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

Stheno

Skylinehead wrote: »

I'll happily get rid of them if that's what the users want.

We keep them because of "big" events, but the threads always go on for ages, could just close them.

It may be a way of reviving the cafe if you send all such posts that way and the cafe rules wete relaxed somewhat?

Skylinehead

Stheno wrote: »

It may be a way of reviving the cafe if you send all such posts that way and the cafe rules wete relaxed somewhat?

Would you need to remove the access controls? I'd prefer that tbf anyway

Beasty

I generally stay clear of political threads on Boards, but would welcome feedback here on how Politics topics are dealt with. Indeed Politics Café was one of the topics raised in this thread and one that I've noted we need to look at.

My understanding is the Politics Café was set up to move political discussion out of AH. Because that attracted posting that may be to some extent similar to the type you expressing a concern over gandalf, stricter rules were applied and the Café was eventually moved over to sit alongside Politics, with mods more attune to political discussion. Pre-approval for access was introduced to help stem the type of posting that caused problems over here.

Politics Café is nowhere near as popular as it was because of pre-registration and stricter application of rules

As a result we started seeing political threads in AH again. Initially the mods tried re-directing these discussions to one of the Politics forums. We then had user feedback/a demand over here for that "more relaxed" type of posting, typical of AH, on some political discussions. The mods therefore started allowing some of these threads to grow. Indeed there are a lot of topics that will venture into the political sphere even if the initial topic may be quite different

Now I'm not claiming to be close to these developments and would happily be corrected on any of the above, but it seems to me that user feedback is a lot of posters don't want to head over to the Politics forums for political discussion. They want to discuss things here where they have a view they will be allowed to post with more relaxed guidelines.

Add to that there were requests earlier in this thread for less mod intervention particularly in AH

So this appears to me to be a very good example where there was feedback, and the Mods, CMods and Admins reacted to incorporate that feedback. There was then further feedback, and the mods etc again reacted. Then there was feedback on the "overmodding" in AH, and the mods moderated their own activity accordingly. Now we have feedback that we should go back to version 2.

I think the debate over political discussion shows we do listen to and act on user feedback. What I don't know now though is what posters really want. I know you have set out your position above gandalf, but is that reflective of the general feelings of posters (some of which have been expressed within this thread)? If we do go down that route will we face another backlash?

Doltanian

Political threads on boards are only okay if you follow the leftwing cultural Marxist agenda favoured by the moderators there. I was infracted yesterday by a biased Moderator for defending Trump.

_Dara_

^^^^

Always fun to see people traipse their personal owies into general feedback threads.

Skylinehead

Doltanian wrote: »

Political threads on boards are only okay if you follow the leftwing cultural Marxist agenda favoured by the moderators there. I was infracted yesterday by a biased Moderator for defending Trump.

Do you talk about anything other than the cultural Marxist agenda? Stop soapboxing, it's tiresome.

KyussB

The way political threads used to work on Boards, was that (outside of Politics) they were relatively free to expand into whatever behemoth they naturally arrived at - with mod intervention of only the worst stuff, abuse etc..

The challenge this leaves is all of the trolls/shills, both blatant and subtle and rereg - they are actually useful up to a point, for posters to cut their teeth on dismantling certain points of fallacious argument - but past a point, particularly the subtle shills/trolls that are allowed get away with repetitively deceptive argument, they become really detrimental and a block to progressing discussion.

The key to successful discussions on politically heated/heavily-shilled topics, is to Leave. The. Fuck. Alone. - and let the community self-moderate, including allowing threads to become relatively heated, as otherwise it's piss easy for deliberately disruptive posters to get threads shut down - but watch for serial reregs and restrict them heavily.

These types of threads used to work better on AH - you will never achieve the same on Politics Cafe, because you will never get the same diversity of audience and mix of casual and political posters - so PC will probably always gravitate towards groupthink among the most vocal groups - you need more casual (not so often interested in politics, but dips in and calls bullshit occasionally) posters to break that up some.


