrong? If a poster is unrepentant in misbehaviour despite mod action they are not doing anything good for the community.

• Moderators should be and are held to a standard. It has to be flexible, but its there. Spectre, for example, holds himself to a high standard as do the users I recommended to be administrator. If I was a moderator tomorrow I'd personally feel that my diskish comments wheren't appropriate regardless of the forum I posted on. There is a standard, its like porn, undefined but you know it when you see it.

1. I think there a lot of users passionate about their little section of boards and who feel their section is the site. Thats not the same as people being passionate about the site as a whole. The mentality that "my forum is all that matter" has become extremely pre-fluent. A few months ago I raised an issue about a management intervention on a particular forum. I was perfectly polite, there was no politicking and the response I got from the administrators was "Why do you care, you don't even use that forum". Being passionate about this place has become so rare among the jaded masses that when they see it they think "Christ, yer man is weird, we should get him banned".
2. I don't have a problem with any moderators (bar a recent misunderstanding with Silverfish). I have a problem with several users who happen to be moderators. Theres a world of difference. If you look at the moderators who are most vocal about me being a troll/a muppet / a whatever, they'll be moderators of forums I never post in. If you look at the moderators who are vocal about me not being a troll/a muppet a whatever, they'll be moderators of or contributors to forums I regularly use. To imply that my opinion about the moderator class on boards is as a result of infractions / bans, equally does not scan. I am severely disappointed with some of the decisions being made up on high in relation to the moderator class. Week by week I see moderators I respect leave to be replaced by absolute dross, guys who wouldn't have been allowed use this site two years ago. The really scary thing is that more and more I see the management say "His opinion counts because he's a mod".

On point one you are looking at one specific incident. As the OP and not getting everything you wanted from the thread you will automatically have a sour taste left because of it. Perhaps if other eyes than yours look at the thread they will have a different perspective on it than you do. Was your opinion entirely dismissed because somebody said "what business is it of yours?" I haven't seen any examples of that. They might be there but I've never seen them.
On point two I have seen the admins admonish mods publically and indicate they have a problem with mod actions.
Right now we do not really have a system in place that really gets feedback that can indicate a bad mod to the cat mod or admins. But this is not any worse of a problem right now than it was 2 years ago. Your cold hard metrics won't work in the real world because you can't sit behind a mod to see exactly what it is he or she did. The old feedback system doesn't work because it's too open to personal opinion. IE if you dislike a mod that's banned you you'll automatically read one of their posts in a different tone than another mod. Also you can't see what a mod might be doing behind the scenes to keep a forum going. All you have is your experience of them which you can't measure or corral into a better argument. And even with the argument you can be damn sure loads of people will disagree and there is still no certainty in the matter.

So I say no. Select your admins from a better calibre of user. Select the Spectres, the oscarbravos, the Seamuss, the tallaght01s, the "tbh"s of boards and give moderators someone with class and decency to aspire towards, someone who doesn't need a standard or series of checks & balances because their own moral compass already surpasses any one we on boards.ie may need. Select the best of us.

But surely this is what has been happening? Surely the admins we have now are selected because they have that certain calibre? Like them or not they are all there because of what they have done in the past. In one way or another every admin has earned that position or they wouldn't be there. Now your perception of any admin or how you thought they handled a certain situation will colour your view of them. But you are not the average poster.
You are not the voice of the boards posters. You are but one voice amidst a spectrum of opinions about everything from which admin they perceive is the best to how they feel a particular situation was handled.

It's been about 2 years since I replied to somebody that used list tags.

Wibbs

Boston wrote: »

The only time I've see a major change in the forum is when someone has pushed the boundaries of what the powers that be feel comfortable being discussed.

I would tend to agree with you tbh. IMHO Boards has become more messy, not less messy in the last year and I really don't believe it's down to more traffic. In the drive for a better structure it's taken too much of the corporate vibe and it's become less efficient. Most corporations are actually quite inefficient. I do think many parts of the structure need to be looked at.

This is not against the commercialisation of the site either. I'm a capitalist in the sense that to make this place better it requires finance to do so. If the leccy bill doesn't get paid, no matter how many users are here, it's game over. I've no issue with that and I do think that this course can be charted between vested interests and genuine dialogue and actual communities. It just can't be done with old fashioned thinking. If this is the "new media" and not just hubristic vapourware then new ways of doing things will need to be addressed and invented.

Again IMHO one of the things that does irritate/concern me about this site is the over reverence towards modsand admins, the hierarchy and cliques, real and perceived. It's an oft heard complaint I've heard from lurkers of this site and a reason they don't nor would sign up(and a reason I suspect many post a few times and bugger off too). A case of too many chiefs not enough indians. These are not always fight the powah types either(as is too often the easy answer) and it's not a complaint against the moderation in general which from what I've seen is pretty consistent on a forum by forum basis. It can be improved of course, but amazing considering the breadth of communities here and the fact that people are invested enugh to do that for free. Basically the mod and admin fanboi schtick is getting to be old hat. Especially when you consider the number of them compared to the number of consistent regular posters who generate the vast majority of the site content,

Thinking back on my +1 with regard to user reps, Im re thinking that or at least it points out to me that that's another part of the problem right there. If this site requires user reps, it's failing. The mods of forums are failing and the admins are failing. I'm a user first and foremost. A member of whichever communities will have me. End of. I post far more as a (longwinded)user than I ever have as a mod in any of the places I happen to be a mod of. I'm a user that happens to have extra responsibilities to help the community I'm part of. End of. I'm not special, I'm not any better or worse than 90% of the people who make up the various communities. IMHO if any mod thinks they're more than that, then they need to get a life or get their head read. Ditto for admins. Users come first or should come first, regardless of the the "title" under their usernames. Ditto for the communities that those users are a part of. As a mod I and other mods should be the user reps. I'm a user that also has access to an extra voice for other users. Even simple stuff like people PMing me and other PI mods to delete posts and threads they made. Or if say the forum(s) were changed from on high in a way that impacted the community. Damn right, I and others will register our feelings about that and rightfully so.

Wouldn't it be great to have this debate though? X mods hands out 2 day infractions and 45% less likely to ban a moderator for personal abuse, Y moderator is 75% more likely to infract a female poster, Z moderator is 90% more likely to ban someone they previously infracted. This discussion would is not allowed on boards.ie LTD

I agree. Dunno how you would do that though TBH. The amount of helpdesk/feedback threads generated by a mod might be a start. If mods get a few reported posts that would concern me anyway if I was getting them(ditto with helpdesk threads). The problem is...well... arseholes. People who want to cause trouble and some forums simply have more than others. EG dr bollocko, tbh and tallaght01 etc, better mods than me have had more helpdesk threads than me(I think I've had one maybe two since the get go?). Same goes for bans. PI generates an helluva lot of infractions, bans etc than other forums. That's the prob right there. It would have to be on a case by case basis. That said if tomorrow I started getting HD/FB threads and reported posts from a cross section of other users I would step down.

As for the communities themselves? Feedback needs to be improved. It also needs to be modded. It's mostly as simple as that. I'd also suggest having it modded by more non admins too. Actually ditto for helpdesk. As this them and us BS goes both ways(Communities need to nurtured in other ways too. The dropping of the sitewide beers was a monumental fcuk up of a decision IMHO. The excuses of security and insurance simply don't cut it. They're excuses and very easily overcome excuses. Every niteclub in the land does it every saturday night. This community kicked off in both the e world and the real world, it needs to get back to that in every way. Without the communites growing there, it will barely grow here beyond a certain point).

TL;DR? Users first, regardless of title. If your hubris gets too much, then step down. Feedback needs to become actual feedback, with more user input in it's direction and modding. Ditto with helpdesk. More transparency from and for all users of the site. Mods and admins too.

I think there a lot of users passionate about their little section of boards and who feel their section is the site. Thats not the same as people being passionate about the site as a whole. The mentality that "my forum is all that matter" has become extremely pre-fluent.

I agree, but that's to be expected too I think. Different forums have different communities and needs and expectations. TBH is going to mod long term illness in a slightly different way to other forums he's involved in. Same basic idea with different variables. There are posts in tLL that I wouldn't even register that I would get twitchy about in PI. Plus if someone is deeply involved in the community then they're going to be passionate about it and thank god for that. In a way as this site grows the individuals forums will be all that matters for many. I think that may not be such an issue if the structure is built correctly.

Why do you care, you don't even use that forum". Being passionate about this place has become so rare among the jaded masses that when they see it they think "Christ, yer man is weird, we should get him banned".

I get that actually. I rarely went into the poker forum, but when that kicked off I did take sides as such, mostly cos I was interested in how lines were drawn when the chips were down(regardless of rights and wrongs). I was interested what passed for a site policy or structure or as it turned out a headless chicken policy. Very informative it was too. It told me at the time what might go down if other communities had an issue. People stepping down and how that's been received has also been informative too. actually what has surprised me on a personal level the most abot this place is how passionate I did become about it. If you had told me that 5 years ago I would have suggested you see a physic. I would have quite honestly thought places like this were a refuge for soically inept nerd types. Mostly from pure ignorance on my part of course.

My ramblin 20 cents anyway.

Wibbs

PS

If you look at the moderators who are most vocal about me being a , they'll be moderators of forums I never post in. If you look at the moderators who are vocal about me not being a troll/a muppet a whatever, they'll be moderators of or contributors to forums I regularly use.

Well I would be one who would be more vocal about calling you a troll/a muppet/a whatever(deleted as applicable, I prefer a whatever) and I do fit your description to a point. The only diff may be that I actually respect and like you as a poster in general. Have thanked and been impressed by many of your posts over the time I've been here.

OK in the interests of transparency, I'll set out my problem with you. It's mostly not actually a problem with you. That's the thing. Yes I do think you feel boards is changing in a way you don't like and cool. That debate is defo needed and I do agree with some of what you say. However I do feel you seek to specifically single out and name particular mods trying to rile them. To basically stir shíte tm in a somewhat bullying manner.

TBH other than reading and enjoying many of your posts, it wasn't until the poker stuff kicked off that I noted you beyond that. My objection at that time was the distinct impression(shared by others) that you were given a freer reign from certain quarters to take a potshot at the poker supporters and to act as their mouthpiece. That was my issue. As I say not with you as such. In the end I figured it was either somewhat true, or it was simply bad panicked modding from newbie admins charged with modding feedback at the time. Or a little from column a and a little from column b.

To add to the column a;

I can tell you now that the changes they planned to introduce to the feedback system were to;

In this example and others you have appeared to be too well informed of what is going on "behind closed doors". Both in the mod forum and even what admins are planning. That raised my hackles. Again if people "on high" agree with you they should have the spine to admit that, or if they're telling you about various goings on then they should have the spine admit that too. Better yet, step down as you're simply not trustworthy.

If however none of the above is true, then I would be left with the impression that you are stirring shíte based on you own clever guesswork. To what end I dunno. I would give you the benefit of the doubt and say it's because you do have a passion for this site, but I would respectfully suggest it might be better directed to a better end.

They're my reasons anyway.

Rev. BlueJeans

I think this is a very interesting discussion, I'd suggest that if topic integrity must be maintained (?) then these posts should be split into a new thread to allow this to continue.

Better stuff is coming to the fore now than we've seen in quite a while.

