Mods don't own forums. The posters are what make the forums.

AnimalRights

Boston wrote: »

I'd like to point out that I have access to the soccer forum. If 90% of boards doesn't have access its because they either got access and abused it or never wanted it to begin with. We're not in the hand holding business here.

Rubbish.

I only get proccessed for a job not to join a forum.
I couldn't/refused to have to go thru crap just to join a forum.

Dudess

briankirby wrote: »

So is being a mod,but i cant understand that either

Mods are NAZIS. :mad:

The signs are everywhere: what are the initials of Sharpshooter? Hm? Hm?

And even more blatant: one of them is called Dudess! :eek:

brummytom

Dudess wrote: »

Mods are NAZIS. :mad:

The signs are everywhere: what are the initials of Sharpshooter? Hm? Hm?

And even more blatant: one of them is called Dudess! :eek:

And probably the most popular forum on here has the initials of the Fuhrer.. AH
:eek:

johnnyskeleton

Dudess wrote: »

Mods are NAZIS. :mad:

The signs are everywhere: what are the initials of Sharpshooter? Hm? Hm?

Just S. Like Superman. Or Sophocles.

Dudess wrote: »

And even more blatant: one of them is called Dudess! :eek:

Hmmm, your job is to corral the beatniks and hippies eh?

brummytom

brummytom wrote: »

And probably the most popular forum on here has the initials of the Fuhrer.. AH
:eek:

brummytom for president! :pac:

gimme5minutes

Just read the thread and I have to say this whole incident highlights why boards.ie is no longer the place it once was and that these days there is too much moderation and ego at play and not enough common sense.

As Thaedyal mentioned ealier in the thread, this match transcended soccer and was of huge national (and international) interest. Every single person in Ireland was talking about this game the following day and for the next few weeks. People who otherwise couldn't give two f*cks about soccer. I'm one of them myself, as are my parents, and lots of my friends and family. People who zero interest in soccer apart from the national team because as has been said, the national team transcends soccer and represents all of Ireland.

That is why people wanted to talk about it, because it was the most topical issue of the day/week/month/year. And AH has always been the center point of boards.ie and the place for topical issues of the day. This notion of 'soccer goes in the soccer forum' shows how far out of touch the moderators of AH were. Did they not for one second realise that this was not a generic soccer thread about a team changing manager or buying a player? Did they not realise that one of the most significant incidents and talking points in 2009 had just occurred?

Probably over 60% of the threads in AH could be deemed to be better suited to other forums as there are specific forums for almost everything on boards these days. The reason they are kept in AH is because they are topical issues of the day. There have been tons of threads on issues such as religion, education, politics, unions, celebrites, etc... that could be moved to other forums, but they are not because they are highly topical and what the AH users want to talk about. What in the name of God was going through the mods' heads on the night after the Ireland v France game that they decided to make an exception to this way of doing things, and close all threads on the match and ban a load of users when it was blatantly obvious that something of huge national interest occurred and the entire Irish public, not just soccer fans, wanted to talk about it (and many naturally wanted to discuss it on boards.ie). It is a completely ludicrous situation. This would never have happened a couple of years ago when the mods had some cop on.

Someone at the top of boards.ie could do with having a talk with some of the mods as it is not good for any forum to be p*ssing off a load of its users like this.

And for the half wits saying it was peoples fault for not getting access to the soccer forum beforehand. Ah will ya come off it, jesus christ, that is just the kind of attitude that is all too common these days on boards - all about the rules, no common sense. Most of the people who wanted to post after the match were, like myself and the majority of this people in this country - people who don't care about soccer in the slightest but care about the national team as it transcends soccer, and is an issue of national significance. People who would not in a million years be bothered visiting the soccer forum. You can't expect these people to be as anal as yourselves and to go applying for access to a forum they would never even use or want to use. God, you would think that would be blatantly obvious.

