Now Ye're Talking - to Boards.ie: Sean

Gloomtastic!

With regards to your mobile offering.......

Why are the mobile Mod Tools still so very, very limited? If you want us to be gentle with newbies, why can’t we see a post count on mobile?

Boards.ie: Sean

eviltwin wrote: »

Is there anything that can be done to stop persistent reregs?

I know it has been an issue, particularly in one or two forums, and we have been looking at additional strategies to try to reduce the number of reregs. It's very challenging to completely stamp this type of behaviour out but we do log things like IP addresses, user agents and other information when a user is registering in order to identity patterns that suggest persistent reregs.

Boards.ie: Sean

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Best decision: Separating Boards out from Distilled Media at the start of 2015. Whereas there were a number of advantages in Boards being tightly integrated into a larger group, the site wasn't not getting the focus and attention it needed or deserved. Since going out independently we have held the traffic to the site steady (after some declines in the previous years), increased the number of daily registrations, doubled the workforce, increased revenues by over 40% and moved into profitability. There may come at time in the future when it again makes sense to for Boards to integrate more tightly with other complementary businesses but in 2015 it was definitely the right move to separate out. BTW I should point out that this was not the best decision I made, this was a decision by the Board of Directors, so I can't take the credit on this one.

Worst decision: Going too early with the release of the responsive site. The site was not ready for prime time when we released it, it put us immediately on the back foot and we've been trying to catch-up since. This decision was mine alone and so I take the full blame on this one.

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Family time (wonderful wife and two fantastic daughters). Involved on the boards of one or two for-not-profit organisations. Have really got into swimming lately (used to play 5 aside soccer but was just getting too many knocks, sprains and bruises - swimming is great, zero impact sport), alpine mountaineering (when I get a chance) and I've just signed up for a week in Spain next summer to learn how to paraglide.

Boards.ie: Sean

bucketybuck wrote: »

Are you involved with the daily administration of the forums? Making decisions on complaints or reported problems, things like that?

If so, have you ever decided that enough is enough, that a certain poster is just an ass and their whining is more trouble than its worth, and so got fed up enough to throw due process out the window and just unilaterally ban them from the site, just beause?

No, I'm not involved in the daily administration of the forums. And I would never throw out due process and just unilaterally ban someone from the site ... Mark and Niamh would kill me

eviltwin

Any chance of getting a few more smilies

Boards.ie: Sean

mariaalice wrote: »

How come there are so many raciest type posts and paranoid posts about woman on AH lately. There use to be a bit of an effort to keep a lid on it, has that stopped for some reason.

Short answer - I'm not sure. If any post breaks our Terms of Use then it should be deleted and the poster warned or sanctioned. If it doesn't then by our own rules, we need to allow the poster say what they want to say, even if we find it personally objectionable.

mariaalice wrote: »

Interesting question why are posters like that attracted to boards.

I honestly think that Boards is not unusual, you get objectionable posters across the web and social media platforms unfortunately

This Fat Girl Runs

I third the question about getting more emoticons and smileys

I also would like to know what are your favourite forums/threads to browse?

What is your proudest moment/achievement that happened on boards that you felt was a 'yes' moment, where all the hard work and ideas and everything else you've put into the site was worth it?

eviltwin

Why is the post that allegedly has a video of a guy being hit by a train allowed up when so many other videos are removed?

Boards.ie: Sean

fussyonion wrote: »

Are you aware of any celebs who have Boards accounts?
And I don't mean "social influencers" :rolleyes:

Only one I know of is Conor McGregor but that was a couple of years ago

Boards.ie: Sean

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

In terms of the Guards it is rare that they will contact us. Our position in this regard is crystal clear, we will release no information about a user (other than what is publicly visible on the site) unless there is a court order requiring us to do so (in which case we have no choice!).

Quick clarification ... Our position in this regard is crystal clear, we will release no information about a user (other than what is publicly visible on the site) unless there is a valid Section 8 request either issued by the courts or from an investigating member of An Garda Siochana

Thanks!

Boards.ie: Sean

9or10 wrote: »

That's absolutely fine - a commercial company made a commercial decision.

OK, but there was no amesty or forgiveness for the users that shilled for GB - and that leaves a bit of a taste with me.

It think that is a very fair point. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander. I'll have a look into it

Boards.ie: Sean

circadian wrote: »

Are you guys bricking it trying to get everything ready for GDPR? Honestly, it's one of those processes that digs up skeletons. Complete nightmare.

We're looking at GDPR at the moment, still be be determined how much impact it's going to have on our current setup

circadian wrote: »

Do you still host the site yourselves or have you made the jump to aws or similar? (That's not your phone number, it's your AWS bill)

It's a hybrid model. We still still have our own servers sitting in a data centre in Dublin but we have moved a number of services to the cloud including some use of AWS and CloudFlare (yes, we have to be very careful from a cost perspective when considering what to move into the cloud)

Boards.ie: Sean

misstearheus wrote: »

Any sign of loads of lovely Emoticons/Smilies to make an appearance down the road?!

eviltwin wrote: »

Any chance of getting a few more smilies

This Fat Girl Runs wrote: »

I third the question about getting more emoticons and smileys

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. Will talk to the team about the details of what would be required to add more smilies. Looking at it, we'd need to make changes both to the editor and the underlying vBulletin code. No fundamental reasons preventing us form doing that, it will just be a question of priorities. However, I would say that changing / updating things like the editor is significantly quicker / easier / less risky than equivalent changes to the legacy site (simply as a consequence of the architecture and code base of the responsive being a lot newer and therefore more flexible and modular than that of the legacy site). Therefore, the likelihood is that if new smilies were introduced they would be introduced first to the responsive site and I couldn't make any commitments at this stage as to if and when similar updates could be made to the legacy site.