Boston

They are trigger men. They are there to get the community to swallow whatever il duce wants. I have looked at what they've done with the community and if you scratch below the surface its not that pretty. They are the PR people who dress **** up as roses.

dr.bollocko wrote: »

Well you don't know how they are planning on implementing it as yet. I'm interested as to how it's going to go. I think with a lot of tweaking at the start and constructive poster input we could get something that's an improvement. If the people who care about boards post enough indicating what's right and wrong maybe the new system will work before the rules are set in stone as they are now with regards to the feedback / helpdesk system.

I guess I don't believe in feedback any more. I guess I've lost faith in a lot of the management and as such see things in the most cynical light. When I see a problem with something, I'll point it out once and if ignored I'll stick it with needles to get it to run through the fields to demonstrate how bad that problem might be. Cause I don't care how I get those asleep at the wheel to act, once they do.

dr.bollocko wrote: »

Now we're looking at specifics from your perspective. Say each of those contentious threads we are well aware of. The whole reason they were contentious is because they operated in shades of grey. It wasn't automatically black or white what the best course of action was in any case. Regardless of whether it's a democracy or an autocracy people will have problems with the decisions made there.

I've no problem with contentious, contentious is sometimes good. The point I was trying to make is that none of these threads would exist today. Contentious topics are closed or moved to a space where there is only white and black / right or wrong and that is the administrator's call. When the administrators eased off locking threads, it wasn't gentle. They stopped moderating the noise, the garbage, they never stopped moderating the contentious stuff. This was done to establish the idea that you have a choice, controlled debate with garbage or without garbage.

dr.bollocko wrote: »

I have to say I love boards stats. I like to see as much of it as I can. It is interesting to measure something on a scale that we can all relate to. However to do this as you are looking at is not possible. For example, say a moderator posts personal abuse. 4 mods ignore it. 1 mod infracts or bans. Did the 4 mods ignore it because he's a mod or because they didn't see it? Did they not act because they were replying to say, a spammer or a gimmick racist poster on a deleted / locked thread? Was it really personal abuse? How do you measure personal abuse? For example you said what I said wasn't personal abuse but what Time Magazine said was because of a semantic difference in how the posts were made. How do you measure on a scale what that semantic difference is and when it is right to act and when it is not? It's not actually that straight forward when you look at the reality of what you're suggesting.

Now take the example of measuring potential sexism. Take any forum on boards. It will not have a gender divide that even approaches 50/50. it would be pretty easy to take a particular mod for a particular forum for a particular month and indicate by cold hard figures that they are working with a gender bias. It's just too open to abuse and too simple to indicate a bias where there isn't one. Do the tLL mods ban more women than men? Probably. Does AH ban more men than women? Probably. Also it's not like there is an indication of gender coming from the poster. We don't have to tell anyone on here our gender and so often you are surprised to find x poster is male or female.

Now look at user history. You say measure if a mod is more likely to act on a poster with a history of problems with their forum. Surely that is just intuitive? Somebody has been banned in the past and returns unrepentant to do the same stuff. Surely the next ban should be longer? The PM should be more in depth stating what's wrong? If a poster is unrepentant in misbehaviour despite mod action they are not doing anything good for the community.

These are all valid criticism, not lost on me, and you would be free to point them out were I free to point out mine. But I'm not and therefore it follows you're not. For what it's worth I agree with you, there is no hard and fast of it, which makes a mockery of such claims when an administrator ignores the personal abuse of one user and bans another for a month citing that the rule is black and white and the same for all. Even demonstrating that true consistency is impossible as you assert would go a long way towards mediating some of the backwards thinking I've seen of late.

dr.bollocko wrote: »

On point one you are looking at one specific incident. As the OP and not getting everything you wanted from the thread you will automatically have a sour taste left because of it. Perhaps if other eyes than yours look at the thread they will have a different perspective on it than you do. Was your opinion entirely dismissed because somebody said "what business is it of yours?" I haven't seen any examples of that. They might be there but I've never seen them.

Look here for yourself. I never heard anything back from the administrators after the last post. The implication was clear in the replies I received.

dr.bollocko wrote: »

Right now we do not really have a system in place that really gets feedback that can indicate a bad mod to the cat mod or admins. But this is not any worse of a problem right now than it was 2 years ago. Your cold hard metrics won't work in the real world because you can't sit behind a mod to see exactly what it is he or she did. The old feedback system doesn't work because it's too open to personal opinion. IE if you dislike a mod that's banned you you'll automatically read one of their posts in a different tone than another mod. Also you can't see what a mod might be doing behind the scenes to keep a forum going. All you have is your experience of them which you can't measure or coral into a better argument. And even with the argument you can be damn sure loads of people will disagree and there is still no certainty in the matter.

While its all well and good administrator taking moderators to task, last time I said a moderator was unfit I was threatened with a perma site ban. The time before that I received a temp site ban, not an infraction, not a forum ban, a straight up site ban. If I start a thread tomorrow saying "dr.bollocko is too harsh and should be removed as AH moderator", I will be permanently site banned after nine and half years, gone. Why? To protect you and others from hearing an opinion you disagree with and being challenged to step up and do so publically. You say the old feedback forum failed because it was too open to personal opinion but whatever are you going to use? Few people can be completely rational. Just because people will disagree with your opinion, just because it will cause disharmony and isn't conductive to good governance, isn't reason enough to stop people voicing their opinions.

I never claimed to be the voice of the people, or to represent anyone but myself. Others have tried and failed in the past to attribute more status to me then I have. That said I don't believe that my voice is equal the voice of the silent majority. If they do not care enough to have an opinion then their lack of one should not detract from mine.

I take little issue with the current administrative team. This thread isn't about them. Its about the new team which will surely come in the next few months. The users selected to be administrators less then a year ago painted a particular story, those who have left since paint another and the ones who join tomorrow or the day after will give something different again.

>>>>>>>>>>>>

WIbbs I'll reply to this post but not the other since its off-topic. I'm not ignoring it, I've taken it on board, but there's a time and a place for everything.

Wibbs wrote: »

I would tend to agree with you tbh. IMHO Boards has become more messy, not less messy in the last year and I really don't believe it's down to more traffic. In the drive for a better structure it's taken too much of the corporate vibe and it's become less efficient. Most corporations are actually quite inefficient. I do think many parts of the structure need to be looked at.

This is not against the commercialisation of the site either. I'm a capitalist in the sense that to make this place better it requires finance to do so. If the leccy bill doesn't get paid, no matter how many users are here, it's game over. I've no issue with that and I do think that this course can be charted between vested interests and genuine dialogue and actual communities. It just can't be done with old fashioned thinking. If this is the "new media" and not just hubristic vapourware then new ways of doing things will need to be addressed and invented.

I'll address this all in one big chunk. The commercialisation of boards.ie is not the problem. Vexorg achieved something many before him had tried and failed to, it was a huge success. Vexorg was an excellent administration, a gentleman, a man of vision and an absolute legend of a person who adored this site and the people on it. I do not believe for a moment he would instigate anything which would cause harm to this site in the long run. Alot of us who haven't been happy with the path board is going down have attributed it to the commercialisation. I Believe its the homogenisation rather then the commercialisation of the site which is the root problem.

Boards.ie is no longer the place where person A can have a different view to person B and as long as well all respect each other we'll get along. There is now a right view and several wrong views. dr.bollocko, a user of clear intelligence has - as indicated above - bought into the notion this is a good thing. A user must have the same experience through out boards rather then having a different one on each forum he or she uses. The aim isn't to increase diversity but rather to have everything conform to a single homogenius experience and single "world" view. You may have topics ranging from soccer to creative writing to food and drink but if it's all the same soulless, sterile interactions, Where's the point. Boards has character and that comes from the forums that aren't like all the rest and the users who don't posts like all these rest. Sheep are a dim a dozen, but that user you scan through the thread looking for posts by, or that forum you go to because the quality of conversation is generally freer, they're rare.

The mastermind behind the current incarnation of boards has never vocalised his vision for boards.ie like this before but I think it can be summed up as a place where a customer can post on any conceivable topic and expect a completely consistent experience most of the time. Everyone is treated the same, there are strict rules and an almost automated system of enforcing them. This in turn allows the greatest number of people to interact with each other and share opinions regardless of the quality of those opinions. The more people who interact, the more we have to respect the lowest common denominator. I'd love for him to say I was wrong. That to me his future is a future where the signal and the noise are so similar you can't tell them apart.

Wibbs wrote: »

Again IMHO one of the things that does irritate/concern me about this site is the over reverence towards modsand admins, the hierarchy and cliques, real and perceived. It's an oft heard complaint I've heard from lurkers of this site and a reason they don't nor would sign up(and a reason I suspect many post a few times and bugger off too). A case of too many chiefs not enough indians. These are not always fight the powah types either(as is too often the easy answer) and it's not a complaint against the moderation in general which from what I've seen is pretty consistent on a forum by forum basis. It can be improved of course, but amazing considering the breadth of communities here and the fact that people are invested enugh to do that for free. Basically the mod and admin fanboi schtick is getting to be old hat. Especially when you consider the number of them compared to the number of consistent regular posters who generate the vast majority of the site content,

I never really believed in the power of cliques of the moderator conspiracy. It has been, as you say, old hat long before you even joined. Too many people with too many opinions. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that death by clique wan't a joke.

Wibbs wrote: »

Thinking back on my +1 with regard to user reps, Im re thinking that or at least it points out to me that that's another part of the problem right there. If this site requires user reps, it's failing. The mods of forums are failing and the admins are failing. I'm a user first and foremost. A member of whichever communities will have me. End of. I post far more as a (longwinded)user than I ever have as a mod in any of the places I happen to be a mod of.I'm a user that happens to have extra responsibilities to help the community I'm part of. End of. I'm not special, I'm not any better or worse than 90% of the people who make up the various communities. IMHO if any mod thinks they're more than that, then they need to get a life or get their head read. Ditto for admins. Users come first or should come first, regardless of the the "title" under their usernames. Ditto for the communities that those users are a part of. As a mod I and other mods should be the user reps. I'm a user that also has access to an extra voice for other users. Even simple stuff like people PMing me and other PI mods to delete posts and threads they made. Or if say the forum(s) were changed from on high in a way that impacted the community. Damn right, I and others will register our feelings about that and rightfully so.

I agree, but look at all the user who think its a good idea, that its needed. As boards.ie has continued to grow the powers that be have increasingly relied on the moderators to be their community representatives the some moderators have become used to speaking for the mini communities they mod. I hasard the guess that this has been the source of much of the resentment towards me. Users no longer voice opinions to the management so how dare I. I should forward it via the proper channels. Anyway, I'm off on a tangent.

Wibbs wrote: »

I agree. Dunno how you would do that though TBH. The amount of helpdesk/feedback threads generated by a mod might be a start. If mods get a few reported posts that would concern me anyway if I was getting them(ditto with helpdesk threads). The problem is...well... arseholes. People who want to cause trouble and some forums simply have more than others. EG dr bollocko, tbh and tallaght01 etc, better mods than me have had more helpdesk threads than me(I think I've had one maybe two since the get go?). Same goes for bans. PI generates an helluva lot of infractions, bans etc than other forums. That's the prob right there. It would have to be on a case by case basis. That said if tomorrow I started getting HD/FB threads and reported posts from a cross section of other users I would step down.

I'd start small, taking one moderator on one forum and look for inconsistencies with himself/herself over a narrow time frame. I'd then post up the results and modify my methods based on feedback.

