An Fear Rua - Forum Closed

Deathwish4

Disappointed to see a very popular GAA forum close.

______________________________________________________________

FROM AFR -

Closure Notice



Exactly twelve years ago this month I set up An Fear Rua-The GAA Unplugged! I have now decided to discontinue it. I have immediately closed the ‘Speak Out!’ forum but the Content Zone will continue for the moment.
An anonymous internet forum is an anachronism. It has been overtaken by the arrival of ‘open identity’ forums such as Twitter and Facebook. This model of internet comment is no longer viable, if the comment is to be within the law at all times as well as the bounds of good taste.

This has been a labour of love. In hard cash it has cost me more than €150,000 over the years. If I costed the time I’ve spent managing it – at even the average industrial wage – the total cost or investment would be the best part of €500,000. I have never made more than €10,000 a year on average in advertising revenue, despite trying the services of five or six ad selling agencies. It is simply not possible to make this site a paying proposition.

In that context, my decision is also influenced by the unreasonable sense of entitlement displayed by a growing minority of Registered Users. There is a sense that they can just register under a pseudonym, pay nothing towards the upkeep of the site or towards an insurance against libel matched by a total lack of any attempt to even understand – let alone accept – that I have a right, and a duty, to administer this site in accordance with the law and in the interests of everyone who used it.
I thank all the decent people who supported the site over the years. I regret that it has come to this and I wish you well in the future.

Volvic12

Very disapointing as I was a frequent visitor to the site. Sad to hear but you have to make the best decision for you.
I suppose we should be thankful that it was kept going as long as it did as it must have been frustrating with some of the abuse & Wumming that was taking place.

Roger Sterling

Volvic12 wrote: »

Very disapointing as I was a frequent visitor to the site. Sad to hear but you have to make the best decision for you.
I suppose we should be thankful that it was kept going as long as it did as it must have been frustrating with some of the abuse & Wumming that was taking place.

Might see an influx of new posters here?

GAA biards seem to be very hard to run well. I remember the old UpThe Deise forum was a complete shambles at times.

Tom Joad

Not surprised to see it go - must be virtually impossible to police a forum like that and the notice does highlight the issues involved - hopefully it doesn't lead to a invasion of muppets here

basillarkin

Sorry to see it go, I will be contributing to the Gaa threads on here now. Some interesting and knowledgable posters on in but recently the WUM's have taken over and ruined a good site.

Syferus

Tom Joad wrote: »

Not surprised to see it go - must be virtually impossible to police a forum like that and the notice does highlight the issues involved - hopefully it doesn't lead to a invasion of muppets here

The solution is no different than here or anywhere else. Has a serious sense of taking the ball home with him to me.

derealbadger

basillarkin wrote: »

Sorry to see it go, I will be contributing to the Gaa threads on here now. Some interesting and knowledgable posters on in but recently the WUM's have taken over and ruined a good site.

Good to have another M/E man on here

InchicoreDude

basillarkin wrote: »

Sorry to see it go, I will be contributing to the Gaa threads on here now. Some interesting and knowledgable posters on in but recently the WUM's have taken over and ruined a good site.

Whats a WUM?

Fianna Fowl

Sorry to see it go. Used to check it daily to keep up wil the hurling gossip.

Guess its very difficult to run a site where you dont appoint some regular users as moderators.

iDave

Sad to see it go but has only himself to blame. Poorly moderated and bans handed out to good posters while eejits posting stories on 'Celebs', anti-Irish threads from some unionist and the 'GAA Shame' thread titles by hypocritical opportunists were all allowed unchallenged.

basillarkin

InchicoreDude wrote: »

Whats a WUM?

wind-up merchant

Fianna Fowl

iDave wrote: »

Sad to see it go but has only himself to blame. Poorly moderated and bans handed out to good posters while eejits posting stories on 'Celebs', anti-Irish threads from some unionist and the 'GAA Shame' thread titles by hypocritical opportunists were all allowed unchallenged.