I spend about one third of my forum time on boards.ie and two thirds of my time on the twoplustwo forums these days. It used to be the other way around. And anyone who visits twoplustwo can tell you that it is a very well run and successful forum yet you have none of this power tripping mods nonsense of banning users and locking threads on a whim. The mods come across as just regular posters and it seems common sense is what they mainly rely on to do their job and it works very well. Whereas here, from many moderators, there is a big ego and power tripping aura coming across and I have noticed some moderators who have little community involvement apart from telling people what to do. When a few years ago the mods (like on 2+2) came across as regular users and partook in discussions and only stepped into moderator mode when it was really called for.

Cabaal

gimme5minutes wrote: »

. Every single person in Ireland was talking about this game the following day and for the next few weeks. People who otherwise couldn't give two f*cks about soccer. I'm one of them myself, as are my parents, and lots of my friends and family. People who zero interest in soccer apart from the national team because as has been said, the national team transcends soccer and represents all of Ireland.

Please don't generalise, I have 0 interest in the game either before during or after that pointless event.

As such please don't try to say I did have an interest by saying everyone was talking about it, this is very clearly an incorrect statement.

I know numerous other people that didn't give a monkeys about the event and didn't want to waste their time talking about it

Cabaal

Anthony16 wrote: »

No man,its not just a game,its a way of life.

Not much of a life then to be honest, if all you want a forum for is to rant about your hatred of other teams fans then you really are looking on the wrong site imho.

Cabaal

gimme5minutes wrote: »

I spend about one third of my forum time on boards.ie and two thirds of my time on the twoplustwo forums these days. It used to be the other way around.

From looking at their site its clearly a very different animal

And anyone who visits twoplustwo can tell you that it is a very well run and successful forum yet you have none of this power tripping mods nonsense of banning users and locking threads on a whim

In your personal view, everyone is entitled to a view but it doesn't make it fact

The fact remains the boards.ie is very clearly a busier forum with a much much wider range of topics
Two Plus Two Poker Forums Statistics
Threads: 603,263, Posts: 15,207,830, Members: 209,179

boards.ie Statistics
Threads: 1,168,694, Posts: 16,411,880, Members: 285,801


If you want toplay the compare forum game I'll add one, I use somethingawful.com's forum from time to time.

First off you pay a fee to gain access so this keeps away a certain percentage of idiots and fool, if you act a tool and get yourself banned you have to pay the fee again to get unbanned.

This keeps things inline and although some users on the site will say the admins go on powertrips the site has done alot of good for charitys in the past and is one of the largest and most popular forums on the internet

Of course SA is a different animal to boards.ie also

gimme5minutes

Cabaal wrote: »

Please don't generalise, I have 0 interest in the game either before during or after that pointless event.

As such please don't try to say I did have an interest by saying everyone was talking about it, this is very clearly an incorrect statement.

I know numerous other people that didn't give a monkeys about the event and didn't want to waste their time talking about it

Do you take every sentence you read literally or something? Ok here you go "nearly the entire Irish public, not just soccer fans, wanted to talk about it." You feel better now?

Cabaal

gimme5minutes wrote: »

Do you take every sentence you read literally or something? Ok here you go "nearly the entire Irish public, not just soccer fans, wanted to talk about it." You feel better now?

Nope I certainly don't,

Point being I made a big deal out of nothing....kind of like the whole "I want to discuss football outside of the football forum" thing :rolleyes:

gimme5minutes

Cabaal wrote: »

In your personal view, everyone is entitled to a view but it doesn't make it fact

The fact remains the boards.ie is very clearly a busier forum with a much much wider range of topics
Two Plus Two Poker Forums Statistics
Threads: 603,263, Posts: 15,207,830, Members: 209,179

boards.ie Statistics
Threads: 1,168,694, Posts: 16,411,880, Members: 285,801

Firstly boards.ie is not 'very clearly not a busier forum'. It has been in existence 4 1/2 years more than 2+2. Yet they have the same amount of posts. And here is the very latest data on traffic for the two sites and it shows 2+2 marginally ahead - http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/boards.ie%2C+twoplustwo.com?p=tgraph&r=home_home
The sites are actually very comparable in terms of size and traffic.