Wibbs wrote: »

As for the communities themselves? Feedback needs to be improved. It also needs to be modded. It's mostly as simple as that. I'd also suggest having it modded by more non admins too. Actually ditto for helpdesk. As this them and us BS goes both ways(Communities need to nurtured in other ways too. The dropping of the sitewide beers was a monumental fcuk up of a decision IMHO. The excuses of security and insurance simply don't cut it. They're excuses and very easily overcome excuses. Every niteclub in the land does it every saturday night. This community kicked off in both the e world and the real world, it needs to get back to that in every way. Without the communites growing there, it will barely grow here beyond a certain point).

As I understand it you can happily have an unofficial site wide boards beers. As someone who has organised Site wide events I'd be extremely slow to organise one again. The numbers involved made any pretence of maintaining control over proceeding a farse and while you can say that's largely the clubs problem, I can see why they didn't want the boards.ie brand associated with something with that must potential for disaster.

Nevyn

Look boards.ie is going to try and become the IKEA of the irish internet with
the many forums for the many people.

It was allways the idea behind this place and it is now likely to happen.

Personally I don't want to see that it is no longer the place were smart people discus things and talk. Yes it's poxy it's like your local being invaded when you could have a reasonably good conversation about the state of the nation but now there's soccer heads in the pub and a hen party and group of metal heads at the juke box and there is a lot more noise then signal but even the definition of that is changing.

Boards.ie now you're talking,

The general public is finding the site and using to get talking an it's changing,
then again it's always changed and it will keep changing.

I am have been keeping an eye and wondering that if I did not have the amount of history and friendships and emotional connection invested in the site and was to only 'discover' it this week, would I be bothered enough to sign up to post?

That is a question I know I will be asking myself on and off over the next 6 months.

I too keep waiting for the changes and things which it the communities asked for which we were told would happen once there were staff, and it hasn't yet.

I do think that online communities need community managers but I think most sites deal with all that behind closed doors and this place was different that there was always a certain level of transparent accountability but that unfortunately due to the sheer size of the site have to change.

And with that happening then it comes back to 'trusting the admins' and it seems a fair few people are disillusioned but they are on a learning curve, and due to so many things being handled off the public radar we don't know how much they are doing or how well they are doing it.

Tbh Boston seems you just picked up a drum that myself and a few other's got fed up of banging a while back as all it seemed to do was make us targets /shrug.

But as I have been told it's not what's being said it's how the issues are raised but currently those of who you are passionate about the site and give a ****e about where it's going and want to see it grow, survive and thrive don't have a way of giving feedback or being part of that process any more.

So it seems it's how long before you get fed up bouncing your head against a brick wall or when will doing that wear a person down so that they just don't care enough to bother any more.

I think that with us being told we 'own' out posts and that we make such wonderful connections to other posters and the site it's self people felt invovled, that it was 'their' boards.ie and now it's not and there are other people making the decisions behind closed doors, but tbh the majority of posters don't know this, don't care and as long as they can use the site won't care for the post part the direction it goes.

I just get concerned with the consistent rise in new sign ups despite all the documentation the site will become so diluted that one day I two will start a thread
in here saying goodbye and thanks for all the fish cos the answer to the question of
"If I had just discovered boards.ie today, would I sign up and post?" would be No.

Earthhorse

Posting on the longest page in boards' history.

Wibbs

Rev. BlueJeans wrote: »

I think this is a very interesting discussion, I'd suggest that if topic integrity must be maintained (?) then these posts should be split into a new thread to allow this to continue.

FWIW I would agree.

Boston wrote: »

They are trigger men. They are there to get the community to swallow whatever il duce wants. I have looked at what they've done with the community and if you scratch below the surface its not that pretty. They are the PR people who dress **** up as roses.

I like a bit of digging under the rse bush, but I wouldn't agree with you on the com guys. Yes they have a job to do, but from my dealings and experience of them they're doing pretty well, considering what they face. I don't know the Darragh chap at all, so I can't comment. I only know the Dav chap a little, but enough to know the guy loves this place. Almost to a fault.

I guess I don't believe in feedback any more.

I'm somewhat with you there, but maybe for different reasons.

Cause I don't care how I get those asleep at the wheel to act, once they do.

Hey I get that, but if you pee on someone's head everytime you feel they fcukup, even if they know they've made a mistake after a while all they smell is pee on their head.

This was done to establish the idea that you have a choice, controlled debate with garbage or without garbage.

I'm with you a fair bit on that, but I don't see a plan, I simply see bad modding. Happens to us all.

which makes a mockery of such claims when an administrator ignores the personal abuse of one user and bans another for a month citing that the rule is black and white and the same for all. Even demonstrating that true consistency is impossible as you assert would go a long way towards mediating some of the backwards thinking I've seen of late.

Hence my PS post which would be better returned to as you suggested. Irony aint in it:D

Look here for yourself. I never heard anything back from the administrators after the last post. The implication was clear in the replies I received.

Yep and FWIW I agree with you on that score to a fair degree. If I happened to see in passing something that made me go Huh? I would like to think it wouldnt be dismissed just because it was in passing. Then again like us all WWM is absolutely perfectly suited and indeed helpful in some issues and as much use as tits on a bull in others. You ended up milking the latter.

While its all well and good administrator taking moderators to task, last time I said a moderator was unfit I was threatened with a perma site ban. The time before that I received a temp site ban, not an infraction, not a forum ban, a straight up site ban. If I start a thread tomorrow saying "dr.bollocko is too harsh and should be removed as AH moderator", I will be permanently site banned after nine and half years, gone. Why? To protect you and others from hearing an opinion you disagree with and being challenged to step up and do so publically. You say the old feedback forum failed because it was too open to personal opinion but whatever are you going to use? Few people can be completely rational. Just because people will disagree with your opinion, just because it will cause disharmony and isn't conductive to good governance, isn't reason enough to stop people voicing their opinions.

It's in the how you say it. It comes across as snide and bitchy all too often. Even when I have fully agreed with you(more times than you may think), I have baulked at your delivery.

I take little issue with the current administrative team. This thread isn't about them. Its about the new team which will surely come in the next few months. The users selected to be administrators less then a year ago painted a particular story, those who have left since paint another and the ones who join tomorrow or the day after will give something different again.

Tide goes in, tide goes out. TBH I care little about who is an admin or not. Doesnt really interest me unless it affects me directly in the forums or in others forums. I'm all about the structure involved. Get that right and even if a muppet gets in, they'll have little lasting effect.

As for the current admin crop. Some I like, some I respect, the two aren't always the same. The aforementioned WWM a perfect example. If I have to think about it I don't particularly like him for a few reasons, but he's very good at what he does and is an asset as a mod and member of this community way more than he's not. I'd even vote for him if it came up on a poll. Go figure. Actually I don't need to figure. It's because he's not one of the mob. He stands out. Meh I never considered consensus much cop TBH. For me it usually just meant all the fcukwits were on the same side. He's not a fcukwit and he's not always on the same side. That's more than enough for me anyway.

>>>>>>>>>>>>

WIbbs I'll reply to this post but not the other since its off-topic. I'm not ignoring it, I've taken it on board, but there's a time and a place for everything.

True and cool.

I'll address this all in one big chunk. The commercialisation of boards.ie is not the problem. Vexorg achieved something many before him had tried and failed to, it was a huge success. Vexorg was an excellent administration, a gentleman, a man of vision and an absolute legend of a person who adored this site and the people on it.

I agree. Nice man on more than a few levels. Rare anywhere.

I do not believe for a moment he would instigate anything which would cause harm to this site in the long run. Alot of us who haven't been happy with the path board is going down have attributed it to the commercialisation. I Believe its the homogenisation rather then the commercialisation of the site which is the root problem.

Yep the slow creep of the dreaded beige in some quarters. Then again is that not another problem? On the one hand you want more of a spread of views, but on the other you want homogenisation of say modding across the board(s), across various forums. Hard one to navigate and define I would have thought?

Boards.ie is no longer the place where person A can have a different view to person B and as long as well all respect each other we'll get along. There is now a right view and several wrong views. dr.bollocko, a user of clear intelligence has - as indicated above - bought into the notion this is a good thing. A user must have the same experience through out boards rather then having a different one on each forum he or she uses. The aim isn't to increase diversity but rather to have everything conform to a single homogenius experience and single "world" view. You may have topics ranging from soccer to creative writing to food and drink but if it's all the same soulless, sterile interactions, Where's the point. Boards has character and that comes from the forums that aren't like all the rest and the users who don't posts like all these rest. Sheep are a dim a dozen, but that user you scan through the thread looking for posts by, or that forum you go to because the quality of conversation is generally freer, they're rare.

Maybe, but that's true of life. Just because its' the written word online wont change the ratio of sheep to lions. I know the geeks, the nerds the socially excluded, indeed mostly the smart, thought the Web Would Change Everything tm and it did for a time, but it's mainstream now. The people that made many feel left out are on board now. It's the way of the world in many ways. Indeed the more mainstream any medium becomes thats more, not less likely to be the case. You better go and try to change the wider world first. Anyway nothing wrong with so called sheep anyway. Rare is the sheep that isn't a lion somewhere. Maybe a place like boards can bring that roar out in some.

The more people who interact, the more we have to respect the lowest common denominator. I'd love for him to say I was wrong. That to me his future is a future where the signal and the noise are so similar you can't tell them apart.

Maybe, or maybe its the complaint of someone fulminating against change and worrying that the vision they had or have is not shared by the world at large, or the world that was small is now larger. Hell Plato equally fulminated against whippersnapper newbies so you're in very good company at least

I hasard the guess that this has been the source of much of the resentment towards me. Users no longer voice opinions to the management so how dare I. I should forward it via the proper channels. Anyway, I'm off on a tangent.

Maybe. I dunno. If I have an issue on a forum I go to the mod and ask WTF? First port of call. I wouldn't go to an admin, not because I don't respect their authoritaaaay, but because they're not directly involved in the community. They might be in which case I might. If I was a user of say PI and I pm'd a mod and it went nowhere I would be tempted to go to beruthial as she was a good and longstanding mod there so knows whats what.

I'd start small, taking one moderator on one forum and look for inconsistencies with himself/herself over a narrow time frame. I'd then post up the results and modify my methods based on feedback.

Great in theory, but then it looks like efficiency reports and all that middle management BS. I guarantee you would lose the best mods if you went down that road. The best/more interesting people in life don't respond well to that stuff. Only drones. The very people you're against taking over the site.

As I understand it you can happily have an unofficial site wide boards beers. As someone who has organised Site wide events I'd be extremely slow to organise one again. The numbers involved made any pretence of maintaining control over proceeding a farse and while you can say that's largely the clubs problem, I can see why they didn't want the boards.ie brand associated with it something with that must potential for disaster.

I still don't agree. For a start I think of people as adults. Secondly most stuff that happens is storm in a teacup stuff. Thirdly this stuff usually goes off without a hitch. Mollycoddle people and you're doomed. The legal/insurance/security stuff is pretty easy to sort. I helped organise a fair number of legal and illegal raves back in the 80's with plenty of scope for disaster and very very little untoward happened. You get the odd hiccup, but surprisingly few. Actually I would say it's easier to control an organised beers type event than a loose spur of the moment lets book this part of a pub on such and such a night forum thing. You can control the input more for a start and you also have an advantage with boards. You can take away site access to fcukwits after the event. It just takes a bit of balls, but it would grow the community IMHO and help the "brand", more than it would hinder. Cynical oul me would even go so far as to say even if there was an "issue" at one of the organised beers it would raise the profile. anyway that's an aside.

Wibbs

Great post from Thaedydal.

Thaedydal wrote:

And with that happening then it comes back to 'trusting the admins' and it seems a fair few people are disillusioned but they are on a learning curve, and due to so many things being handled off the public radar we don't know how much they are doing or how well they are doing it.

