New subforum: The Off Season

Tokyo

Hi folks,

One of the underlying themes that runs through the Farming & Forestry forum is the sense of humour that gets brought into each and every thread here, along with a willingness to laugh at our own, and others, hardships and successes. This is a great thing in my opinion - it can be humbling at times, while at other times it's a reminder that no matter how bad a day has gone, it could be far worse.

However, every now and again a thread comes up that reminds us that the farming lifestyle and living in rural areas brings with it its own unique set of stresses and hardships that can't always be so easily shrugged off. Sometimes they are lighthearted complaints - issues that stem from working the family farm around a father that's unwilling to let go of the reins, other times they are the issues that most farmers deal with - losing animals, low income, general hardship. And sadly, some of the threads that have popped up now and again steer towards the more serious - depression and even suicide amongst family and friends. Thankfully the sands have shifted on discussing such issues in the past few years, and the stigma and traditional stoic 'shrug it off' mentality has given way to people discussing the challenges that they face on a daily basis. To the credit of everybody here, threads along these lines get taken seriously - the 'depression' thread stands testament to that, and I don't doubt for a minute that people here have benefited from the wisdom and experiences of others during difficult times in their lives.

An idea that we have been knocking around for a while in the F&F Moderators forum is catering to these threads by having a place in F&F where the community here can discuss the slightly more serious aspects of farming life if they wish, or to lend their own advice to others wanting to discuss their own issues, and that allows a wider scope of discussion than the 'depression' sticky thread in the main forum. And with the backing of both CMods and admin, in the next few days we will be rolling out a subforum geared towards such threads.

The forum itself will be one of the few on boards.ie that allows anonymous posting, so that if somebody has an issue they want to discuss, or a point of view that they would like to share, but don't want to do so under their username, they will have the freedom to do so. As with anything new, there will be kinks to work out, but our overall goal would be that, rather than setting down hard and fast rules from the outset, the forum evolve to the wants and needs of the people posting in it, be they the daily challenges of rural life, to the more serious.

I would hope that most people in F&F will see it for what it is - an option that they aren't obligated to use, but it's there nonetheless if it's needed. And a place to lend support if you can. As a mod over in the Personal Issues forum, we deal with quite a few threads from members of the farming community in distress, or from their families who are concerned about them - our most recent thread last week was from a rural housewife, expressing concerns that her husband may be contemplating suicide, so sometimes these are issues that can be quite lifechanging, not just for the person, but everybody else in their lives too, and if having the option to let it out here helps even one person, it's a worthwhile endeavour in my opinion.

For now, if you have any thoughts or questions on this, be they positive or negative, we'd appreciate hearing them.

just do it

Brilliant idea.

Regarding anonymous posting, how anonymous is it? Do mods, cMods and/or admin know who has posted?

Genghis Cant

Would I be right to assume that this would be like a f&f version of personal issues with a similar charter to personal issues?
Will posts be pre moderated?

Excellent idea.

Tokyo

just do it wrote: »

Brilliant idea.

Regarding anonymous posting, how anonymous is it? Do mods, cMods and/or admin know who has posted?

Good question.

Mods and cMods do not, and never have had, access to the identity of an anonymous poster. The owners/Administrators of boards.ie would have the powers to look into the identity of an anon poster but only as a last resort - it's not something that would be immediately visible to them, rather it's something that they would have to take time to investigate, and generally because somebody has decided to abuse the anonymous posting feature (troll or spammer for example)

Anonymous posting is also used over in the Personal Issues forum (that's where the idea to bring it across here evolved from), and I can count on one hand the number of times I have asked admin to take a closer look at an anon post. Even then, admin either take care of it privately or tell us that it's nothing to worry about - they don't feed any other information back to us.

In short, privacy is paramount and is treated as such. The only time that gets trumped is if someone decides to abuse it - trolling for example, and in that case admin take care of it. Mods and cMods don't. If you would like, I can ask an admin to comment on this further.

Tokyo

Genghis Cant wrote: »

Would I be right to assume that this would be like a f&f version of personal issues with a similar charter to personal issues?

To a point, yes. We don't want it to be as constrained as Personal Issues, which has quite a tight scope and would probably not be suitable for F&F at times. We'd hope that the forum would be used for a wider range of issues that are more relevant to the F&F community, and that the forum would evolve to the needs of the people who post in it. At the end of the day, sometimes the only person who can understand a farming or rural living related issue is someone else who has been or still is in the same situation.