There are many posters on After Hours that do not want this. There are many posters on Boards that do want this.

So a technical solution to allow mods to apply a 'Politics' tag to an AH thread - and adding a UI option to allow users to filter those threads out (a 'Politics' tickbox in the 'Filter' strip) - would be a solution.

I've detailed and emphasized many times, that most of the problems people have with Boards, can be solved with technical solutions like this, to make everyone happy. Boards needs to either dedicate more resources to this or make a new hire for it. Don't care about excuses (so please don't reply as to why not to do this...), just get it done - get started on these technical solutions.

gandalf

At the moment what we have is no real discussions taking place on threads about certain political topics. They are going around in circles and certain types of users are being allowed to swamp the topics in crud. What I am hearing from the current leadership of boards be it mods, admins or management is that you don't really have a clue what you want. Remember I moderated politics for years and I am giving my insight into that process. If you continue to allow this behaviour then boards is finished as a platform for any sort of political discussion.

If things stay as they are I certainly won't bother to waste my time here any more because the noise ratio is way too high. If you are going to leave these threads on AH then you will have to weed out the shills, reregs and disruptive users proactively something that is not happening now.

Pintman Paddy Losty

gandalf wrote: »

At the moment what we have is no real discussions taking place on threads about certain political topics. They are going around in circles and certain types of users are being allowed to swamp the topics in crud. What I am hearing from the current leadership of boards be it mods, admins or management is that you don't really have a clue what you want. Remember I moderated politics for years and I am giving my insight into that process. If you continue to allow this behaviour then boards is finished as a platform for any sort of political discussion.

If things stay as they are I certainly won't bother to waste my time here any more because the noise ratio is way too high. If you are going to leave these threads on AH then you will have to weed out the shills, reregs and disruptive users proactively something that is not happening now.

You've been whinging about the standards and threatening to leave for yonks. That's more tiresome than any so-called shill.

KERSPLAT!

Beasty wrote: »

I generally stay clear of political threads on Boards, but would welcome feedback here on how Politics topics are dealt with. Indeed Politics Café was one of the topics raised in this thread and one that I've noted we need to look at.

My understanding is the Politics Café was set up to move political discussion out of AH. Because that attracted posting that may be to some extent similar to the type you expressing a concern over gandalf, stricter rules were applied and the Café was eventually moved over to sit alongside Politics, with mods more attune to political discussion. Pre-approval for access was introduced to help stem the type of posting that caused problems over here.

Politics Café is nowhere near as popular as it was because of pre-registration and stricter application of rules

As a result we started seeing political threads in AH again. Initially the mods tried re-directing these discussions to one of the Politics forums. We then had user feedback/a demand over here for that "more relaxed" type of posting, typical of AH, on some political discussions. The mods therefore started allowing some of these threads to grow. Indeed there are a lot of topics that will venture into the political sphere even if the initial topic may be quite different

Now I'm not claiming to be close to these developments and would happily be corrected on any of the above, but it seems to me that user feedback is a lot of posters don't want to head over to the Politics forums for political discussion. They want to discuss things here where they have a view they will be allowed to post with more relaxed guidelines.

Add to that there were requests earlier in this thread for less mod intervention particularly in AH

So this appears to me to be a very good example where there was feedback, and the Mods, CMods and Admins reacted to incorporate that feedback. There was then further feedback, and the mods etc again reacted. Then there was feedback on the "overmodding" in AH, and the mods moderated their own activity accordingly. Now we have feedback that we should go back to version 2.

I think the debate over political discussion shows we do listen to and act on user feedback. What I don't know now though is what posters really want. I know you have set out your position above gandalf, but is that reflective of the general feelings of posters (some of which have been expressed within this thread)? If we do go down that route will we face another backlash?

At the moment it's not a case of relaxed moderation but instead, in my opinion, easy moderation. Thread moves, thread locks, personal abuse, actioned and done pretty quickly. Any difficult moderating seems to be just left. The Buncrana thread is one of the worst I've seen on boards in 8 years here. And no, I didn't report the posts, mods were well aware of it. I can't see the reports forum but I can only imagine the amount generated from it.