As always the proof of the pudding is in the eating and there have been a few belly aches since the new admin team were appointed, but as you said all of us have had a learning curve. As users and mods and admins

Kiera

+1 Thaedydal's post.

BuffyBot

Split off from the "Administrators" thread.

Reminder: to all mods and users - this thread isn't the place to discuss individual users. Keep it on a higher level than that please

randylonghorn

Wibbs wrote: »

It's in the how you say it. It comes across as snide and bitchy all too often. Even when I have fully agreed with you(more times than you may think), I have baulked at your delivery.

I'm afraid I have to agree with Wibbs, Boston. I have always read what you have to say with interest and given it thought even when I didn't especially agree with it. Recently, though, there's been a sharp increase in the bitchíocht, intentionally or not, and that just makes me lose interest and switch off.

Wibbs wrote: »

Great in theory, but then it looks like efficiency reports and all that middle management BS. I guarantee you would lose the best mods if you went down that road.

Yep. Not claiming to be one of "the best mods", btw, or even a good one, but certainly I get enough of that kind of corporate BS at work and I certainly don't want to see it creep in here. Nor does it do any good anyway, it just takes up time and makes it look like something is being done, and allows people to rattle off stats like "96% of posters never made a complaint, aren't we great!" without ever actually looking at the 4% who did or the 2% who had good reason to and trying to see what needed to be done about it.*

*Stats are illustrative, and straight out of my imagination.

sceptre wrote: »

You're too young. Less Arnie, more Stan/Loretta. His sense of humour is definitely firing on eight cylinders there.

Lol, actually I know TLOB, but it's been a while and I had forgotten that scene.


Actually, on (the actual) topic: Brian for Admin!!

Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, You don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for your selves! You're ALL individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!

Orion

Well as someone who isn't vested in any direction I can see concerns with the current direction and ethos of boards. In Feedback there has always been FTP posts and that will probably never change. But more recently there has been respected users leaving boards. Hagar and orestes are two that spring to mind (without searching ... oh I can't search ). I know there was prams with toys with Hagar but it was still a symptom of a greater problem.

In the past Mods were always users who were given mod-ships for the areas they were active in. The example I will use is Khannie - Comp & Tech had no very active mods and a post was started in here to get a new one. Khannie was suggested by regulars on that forum, Dev responded about a sticky that Khannie had started which showed his commitment and he became a mod. That was back in the good old days when users were listened to imo. Now Khannie is a mod of 5 forums. It appears a "jobs for the old boys" thing. I'm not saying it is that (and this is not an attack on Khannie - he's a great bloke and a personal friend irl) but it can (and seemingly does) appear that way. Users who show a concern, or request change, often get pounced upon by Admins and Mods and nothing changes. AH is the only forum I've seen recently where users get input into who becomes mod - and AH is the sewer of boards (not the posters - just the topics).

More recently there's also been a hell of a lot more commercial interest in the site which is giving the impression of a sell-out. I've no problem with boards raising money in that regard but there seems to be more interest for the Community Managers in attracting advertising than working with the content providers ... i.e. us.

I know this post seems disjointed - that's because of the 2 bottles of Hunter's Peak - but they are concerns of mine regardless. I'm not mad on the current direction of boards. It used to be of the people, by the people and for the people. But more recently it has appeared to be of the people, by the people, for the company.

Nevyn

Macros42 wrote: »

Well as someone who isn't vested in any direction I can see concerns with the current direction and ethos of boards. In Feedback there has always been FTP posts and that will probably never change. But more recently there has been respected users leaving boards. Hagar and orestes are two that spring to mind (without searching ... oh I can't search ). I know there was prams with toys with Hagar but it was still a symptom of a greater problem.

I think there are fair few people who are feeling disenfranchised for what ever reason.

Macros42 wrote: »

In the past Mods were always users who were given mod-ships for the areas they were active in. The example I will use is Khannie - Comp & Tech had no very active mods and a post was started in here to get a new one. Khannie was suggested by regulars on that forum, Dev responded about a sticky that Khannie had started which showed his commitment and he became a mod. That was back in the good old days when users were listened to imo. Now Khannie is a mod of 5 forums. It appears a "jobs for the old boys" thing. I'm not saying it is that (and this is not an attack on Khannie - he's a great bloke and a personal friend irl) but it can (and seemingly does) appear that way. Users who show a concern, or request change, often get pounced upon by Admins and Mods and nothing changes. AH is the only forum I've seen recently where users get input into who becomes mod - and AH is the sewer of boards (not the posters - just the topics).

It that your I'm not a mod yet whinge
Your name was in the hat for parenting if Khannie didn't accept it.

Why an existing mod over someone who I know is a great dad and would be an asset?

Two reasons, proven track record and honestly easier to get approved passed the admin committee. Still I am glad that they are vetting mods; they have to consider not just the forum but the standards of the site as well when appointing a mod.

Macros42 wrote: »

More recently there's also been a hell of a lot more commercial interest in the site which is giving the impression of a sell-out. I've no problem with boards raising money in that regard but there seems to be more interest for the Community Managers in attracting advertising than working with the content providers ... i.e. us.

Well they opened a can of worms with the contact page and are having to deal with all of that and as for time invested in dealing with creating revenue streams if the site doesn't have them then there will not be money to pay staff.

Again seems a lot of what they are doing is stuff most people don't see and can't comment on but I understand the feeling that they are not working for the community they are managing and the concern they are looking out for themselves but I know that they have to deal with sensitive issues which again means unless you are invovled your not going to know.

I know more pain in the hole seeming lack of transparent process and accountability but there are two things which they have done which I know was hard work and I know is and will benefit the site greatly now and as this place grows and that is the FAQ and the new terms and conditions and I am sure the boiler plate charters template will be along soon.

Macros42 wrote: »

I know this post seems disjointed - that's because of the 2 bottles of Hunter's Peak - but they are concerns of mine regardless. I'm not mad on the current direction of boards. It used to be of the people, by the people and for the people. But more recently it has appeared to be of the people, by the people, for the company.

It's always been a company but with out the structure in place, and now it needs work done to put those structures in place, which is stuff which people aren't gonna see but I guess is like seeing a bunch of people working on a bridge re enforcing it, seeing a lot of materials and man hours going in while we are still walking back and across the bridge thinking what are they doing, bugger all has changed were is that bench half way on the bridge we said we wanted, while they are getting it ready to be able to handle lorries and buses instead of just people and the odd car.

Which is like when visitors were coming to the house and Yore Ma turns it up side down cleaning and sorting for 'other' people who are coming to stay, and discommoding those who already live there by not having as much time or being about as much. Which is only going to make you resent your cousin all the more when he gets there, he could be the person most likely on the planet to be your best mate but the fact yore ma seems more concerned about getting the place sorted for when him and the rest of them get there means it's soured before they set foot over the threshold.

While boards is growing and they are looking at dealing with that growth if those who are already here and have been here become discontent in big numbers then it's an issue. While I don't think they will please all of the people all of the time and it's not 10 mods leaving enmass or an entire communities upping roots and buggering off else where ( which is what happened to the irish ut crowd, there was no active mod, calls for a new mod were ignored, no one was tending the forum so they left ) there has been enough people who held the torch for boards and upheld it's standards and ideals leaving over the last year to cause ruffled feathers in my opinion.

Wibbs

+1 on Thaedydal's post

My name is URL

How would the user-rep idea work? Isn't that what a mod is supposed to be in essence.. the voice of reason in the forums they mod?

Users should be able to represent themselves, everyone has a voice atm

Selecting a few to speak for many is not that dissimilar to having more mods or admins, imho

Wibbs

My name is URL wrote: »

How would the user-rep idea work? Isn't that what a mod is supposed to be in essence.. the voice of reason in the forums they mod?

Users should should be able to represent themselves, everyone has a voice atm

Selecting a few to speak for many is not that dissimilar to having more mods or admins, imho

Exactly. If it is needed then something is simply not working. If it is needed of course. Feedback is a small enough forum. A sitewide feedback poll may be not a bad plan. Get actual feedback. There may be no problem at all for the vast majority of the userbase.

Boston

My name is URL wrote: »

How would the user-rep idea work? Isn't that what a mod is supposed to be in essence.. the voice of reason in the forums they mod?

Users should should be able to represent themselves, everyone has a voice atm

Selecting a few to speak for many is not that dissimilar to having more mods or admins, imho

Don't have time for a lengthy reply today but in brief, yes we all have a voice. However some voices penetrate more then others. Users don't get a say on changes to boards.ie before they happen. Users barely get to have a say at all with all these restrictions. Moderators have their voice and feel the need to use it regardless of how appropriate it is. No one speaks directly to management on behalf of all users.

oscarBravo

Boston wrote: »

No one speaks directly to management on behalf of all users.

...and, by definition, no-one ever will.

Boston

Depends on the definition.

My name is URL

Boston wrote: »

Don't have time for a length reply today but in brief, yes we all have a voice. However some voices penetrate more then others. Users don't get a say on changes to boards.ie before they happen. Users barely get to have a say at all with all these restrictions. Moderators have their voice and feel the need to use it regardless of how appropriate it is. No one speaks directly to management on behalf of all users.

I agree with you.

But how would that change if a few users were selected to speak on our behalf? How will those people be selected?

Once someone has a tag given to them by boards, they're no longer just members (regardless of what protocol says), they're acting in a way that boards deems to be fitting with an ideal.

Maybe I'm way off the mark, but I can see it reverting back to how it is now if this was implemented. Not everyone's concerns will be raised or backed and nepotistic choices on what's important will be made

Orion

Thaedydal wrote: »

It that your I'm not a mod yet whinge

God no. I've never sought that particular brand of pain

Thaedydal wrote: »

Your name was in the hat for parenting if Khannie didn't accept it.

:eek:

Thaedydal wrote: »

Why an existing mod over someone who I know is a great dad and would be an asset?

Two reasons, proven track record and honestly easier to get approved passed the admin committee. Still I am glad that they are vetting mods; they have to consider not just the forum but the standards of the site as well when appointing a mod.

I have no problem with Khannie modding Parenting at all - it was just the best example I could think of at the time and I have a good recollection of when he first became mod of Computers.

( which is what happened to the irish ut crowd, there was no active mod, calls for a new mod were ignored, no one was tending the forum so they left )

That's not what happened at all. The problem was that we were reliant on the UT forum to arrange games nights and at the time boards was unreliable. The site was regularly down due to crashes and server failures (I'm sure you remember those days) and in the end we decided to set up our own site for UT. Modding wasn't a problem - there was generally no need for mod intervention and on the rare occasion when there was musician was only a PM away. There's still a few of us knocking about on boards

oscarBravo

Boston wrote: »

Depends on the definition.

Sure - if your definition of "all" is "some", "many", or "a (possibly) representative sample", then maybe someone could speak on behalf of "all" users.

This site was never a democracy. I'm not sure why there's a need to try to turn it into one. Democracy is very difficult to operate in the real world - I honestly don't think it could work at all in a virtual world like this.

Earthhorse

What an incredible thread I've discovered.

Wibbs wrote: »

Thinking back on my +1 with regard to user reps, Im re thinking that or at least it points out to me that that's another part of the problem right there.

An adversarial approach to dispute resolution would not be my preference, especially given how well the current system has served us to date, but it's amazing how long - ten years around - it can take to build up goodwill and how quickly that can vanish - six months approximately.