The charter would be similar enough in certain areas - the rules that are in place to stop people from abusing or belittling a poster or their issue are carried across. In other areas it's a lot more flexible, as we want to allow for different needs, as mentioned above.

Will posts be pre moderated?

If you create a thread or post under your own username, it appears immediately, as normal. Threads or posts which are posted anonymously are pre-moderated - all that means is that a mod has to click an 'approve' button beside the post before it is visible to the public. Depending on the time of day it's posted, that can take a few minutes or a few hours.

The reasoning behind that is mainly to stop spammers or trolls. Legitimate responses get approved without question.

Excellent idea.

Thanks! It's always good to see an idea like this get support.

onyerbikepat

I think that's a good idea. I've noticed a few times in the past where regular posters have let go and really opened up and talked about something that was perhaps building up over time in their heads.
You would notice then that, that particular poster would close their account, I suppose feeling that they had said too much.
We are not as anonymous as we might like to think we are. I reckon I could track down a lot of posters here, from bits and pieces they said over the years.

just do it

mike_ie wrote: »

Good question.

Mods and cMods do not, and never have had, access to the identity of an anonymous poster. The owners/Administrators of boards.ie would have the powers to look into the identity of an anon poster but only as a last resort - it's not something that would be immediately visible to them, rather it's something that they would have to take time to investigate, and generally because somebody has decided to abuse the anonymous posting feature (troll or spammer for example)

Anonymous posting is also used over in the Personal Issues forum (that's where the idea to bring it across here evolved from), and I can count on one hand the number of times I have asked admin to take a closer look at an anon post. Even then, admin either take care of it privately or tell us that it's nothing to worry about - they don't feed any other information back to us.

In short, privacy is paramount and is treated as such. The only time that gets trumped is if someone decides to abuse it - trolling for example, and in that case admin take care of it. Mods and cMods don't. If you would like, I can ask an admin to comment on this further.

Thanks Mike I thought it would be along those lines. An admin comment might be no harm just for clarity.

Tokyo

just do it wrote: »

Thanks Mike I thought it would be along those lines. An admin comment might be no harm just for clarity.

No worries - I've asked an admin to give a response from their perspective. When they have a few minutes to spare I'm sure they'll drop by.

ganmo

I'm not sure if distancing the not so good from the good is a great idea.
As it stands the f&f forum acts as a reminder that life has its good moments(eg photo thread) and ****ty ones(farm safety thread)

but I can see where it would have its place

on the river

we have four sub forums already.
could be fuse too together to make place for this one.

The sub forums aren't getting the traffic the main forum gets.

Kovu

You'd be surprised on the river! That can rack up the posts too.
Five subforums isn't an problem, many other forums have more than that:)

on the river

.Kovu. wrote: »

You'd be surprised on the river! That can rack up the posts too.
Five subforums isn't an problem, many other forums have more than that:)

Fair enough. Yet smallholdings isn't getting the traffic it used to get

on the river

The last post in beekeeping was the 8th and small holdings the 7th . If members post questions , they may be long time waiting for a reply:(

Tokyo

The subforum issue is a fair point. While I wouldn't see five subfora as a huge issue (as Kovu pointed out, other forums have many more), we don't want to be inundated with them either.

The reason behind the creation of the existing sobfora so far was that posters felt that topics specific to those headings were getting being lost in the F&F main forum due to the high volume of other farming related threads, and would get more attention in their own forum. Which seems to be the case most of the time - certainly with Forestry and Sheep from what I can see.

Beekeeping and Smallholding have a small enough audience at the best of times, so the number of threads in those fora are always going to be small. I take your point about the last post dates in each of those fora, but it's important to note that there aren't any threads there with no responses, which means that when a person does post a thread there, it doesn't get ignored. They are also going to be somewhat seasonal, so there are going to be hills and troughs in the number of new threads across the course of the year.

We'll certainly keep an eye on it though and discuss it further, away from this thread.

Kovu

Smallholding also leans heavily into the main forum so it's never going to be as busy as the others as questions can be posed in either forum.
Beekeeping is a niche subject, again it is not a huge hobby but because it doesn't fit in elsewhere it works well here with the others. All the forums have quiet and busy periods, if they weren't there we'd have people asking for them

Anyway! That's for another thread, we can't be stealing the thunder away from ths one.

on the river

mike_ie wrote: »

The subforum issue is a fair point. While I wouldn't see five subfora as a huge issue (as Kovu pointed out, other forums have many more), we don't want to be inundated with them either.

