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

riffmongous

Discodog wrote: »

That sounds a bit like hide them away so people stop posting. The problem with sub fora is that people simply won't look in them unless the title draws them in. The internet is full of cranks & their posts are often popular.

I would suggest that any hint of censorship, bias, over moderation will drive new users away because it doesn't happen anywhere else.

Moderation should be a plus for Boards. It should always enable anyone to post their opinion, whatever it may be, provided they do it in a civil manner. With all the current fuss over bullying etc Boards can be a safe haven.

It should never be for Mods, Admins etc to control the subject matter. That is for the individual posters to decide unless there are very strong, open & valid reasons against such content.

But it's just the same handful of people posting in them for months and months is the thing, moving it isn't going to stop them (unless they for other reasons, like what happens with politics cafe). What would encourage new users to post more imo, is smaller, newer, fresher threads.

Valmont

I put it down to boards being moderated into oblivion. There's too many mods across the board and they're way too harsh. Some mods have cliques and they and their supplicants just boss around the people they don't like and shut them down. We all know it. Then there are some legal issues sometimes around criminal cases that result in threads being shut down but if you go over to twitter everyone is having a grand chat about it. In its heyday boards was open, combative, witty, and the place for serious discussion about everything. Now it just feels old and dusty and not worth the effort. The fact that there is a warning on this thread says all you need to know.

Discodog

riffmongous wrote: »

But it's just the same handful of people posting in them for months and months is the thing, moving it isn't going to stop them (unless they for other reasons, like what happens with politics cafe). What would encourage new users to post more imo, is smaller, newer, fresher threads.

So you are saying that some posters shouldn't be allowed to post? That won't encourage new people & will seriously upset existing posters.

riffmongous

Discodog wrote: »

So you are saying that some posters shouldn't be allowed to post? That won't encourage new people & will seriously upset existing posters.

No I'm saying a fresh thread with many people posting is going to be more likely to encourage people to post than a heading off topic, endless back and forth between a handful of posters

Jennehy

Everyone should drive on, we are going well now.

Valmont

Valmont wrote: »

I put it down to boards being moderated into oblivion. There's too many mods across the board and they're way too harsh. Some mods have cliques and they and their supplicants just boss around the people they don't like and shut them down. We all know it. Then there are some legal issues sometimes around criminal cases that result in threads being shut down but if you go over to twitter everyone is having a grand chat about it. In its heyday boards was open, combative, witty, and the place for serious discussion about everything. Now it just feels old and dusty and not worth the effort. The fact that there is a warning on this thread says all you need to know.

I think the moderation in recent times is the best it can be given the legal challenges of an open forum. AH has certainly moved away from the "cess pit" approach which was endemic in the forum in the recent past few years, and has found a better and different voice.

It's not perfect but if you want "edgy" then there are always the private forums for that- but even those are changing- maybe it's people that are changing, not the moderation?

You're very general in your allegations against the mods of boards.ie - care to be more specific? I don't always agree with mods, but I do respect those who give their time.
Sometimes, I can be a pedant- but mods have always given me an ear, as opposed to an earful. Just my experience.

Pintman Paddy Losty

I have to say I think the moderation has been top notch the last 6 months or so. There was a period of about 5 years before that when the phrase nazi mod actually wasn't an exagerration, but things seem to have been rectified in recent times. Its great.

TomOnBoard

As far as I understand it, there's a Boards style/etiquette that is acceptable in After Hours that would not be acceptable in say Aviation, and vice versa. And often the respective styles do not translate over to the the other one but they 'bleed' over (I suspect) by accident. Like, an attempt at puerile craic and/or poking sacred cows that is grist to the AH mill can throw a more serious thread into apoplexy and possible infraction. That can be hard for posters to manage as they're not always able to wear the appropriate uniform as it were. And of course, its almost impossible for mods to navigate on occasion.

I don't know what the answer is, but the 'bleed' of styles and etiquettes might need some thought as to how best to manage it...

Beasty

Or "contagion"!

I think there is almost a natural evolution where posting etiquette may trend to a common approach as posters move across the site sharing posting styles

Having said that I think some forums will always adopt different approaches - the likes of Soccer, Politics and PI immediately spring to mind, and there will be plenty of others

Of course if we could get an influx of younger posters who have grown up in this digital age I'm sure they will help teach those of us who have been around for a while a bit more about the digital age, and the newer protocols to adopt

Beasty

Beasty wrote: »

Of course if we could get an influx of younger posters who have grown up in this digital age I'm sure they will help teach those of us who have been around for a while a bit more about the digital age, and the newer protocols to adopt

I've heard that something called "records" coupled with a "record player" are best way to listen to prog rock.


https://www.statista.com/chart/13585/vinyl-revival-in-the-uk/

Discodog

riffmongous wrote: »

No I'm saying a fresh thread with many people posting is going to be more likely to encourage people to post than a heading off topic, endless back and forth between a handful of posters

Stopping discussion isn't going to encourage it.