I could never understand how the anti-gah and anti-Irish obvious wums were allowed to run and run

basillarkin

Thats the problem with not having mods

Fianna Fowl wrote: »

I could never understand how the anti-gah and anti-Irish obvious wums were allowed to run and run

Annuv

Not surprised with this really, with so many WUMs and bile filled posters there in recent times, it must have been a nightmare to moderate. There were some posts yesterday that sailed too close to the wind and perhaps they were the straw(s) that broke the camel's back

Utopia Parkway

A pity it's gone. A great place for hurling chat in particular.

castor 1

Ther'll be a lot of lads suffering withdrawal symptoms after this closure !

Bannermen

I wasn't a user but i was a reader, though less avid in recent years, of AFR. What struck me was the comical pomposity and over-bearing nature of the moderator - as evidenced repeatedly in his hissy fits and, frankly, terrible manners and sneery disposition when dealing with posters. Not the wums or messers, just regular posters. An unbelieveable crank. Rant over.

chinguetti

Shame its gone as it used to be great and a fab source of GAA news, esp hurling.

But it had been full of silly topics on non GAA matters by WUMs in the last two years or so that made it impossible to police for AFR i guess, particularly with libel laws these days.

jordainius

The man running it (even though he tried to pass the site off as though it was being run by an extensive team who were all prone to the same mannerisms, same cranky style and all opening topics with the same shocked bug-eyes smiley) did lose the run of himself a fair bit in my opinion, he handed out bans for ridiculous reasons and just struck me as being on a power trip at times.

There were plenty of users who had proven themselves to be valued and trusted contributors over the years who he could have turned to to hand out moderation duties to, as it really is way too much for one man to keep an eye on. It was an okay read at times, I enjoyed reading through the threads related to the club championships in Limerick.

thesultan

Really liked this site. Disaster it's gone. What's the next best?

jordainius

thesultan wrote: »

Really liked this site. Disaster it's gone. What's the next best?

Hoganstand can be okay but their "moderation" is disastrous, especially considering all comments have to be pre approved. The amount of blatant trolling and fighting they allow is unreal.

thesultan

Hoganstand isn't it county by county instead of general

jordainius

thesultan wrote: »

Hoganstand isn't it county by county instead of general

There's a general forum too on the main homepage.

Syferus

thesultan wrote: »

Really liked this site. Disaster it's gone. What's the next best?

GAABoard.com is pretty much the site An Fear Rua sprang from. Far better behaved general pop. than Hogan Stand and plenty of knowledgeable posters. Football focused but the hurling board is likely to see the biggest influx of ex-An Fear Rua contributors.

MfMan

May be wrong, but didn't the publisher disclose that he had some health issues on there recently also? Perhaps this is a factor..... Sad to see it go; he may have been overbearing in the eyes of some, but he had to run it as he saw fit and proper. Was a lot of WUMs there but some decent debate too.

ellinguistico

Syferus wrote: »

GAABoard.com is pretty much the site An Fear Rua sprang from. Far better behaved general pop. than Hogan Stand and plenty of knowledgeable posters. Football focused but the hurling board is likely to see the biggest influx of ex-An Fear Rua contributors.

The more successful version of AFR sprang from Clarehurlers.com conceived by a guy called Matt Purcell. Totally agree with the above posters version of events on the publisher. Just think he was too outdated, would not take any recommendations on how to moderate it and was a sneery pompous git to people who spread the word about his site far and wide.

Syferus

ellinguistico wrote: »

The more successful version of AFR sprang from Clarehurlers.com conceived by a guy called Matt Purcell. Totally agree with the above posters version of events on the publisher. Just think he was too outdated, would not take any recommendations on how to moderate it and was a sneery pompous git to people who spread the word about his site far and wide.

Well I mean thematically. GAABoard.com was for football what An Fear Rua was for hurling for years and both shared a very hands-off approach to moderating, at least in general.