Relaxed doesn't mean down the tools and let anything fly. Moderating doesn't mean smashing everything in sight. There is a balance.

Fighting Tao

On the re-reg issue. Would it be possible to block them from registering rather than pick up the pieces after they do? Use whatever tools are currently used to identify them by IP or whatever.

Beasty

Fighting Tao wrote: »

On the re-reg issue. Would it be possible to block them from registering rather than pick up the pieces after they do? Use whatever tools are currently used to identify them by IP or whatever.

They use VPNs or will access via phone or other "common" IPs. We would end up preventing a large proportion of "regular" users posting if we attempted to block IPs (although we do block certain overseas ones that are clearly been used for spamming/shilling)

_Kaiser_

I reported several posts in the Leo Varadkar thread here for the sort of nonsense being referred to above - a small group of posters who are trying to provoke reactions from others through personal abuse and baiting and backing each other up as they do so. The same group did/do the same in the Cafe/elsewhere.

Not ONE report received any sort of feedback, never mind action from the Mods here. I'm all for letting conversations flow (as seems to be the defence used above), but there's a big difference between the former and the latter.

blackwhite

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

At the moment it's not a case of relaxed moderation but instead, in my opinion, easy moderation. Thread moves, thread locks, personal abuse, actioned and done pretty quickly. Any difficult moderating seems to be just left. The Buncrana thread is one of the worst I've seen on boards in 8 years here. And no, I didn't report the posts, mods were well aware of it. I can't see the reports forum but I can only imagine the amount generated from it.

Relaxed doesn't mean down the tools and let anything fly. Moderating doesn't mean smashing everything in sight. There is a balance.

If I could thank this more than once I would (with one exception, from what I've seen personal abuse needs to be pretty egregious at the moment for anything more than an on-thread warning to appear - continual petty personal stuff is being ignored)

The response to feedback always seems to be to end up being either take a hardline approach to everything, or to almost stop moderating altogether.


I can appreciate that it's not easy, and not everyone will want the same level of mod intervention, but at the moment any political thread that pops up immediately gets dominated by a small cabal (different groups depending on the topic) who have no actual interest in discussing the topic in hand - just dragging the discussion off on some tangent so that their cause/party/country (delete as applicable) is no longer the subject being discussed/criticised. Personal abuse and trench warfare is rampant in these threads, and continually ignored by the mods.

Skylinehead

gandalf wrote: »

What I am hearing from the current leadership of boards be it mods, admins or management is that you don't really have a clue what you want.

Well I've said repeatedly I don't want politics in AH. I'd argue that it's the userbase that doesn't know what they(we) want - as shown by simultaneous support for removal of political threads, and the likes of the post above yours - as well as the fact that the threads are being created in AH in the first place. So whatever we do, someone will take offence.

_Kaiser_

Skylinehead wrote: »

Well I've said repeatedly I don't want politics in AH. I'd argue that it's the userbase that doesn't know what they(we) want - as shown by simultaneous support for removal of political threads, and the likes of the post above yours - as well as the fact that the threads are being created in AH in the first place. So whatever we do, someone will take offence.

It's really not that difficult.. allow the thread, but action any blatant baiting, trolling or abuse. Beyond that allow the actual discussion to continue as unimpeded as possible.

C'mon lads.. is that not modding 101? What exactly does the Mod team want here?

It seems to me we have the posters who want to be able to discuss things as freely as possible (within the obvious limitations of legality and without the nonsense I referenced above), and a Mod team who want everything spelled out and with elaborate escalation paths.

I'll say it again.. it's a discussion forum, not a corporate HR process!

Skylinehead

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

It's really not that difficult.. allow the thread, but action any blatant baiting, trolling or abuse. Beyond that allow the actual discussion to continue as unimpeded as possible.

C'mon lads.. is that not modding 101? What exactly does the Mod team want here?