One myth we need to do away with is that there is no difference between users, mods and admins. In principle, this might be true, but in practice it isn't. The three have entirely different experiences of the site and this colours their perception of what constitutes a fair hearing. We need not talk about cliques or conspiracies in order for this to be true; it is simply cause and effect.

As a user, if someone is, say, using multiple accounts to jerk me around, I have no way to verify whether these accounts are coming from the same IP address. Mods and admins can do IP checks. As a user, if someone is banned for something seemingly trivial, I have no way of knowing this was as a result of an accumulated history of misdemeanours. Mods and admins have access to ban history.

As a mod, one of your responsibilities is to investigate reported posts. If Feedback is anything to go by then the vast majority of these have no merit or, at least, not enough for you to action. Even so, one needs to spend time communicating this to users and following up on the few cases with merit can be tricky and time consuming. This is not to mention all the effort the best mods put into making their communities places where people feel welcome and able to generate high value content.

On top of these responsibilities mods have access to the moderators and reported posts forums (to the best of my knowledge these forums are separate). The former may be an eye opener to the various different friendships and feuds which form, inevitably, over time in a community of this size. The latter is a place where, I imagine, occasionally, from time to time, people report things and, as a result, reveal something quite personal about themselves.

Most of the current administrators are also active moderators or have been at some point. So, not only does all of the above apply to them, they have the added responsibility of looking after Feedback, mediating in Helpdesk and debating the future direction of the site. They may also have access to more tools and more areas of the site than regular mods.

There is nothing wrong with any of these experiences. They are almost inevitable as a result of the functioning of the site. But the idea that an administrator can fairly represent a user's experience on boards is a fallacy. Most of the time they don't need to because most cases are clear cut. It is the edge cases, the tiny minority, where a user rep would be highly useful in producing a resolution that is fairer to users. As it stands, in an imperfect information system, the odds are stacked against the user.

Wibbs wrote: »

If this site requires user reps, it's failing. The mods of forums are failing and the admins are failing.

Failing is far too strong a word. Floundering might be more apt and whilst I genuinely hope they hit their stride again there is little indication that this is happening. BuffyBot's splitting of this thread to allow discussion continue is a step in the right direction. A month ago, I've a funny feeling Boston's thread would have been nixed.

Thaedydal wrote: »

It's always been a company...

Only in the strictest sense of the word. It has always been sold (ha! the irony) to us as a community.

Community implies a place where people are safe, where they care about each other and where they are treated, for the most part, as equals. We don't have to moddy coddle them from the big bad world, we don't even have to like them but if we're to call oursleves a community then we have to earn that; continually, not just based on our past behaviour. And it did feel like a community in the past; a place where people would stand up for what was right regardless of whether it was for or against someone they liked or disliked. It's an intangible thing, impossible to prove, but it was there and now it is gone, and it's what has posters like you, myself, Boston and Kiera raising an eyebrow and wondering if it's worth it.

Whilst I have no wish to align myself with Boston (sorry, dude but it's true ) he is right that even the title of Community Manager is a mistake. The community (I hesitate to call it our community given how disenfranchised I feel from it right now) is a self organising one. The idea that it needs to be managed is a little condescending. Community Liaison would be better, though still not perfect. No doubt to an admin this will seem like such a triviality, such a semantic irrelevance but again I would say that admins are not good representatives of a user's perspective.

Macros makes a great point in his post about the nature of mods. Most are intially selected based on their interest and investment in a community. After that, they are more likely to be selected for future modships. They are trusted because they are trusted. As Thaed says, this is often done because it is expedient; but the convenience of expediency comes at the cost of diversity. When it comes down to it a mod, who is essentially a trusted user, will have his word taken over that of a user; who isn't so much untrusted as they are unknown. It's another inequity in the system that needs to be acknowledged and which would be, in some way, mitigated by a user rep.

Note: Just seeing a few posts in the preview that have a very different idea of what a user rep would be than I do. Will explain how I would see it working in my next post.

seamus

Boston wrote: »

Users don't get a say on changes to boards.ie before they happen.

Should they? It would be like putting a proposal out to a committee of 10,000. Nothing would ever change because nobody would ever stop talking about it long enough to approve it.

So your alternative then is a representative "committee". The concept of which presents as many problems as it tries to solve. Ultimately you'll end up with user representatives who are chosen in exactly the same way that moderators are - through showing that they have the cop-on and the maturity to be that kind of person and through demonstrating that they have the best interests of the site as a whole at heart.

You made a point earlier on Boston about the site only wanting "team players" or people who'll toe the line with the owners.

You're basically right, except that you're painting it as something bad and stifling. When choosing someone for a position of responsibility, there's only one common trait asked of every single one of them - that you will act in the best interests of the community (and by extension the site) in carrying out that responsibility. Dissenting voices have never been closed down or quietened, where that dissenting voice is dissenting because they believe it needs to be said on behalf of the community and for the benefit of the community.

The only dissenting voices who are ignored are those who are dissenting because they are trying to get something out of it for themselves - be it a need to enforce their own morality on the way the site works* or a need to "win" something back because they feel they've been wronged on the site.

You'd be surprised the amount of 5000-word essays which appear on feedback, screaming about justice for the little guy and acting all high and mighty about the needs of the average user, who then promptly shut up and forget all about the average user when they get their own personal issue resolved.

There's also a somewhat a difference between acting in the best interests of the community and acting within the community. Your little "project" Boston, as far as I can tell, is an attempt to document the moderation actions of an individual moderator over the course of time, in an attempt to show that moderation isn't consistent. Sounds like an interesting Daily Mail "expose", and on top of victimising a single moderator for no reason other than you chose him/her at random to be victimised, it fails to do two things:
1. Prove anything which isn't already known.
2. Provide anything to the community

Now, you can mitigate point 2 by providing a solution to the problem in addition to your findings. However, simply presenting your findings won't acheive anything except to cause friction in the community. And that's not the action of the self-styled community "champion" you're making yourself out to be.

No one speaks directly to management on behalf of all users.

I could easily argue that's precisely what the Admins do - speak directly to the owners of boards.ie in the best interests of all users.

*I'm not getting into the "enforcing one's own morality is acting on what you believe is best for the site" argument. That's a philosophical matter.

Earthhorse

As it stands there are three dispute resolution mechanisms on boards; two public, Feedback and Helpdesk, and one private, PMs.

We are often told that here on boards we own our words. This isn't always true. Threads get locked, so we can't share our words, posts get deleted, so our words are taken from us. We own our words, until someone else does. There are times when this is fair; libellous or abusive statements should be removed, though the latter, if aimed at another user should be sanctioned.

So what happens when an abusive comment is removed and no sanction is imposed? How can a user make a case? They'll just come across as a crank.

Feedback is a also a place where we can make more general comments about the moderation and administration of the site. We are told to avoid talking about specific users or issues because then it will just become about that user or that issue. So we don't. Then we are asked to evidence our claims, whatever they may be, with some examples.

How is this possible? There's a clear exclusivity between the two demands.

So we loan rather than own our words and we must produce evidence without reference. Double standards are no standards at all.

Helpdesk is a place where people can challenge the specific decisions we are asked to avoid in Feedback. It's a noble attempt to cut through the clamour of Feedback but if the user has a genuine grievance and one that is in any way ambiguous they are at a severe disadvantage. Over the years I have seen many cases where mods have challenged other mods regarding the contents of deleted posts. A user has no mechanism by which they can achieve this.

PMs are the first means of response we are encouraged to pursue (and may be the only course you end up with if your thread is locked or deleted) but it suffers from the above described problems, only moreso.

In short, the problems with the current resolution mechanisms are lack of transparency and imperfect information (from the user's point of view).

How would appointing a user rep resolve this? It could only make a difference were they to be granted some of the existing tools available to mods. This is a sketch of how I see it working:

1. Access to muppet checks. For starters, no one wants a situation where user reps are hassling mods or admins. We want them representing genuine users with real issues, not time-wasters. Remember, I am talking only about the edge, difficult, ambiguous and unique conflicts that arise on this site. Not the day to day modding which I think for the most part works exceedingly well.
2. Access (if only temporary) to see deleted posts etc. To redress the information balance that exists in the present system a user rep would be able to see the disputed content in question. You can't open this up to all users, but to a trusted few you could share this information, in the interests of fairness.
3. Read-only access to the moderators forum. Not essential perhaps but could be useful in determining a person's position (and disposition) regarding certain issues or users. Identifying agendas basically. Make it read only access so as the user rep never gets involved or takes sides.

That's not a copper-fastened list by the way. Just some of the things I think would need to be in place for such an approach to work.

The user rep would be biased toward the user's point of view. They would lean on admins to pursue issues of merit and would have the tools to do so. As it stands, I think there is a bias toward expediency in the resolution of difficult issues. The user rep is a necessary counterbalance to that.

Make no mistake; I would much rather there wasn't a need to propose this. I would much rather have my faith in the custodians of this site restored. But it is difficult to base that faith on nothing or to ignore what I have seen or dismiss it as exception.

With regard to future direction of the site, I am not sure the user rep would have such a big role. As oscarBravo says, there is little chance of any one user being able to represent all of us. It's too tall a task to ask of anyone. They may have a role in ensuring users powers (such as the ability to Thank posts in Feedback ) aren't removed or restricted but I would say there is far more room for them to play the role as have I sketched it (and it's just that, a sketch) above.

Boston

oscarBravo wrote: »

Sure - if your definition of "all" is "some", "many", or "a (possibly) representative sample", then maybe someone could speak on behalf of "all" users.

This site was never a democracy. I'm not sure why there's a need to try to turn it into one. Democracy is very difficult to operate in the real world - I honestly don't think it could work at all in a virtual world like this.

Sorry it's a concept thing. Take a TD. No one could claim that a TD represents all the diverse views of his constituents. Some may want jam on Tuesdays while others want jam on Wednesday, an obviously irreconcilable position. Though it is his job to represent all the views of the electorate as best he can to the government. You don't need universal approval / support to represent people.

We are all well aware that this place isn't a democracy. It is a dictatorship, complete with secret police, inquisitions and wire taps. But this place was never meant to be run with a deaf ear to the grass roots contributors.

Earthhorse wrote: »

An adversarial approach to dispute resolution would not be my preference, especially given how well the current system has served us to date, but it's amazing how long - ten years around - it can take to build up goodwill and how quickly that can vanish - six months approximately.

One myth we need to do away with is that there is no difference between users, mods and admins. In principle, this might be true, but in practice it isn't. The three have entirely different experiences of the site and this colours their perception of what constitutes a fair hearing. We need not talk about cliques or conspiracies in order for this to be true; it is simply cause and effect.

As a user, if someone is, say, using multiple accounts to jerk me around, I have no way to verify whether these accounts are coming from the same IP address. Mods and admins can do IP checks. As a user, if someone is banned for something seemingly trivial, I have no way of knowing this was as a result of an accumulated history of misdemeanours. Mods and admins have access to ban history.

As a mod, one of your responsibilities is to investigate reported posts. If Feedback is anything to go by then the vast majority of these have no merit or, at least, not enough for you to action. Even so, one needs to spend time communicating this to users and following up on the few cases with merit can be tricky and time consuming. This is not to mention all the effort the best mods put into making their communities places where people feel welcome and able to generate high value content.

On top of these responsibilities mods have access to the moderators and reported posts forums (to the best of my knowledge these forums are separate). The former may be an eye opener to the various different friendships and feuds which form, inevitably, over time in a community of this size. The latter is a place where, I imagine, occasionally, from time to time, people report things and, as a result, reveal something quite personal about themselves.

Last item first.