Hawk Wing 2

I think the pompous, self serving "announcement" sums up that place the best, crying out for attention, it must be remembered that this joker benefited from the closure and the loss of the original and best GAA site on the net. Clarehurlers.com and took on most of the contributors when they folded due to unforeseen circumstances, a fact which the owner never acknowledged, in fact he sniped away during the period of 2000-2003 when clarehurlers was in its heyday

ab84

Premier View all the way :-)

castor 1

Bannermen wrote: »

What struck me was the comical pomposity and over-bearing nature of the moderator - as evidenced repeatedly in his hissy fits and, frankly, terrible manners and sneery disposition when dealing with posters. Not the wums or messers, just regular posters. An unbelieveable crank. Rant over.

That was one of the attractions - watching how he interacted (as you say sneeringly and without manners) with the WUMs - made for great entertainment at times.

Reminded me as a cross betwenn the old Headmaster that was intolerant of any objective comments in his classroom and the rabid 'bainisteoir' that would give you 10 laps of the field for smiling at him.

seachto7

So, lads and lassies, how many times did you get banned from AFR? I got banned twice, under the user names "dung" and "criodain". I won't tell ye why, as I might get banned from here too!

A2LUE42

Won some Munster final tickets on there a few years back. Stopped posting on the site a few years ago and stopped even reading it recently. Just not worth the hassle of filtering through all the clowns and wind ups. Had been on the site since moving over from ch.com.

There were a few good posters with local GAA opinions that were worth a read, but the wum's seemed to outnumber them by a long way in recent times.

sid waddell

Cahill started losing the plot around 2007 and early in 2008 he started banning respected, quality posters for spurious reasons. It was all downhill from there. A good few of the former regulars moved over to The Free Kick after that. Around the same time other posters copped on that he was using fake accounts Cormac and Fallon to compliment himself and slag off posters. He was using the forum to WUM people so can't have any complaints when others were doing it. His moderation and banning policies descended into farce towards the end.

Deathwish4

seachto7 wrote: »

So, lads and lassies, how many times did you get banned from AFR? I got banned twice, under the user names "dung" and "criodain". I won't tell ye why, as I might get banned from here too!

Banned a couple of times in all....Last ban was for comments expressing how poor a refereeing performance was, the ban was probably justified

For Kilkenny GAA followers, and by GAA i mean Hurling.... stripeymen.com is now up and running as a replacement for the recently closed down kilkennycats.com

elefant

Have to admit I'd never even heard of this forum

threeball

It was a great place to get a little bit of everything, Hurling, Football, news stories, political but letting a few idiots run amuck brought the place down. The was a few idiots from TFK who had been banned who came back posting all sorts of celebrity crap and wind ups as well as supposed unionist posters and anti GAA posters who should have been banned outright.
The fellas getting upset about being banned just baffles me. You could re-register and be up and running in 15mins again if you wanted but lots of lads were precious about their post counts. I was banned once but once I signed up again I posted the same as before. I just didn't rub the mods nose in it or confront him over it. Lasted another 4 yrs. TFK is alive with bile today. Ex posters delighting in dancing on the grave.

jordainius

sid waddell wrote: »

Cahill started losing the plot around 2007 and early in 2008 he started banning respected, quality posters for spurious reasons. It was all downhill from there. A good few of the former regulars moved over to The Free Kick after that.

One of those spurious reasons in particular was down right ridiculous back in 2008. Many of the good established long term posters were culled over something down right stupid and it all went downhill from there. A fairly long thread on premierview will give more details.

Many of these banned posters migrated to thefreekick and premierview, and from what I gather on some of their forums many of those posters took their "revenge" and reregistered on anfearrua just to cause trouble and act the wum (sometimes with multiple accounts). It all got a bit ridiculous for a finish. The animosity between the websites just got a bit childish and tedious for a finish.

threeball

jordainius wrote: »

One of those spurious reasons in particular was down right ridiculous back in 2008. Many of the good established long term posters were culled over something down right stupid and it all went downhill from there. A fairly long thread on premierview will give more details.

Many of these banned posters migrated to thefreekick and premierview, and from what I gather on some of their forums many of those posters took their "revenge" and reregistered on anfearrua just to cause trouble and act the wum (sometimes with multiple accounts). It all got a bit ridiculous for a finish. The animosity between the websites just got a bit childish and tedious for a finish.