The reason behind the creation of the existing sobfora so far was that posters felt that topics specific to those headings were getting being lost in the F&F main forum due to the high volume of other farming related threads, and would get more attention in their own forum. Which seems to be the case most of the time - certainly with Forestry and Sheep from what I can see.

Beekeeping and Smallholding have a small enough audience at the best of times, so the number of threads in those fora are always going to be small. I take your point about the last post dates in each of those fora, but it's important to note that there aren't any threads there with no responses, which means that when a person does post a thread there, it doesn't get ignored.

If you merged the above , would you not get more discussion .

Beekeeping is distinct , but could be interrupted as a smallholding.

Tokyo

on the river wrote: »

If you merged the above , would you not get more discussion .

Beekeeping is distinct , but could be interrupted as a smallholding.

I'll bring your suggestion to the table in the mods forum to get everybody's thoughts on it, and so we can look into the pros and cons in more detail (and of course, how it might impact the regular posters in both of those fora). It'll probably be a discussion that will wait until we have the details of this forum hammered out though.

on the river

My main argument is this. The more sub forums we have the more disconnected the forum in general will become.
where members not posting for months.
I think a limit needs to be set on how many sub forums will be in operation.

Feckthis

on the river wrote: »

My main argument is this. The more sub forums we have the more disconnected the forum in general will become.
where members not posting for months.
I think a limit needs to be set on how many sub forums will be in operation.

This thread is being derailed fairly quickly from what it was set out to be. I agree on this thread being very useful as Farming and living in the countryside can be very isolating at times.

_Brian

on the river wrote: »

My main argument is this. The more sub forums we have the more disconnected the forum in general will become.
where members not posting for months.
I think a limit needs to be set on how many sub forums will be in operation.

I agree with this, limit on stickies too.

on the river

Feckthis wrote: »

This thread is being derailed fairly quickly from what it was set out to be. I agree on this thread being very useful as Farming and living in the countryside can be very isolating at times.

Yes this forum in my opinion can act as a online space for ideas, suggestions and interactions.

Farmer

on the river wrote: »

If you merged the above , would you not get more discussion .

Beekeeping is distinct , but could be interrupted as a smallholding.

If beekeeping was a sub off smallholding the beekeepers mightn't mind as they probably link directly to it anyway. It would keep our (smartphone) screens a bit less cluttered. We,d need to ask them very politely of course

Reggie.

_Brian wrote: »

I agree with this, limit on stickies too.

Same as that

sea12

Reggie. wrote: »

Same as that

I know u want to keep on track on op but agree with all the stickies. Most of us use smartphone do a small screen. With all the extra stickies the first page is best ly gone. Most of us browse the first page only.

By the way sheep forum definitely needs to be kept visible!!!

Tokyo

I appreciate your concerns regarding the stickies and such, but this is beginning to take the thread off topic a bit..

It doesn't mean that we're not taking what you're saying into consideration though, and it's worth noting that with the advent of this new forum, that will remove two stickies from the main forum. As a general rule of thumb we aim for no more than three stickies at a time, precisely because of our smartphone users, unless a situation warrants another. But I digress...

mayota

on the river wrote: »

My main argument is this. The more sub forums we have the more disconnected the forum in general will become.
where members not posting for months.
I think a limit needs to be set on how many sub forums will be in operation.

+1
All should be kept together.

Mr E

mike_ie wrote: »

Mods and cMods do not, and never have had, access to the identity of an anonymous poster. The owners/Administrators of boards.ie would have the powers to look into the identity of an anon poster but only as a last resort - it's not something that would be immediately visible to them, rather it's something that they would have to take time to investigate, and generally because somebody has decided to abuse the anonymous posting feature (troll or spammer for example)

Hi folks, as your local friendly admin, I'd like to reiterate what Mike said - your privacy is sacrosanct in these forums. It's the only way anonymous forums will work. I've been an admin for 18 months now, and I've had to check into no more than 2 or 3 different users in Personal Issues (by request from the mods, and only to see if they were a banned rereg).

We're 100% behind what the F&F mods are trying to do here - when Mike brought the idea to me a few weeks ago, I really couldn't see a downside. My mother's parents were from a farming background, so I know what a tough life it can be.

Good luck with it, folks. Hopefully it will be a valuable resource to those who need it, and that it'll have input from the F&F regulars who are willing to offer their sage advice.

just do it

Go for it guys, the number of posts, views and replies will tell if it's a good idea or not. We're heading into the dark months of winter and over the years there is a greater degree of negativity evident here, especially if we've a bad spring.

Tokyo

New subforum is up and running, and can be found here.