Moderators forum;

The Reports forum is a separate sub forum to the moderators forum. The moderators forum was a place for moderators to discuss moderating issues and to defuse mod-mod tensions in private, it wasn't set up to be the moderators rant and raving club. I was around when it was set up, I (and several other now missing members) were the direct cause of the forum being set up. The way the forum operates now has lead to the constant accusations of moderator conspiracy, and a large amount of intrigue, politicking, lobbying and games . This is how it works for the uninducted.

Any moderator can start a thread about any user regardless of whether of not said user posts in their forum. The moderator can then lobby the management for action to be taken against the user, solicit support against the user and / or simply rant and vent about said user. The user is then essentially trialled in private by the moderators without an option to defend him or herself. The management's actions are then based partly on the feedback generated by the moderator forum. A moderator accused of wrong doing is free to defend themselves and gather around them their own click of users.

The reason offered by management as to why moderator who have nothing to do with a user should be allowed have a say on what, if anything, the user contributes to the site is that they're forum leaders and as such the management values their input. I cannot accept that as a valid reason for why a moderator gets to sit in judgement of a users actions outside their forum. Are they not "just normal users" outside of the forums they moderate despite the constant proclamations of such. I should add that none of the thread I've seen where started by a moderator complaining about my behaviour on their forum. If you went through the mods on the mods forum calling for me to be banned you'll find I've almost never posted on any of there forums and I doubt you'll find one whose so much as infracted me. Yet, they're able to call for management intervention, and worse still be seen as having legitimate cause. All because of their special position as "more then a user".

Why should they comment when I and you cannot? Is there not a bias here? Helpdesk restricts user complaints so that other users cannot pass judgement on moderator actions but any moderator can chim in and call for a user to be banned simply due to disliking how they post on boards in general. It's no fair that vested interests can lobby like this but if I or someone else started a thread about a moderator whom i didn't like explicitly for the purposes of undermining their boards status, locks infractions and bans would follow.

I was lambasted for interfering in the poker forum situation, a few people felt that it was none of my business. il duce has used a similiar line with regards to the Watty mess, however without fail one or more poker mods have called for me to be reprimanded in every thread relating to me on the mod forum since the incident. Often with lines such as "Special treatment" and "Any of user would have been banned". Forgetting the special interest and efforts several administrators and il duce himself personally showed to keep them on this site and make compromises any other mods of any other forum wouldn't have been accommodated to the degree they were.

I've seen moderators copy and paste entire threads from the moderators forum into IRC channels, laugh and Jer and rub their hands together at the miss fortune of those on their hate list. These moderators don't represent the user base. They are solely about their own ego and bloated sense of self importance. But that never really bothered me until I saw how reliant those up on high have become of the so called valued users.

Moderator access to information;

As you point out moderators have access to vastly more information then the regular user. What you may no be aware of is that they know every change that happens on this site. You get infracted on a private forum, there is it. You get banned from a forum, there it is. They access to information about your boards.ie history which you as a regular user have no access to and they're very willing to use that against you should the need arise. I had one moderator justify infracting me based on an infraction I received on a totally different forum.

Should tomorrow or the day after I grow tired of the Boston account and the numerous hate lists it appear on, I couldn't close down the account and start again. Every moderator would instantly be able to run "Muppet" checks to determine my identy. Within a hour there would be a thread on the moderators forum calling for a ban. After that everyone within five degrees of separations from the mod forum would know who I was.

Do we really believe that moderators are "Just normal users outside their forums" anymore? No.

Earthhorse wrote: »

Most of the current administrators are also active moderators or have been at some point. So, not only does all of the above apply to them, they have the added responsibility of looking after Feedback, mediating in Helpdesk and debating the future direction of the site. They may also have access to more tools and more areas of the site than regular mods.

There is nothing wrong with any of these experiences. They are almost inevitable as a result of the functioning of the site. But the idea that an administrator can fairly represent a user's experience on boards is a fallacy. Most of the time they don't need to because most cases are clear cut. It is the edge cases, the tiny minority, where a user rep would be highly useful in producing a resolution that is fairer to users. As it stands, in an imperfect information system, the odds are stacked against the user.

A user advocate is badly needed. Someone who can't be banned, told to shut up or that it's none of their business. An outside view from an insider.

Earthhorse wrote: »

Failing is far too strong a word. Floundering might be more apt and whilst I genuinely hope they hit their stride again there is little indication that this is happening. BuffyBot's splitting of this thread to allow discussion continue is a step in the right direction. A month ago, I've a funny feeling Boston's thread would have been nixed.

Falling is the wrong word. You can't use the word falling for something which never worked in the first place. More to the point it did work for some moderators but the majority never acted as user representatives. That simply wasn't a part of the job for them. The system is falling now because a lot of those moderators who where community / user representatives have quiet to be replaced by people who simply put don't care as much.

Earthhorse wrote: »

Only in the strictest sense of the word. It has always been sold (ha! the irony) to us as a community.

Community implies a place where people are safe, where they care about each other and where they are treated, for the most part, as equals. We don't have to moddy coddle them from the big bad world, we don't even have to like them but if we're to call oursleves a community then we have to earn that; continually, not just based on our past behaviour. And it did feel like a community in the past; a place where people would stand up for what was right regardless of whether it was for or against someone they liked or disliked. It's an intangible thing, impossible to prove, but it was there and now it is gone, and it's what has posters like you, myself, Boston and Kiera raising an eyebrow and wondering if it's worth it.

Boards.ie LTD existed for two reasons, to get the .ie domain and for limited libability. It was never a company in an serious way. Accounts where filled and all the legal requirements met. Boards.ie became a company the day Ross was hired. (Who btw is actually the second boards.ie employee, not the first). The idea was a community which was funded through the company arm of things. Making money where possible. Now things have shifted towards a company with a community as the product we're looking to sell. This isn't good.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

seamus wrote: »

Should they? It would be like putting a proposal out to a committee of 10,000. Nothing would ever change because nobody would ever stop talking about it long enough to approve it.

So your alternative then is a representative "committee". The concept of which presents as many problems as it tries to solve. Ultimately you'll end up with user representatives who are chosen in exactly the same way that moderators are - through showing that they have the cop-on and the maturity to be that kind of person and through demonstrating that they have the best interests of the site as a whole at heart.

How moderators are selected isn't the key problem. I cannot suggest a better way then what macros outlined. The problem is that you have people being judge, jury and executioner. It's like the TDs deciding if they deserve a pay increase. All executive branches of the boards.ie ruling class are filled by the same people in largely the same role, only scope differs.

Wheres the harm in letting 10,000 people have say? It is a discussion forum after all. You don't have to follow what anyone says, the site is still a dictatorship and better off for it. But allowing people to say "Actually that new front page is ****e" before you go live with it, isn't a bad idea.

seamus wrote: »

You made a point earlier on Boston about the site only wanting "team players" or people who'll toe the line with the owners.

You're basically right, except that you're painting it as something bad and stifling. When choosing someone for a position of responsibility, there's only one common trait asked of every single one of them - that you will act in the best interests of the community (and by extension the site) in carrying out that responsibility. Dissenting voices have never been closed down or quietened, where that dissenting voice is dissenting because they believe it needs to be said on behalf of the community and for the benefit of the community.

What you're saying is that the administrator team need to be a team, needs to have builders not distroyers. I get that, but I don't think it should be a case of follow the leader. Something new happened when boards.ie LTD gained parity with boards.ie community. For the first time a single administrator, the CEO could affect major changes without the need to consult or be advised by the other administrators/ site owners. That was needed for what vexorg was doing. Its proven disaterous in the hands of il duce.

seamus wrote: »

The only dissenting voices who are ignored are those who are dissenting because they are trying to get something out of it for themselves - be it a need to enforce their own morality on the way the site works* or a need to "win" something back because they feel they've been wronged on the site.

Is this me? Do you feel this is me? I see no winning in this.

seamus wrote: »

You'd be surprised the amount of 5000-word essays which appear on feedback, screaming about justice for the little guy and acting all high and mighty about the needs of the average user, who then promptly shut up and forget all about the average user when they get their own personal issue resolved.

In the past I've easied off when whatever issue I've rallied for has been addressed. I've given the management good will and time to fullfill promises made. This should not be mistaken for suddenly not caring once matters have been resolved.

seamus wrote: »

There's also a somewhat a difference between acting in the best interests of the community and acting within the community. Your little "project" Boston, as far as I can tell, is an attempt to document the moderation actions of an individual moderator over the course of time, in an attempt to show that moderation isn't consistent. Sounds like an interesting Daily Mail "expose", and on top of victimising a single moderator for no reason other than you chose him/her at random to be victimised, it fails to do two things:
1. Prove anything which isn't already known.
2. Provide anything to the community

Now, you can mitigate point 2 by providing a solution to the problem in addition to your findings. However, simply presenting your findings won't acheive anything except to cause friction in the community. And that's not the action of the self-styled community "champion" you're making yourself out to be.

My other little project was to take a random "good" user and through manipulating cliques on the moderators forum, IRC channels and other venues get him sitebanned. The first step would have been to add him to my friends list, a kiss of death if ever there was one. I decide I wasn't that much of a bastard. I'd love for you to provide me with a post where I declared myself champion of the community or claimed to speak for anyone put myself. I can provide several posts where I indicated the exact opposite. I don't think you even be able to find a post by any user saying I speak for them.

As for what purpose it would serve. If that moderator took sometime for introspection and came away better for it, then it would have served the only purpose I desire. If other moderators saw it and then questions their own actions and found them lacking or not, then it would have served a purpose in excess of my desirers.

seamus wrote: »

I could easily argue that's precisely what the Admins do - speak directly to the owners of boards.ie in the best interests of all users.

Please do make the arguement seamus. I don't think its an easy one.


>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Earthhorse wrote: »

As it stands there are three dispute resolution mechanisms on boards; two public, Feedback and Helpdesk, and one private, PMs.

We are often told that here on boards we own our words. This isn't always true. Threads get locked, so we can't share our words, posts get deleted, so our words are taken from us. We own our words, until someone else does. There are times when this is fair; libellous or abusive statements should be removed, though the latter, if aimed at another user should be sanctioned.

So what happens when an abusive comment is removed and no sanction is imposed? How can a user make a case? They'll just come across as a crank.

Feedback is a also a place where we can make more general comments about the moderation and administration of the site. We are told to avoid talking about specific users or issues because then it will just become about that user or that issue. So we don't. Then we are asked to evidence our claims, whatever they may be, with some examples.

How is this possible? There's a clear exclusivity between the two demands.

Very eloquent. I agree.

Earthhorse wrote: »

So we loan rather than own our words and we must produce evidence without reference. Double standards are no standards at all.

Helpdesk is a place where people can challenge the specific decisions we are asked to avoid in Feedback. It's a noble attempt to cut through the clamour of Feedback but if the user has a genuine grievance and one that is in any way ambiguous they are at a severe disadvantage. Over the years I have seen many cases where mods have challenged other mods regarding the contents of deleted posts. A user has no mechanism by which they can achieve this.

PMs are the first means of response we are encouraged to pursue (and may be the only course you end up with if your thread is locked or deleted) but it suffers from the above described problems, only moreso.

In short, the problems with the current resolution mechanisms are lack of transparency and imperfect information (from the user's point of view).