It seems to me we have the posters who want to be able to discuss things as freely as possible (within the obvious limitations of legality), and a Mod team who want everything spelled out and with elaborate escalation paths.

I'll say it again.. it's a discussion forum, not a corporate HR process!

I'm sorry, but it clearly is that difficult. Allow the thread, you say. Any political thread? Just big issue ones? None at all? You haven't been paying attention if you think there's consensus here, we've one poster saying get rid of them all and another saying keep them all.

Boards.ie: Mark

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

It seems to me we have the posters who want to be able to discuss things as freely as possible (within the obvious limitations of legality)

This is the line that there is constantly a back and forth about and a desire/need to understand. For some, threads should be allowed drift off-topic naturally or posters should be given more agency when it comes to moderation - i.e. being able to call out a nonsense poster. There are some users at the other extreme who would like moderators to ensure that things posted are factually correct.

There will always be people unhappy where there is moderation (this doesn't just apply to Boards). What we're all trying to do is find the right balance.

Boom_Bap

Skylinehead wrote: »

Well I've said repeatedly I don't want politics in AH. I'd argue that it's the userbase that doesn't know what they(we) want - as shown by simultaneous support for removal of political threads, and the likes of the post above yours - as well as the fact that the threads are being created in AH in the first place. So whatever we do, someone will take offence.

I think that the Politics Cafe 2.0 revamp needs to be reviewed. It worked on cutting down on the problems on the forum, but it has also moved a portion of the userbase to AH and threads being started/engaged on there.

The gripe as I see it is that there are posters who are having very casual conversation in the threads, as in they are just dipping in, making a comment and leaving. This irritates the PC type poster who want a more casual political conversation and the 2 styles are clashing. It doesn't help that the usual slew of trolls/reregs hit the threads and stir the pot.

A review of this access method to PC may revamp the forum and users creating political threads in this or the Politics forum would help with the issue at hand.

_Kaiser_

Skylinehead wrote: »

I'm sorry, but it clearly is that difficult. Allow the thread, you say. Any political thread? Just big issue ones? None at all? You haven't been paying attention if you think there's consensus here, we've one poster saying get rid of them all and another saying keep them all.

I don't see any issue with any thread starting here to be honest.. it's the most popular forum on the site after all as far as I'm aware.

The problem isn't where the thread sits - it's the rules that are applied. You either have overbearing and unnecessary interference with the discussion, or you have virtually zero moderation at all.

Here's a no doubt unpopular thought... maybe a review of how mods are selected and the traits looked for in them needs to be considered? For me, it should be as simple as this... allow discussions to flow, action any nonsense (along the long-standing "don't be a dick" ethos), and use a bit of cop on and common sense.

And for balance, that latter bit also applies to the posters as well.

Mr. CooL ICE

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

It's really not that difficult.. allow the thread, but action any blatant baiting, trolling or abuse. Beyond that allow the actual discussion to continue as unimpeded as possible.

C'mon lads.. is that not modding 101? What exactly does the Mod team want here?

It seems to me we have the posters who want to be able to discuss things as freely as possible (within the obvious limitations of legality), and a Mod team who want everything spelled out and with elaborate escalation paths.

I'll say it again.. it's a discussion forum, not a corporate HR process!

I speak for myself here, but I haven't a clue about politics. I look in these threads and may as well be looking into a field of thistles. And I imagine most of the other AH mods would be the same (ancapailldorcha is probably the only one who knows something about politics).

Going by what you are saying, I'd have to spend a lot of time educating myself on the various political subject matters before even reading the threads to fully understand what constitutes trolling and baiting before I could mod objectively. As mods, we try not to mod on individual posts' merits but try to take everything in context. If I am going to get context before modding these threads, I'm giving up way too much of my spare time.