But definitely one to add into the mix when looking at new features for the site!

Boards.ie: Sean

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

With regards to your mobile offering.......

Why are the mobile Mod Tools still so very, very limited? If you want us to be gentle with newbies, why can’t we see a post count on mobile?

I've talked a bit about the responsive site and the fact that we are working on significant updates to it at the moment which we hope to roll out incrementally over the coming months. First to see the light of day will be the thread view pages, followed by forum view pages. After that the roll out order is still to be finalised but will include home page, profile page, control panel, search results and crucially mod functionality.

This is important because the responsive site is designed to provide a common platform and interface across all devices including mobile. Unlike the current legacy desktop and legacy mobile (touch.boards.ie) sites which are two different interfaces built on two different code bases.

Once these updates are rolled out the responsive site will give full mod and admin functionality on desktop and close to full functionality on mobile. Mods and admins of course are still free to use the legacy site on desktop but if they switch to the responsive site on mobile they should be able to access all the functionality they need wherever they are.

9or10

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

It think that is a very fair point. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander. I'll have a look into it

Thank you.

Gloomtastic!

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

I've talked a bit about the responsive site and the fact that we are working on significant updates to it at the moment which we hope to roll out incrementally over the coming months. First to see the light of day will be the thread view pages, followed by forum view pages. After that the roll out order is still to be finalised but will include home page, profile page, control panel, search results and crucially mod functionality.

This is important because the responsive site is designed to provide a common platform and interface across all devices including mobile. Unlike the current legacy desktop and legacy mobile (touch.boards.ie) sites which are two different interfaces built on two different code bases.

Once these updates are rolled out the responsive site will give full mod and admin functionality on desktop and close to full functionality on mobile. Mods and admins of course are still free to use the legacy site on desktop but if they switch to the responsive site on mobile they should be able to access all the functionality they need wherever they are.

What you call the responsive site I call the free WIFI site - it automatically appears when you’re in the likes of McDonalds! :rolleyes:

Have you asked why the responsive site is not used more? Why am I happy when it reverts back to the legacy site after leaving the WIFI hotspot?

It looks clean but it’s cluttered. It could be you only get 10 posts per page against 15 on the legacy site - 33% more interaction necessary. It might be the first screen you see is comprised of paid-for posts. Perhaps it’s just that, like most people, I hate change!

Just my 2c worth.....

joujoujou

joujoujou wrote: »

[...] what's average monthly data transfer to and from boards.ie servers?

Is that a secret? Ballpark figure? Please?

Boards.ie: Sean

joujoujou wrote: »

Is that a secret? Ballpark figure? Please?

We serve around 5.5-6TB per month

Kuva

Thread in BA has Gearbest selling counterfeit xiamoi powerbanks and dragging their feet with fixing the issue. All xiamoi products come with a 20 digit code that can be entered on their official site here - https://www.mi.com/verify/#secur_en. To verify they are authentic.

Gearbest are directing Boardies to a fake website http://chaxunmi.cn/ where their fake dangerous crap will come back as genuine.

Did Gearbest set up a fake website to fool people into believing their dangerous counterfeit goods were genuine?

https://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057800787/5

Boards.ie: Sean

misstearheus wrote: »

What is your personal favourite Forum?

This Fat Girl Runs wrote: »

I also would like to know what are your favourite forums/threads to browse?

A couple off the top of my head ... I like to browse a couple of the threads on the photography forum, some of the pictures posted are stunning ... I like to dip into Bargain Alerts, it's our second most popular forum (after After Hours) and it's fun to see what deals are getting people excited and it's great to see all that activity on the site ... I am big Dublin fan and go to Croke Park a good couple of times each year so the GAA forum is one of my go to forums particularly when the season starts off in the new year and into the Championship and hopefully the autumn (up the Dubs!) ... and I am following some threads on the moderators forum particularly those I have posted on (which happens if and when Niamh and Mark, who are in much more regular contact with the mods and admins, ask me to give some input)

This Fat Girl Runs wrote: »

What is your proudest moment/achievement that happened on boards that you felt was a 'yes' moment, where all the hard work and ideas and everything else you've put into the site was worth it?

One of my proudest moments was when when in my first full year in the role and the first year after Boards moved out of Distilled Media the company made a profit. Not because it meant that we were all going to be filthy rich but because it showed that Boards could stand on it's own two feet as a site and as a company. Boards is nearly 20 years old and for us to continue for the next 20 years, amongst many other things, we need to be financially sustainable. The 2015 result showed that we have the potential to be so. And that gives me great optimism for the future.