How would appointing a user rep resolve this? It could only make a difference were they to be granted some of the existing tools available to mods. This is a sketch of how I see it working:

1. Access to muppet checks. For starters, no one wants a situation where user reps are hassling mods or admins. We want them representing genuine users with real issues, not time-wasters. Remember, I am talking only about the edge, difficult, ambiguous and unique conflicts that arise on this site. Not the day to day modding which I think for the most part works exceedingly well.
2. Access (if only temporary) to see deleted posts etc. To redress the information balance that exists in the present system a user rep would be able to see the disputed content in question. You can't open this up to all users, but to a trusted few you could share this information, in the interests of fairness.
3. Read-only access to the moderators forum. Not essential perhaps but could be useful in determining a person's position (and disposition) regarding certain issues or users. Identifying agendas basically. Make it read only access so as the user rep never gets involved or takes sides.

That's not a copper-fastened list by the way. Just some of the things I think would need to be in place for such an approach to work.

I like it.

Doctor DooM

Earthhorse wrote: »

As it stands there are three dispute resolution mechanisms on boards; two public, Feedback and Helpdesk, and one private, PMs.

We are often told that here on boards we own our words. This isn't always true. Threads get locked, so we can't share our words, posts get deleted, so our words are taken from us. We own our words, until someone else does. There are times when this is fair; libellous or abusive statements should be removed, though the latter, if aimed at another user should be sanctioned.

So what happens when an abusive comment is removed and no sanction is imposed? How can a user make a case? They'll just come across as a crank.

Feedback is a also a place where we can make more general comments about the moderation and administration of the site. We are told to avoid talking about specific users or issues because then it will just become about that user or that issue. So we don't. Then we are asked to evidence our claims, whatever they may be, with some examples.

How is this possible? There's a clear exclusivity between the two demands.

So we loan rather than own our words and we must produce evidence without reference. Double standards are no standards at all.

Helpdesk is a place where people can challenge the specific decisions we are asked to avoid in Feedback. It's a noble attempt to cut through the clamour of Feedback but if the user has a genuine grievance and one that is in any way ambiguous they are at a severe disadvantage. Over the years I have seen many cases where mods have challenged other mods regarding the contents of deleted posts. A user has no mechanism by which they can achieve this.

PMs are the first means of response we are encouraged to pursue (and may be the only course you end up with if your thread is locked or deleted) but it suffers from the above described problems, only moreso.

In short, the problems with the current resolution mechanisms are lack of transparency and imperfect information (from the user's point of view).

How would appointing a user rep resolve this? It could only make a difference were they to be granted some of the existing tools available to mods. This is a sketch of how I see it working:

1. Access to muppet checks. For starters, no one wants a situation where user reps are hassling mods or admins. We want them representing genuine users with real issues, not time-wasters. Remember, I am talking only about the edge, difficult, ambiguous and unique conflicts that arise on this site. Not the day to day modding which I think for the most part works exceedingly well.
2. Access (if only temporary) to see deleted posts etc. To redress the information balance that exists in the present system a user rep would be able to see the disputed content in question. You can't open this up to all users, but to a trusted few you could share this information, in the interests of fairness.
3. Read-only access to the moderators forum. Not essential perhaps but could be useful in determining a person's position (and disposition) regarding certain issues or users. Identifying agendas basically. Make it read only access so as the user rep never gets involved or takes sides.

That's not a copper-fastened list by the way. Just some of the things I think would need to be in place for such an approach to work.

The user rep would be biased toward the user's point of view. They would lean on admins to pursue issues of merit and would have the tools to do so. As it stands, I think there is a bias toward expediency in the resolution of difficult issues. The user rep is a necessary counterbalance to that.

Make no mistake; I would much rather there wasn't a need to propose this. I would much rather have my faith in the custodians of this site restored. But it is difficult to base that faith on nothing or to ignore what I have seen or dismiss it as exception.

I dunno dude Alot of good points there. BUT...

If someone came up to me and said "Hi, I'm biased towards the users against the mods" I would instantly be taking every word they say with a pinch of salt. I'd be thinking "how do I get rid of this guy" as opposed to "let's sort this out".

If however he came up to me and said "Look DooM, you were a bit harsh there, lets have a talk about this" and he wasn't doing it every 5 minutes to me I'd know I should listen.

Site wide access to mupchecks and deleted posts is something the mods don't have. I am not sure the admins would be comfy divesting that much POWAH to any non adminny people.

(And yes people, mupchecking in a real world sense is alot more power than banning et al.)

Boston

Well there will be enough people to condemn the complaining user. The User Rep / Advocates job would be to make a proper argument on behalf of the user. That is the only bias. I've often seen users with legitimate complaints getting nowhere simply because

1) They didn't structure the complaint in a way which the management found palatable
2) They didn't know enough about how boards operators to do things the right way.

And advocate would avoid these problems.

Nevyn

I wish at times that real shít lists did exist for the site.
Fact of the matter is they don't cos if they did there are posters how are permabanned from some of the forums I mod which by your logic be site banned by now and they are not.

Yes there are cliques on boards it's like life.

As for any unoffical irc channels which has boards posters and mods in there are several but if you are seeing them breach the trust placed in them as mod to not share the contend of the mods forum and they are using it as a spring board to harrash and abuse posters and you have logs well then turn them over to the admins to deal with.

Boston

Thaedydal wrote: »

I wish at times that real shít lists did exist for the site.
Fact of the matter is they don't cos if they did there are posters how are permabanned from some of the forums I mod which by your logic be site banned by now and they are not.

Just because you're not the type of moderator to victimise and bully other users doesn't mean other moderators have the same sense of right and wrong.

Thaedydal wrote: »

Yes there are cliques on boards it's like life.

True. And maybe it was selfish of me not to care about them until they started to affect me.

Thaedydal wrote: »

As for any unoffical irc channels which has boards posters and mods in there are several but if you are seeing them breach the trust placed in them as mod to not share the contend of the mods forum and they are using it as a spring board to harrash and abuse posters and you have logs well then turn them over to the admins to deal with.

I've done this in the past. And fair is fair I'm extremely grateful to the administrator team and one administrator in particular for the quick and decisive action taken. I'd be extremely slow to do it again though due to recent revelations.

seamus

Boston wrote: »

We are all well aware that this place isn't a demoncracy. It is a dictatorship, comeplete with secret police, inquistions and wire taps. But this place was never meant to be run withe a deaf ear to the grass roots contributors.

Inquisitions and wire taps? Paranoid much? You're also forgetting that the vast majority of the people you're accusing of ignoring the "grass roots", are in fact "grass roots" themselves.

All executive branches of the boards.ie ruling class are filled by the same people in largely the same role, only scope differs.

Now you're getting into Joe Higgins territory. "Ruling class"? Have you any idea how ridiculous and melodramatic that sounds?
The moderators and the admins know eachother *because* they are moderators and admins. It's not the other way around. There's no closed higher order here constantly patting eachother on the back and ignoring the "proletariat".

Wheres the harm in letting 10,000 people have say? It is a discussion forum after all. You don't have to follow what anyone says, the site is still a dictatorship and better off for it. But allowing people to say "Actually that new front page is ****e" before you go live with it, isn't a bad idea.

Agreed. See the thread on the new menu and you'll see the value of this in action. But at the same time, you can't go to the userbase before you make every change.

Its proven disaterous in the hands of il duce.

That's your opinion. Have you seen the growth figures? As a number of others have pointed out, it's the growth that's changed this site more than anything else, not the action or inaction of any group or individual. Any issues in management arise from attempting to build a stable framework operated by a number of individuals to replace what was previously a Vishnu scenario. There's no direct phase-in or upgrade path. It takes time, it ruffles feathers and it effects change in a much less subtle way.

Is this me? Do you feel this is me? I see no winning in this.

Nope, wasn't referring to you. Just illustrating how difficult it is to separate actual constructive, concerned feedback, from foghorns. The existence of long feedback threads indicates nothing except that people like to talk.

My other little project was to take a random "good" user and through manipulating cliques on the moderators forum, IRC channels and other venues get him sitebanned. The first step would have been to add him to my friends list, a kiss of death if ever there was one. I decide I wasn't that much of a bastard.

I'd love for you to provide me with a post where I declared myself champion of the community or claimed to speak for anyone put myself.

I've decided to separate these two sections deliberately. On one hand you claim to have the power to influence and "manipulate" the administrators and guess what they're doing, and in the next breath you're telling me that you don't think you have any particular influence in the community.
When I say "champion of the community" I mean someone who believes that they have the power to influence the community. Although I meant it in the positive light, i.e. you feel the need to use to this power that you believe you have, to improve the community.

Please do make the arguement seamus. I don't think its an easy one.

It's perfectly easy. If the admins were paid, I'd agree with you. But they're not. So if they're not doing it with the community's interests at heart, why else would they put up with it? It's work, it's thankless work, and don't even bother pulling the "power trip" card.
Admins are users, just like everyone else. They participate in the community, they get involved in discussions and they have fun. So what other part of the "boards.ie experience" are they so critically missing that they are incapable of representing the users' best interests?

And...I intend to come back and comment on other parts of this thread once I've read them as there does appear to be good stuff in it.

Nevyn

Boston wrote: »

Just because you're not the type of moderator to victimise and bully other users doesn't mean other moderators have the same sense of right and wrong.

I think the majority do and I have seen admins be swift to kick into touch those who do try an abuse the system.

Boston wrote: »

True. And maybe it was selfish of me not to care about them until they started to affect me.

I haven't had that luxury for the last 4 years.

Boston wrote: »

I've done this in the past. And fair is fair I'm extremely grateful to the administrator team and one administrator in particular for the quick and decisive action taken. I'd be extremely slow to do it again though due to recent revelations.

I have "snitched" on those who were abusing the site and the knives came out it's one of the reasons I am ultrakickbaned at ip level from certain channels on irc and you know what I'd do it again in a heart beat despite the personal hassle and abuse that followed and the disruption to forums I mod
and the witchhunting in this forum and the same being done to people simply on the bases they are close to me.

You not in a place that other's have not been before you, just you and I are not people to be quiet about it.

If the new direction for boards mean that such abuses are not allowed to the extent people are demodded/site banned ( even repeatedly so ) then that is fine by me.

I can understand seeing that type of toxicity happening and seeing it reflected in people's actions on the site would cause anyone to be disillusioned but it can't be dealt with if it's not brought to the notice of those who can and will do something about it.

Honestly don't let that rabble ruin boards for you.

Boston

Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't after you. I'd be less paranoid if the management stopped making statements about their willingness to search my private messages. Ruling class was a turn of phrase, lets not get hung up on it. It simply refers to all those seen as better then the average user.

seamus wrote: »

Agreed. See the thread on the new menu and you'll see the value of this in action. But at the same time, you can't go to the userbase before you make every change.
That's your opinion. Have you seen the growth figures? As a number of others have pointed out, it's the growth that's changed this site more than anything else, not the action or inaction of any group or individual. Any issues in management arise from attempting to build a stable framework operated by a number of individuals to replace what was previously a Vishnu scenario. There's no direct phase-in or upgrade path. It takes time, it ruffles feathers and it effects change in a much less subtle way.

It seems that anything which maybe contentious is never shown to the users before it's implemented. Rather they do it and then ask questions. If you can have a debate after the fact, you can have one before it. I find all the excuses offered exceedingly weak.

seamus wrote: »

Nope, wasn't referring to you. Just illustrating how difficult it is to separate actual constructive, concerned feedback, from foghorns. The existence of long feedback threads indicates nothing except that people like to talk.

Extremely Jaded there seamus.

seamus wrote: »

I've decided to separate these two sections deliberately. On one hand you claim to have the power to influence and "manipulate" the administrators and guess what they're doing, and in the next breath you're telling me that you don't think you have any particular influence in the community.