I'd say at least one third of the posters on there at the end would have fallen into the jilted category

thesultan

Will a new Clare hurlers start up to fill the void?

BnB

Hawk Wing 2 wrote: »

I think the pompous, self serving "announcement" sums up that place the best, crying out for attention, it must be remembered that this joker benefited from the closure and the loss of the original and best GAA site on the net. Clarehurlers.com and took on most of the contributors when they folded due to unforeseen circumstances, a fact which the owner never acknowledged, in fact he sniped away during the period of 2000-2003 when clarehurlers was in its heyday

That really bugged the shoite out of me too. It was the closing of ClareHurlers that made AnFearRua - And he would never acknowledge it.

His ultimate downfall was his complete inability to moderate. He could ban someone for saying something fairly mild about someone he happened to like, while allowing shocking slanderous posts stay up about people he didn't care about himself.

Also, he made no attempt to clear out the obvious wummers which turned a lot of people off the forum. At any one time, at least half the topics on the front page were obvious wums.

And even when he did ban someone, sure they would just re-register again 2 minutes later.

I will miss it for local (Clare) GAA info. The only time I would log onto it in the last few years would be after a round of County Championship matches to see how they went, who played well etc.

At the end of the day, fair play to him for having a go at it anyway and best of luck to him in the future.

P.S. The Apes on TFK are really showing their class today

Clareman

I was a member of AFR, in fact I was a power user, I thought it was a great site that was setup for a smaller user base, but once it got bigger not only was the customer software not up to it and the fact that he wouldn't allow anyone else help him out it was only a matter of time until it became too much for him, imvho he took every "dodgy" comment as a personal attack.

Mod hat on Folks, Boards.ie is a commercially ran website that thrives on traffic, it's not a site for advertising other sites, if the owners of other forums want to get some publicity on here they are welcome to pay for some ads.

kieslowski

The guy just loved talking down to people, that's what I found the worst about him. Also got very precious over silly things. Should have delegated moderation duties to a few trusted lieutenants instead of keeping all the 'power' himself. Just couldn't let go and the site suffered really badly from idiots and wums in recent years. There were some cracking posters there a few years ago and the craic was good. Fellas like Gunther, Hud, Shannonsider, Sid Wallace etc but they all seemed to drift away or get banned or whatever and you were just left with the lunatic fringe.

Hawk Wing 2

deleting the archive of the db was an extreme act of childishness, in fact it was barbarianism of a intellectual level, a sort of night of the "long knifes"

seachto7

What was the best WUM you saw on there?

@Clareman. NOt sure about others, but I don't think any of the other sites mentioned would make any dent to boards. As a daily user of boards, and anfearrua, I approached both very differently. There is no wumming on boards. I used to go on anfearrua just for the mayhem.....

kieslowski

Very true, Hawk Wing. It reminds me of the time the Serbs deliberately fired incendiary shells at the library in Sarajevo, burning priceless ancient books in the process. Though on a lower scale of course! Typically petulent from him. I think there's a guy who has an archive of his own of the forum though, the ancient treasures of AnFearRua may not be lost. The 'best snackbox' thread might be saved for posterity!

Hawk Wing 2

seachto7 wrote: »

What was the best WUM you saw on there?

@Clareman. NOt sure about others, but I don't think any of the other sites mentioned would make any dent to boards. As a daily user of boards, and anfearrua, I approached both very differently. There is no wumming on boards. I used to go on anfearrua just for the mayhem.....

ed case or david trimble

seachto7

Surely someone like SLR will have saved something!

sid waddell

If you know what you're looking for, it seems you can still search for individual threads.

For example, this infamous one which was the real start of the rot. http://www.anfearrua.com/topic.aspx?id=446920

seachto7

some classic usernames in that thread! Even one of my old aliases showed up in it....

Hawk Wing 2

longladseamus/Ungrateful_Whelp man i used to pwn that lad

Clareman

I can't understand why he wouldn't leave the forum up and accessible just not let people post in there.