Is discussion of Irish Web Hosting companies not allowed site wide?

Donegal Dan

I noticed that discussion of web hosting was banned in the Tech - Software and Web Development - Design part of Boards so I tried to enable a thread talking about who is the best Irish Web Hosting company in Biz - Business - Entrepreneurial & Business Management and it too was was taken down.

Is it Boards.ie's site wide policy to not have debate on this subject?

Orim

I would sincerely doubt it. However I would guess that the presentation of the discussion may have something to do with the threads being taken. The threads being deleted is a strange step in itself, generally a thread would be locked or moved if it was in the wrong location. Do you remember how you presented your original posts?

As mild evidence to back up my claims, we have the below thread which compares various commerce platforms so the Design forum could be open to the thread in principal. Although it would seem misplaced there.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057129221

Interestingly and to destroy the rest of my post, in the charter of Servers & Systems it states that discussion of web hosting companies is forbidden. Mayhaps I am wrong.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58630394&postcount=1

GTE

I could only guess the hosting company of Boards wouldn't like it, which makes sense. It is not like the name of it is splashed everywhere.

Donegal Dan

bbk wrote: »

I could only guess the hosting company of Boards wouldn't like it, which makes sense. It is not like the name of it is splashed everywhere.

I highly doubt that. Daft.ie owns a fair chunk of Boards but if a thread was to pop up criticizing them it would be a brave Mod that locks it.

Mr E

If you're looking for the official stance/reason, I think DeVore said it best here:

DeVore wrote:

Hosting in Ireland has always been a bug bear of mine... the various companies (as can be seen on this thread) simply can't have a civil conversation with each other. Some can't be in the same room as each other without lawyers present.

Anyone who wants to open up a forum for such topics is MORE then welcome to, independent or not. I just want nothing further to do with any of them.

DeV.

Read the last 10-15 posts on that thread. It's what you can expect to see if Hosting discussion came back to this site.

Orion

What Mr. E said. There used to be a Web Hosting forum and it was worse than the Thunderdome.

Lovely Bloke

Is there any case for revisiting a 6 year old decision?

LoLth

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Is there any case for revisiting a 6 year old decision?

There's certainly a case to review it. If they play nice then I would welcome a discussion on the merits of hosting providers in Ireland. The one I currently use is nothing like it was when I started and I'm not too thrilled with the options elsewhere.

I was mod of the hosting forum for a bit and it was ridiculous. Grown men behaved like spoilt children. Tit-for-tat underhanded digs at business practices and hosting methods. Constantly trying to out-shine the opposition with "facts" and dredging up any weakness at any opportunity. At one stage we had staff of multiple hosting companies signing up and pretending to be clients of the opposition posting to complain about crappy service.

if that mentality has changed then I'd love to see boards.ie hosting some form of conversation about hosting providers. I'd even volunteer to mod it again now that i'm older, wiser and dont care if I upset some business owner who feels a misplaced sense of entitlement.

dinneenp

I know in other forums you can have discussions but not dis the company (e.g. Galway restaurants discussions).
I don't see why someone shouldn't be able to ask factual questions that aren't really subjective- e.g. 'are there any offers/deals available for hosting at the moment', 'doe it make an iota of difference where my hosting company is located' etc.

LoLth

dinneenp wrote: »

I don't see why someone shouldn't be able to ask factual questions that aren't really subjective

you'd think that wouldn't you? unfortunately it was impossible to have any mention of webhosting companies without people with a vested interest turning it into a slagging match or some weird peacock-like posturing event.

The only solution in the end was to ban all discussion of the subject. Not because we wanted to - hey, we're a forum on the internet, one thing we all have in common is the internet and at the time we had a large percentage of techies that were interested in hosting sites and applications - but because we had to to retain any semblance of normality and to have any hope of avoiding being dragged into a courtroom to defend why some slanderous / libellous material got left in public because the injured party decided to blame boards and not the person that actually posted it.

there were requests for comments to be removed because they were deemed libellous when the requester had posted an almost identical comment/ accusation a week previously and got away with it. Mods (including me) were constantly being dragged in to arguments to arbitrate what was and was not allowed and what was and was not a true statement or expression of opinion.

