The slow death of forums *see OP for Admin warning and update 28/02/18*

dav3

Does anybody really care about the number of post counts? Surely quality over quantity is better.

boards.ie continues to stay in the top 20/30 most popular websites in Ireland, it won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

Although it appears lately that a few people who had their feelings hurt by mods are trying to tell anyone who'll listen that the site is dead.

Mickeroo

Fann Linn wrote: »

Probably down to people having more things to do elsewhere.
Like work.
Not coincidental that the highest number of posts coincide possibly with the height of the recession.

Ironically the site is at its busiest by far during office work hours on weekdays.

Beasty

Mickeroo wrote: »

Ironically the site is at its busiest by far during office work hours on weekdays.

That's probably always been the case, except, of course, for some of the Sports forums that liven up over the weekend

Beasty

Harry Palmr wrote: »

and what's the smart phone population growth since 2007 I wonder?

I would hazard a guess at more than 50%, particularly as the iPhone was only launched in the middle of 2007:)

Arghus

dav3 wrote: »

Does anybody really care about the number of post counts? Surely quality over quantity is better.

boards.ie continues to stay in the top 20/30 most popular websites in Ireland, it won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

Although it appears lately that a few people who had their feelings hurt by mods are trying to tell anyone who'll listen that the site is dead.

Quality and quantity are both down.

traveller0101

Traditional forums don't scale well. It's hard to get information in a 50 page thread with a mod note on post #429

Boards has a number of flaws that stop it growing:
* traditional online forum format (this is changing/will be changed)
* notification system
* threads don't become viral in the same way a lovindublin post can become viral on fb
* mods and censorship. it's really easy to be banned here which is a massive problem for growth.

tayto lover

Some of the mods leave a lot to be desired though insofar as there's no two of them the same. A bit like GAA refs.

Mountainsandh

dav3 wrote: »

Although it appears lately that a few people who had their feelings hurt by mods are trying to tell anyone who'll listen that the site is dead.

I don't know about that Dav.
I've hardly ever had any trouble with Mods, and yet I feel the restrictions and self-censure, and it spoils the fun and dampens my interest.

There isn't much to refresh the front page for these days either, so I just go off and do something else.

I'm another one of these posters who would write a post and delete instead of submitting it. Not worth the hassle if a thread is going to be locked soon, or the more outspoken I might agree or disagree with are going to be gagged shortly.

recyclebin

Was there only 450,024 posts in 2003!!!

https://www.boards.ie/search/submit/?date_from=01-01-2003&date_to=31-12-2003&sort=best&page=1&query=%2A%3A%2A

This then jumped to 1,313,282 in 2005.

https://www.boards.ie/search/submit/?date_from=01-01-2005&date_to=31-12-2005&sort=best&page=1&query=%2A%3A%2A

How Soon Is Now

I find I can dive into reddit and do what I want and never see same person twice or keep coming across same issues.

This suits me a lot more in general but I do like the smaller more local approach on here for certain things.

My main issue with here is a lot of the forums are cliquey and it irritate s ****e out of me.

I don't post in After hours as much anymore but when I did I noticed it a lot. In the soccer forum for example though there's a few people even in section of the team I support that I'd love to snack the head off because there pompous ****s who think there better then everyone else.

So ya I love boards for its sometimes more down to earth approach but ultimately I spend my Internet time on reddit!

Fr_Dougal

Beasty wrote: »

A lot of people had a lot more time on their hands back in 2009. Many of them have found gainful employment since then and probably have a lot less spare time to spend on sites like this. I'm not saying that's the only reason, but in my view it's a significant contributor

I disagree.

Look at all the education fora, they’re dying too. Stats were posted on the other thread(which was ‘temporaryly’ closed and never reopened and no reason whatsoever given).

You would expect students to be constant posters as employment isn’t really a factor, but nope. They’ve stopped posting too.

Boards doesn’t know what it wants to be, and The Office ™️ are ignoring posters who have genuine concerns, thus alienating their life blood. Look at the Feedback forum for example. It’s fingers in the ears and ‘la la la la la we’re AWESOME’.

TheAnalyst_

dav3 wrote: »

Does anybody really care about the number of post counts? .

Count is everything as it tells you the level of activity and engagement. In a community based discussion forum that is what matters. If the count goes too far down then people will stop visiting altogether and the quality will fall through the floor.

If nothing changes then this forum will a zombie in 4 years. I don't really care about the business side of boards but its a resource I would hate to see disappear.

The 3rd level forums are already in zombie mode and they should be the lifeblood for new users.

Never Say Never Again

It was embarrassing the way this site banned Discussion on graham dwyer even after he was found guilty

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Mountainsandh wrote: »

I don't know about that Dav.
I've hardly ever had any trouble with Mods, and yet I feel the restrictions and self-censure, and it spoils the fun and dampens my interest.

There isn't much to refresh the front page for these days either, so I just go off and do something else.