AH is not a political forum. There are the Politics and PC forums for politics. Yet people keep creating political threads here. We close/move these, and people complain. We leave them here and were lambasted for not modding them properly. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

tl;dr Another +1 for moving anything remotely political

Kivaro

Skylinehead wrote: »

Well I've said repeatedly I don't want politics in AH. I'd argue that it's the userbase that doesn't know what they(we) want - as shown by simultaneous support for removal of political threads, and the likes of the post above yours - as well as the fact that the threads are being created in AH in the first place. So whatever we do, someone will take offence.

They are created in AH because of the laughing stock that the Politics Cafe became after the creation of the private club they formed over there.

_Kaiser_

Nicolas Cage wrote: »

I speak for myself here, but I haven't a clue about politics. I look in these threads and may as well be looking into a field of thistles. And I imagine most of the other AH mods would be the same (ancapailldorcha is probably the only one who knows something about politics).

Going by what you are saying, I'd have to spend a lot of time educating myself on the various political subject matters before even reading the threads to fully understand what constitutes trolling and baiting before I could mod objectively. As mods, we try not to mod on individual posts' merits but try to take everything in context. If I am going to get context before modding these threads, I'm giving up way too much of my spare time.

AH is not a political forum. There are the Politics and PC forums for politics. Yet people keep creating political threads here. We close/move these, and people complain. We leave them here and were lambasted for not modding them properly. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

tl;dr Another +1 for moving anything remotely political

You don't need a political masters to be able to moderate a political thread - I'm far from an expert myself, just an interested observer.

Go have a look at the posts I reported from the Leo thread.. that shouldn't be allowed regardless of the subject.

Skylinehead

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

I don't see any issue with any thread starting here to be honest.. it's the most popular forum on the site after all as far as I'm aware.

Yet others clearly do. Politics threads were moved from AH a few years ago for a reason. Now they've crept back in since, partially down to the Cafe system maybe, but the original reason why they moved still exists - a lot of people don't want them.

Boom_Bap

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

You don't need a political masters to be able to moderate a political thread - I'm far from an expert myself, just an interested observer.

Go have a look at the posts I reported from the Leo thread.. that shouldn't be allowed regardless of the subject.

You kind have do have to have an interest. There are loads of subtle digs thrown around those political threads that go over the head of those that are not overly interested in politics.

And yes there is blatantly obvious stuff, that's easy to moderate.

_Kaiser_

Boom_Bap wrote: »

You kind have do have to have an interest. There are loads of subtle digs thrown around those political threads that go over the head of those that are not overly interested in politics.

And yes there is blatantly obvious stuff, that's easy to moderate.

The former is part and parcel of any "divisive" topic - politics, football, GAA. So long as it doesn't cross over into post after post of escalating abuse it should be expected by all sides really.

It's where the blatant trolling and baiting takes over that the problems begin and it's something that carries over from thread to thread with the same groups involved each time.

The issue I think is too much of the former is being treated as the latter and to be fair to Mods, they're tying themselves in knots trying to please everyone.

When I first started using the Internet the general rules were not to take it too seriously, and accept that there are dicks everywhere (heh! literally too ). If you can't handle that then the online world isn't for you.

We need to dial it back a bit... accept that some people will be offended regardless, but set out clear lines to be agreed among the Mods and preferably with input from the users (I accept this is more difficult in a catch-all forum like AH), and then consistently stick to those rules.

Basically, "don't be a dick" and "realise that not everyone will agree with you, but that's no excuse for trolling"

baylah17

AH comes under the topic of "Social and Fun", many of the disruptive threads are on subjects that could hardly be considered "Social and Fun" such as abortion, immigration, Travellers , and Putin/Trump (to name a few).Social and fun involves craic and chat, the subjects I have listed are contentious and oft times heated and argumentative.
My view is that if AH is to remain social and fun , a bit o craic and and a giggle then topical political debates should be not be allowed in it but rather moved to the halfway house is that is the Politic Cafe

Boom_Bap

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

The former is part and parcel of any "divisive" topic - politics, football, GAA. So long as it doesn't cross over into post after post of escalating abuse it should be expected by all sides really.

and that's why there are forums for topics

It's where the blatant trolling and baiting takes over that the problems begin and it's something that carries over from thread to thread with the same groups involved each time.

again, some of this baiting is not entirely visible to those that have no interest in the topic.

