Why is Boards.ie such a success?

Slideshowbob

I think it's because of the demographics of Ireland as an island nation.

If we were any bigger or smaller a population such a forum may not work!?

tfitzgerald

Because you have people like me here who give wonderful witty and intelligent comments on the forums here
Ps did I mention good looking and modest as well

mike65

Cos there really is something for everyone in the audience, plus After Hours which as stupid and inane as it frequently is also acts the common room for everyone to mingle before they head back to their areas of special interest.

Slideshowbob

But what I am getting at is that I am unaware of such forums in other countries having quite the same inpact per head of population.

Why is that?

mike65

Size is probably an issue the fact the Irish are inveterate chatters and love attacking one another with pub talk probably helps! The nearest I can think of elsewhere is www.digitalspy.co.uk which is focused on consumer media but which has branched out into other more general areas, politics, sport, music etc. But the atmosphere is of a much larger catchment area I doubt there has ever been a digitalspy Freeview forum beers.

gbee

The moderators stopping it becoming a peoplesrepublicof****e.com

looksee

Slideshowbob wrote: »

But what I am getting at is that I am unaware of such forums in other countries having quite the same inpact per head of population.

Why is that?

You are unaware of ....because you don't live in other countries.

tricky D

Another very significant factor is the Irish diaspora.

Mike mentioned digitalspy, I'll raise him somethingawful

Also fyi http://rankings.big-boards.com/?p=all

tfitzgerald

What has struck me is the amount if post that are made from people living abroad I've seen post from lots of different countries and I'm not talking about Irish abroad:)

Ben Moore

Hi i am very new here but I have been and I am involved in another few online communities and so used to the general sense of how they work.

I have heard about boards.ie for years but somehow only made my way here a few weeks ago.

Now I know what I am missing. Your wide range of topics are incredible. The answers them selves have a wide range of tone, from helpful, funny, sarcastic, impatient to downright outrageous. This place is great fun.

I can't wait to post my own threads, what is the protocol?

Slideshowbob

looksee wrote: »

You are unaware of ....because you don't live in other countries.

So you can give me examples of other countries then?!?!

gbee

Ben Moore wrote: »

I can't wait to post my own threads, what is the protocol?

Moderation on these boards are strict ~ check the charters ~ for instance you can get away with murder on the after hours forum, criticise people, cultures est, except gays and travellers.

But on the various religious forums you MUST accept the existence of God, deny him or her whatever in After Hour will just get you a few thanks, in any of the religion forums it's a ban.

It's sort of like that all over so it's easy to trip up and get banned and points and so on ~ but that's ultimately what makes the site great.

pickarooney

gbee wrote: »

Moderation on these boards are strict ~ check the charters ~ for instance you can get away with murder on the after hours forum,

* Banned from After Hours **

Must've been genocide at least?

yoshytoshy

Surely boards is popular ,because we're a one-up type tax dodgin ,bertie lovin nation

Dude111

I think its because the staff doesnt do stupid stuff like put the site on VB4 or anything like that! (VB4 is disgusting trash COMPARED TO THIS)

I love it here!

donfers

how do we measure success?

money?


are there any end of year accounts reporting profit/loss?

Wibbs

donfers wrote: »

how do we measure success?

money?

I wouldn't.

starbelgrade

gbee wrote: »

But on the various religious forums you MUST accept the existence of God, deny him or her whatever in After Hour will just get you a few thanks, in any of the religion forums it's a ban.

:pac:

K-9

You just get a bit of everything on this site. Take yourself too seriously and you wont be long knocked down a peg or two.

strobe

In on the ground floor basically. Good timing.

Lab_Mouse

I originaly joined boards looking for help on a subject.Then I noticed there was a forum on games.and then noticed another forum on something else i was interested in,and it kinda snowballed from there.

I have never found the moderation overly heavy ended and have never needed to appeal an infraction or forum ban because they were deserved:D

Do i have friends on boards?no,but plenty of people i have had a good banter with and respect there view point.I have never put anyone on ignore yet.

And thats basically why i still post and log in.

I can read complete rubbish in AH,check why I have a blue screen of death in the computer forum and laugh at people with usernames like bigwilly.com appealing to gordon in prison that they were'nt advertising and why the fuk were they banned in prison.

and anything by Pighead is always worth a read

later12

I think moderation is a huge factor in it.

I think a lot of people would be less interested in posting here were the charters and the moderators not in place to maintain a sense of order over discussions. Nobody wants to contribute to a thread where discussion is haphazard and incoherent.

Demographics probably plays some part as well. Ireland is a small island nation with median age of just 34 years, so therefore one would suppose very internet-friendly.

AnonoBoy

donfers wrote: »

how do we measure success?

money?

I measure my success through my smugness.

If the smugness report is high then I'm a winner!

Overheal

I first saw it in the ITC labs. lots of people always on it, so i had a look and saw all the forums that were on offer. never saw anything quite like it, really liked the feel of the menu too which makes it still stand out. much preferred it over previously having 50 signups for 50 different interests i might have had.

nozzferrahhtoo

Slideshowbob wrote: »

So you can give me examples of other countries then?!?!

I think a very good example, especially because it uses much the same forum software as boards, is the City Data Forum.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/

The current stats on it are:

Threads: 1,203,853,
Posts: 20,086,148,
Members: 1,236,670

Why this forum and that are so successful is anyone's guess but I imagine it is a multitude of factors including but far from limited to "right place right time".

Dude111

Thats a good site also (Im on that one also) I have mentioned this site there before

Spear

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I think a very good example, especially because it uses much the same forum software as boards, is the City Data Forum.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/

The current stats on it are:

Threads: 1,203,853,
Posts: 20,086,148,
Members: 1,236,670

Why this forum and that are so successful is anyone's guess but I imagine it is a multitude of factors including but far from limited to "right place right time".

They started with a target audience with a population 100 times that of Ireland and only managed 2.5 times the the number of users? That doesn't sound very successful.

Iwannahurl

OP: is it?

nozzferrahhtoo

When you get 1.2 million members to your own site you can talk about being successful

That said however I think there might be other things to consider rather than just relative population size such as internet penetration, adult literacy and social differences.

Hobbes

donfers wrote: »

how do we measure success?

This is how (bottom right).

http://xkcd.com/802/

SuperInfinity

Slideshowbob wrote: »

I think it's because of the demographics of Ireland as an island nation.

If we were any bigger or smaller a population such a forum may not work!?

I don't think it has much/anything to do with the population size, regional boards in America are also often extremely popular.