Sure there are many things that need fixing, as our community rightly lets us know, but as long as we continue to run a sustainable business, at least we can plan on fixing them.

Boards.ie: Sean

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

What you call the responsive site I call the free WIFI site - it automatically appears when you’re in the likes of McDonalds! :rolleyes:

LOL. Users inside Ireland who have not indicated a preference will by default be shown the legacy site. Users outside Ireland will by default be shown the responsive site. Of course, any user is free to set whichever version of the site they prefer (by clicking the appropriate link in the footer on the legacy site or in the header or footer on the responsive site which sets a cookie indicating their preference) and this setting will be persistent (as long as the cookie isn't cleared). It could be that McDonalds is routing their wifi through an IP address outside Ireland

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Have you asked why the responsive site is not used more?

Responsive site is not used more because most of our traffic defaults to the legacy site (79% of all traffic originates inside Ireland).

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Why am I happy when it reverts back to the legacy site after leaving the WIFI hotspot?

It looks clean but it’s cluttered. It could be you only get 10 posts per page against 15 on the legacy site - 33% more interaction necessary. It might be the first screen you see is comprised of paid-for posts. Perhaps it’s just that, like most people, I hate change!

Just my 2c worth.....

Hopefully with the updates to the responsive site we're planning over the next couple of months you'll see substantial progress on all of those issues. But rest assured, even after the updates, for people who still don't like the responsive site they can always use the legacy one!

Kuva

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

LOL. Users inside Ireland who have not indicated a preference will by default be shown the legacy site. Users outside Ireland will by default be shown the responsive site. Of course, any user is free to set whichever version of the site they prefer (by clicking the appropriate link in the footer on the legacy site or in the header or footer on the responsive site which sets a cookie indicating their preference) and this setting will be persistent (as long as the cookie isn't cleared). It could be that McDonalds is routing their wifi through an IP address outside Ireland

It doesn't work like that, from memory --> when abroad (Im just back) I clicked on the my threads tab in firefox, it opened the page fine on touch but when I tried to open any thread in there...it wasn't a 404 page but it was some error page, I had to click on the forum button where the thread I wanted to open was in and then that would open in responsive site and then click on the/find the thread I originally wanted.

Plus responsive site doesn't give a posted by in * forum by * user so you get lost.

I had to remove my "my thread tab" and put in a responsive thread tab.

That just 2 of the main reasons I said it was a mess earlier.

Boards.ie: Sean

Kuva wrote: »

Thread in BA has Gearbest selling counterfeit xiamoi powerbanks and dragging their feet with fixing the issue. All xiamoi products come with a 20 digit code that can be entered on their official site here - https://www.mi.com/verify/#secur_en. To verify they are authentic.

Gearbest are directing Boardies to a fake website http://chaxunmi.cn/ where their fake dangerous crap will come back as genuine.

Did Gearbest set up a fake website to fool people into believing their dangerous counterfeit goods were genuine?

https://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057800787/5

Thanks for the link to the thread. We've had a look at the thread and will be in contact Gearbest directly to let them know of the issues being raised. And in case anyone is not aware, if users do want to contact Gearbest directly there is a Customer Service thread on the Gearbest subforum where they can post their concerns.

Finally, for all sponsored posts and sponsored subforums, Boards cannot and does not police or vet all the products or services being promoted by the brand in question nor does it endorse them. We merely provide a place on Boards for those brands which are users are then free to visit or not, as they see fit.

Boards.ie: Sean

Kuva wrote: »

It doesn't work like that, from memory --> when abroad (Im just back) I clicked on the my threads tab in firefox, it opened the page fine on touch but when I tried to open any thread in there...it wasn't a 404 page but it was some error page, I had to click on the forum button where the thread I wanted to open was in and then that would open in responsive site and then click on the/find the thread I originally wanted.

Plus responsive site doesn't give a posted by in * forum by * user so you get lost.

I had to remove my "my thread tab" and put in a responsive thread tab.

That just 2 of the main reasons I said it was a mess earlier.

In terms of an error page being shown when you tried to open a thread, if you have more details please let us know and we'll investigate.

And regarding the responsive site UI, as I said, we have heard the feedback loud and clear on the some of the issues with it, hence our focus on getting an updated version out that addresses these issues as soon as we can.

Thanks.

Boards.ie: Sean

Ok guys, I afraid I'm going to have to call in day for this AMA. First of all thanks to one and all for the questions, comments, gripes and quips - all genuinely appreciated!

I hope that this has been somewhat informative for the community. I have tried to be as open and honest with you all as I can be and to answer all the questions asked ... you all will ultimately be the judges of how successful (or not) I've been!

For coming up to 20 years Boards has been one of Ireland's true internet success stories and I am confident that we will continue to be for the next 20. Yes, we have challenges, yes lots of things on the site could be (and will be) improved, yes it's a constant challenge to get the balance right between commercial realities and user experience but when thinking about all this I remember that we have a fantastic community, a brilliant cohort of mods and admins and a tremendous team and that although there will bumps in the road along the way, the future is bright.

Thanks again,
Sean.