The issue I think is too much of the former is being treated as the latter and to be fair to Mods, they're tying themselves in knots trying to please everyone.

if this is the case, it's eliminated by threads being created in the right forum.

When I first started using the Internet the general rules were not to take it too seriously, and accept that there are dicks everywhere (heh! literally too ). If you can't handle that then the online world isn't for you.

We need to dial it back a bit... accept that some people will be offended regardless, but set out clear lines to be agreed among the Mods and preferably with input from the users (I accept this is more difficult in a catch-all forum like AH), and then consistently stick to those rules.

Basically, "don't be a dick" and "realise that not everyone will agree with you, but that's no excuse for trolling"

That's what AH should be, and will be if the threads are created in the right forum. It should not be seen as a catch all place for everything.

baylah17

One only has to look at how this current thread is degrading into the usual name calling and circle jerking to see why contentious political threads should not be in AH
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057854798
This is not me reporting anyone or anything , I'm just trying to show an example of what must be a moderating nightmare.

jmayo

Skylinehead wrote: »

Yet others clearly do. Politics threads were moved from AH a few years ago for a reason. Now they've crept back in since, partially down to the Cafe system maybe, but the original reason why they moved still exists - a lot of people don't want them.

10/11 odd years when I first started on boards I never posted on current affairs in After Hours and I don;'t think there were any real threads on politics in there.
And I regularly posted in the main Politics forum.
We discussed elections, economic meltdowns, bank bailouts, EU referendums, all types of stuff with a current affairs and political connection.
Then suddenly you were finding that the line toted by moderators was that particular discussions and opinions weren't deemed worthy of the main politics thread.
It appeared that one had to either discuss political theories or to a level worthy of a university masters to be left in the Politics forum.
Lesson one in how to shutdown disliked opinions.

So the Politics Cafe was used to take all the stuff not worthy enough anymore.
The Politics forum became a bit of a ghost town where those with lofty opinions, especially of themselves, could hold sway.

For instance I remember someone starting a thread about the attire of the elected politicians to the Dail.
Here was a fairly relevant topic concerning our parlimentarians, but the topic was deemed unworthy so got shunted to the Cafe.

Then over time the Cafe became a hotbed of discussion on contentious topics like EU, Brexit, Trump, Refugees, Immigration.
Now some posters did step over the mark, but what ruined it was the moderation.

You had heavy posting by moderators in threads, always taking one particular side of the argument on most of the above issues. Then there was the demanding links and references to every single statement by the other side.

And then suddenly posters on the opposing side to the very vocal moderators would get chastised, infracted and banned.
The ultimate came one evening when one moderator banned in quick succession about 5/6 posters that were of the opposing opinion to them.
It was so laughable and so blatant that the moderator was quickly removed.

Now people may call me one sided, but it was freaking noticable to anyone with half a brain that some posters, who posted some very questionable stuff, got away with it purely because the moderators held a similar opinion on the matter at hand.

Then there was a revamp and clampdown of the Cafe so as to "weed out" certain posters and according to mods perform a clean up.

The result was that a huge chunk of posters vanished and it is now a ghost town with tumbleweed.

And then the threads started appearing in After Hours, the last refuge so to speak.

If they are stopped in After Hours and the Cafe is left as is then boards are going to lose a big chunk of traffic.

baylah17 wrote: »

AH comes under the topic of "Social and Fun", many of the disruptive threads are on subjects that could hardly be considered "Social and Fun" such as abortion, immigration, Travellers , and Putin/Trump (to name a few).Social and fun involves craic and chat, the subjects I have listed are contentious and oft times heated and argumentative.
My view is that if AH is to remain social and fun , a bit o craic and and a giggle then topical political debates should be not be allowed in it but rather moved to the halfway house is that is the Politic Cafe

Remove the sign up from the Cafe and that might happen.