And secondly the whole point of my post is how the mods on 2+2 are members of the community, first and moderators, second. Whereas it is the other way around here. You will not see mods handing out warnings and locking threads all over the place on 2+2. You would never even guess they were mods except their names are in green. And 2+2 has an absolute ton of immature young male members, most of whom are degenerate gamblers so you would expect some trouble from that kind of community. Except it is very well run by moderators who exercise common sense rather than a culture of power. I suppose thats just the way things are done in Ireland these days, rules for everything and forget about a bit of common sense.

Cabaal

gimme5minutes wrote: »

Firstly boards.ie is not 'very clearly not a busier forum'. It has been in existence 4 1/2 years more than 2+2.

Right so if you want to go down that road

Yet they have the same amount of posts

same amount of posts?
Your kidding me right...you've missed something when reading my post

And here is the very latest data on traffic for the two sites and it shows 2+2 marginally ahead - http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/boards.ie%2C+twoplustwo.com?p=tgraph&r=home_home
The sites are actually very comparable in terms of size and traffic.

US site v a Irish message board not exactly the same audiance numbers, they are still not the same animal

And secondly the whole point of my post is how the mods on 2+2 are members of the community, first and moderators, second

Same as they are on boards

Whereas it is the other way around here.

In your view, you can pick and choose the odd post but I can also pick numerous threads where mods post as users in their own forums

You will not see mods handing out warnings and locking threads all over the place on 2+2. You would never even guess they were mods except their names are in green.

Visability is none the less imporant and as visable as they are on boards users will still often state they don't know who the forum mod is, so visability isn't an issue either way to be honest

And 2+2 has an absolute ton of immature young male members, most of whom are degenerate gamblers so you would expect some trouble from that kind of community.

Much bigger range of subjects on boards.ie and a much bigger range of ages then what you'd get on a poker site

Except it is very well run by moderators who exercise common sense rather than a culture of power.

Same can be said for boards.ie, the only problem is in "your view" you believe this not to be the case,.

I suppose thats just the way things are done in Ireland these days, rules for everything and forget about a bit of common sense.

If your just going to generalise then to be honest we're just wasting our time in this thread

gandalf

gimme5minutes so what if boards is different to another forum. If you like that one more then use it. Plenty seem to like boards and a lot comment on the fact that the noise ratio is kept down here, that forums try to keep to relevant topics they are assigned.

As for moderation on boards in my opinion its got softer than it has been in the past. Some people get second chances now here that would have been banned outright in the past. Personally I would have kept this hard line approach.

I would question what experience you actually have of the moderation here if you are only a member since April of this year? You have only been a member here since then right?

gimme5minutes

gandalf wrote: »

gimme5minutes so what if boards is different to another forum. If you like that one more then use it. Plenty seem to like boards and a lot comment on the fact that the noise ratio is kept down here, that forums try to keep to relevant topics they are assigned.

As for moderation on boards in my opinion its got softer than it has been in the past. Some people get second chances now here that would have been banned outright in the past. Personally I would have kept this hard line approach.

I would question what experience you actually have of the moderation here if you are only a member since April of this year? You have only been a member here since then right?

Ive been on boards since 2001/2002 but I had an issue with my old account and after being in contact with an admin it was felt the best option was to just make a new one.

Anyway, I've made my points regarding how I see the moderation on this forum these days and how this incident with the Ireland v France game was an example of the way things have gone downhill. I'm not getting dragged into a quote war so I'm done with this thread.*

* bar I see something so glaringly wrong posted that I just can't let it pass.

Nevyn

Most of my time on this site is as just a poster, post of my posts are as a poster,
I think your perception is rather skewed.