Of *any* forum section, even the law forum! , the web hosting forum threw up the most legal pitfalls and the most legalese doubletalk and barely disguised backhanded compliments.

you are entirely correct that we should be able to discuss these things, its a sad reflection of the state of business ethics and common courtesy that we actually cant.

Sparks

We've got a ban on it in Servers&Systems and in Development for exactly the reason Devore laid out above. If it comes back, cool, and we'll redirect queries on it to the new forum, but I don't want to be the poor sod left trying to mod a repeat of that kind of silliness in S&S thanks

Graham

Thinking back to the original hosting discussions, they were a great spectator sport. Right up there with Temple Bar at 2am on a Saturday morning. I can see how this was less entertaining for the mods involved.

It would be really interesting to see the direction any new hosting discussions would take. Perhaps a couple of ground rules would limit the potential pandemonium:

1) If you represent or are working for a hosting company in any capacity, you should clearly state this on any hosting related posts.
2) If 1 then you are to limit your input to discussions of your own hosting services only.
3) If you are a virtual host/hosting reseller you should clearly state this on any hosting related posts along with 1 / 2.
4) Something about people with their own dedicated/virtual servers offering to share (haven't thought this one through yet).

Anyone attempting to circumvent the rules or the spirit of the rules in general will be ejected faster than a [insert really fast thing here].

tricky D

The reasons for this policy even pre-date boards with 2 particular Irish hosters almost ruining a community mailing list with their bullsh1tty, cringeful and noisy bickering. Mockery and boycott kind of won the day in the end. It's a clusterfeck best avoided.

Sparks

Graham wrote: »

ejected faster than a [insert really fast thing here].

I should clarify that when I said S&S I meant Servers&Systems, not Sex&Sexuality :P

*ahem*

(I'm going to be in so much trouble for that joke, but I can't help myself...)

Graham

Sparks wrote: »

I should clarify that when I said S&S I meant Servers&Systems, not Sex&Sexuality :P

*ahem*

(I'm going to be in so much trouble for that joke, but I can't help myself...)

I'm not even going to ask the thought process that led you from 'inserting really fast things' to 'sex & sexuality'. :pac:

Graham

tricky D wrote: »

The reasons for this policy even pre-date boards with 2 particular Irish hosters almost ruining a community mailing list with their bullsh1tty, cringeful and noisy bickering. Mockery and boycott kind of won the day in the end. It's a clusterfeck best avoided.

I think the industry and (one would hope) all of the operators have matured significantly since then. I do think it's a pity that the subject is still off-limits after all this time.

nesf

Graham wrote: »

I think the industry and (one would hope) all of the operators have matured significantly since then. I do think it's a pity that the subject is still off-limits after all this time.

The industry might have matured but egos are still egos. As soon as someone opens their mouth about a certain hosting practice being bad you'll have a ****storm and it could easily be some innocent punter who starts it but good luck convincing whoever was cast in a negative light by this that it wasn't a competitor's shill.

There are more industries than just hosting in Ireland where you couldn't have a civil discussion with the actual parties involved. They've been at each other's throats and poaching each other's business for years, it's to be expected that there's some latent hostility present. This is nothing new in business, it's just big business tends to do their arguing via the court system.

Graham

You may well be right although I can't imagine the major players fighting particularly hard for your average shared hosting WordPress install these days.

nesf

You'd be surprised what could happen in any business forum where the wrong thing was said. Especially one hosting a very competitive industry.

MadsL

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Is there any case for revisiting a 6 year old decision?

Have the owners changed?

nesf

MadsL wrote: »

Have the owners changed?

Yes...

mneylon

Ireland is a small country and there was a lot of "history" and very bad blood between a lot of people involved from the early days.

Boards.ie is better off keeping the ban in place, as I suspect lifting it would cause headaches.

Donegal Dan

So pretty much all taboo subjects, including Abortion, the Catholic church fiddling with kids etc are ok to discuss on Boards.

But Web Hosting isnt?! :pac:

aidan_walsh

Recommendations, discussion and support queries for individual hosting companies is generally not allowed. Configuration of software, applications and management is allowed.

nesf

Donegal Dan wrote: »

So pretty much all taboo subjects, including Abortion, the Catholic church fiddling with kids etc are ok to discuss on Boards.

But Web Hosting isnt?! :pac:

Parties in those debates aren't likely to bring each other to court and perhaps Boards too. When it's businesses doing the arguing it's potentially very different.