I'm another one of these posters who would write a post and delete instead of submitting it. Not worth the hassle if a thread is going to be locked soon, or the more outspoken I might agree or disagree with are going to be gagged shortly.

Same as, never had a run in with mods and some of the criticism of moderation in weird, but still see the effects of it and it's negatively impacting my experience.

On the front page, there are some forums that seem very active, farming and soccer spring to mind, but they're rather specialist ones which I don't happen to be interested in.

I do very very frequently read and post in specialist subreddits, there's not the userbase for them here on boards. What I've generally used boards for is shooting the shít about broader topics, and the userbase isn't big enough to support an enjoyable experience on that front here now either. I'm here long enough that I can see a thread title in AH, politics café, personal issues, the ladies' lounge or whatever, see the OP and last poster and pretty much get the broad strokes of the thread in my head just from that (edit: and I'm sure plenty posters have the same reaction to seeing my username pop up). Threads are boring and predictable, there are users who contribute a huge amount of quantity to the forums but once you've read 12 of their posts it's just variations on a theme and they just end up clogging up threads with huuuuuuuuuuuge long posts that I have to scroll past.

dinorebel

TallGlass wrote: »

More and more I find myself going to post, writing a post out and then going 'naaahhh' not worth the effort and cancel it.

I'm the sa

badabing106

Someone needs to headhunt Mike65 and get him back on board

Fr_Dougal

badabing106 wrote: »

Someone needs to headhunt Mike65 and get him back on board

Someone needs to engage with the re-regs.

Facebook groups & twitter have meant that forums are for old folk (25/30+)

It's independent of the positives that boards.ie offers.

dudara

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

Someone needs to engage with the re-regs.

We have re-regs who register with abusive names, racist names and downright nasty names. We will never engage with those.

We have re-regs who try to blackmail Boards users, threaten them with exposure, or exposure to their employers. We will not engage with those. We need to protect our regular users.

We have re-regs who register to share racist or other bigoted views. We will not engage with those. Boards is not the platform for their views.

Any one who has been banned has Prison open to them to appeal, to work with mods and Admins. Anyone who engages openly with us will be listened to.

TheRiverman

Everyone is entitled to their opinion,unfortunately not always here on Boards

Zipppy

I've been on other forums for years.. some have died others are dying..
FB hasn't helped.. too much PC on forums also hasn't helped..
Also age profile..my 20 something daughter and her boyfriend reckon forums like boards are a joke and that no one uses them anymore...
I still like the old forums formats...

Fr_Dougal

dudara wrote: »

We have re-regs who register with abusive names, racist names and downright nasty names. We will never engage with those.

We have re-regs who try to blackmail Boards users, threaten them with exposure, or exposure to their employers. We will not engage with those. We need to protect our regular users.

We have re-regs who register to share racist or other bigoted views. We will not engage with those. Boards is not the platform for their views.

Any one who has been banned has Prison open to them to appeal, to work with mods and Admins. Anyone who engages openly with us will be listened to.

For clarification, my comment was directed at one of today’s reregs, not the one who was spouting bile.

zuutroy

A good example was the farce that was the Rescue 116 thread. "No discussing what might have happened on this discussion forum until we know what happened".

tomwaterford

zuutroy wrote: »

A good example was the farce that was the Rescue 116 thread. "No discussing what might have happened on this discussion forum until we know what happened".

Or the time someone who had been doxxed....started a thread to warn on it and was straight up banned for it.

dudara

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

For clarification, my comment was directed at one of today’s reregs, not the one who was spouting bile.

We have multiple re-regs operating all the time, each of whom is well known to Admins and Mods, and has a back story. They tend to be banned for good reason, even though some of their posts may appear normal.

If a poster really wants to come back to Boards, they can contact us and make their case.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Ok that was less than 60 seconds to ban a re-reg.

Impressive, but we're waiting on a functional search function for how long now?

Prioritise a bit lads.

Vojera

Zipppy wrote: »

I've been on other forums for years.. some have died others are dying..
FB hasn't helped.. too much PC on forums also hasn't helped..
Also age profile..my 20 something daughter and her boyfriend reckon forums like boards are a joke and that no one uses them anymore...
I still like the old forums formats...

Same, I used to mod a specialist forum which was quite busy, but it's all moved to Facebook groups now and I imagine a lot of hobbies are the same. Younger members in particular wouldn't even know what forums are.

dudara

Keira Thankful Target wrote: »

Ok that was less than 60 seconds to ban a re-reg.

Impressive, but we're waiting on a functional search function for how long now?

Prioritise a bit lads.

Unforunately I can’t do anything about that, other than add my voice to yours. Search functionality is part of site development and not in the scope of Admins & mods.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

job seeker

Keira Thankful Target wrote: »

Ok that was less than 60 seconds to ban a re-reg.

Impressive, but we're waiting on a functional search function for how long now?

Prioritise a bit lads.

What's the problem with the current search function out of interest? I use it plenty and I've had no issues.