That_Guy

Are people still not over the handball yet?

AnimalRights

gimme5minutes wrote: »

And secondly the whole point of my post is how the mods on 2+2 are members of the community, first and moderators, second. Whereas it is the other way around here. You will not see mods handing out warnings and locking threads all over the place on 2+2. You would never even guess they were mods except their names are in green. Except it is very well run by moderators who exercise common sense rather than a culture of power. I suppose thats just the way things are done in Ireland these days, rules for everything and forget about a bit of common sense.

I agree.

AlmightyCushion

gimme5minutes wrote: »

And secondly the whole point of my post is how the mods on 2+2 are members of the community,

You do realise how we chose mods over on after hours. We ask members of after hours to put themselves forward and then the existing mods decide on who they think would be best. One of the few things we want from an after hours mod is that they are part of the community. I doubt many in after hours could argue that the last few mods we've recruited (thezohan, frada, sharpshooter, rabies, dr.bollocko, javaboyetc.) weren't members of the community. Anywho this has all been sorted a long time ago.

That_Guy

gimme5minutes wrote: »

And secondly the whole point of my post is how the mods on 2+2 are members of the community

To be fair the hierarchy aren't exactly gonna make somebody a mod of certain forums if they've not posted there before and know what the forum is about.

With After Hours there's a ton of posters in there but out of the possible hundreds that post in it there's about 20 or so "regulars" who have formed a relationship with each other albeit an online relationship, mods included.
The only difference between mods and "normal posters" are that mods can just as easily filter out the sh*t and leave the predominantly good.

Sometimes mods decisions are questionable but for such a busy forum they do a damn good job 9 times out of 10.

The selection process for modship in AH is good. Regular posters are asked to put their name down to be a mod and the current mods select the person they feel deserves to be a mod based on their attitude and the way they construct themselves in posts.

Fair way of doing it really.

AckwelFoley

That_Guy wrote: »

Are people still not over the handball yet?

No.

Never.

Im buying an England top and hoping they draw france at some point.

Henry broken legs in the 1st min of the game optional :pac:

gimme5minutes

gimme5minutes wrote: »

And secondly the whole point of my post is how the mods on 2+2 are members of the community, first and moderators, second. Whereas it is the other way around here. You will not see mods handing out warnings and locking threads all over the place on 2+2. You would never even guess they were mods except their names are in green

Are you mad? I have made more friends on here than I ever would in real life. I have helped out the Santa Strike Force (the boards.ie charity mobile), I have gone to gigs & found musicians I like (all because of boards music category), I have formed/gotten together with a band (through the forum I moderate), I am part of an absolutely awesome drama group who performed one of the plays I wrote (No Drama, formed through boards.ie) and I have the proud privilege of modding a couple of forums around here.

I do this because I care about the community so much and want to see it develop to the best of it's abilities. And if you don't like or appreciate that, the world wide web is a big place, you never have to stay in a place you don't like and/or understand.

I hope I speak for all mods here in saying, the reason we moderate is because of you guys. There is no higher agenda than pushing boards out as the community it is.

All mods are just janitors at the end of the day. Cleaning up and looking after a place we care deeply about.

-Chris-

Nice post Ropedrink. I agree with pretty much everything you're saying, and I'd take it one step further.
When you're asked to be a moderator, it's a great honour but a poisoned chalice also - I love being a moderator and being able to influence the "voice" of the Motors forum, but I post far less in Motors now than I used to. I don't feel like I can be as direct as I used to be because I "represent" boards.ie.

I'm spreading my wings farther and posting in more fora, rather than living in Motors like I used to, but I'm pretty certain I'd be a more carefree user if I gave up my mod-ship. I'd be far happier wading into a thread and telling people they were talking absolute b*llocks.

But it's an honour being a mod and I'm not giving it up until Real Life insists on it, even if threads like this make it feel like it's probably not worth the hassle.