Wrong on both counts. The fact that I have a brain in my head and can articulate a coherent argument in support of a given position is reason enough to believe I have more influence then the average boards sheep. I never said manipulate the administrators, I said the system. I don't think there was anything particularly special about being able to do that. Case in point. I watched a group of user discuss a plan to report one of my posts. A seemingly innocent outsider reported a post claiming he found it offensive. The idea was that moderators associated with this clique would then post on the moderators forum in support of reprimand. Once it emerged that the person reporting the post was in fact an associate of a recently banned user, the scheme fell apart. But it demonstrated to me how easy it would be to set up a user - any user - for a fall on this site. I decide I had a just that bit more class then those I was up against and abandoned that path. That said if I ever encountered a member of management who believe it couldn't happen, I do it just to prove how wrong they were.

seamus wrote: »

When I say "champion of the community" I mean someone who believes that they have the power to influence the community. Although I meant it in the positive light, i.e. you feel the need to use to this power that you believe you have, to improve the community.

Titles like names are important, they have power. I'm uneasy with the idea of being anyones champion as it places responsibilities upon me to live up to something I'm probably not.

seamus wrote: »

It's perfectly easy. If the admins were paid, I'd agree with you. But they're not. So if they're not doing it with the community's interests at heart, why else would they put up with it? It's work, it's thankless work, and don't even bother pulling the "power trip" card.
Admins are users, just like everyone else. They participate in the community, they get involved in discussions and they have fun. So what other part of the "boards.ie experience" are they so critically missing that they are incapable of representing the users' best interests?

Steady state. When asked "why are you what you are" people in general inevitably reply, "because thats what I've always been". Some of the administrators boards persona's entirely revolve around being an administrator. I don't think il duce for example could cope with using boards if he wasn't "the man". I recon he'd leave.

Nevyn

Boston wrote: »

Wrong on both counts. The fact that I have a brain in my head and can articulate a coherent argument in support of a given position is reason enough to believe I have more influence then the average boards sheep. I never said manipulate the administrators, I said the system. I don't think there was anything particularly special about being able to do that.

I do think that boards needs smart passionate people who care about it and those that do are interested in where it's going and what's the next development. I've don't want to see that change. I how ever do not like what happens when a person becomes disillusioned the passion is still there and fire but they can start to burn things like bridges if they are not careful.

If people are feeling disenfranchised then it has to be addressed.

Boston wrote: »

Case in point. I watched a group of user discuss a plan to report one of my posts. A seemingly innocent outsider reported a post claiming he found it offensive. The idea was that moderators associated with this clique would then post on the moderators forum in support of reprimand. Once it emerged that the person reporting the post was in fact an associate of a recently banned user, the scheme fell apart.

And I have see people chime in cos they find a poster to be an intolerable arsehole in their experience on boards and I have seen others stand up for them and say in my experience they are not.

With the site getting bigger and bigger we are getting Jekel and Hyde posters, they are great in some forums/Cats and trollmonsters in others.
( Ropey that's another gathering card right there )

Thankfully we do have the infraction system so if they go abusing the site rules in enough forums it can be seen and the pattern figured out, poster X grand in Sports, pain in the hole in Soc, I can see a time where we have people catbanned from certain parts tbh if they can't restrain themselves.

Can't expect everyone to agree and again if you can prove that sort of abuse of the system is happening get the info into the hands of the admins and get them to sort it out rather then fire bombing the site.

Boston wrote: »

But it demonstrated to me how easy it would be to set up a user - any user - for a fall on this site. I decide I had a just that bit more class then those I was up against and abandoned that path. That said if I ever encountered a member of management who believe it couldn't happen, I do it just to prove how wrong they were.

Oh I know it can happen, seen it in a few online communities, I've seen it in real life, it's the same as real life school yard bullying. I don't have any time for it and will deal with people based on how they deal with me.
If someone is mates with an arsehole, fair enough but I am not going to treat them like they are an arsehole unless they behave like one.

I've had people who I considered friends that I have meet through boards and had in my home on next I meet them be cold, distant and snide and I knew well it was due to things being said by certain people. But hey if they don't have the brains to make their own decisions, the back bone to stand up to their mates and the balls to talk to me about then it's their loss in so many ways and not mine.

Again if you think that there is a toxic clique trying to skew the system that is in place to abuse people then get the info to the admins and let them kick arse and clean house.

Boston wrote: »

Steady state. When asked "why are you what you are" they inevitably reply, "because thats what I've always been". Some of the administrators boards persona's entirely revolve around being an administrator.

I hope not cos that's not a good thing at all, nothing worse then being on the committee for the sake of being on the committee.

Boston wrote: »

I don't think il duce for example could cop with using boards if he wasn't "the man". I recon he'd leave.

Who? oh right DeVore.

That has to be the funniest thing thing I have ever seen you post on boards, seriously and it's funny due to how wrong it it. I would bet easily that at least 60% of posters have no idea that he is a founder admin or that he is the DeVore of the site or that the name DeVore once struck terror into the hearts of trolls and muppets.

I've seen it, in a few forums, the site is just that big now, really it started with the pic of the golden spider aware on his head about two years ago and people going who the hell is that.

nah your wrong there.

seamus

Boston wrote: »

Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't after you. I'd be less paranoid if the management stopped making statements about their willingness to search my private messages.

Let's be fair. Links?

Ruling class was a turn of phrase, lets not get hung up on it. It simply refers to all those seen as better then the average user.

Then it's not a turn of phrase, it has a literal connotation. "Better" is subjective and it depends on how one perceives themselves. It's not fair to say that the system considers anyone "better" than anyone else. Even using the term "class" implies the mindset that you're in here.

I seems that anything which maybe contentious is never shown to the users before it's implemented. Rather they do it and then ask questions.

Light/heat tradeoff. Again, some things, contentious or not, do not require to be "shown" to anyone. There's stuff which requires user feedback and there's stuff which doesn't. Nobody says, "People won't like this, let's not ask them".

Extremely Jaded there seamus.

Then you missed my point. For a long time, people have been pointing to activity in feedback as an indication that *something* is wrong. I would disagree. "You can please some of the people...." and so forth. I can't remember a single feedback thread about an *actual* problem, that wasn't addressed. I could be wrong. I haven't read everything in Feedback.

...But it demonstrated to me how easy it would be to set up a user - any user - for a fall on this site.

That you would come to that conclusion demonstrates that you don't really understand how it all fits together. The moderators nor the admins (believe it or not) do not decide who is "popular" and who will end up "taking a fall", as you put it. If any user does believe that they're being unfairly railed against, any such conspiracies are (and have been) easily exposed.

Some of the administrators boards persona's entirely revolve around being an administrator. I don't think il duce for example could cop with using boards if he wasn't "the man". I recon he'd leave.

I don't think you're as good at reading people as you think you are.

DeVore

Boston wrote:

Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't after you. I'd be less paranoid if the management stopped making statements about their willingness to search my private messages. Ruling class was a turn of phrase, lets not get hung up on it. It simply refers to all those seen as better then the average user.

I'm sorry Boston but you have said this on several occasions now. In fact, you have directly accused me of it (along with several other paranoid delusions).

Let me be clear.

That is a baseless lie.

No one has searched your PMs. I would issue a written warning at the very least if someone did so without my knowledge and I most certainly would not instruct anyone to do so unless I was in receipt of a court order. (For clarity, you are not the subject of a court order, before you go off and invent something about that).

For several weeks I've been trying to devise a framework around the mods, admins and users that would allow for more self-checking and less "DeVore", so this thread is useful but seriously, when you start in with:

Boston wrote:

We are all well aware that this place isn't a demoncracy. It is a dictatorship, comeplete with secret police, inquistions and wire taps. But this place was never meant to be run withe a deaf ear to the grass roots contributors.

and when you abuse me personally in PM.... thats when I start not listening to you.

But I've had it Boston, if you continue to go around telling people lies about me, I'm not going to tolerate it.

DeV.

Boston

DeVore wrote: »

I'm sorry Boston but you have said this on several occasions now. In fact, you have directly accused me of it (along with several other paranoid delusions).

Let me be clear.

That is a baseless lie.

No one has searched your PMs. I would issue a written warning at the very least if someone did so without my knowledge and I most certainly would not instruct anyone to do so unless I was in receipt of a court order. (For clarity, you are not the subject of a court order, before you go off and invent something about that).

For several weeks I've been trying to devise a framework around the mods, admins and users that would allow for more self-checking and less "DeVore", so this thread is useful but seriously, when you start in with:



and when you abuse me personally in PM.... thats when I start not listening to you.

But I've had it Boston, if you continue to go around telling people lies about me, I'm not going to tolerate it.

DeV.

Just a quick reply to this.

Give me access to the moderator forum and the ability to see deleted post and I will know the truth of it. On the last thread relating to me on that forum a moderator suggested that the management search my private message. The response was that it was an option you guys were considering, that it would have to be ross or conor and that it was difficult.

You know exactly the topic I'm referring to, you replied several times to it in relation to my lack of worth, yet you pretend otherwise. what the ****. Someone says "Hey you should search that guys private messages" the response should be "No way would we ever do that without a court order." It should not be "It's an option". You prove to me I have things arseways and I'll apologise, I'll even fall on my sword and depart from boards for the misscalulation. I've said all I'm going to say on this issue. There's a pm function.

Anyway, this nonsense is off-topic. I'll ask you again not to mess up the thread

Nevyn

Hang on you are giving out about mods abusing the trust put in them by disclosing thread from the mods forum in irc and that you think that is disgraceful but you are willing to turn around and say that someone has been feeding you info from that same forum and not shop them cos it suits you.

I find that galling, hypercritcal and dishonourable and I would apply the same terms to the action of anyone who'd breach the trust placed in them as mods.

I don't see how you expect anyone do deal with you honourably and honestly when your not doing the same.

Wibbs

Thaedydal wrote: »

Hang on you are giving out about mods abusing the trust put in them by disclosing thread from the mods forum in irc and that you think that is disgraceful but you are willing to turn around and say that someone has been feeding you info from that same forum and not shop them cos it suits you.

I find that galling, hypercritcal and dishonourable and I would apply the same terms to the action of anyone who'd breach the trust placed in them as mods.

I don't see how you expect anyone do deal with you honourably and honestly when your not doing the same.

+ 1000. I have to say Boston, I agreed with many of your points and concerns, but that PS post I made comes back again.

As I see it you seem to know a helluva lot about what's going on in private forums. You appear to know what's what in the mod forum, even down to specific threads and the wording of posts. You even claim to know what's going on in the admin forum. IMHO while boston is clearly an intelligent chap his accuracy about this stuff is high enough to be on ripleys if he's running on pure conjecture.

So if someone is enabling this is out there, then do the decent thing and step down, you're a waste of space, or stupid. One or the other

You also lost me on the il Duce comments re DeVore I have to say. In my time here he has been one of the most consistent posters I've read on many subjects including his role as admin. I didnt know he was who he was for a long time. I've honestly never seen him act anything but fair and straight with people. I've seen him lose the rag at times from frustration, but I've also seen him take a breath and come at it from a different angle and indeed apologise for it. Frankly, I trust basic manners over anything, especially emotion and he has more than basic manners. Also frankly if he had buggered off in the last year this place would have gone to crap more than once and you would be bitching about far more IMHO.

TBH I think the place has just gotten too big for you and find it hard to reconcile that change with what you thought boards was, is or could be. Things change. Things grow or die. It's the nature of things.