_Kaiser_

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

I have to say I think the moderation has been top notch the last 6 months or so. There was a period of about 5 years before that when the phrase nazi mod actually wasn't an exagerration, but things seem to have been rectified in recent times. Its great.

I'd have to agree.. there definitely seems to have been a bit of stepping back and relaxing a bit from the mods in AH anyway and there's a better vibe as a result.

I only really visit maybe a dozen forums here with any sort of frequency and dip in and out of others if something catches my attention on the homepage.

To be fair, of the ones I visit regularly, most are grand with the exception of 3 where the regulars dominate one and carry their chat/arguments from thread to thread and the moderation is pretty much non-existent, another is almost totally one-sided on the subject, and the third is similarly more like an annex of another forum because of the mods personal feelings on the subject.

Overall though I think things have improved of late

Del.Monte

Moderation in a couple of the forums I participate in is OTT and certain individuals can say what they like and others (me) get banned for the slightest thing. The result has been that many of the worthwhile posters are now perma banned or no longer bother posting.

Several times I have raised the issue of the appalling level of activity in many regional forums especially in NI and border counties but nobody cares. The Mods in the said counties seem oblivious/happy to preside over the situation. In other forums such as Sustainability & Environmental Issues one of the Mods killed the forum with his style of moderation and then sailed off into the sunset, retired as a Mod and no longer posts here. Anyway, I'm well past caring and my level of posting activity reflects this.

Sal Butamol

I got carded by a regional mod for describing a local businessman as an aggressive knob.

Was told to think before I post and blah blah blah.

Yet one look at threads elsewhere on boards and nobody would bat an eyelid at that.

Joke

andekwarhola

Threads like this are actually symptomatic of why boards has declined. We reached a tipping point ages ago where there are as many people complaining at tedious length about content (whether that is to expunge content they don't agree with or whinging about moderation) as people actually creating decent content.

There's actually more meta discussion than discussion, at times.

That led to various trends of over fussy curation of topics, either on the whim of admin and moderaters but also in trying to placate the loudest whingers.

So the people that did or might create such content have just left or retreated to private forums.

Boom_Bap

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

I have to say I think the moderation has been top notch the last 6 months or so. There was a period of about 5 years before that when the phrase nazi mod actually wasn't an exagerration, but things seem to have been rectified in recent times. Its great.

I think I stopped modding AH in Jan/Feb this year. I bet that has something to do with it. :pac:

fergus1001

opened a thread in after hours yesterday in relation to dublin football's sponsorship, good response coming to the thread then a mod comes in and says "more suited to GAA" now that's fine grand


but he locked the thread instead of moving it to the GAA forum immediately killing it !!

I'm done like ......

Boom_Bap

fergus1001 wrote: »

opened a thread in after hours yesterday in relation to dublin football's sponsorship, good response coming to the thread then a mod comes in and says "more suited to GAA" now that's fine grand


but he locked the thread instead of moving it to the GAA forum immediately killing it !!

I'm done like ......

Did you try PM'ing the mods by chance?

dudara

fergus1001 wrote: »

opened a thread in after hours yesterday in relation to dublin football's sponsorship, good response coming to the thread then a mod comes in and says "more suited to GAA" now that's fine grand


but he locked the thread instead of moving it to the GAA forum immediately killing it !!

I'm done like ......

Perhaps the site outage got in the way? Always worth dropping a PM to the mods to give them a little nudge

Discodog

dudara wrote: »

Perhaps the site outage got in the way? Always worth dropping a PM to the mods to give them a little nudge

A nudge for what ? To remind them that we were told that this wouldn't happen anymore ?

Pa8301

To be fair, that particular topic arises pretty often in the GAA forum so perhaps the OP should have checked there for a relevant open thread before starting a new one in AH.

Discodog

Pa8301 wrote: »

To be fair, that particular topic arises pretty often in the GAA forum so perhaps the OP should have checked there for a relevant open thread before starting a new one in AH.

Why does it have to be so clinical ? If people are responding then it's of interest. AH often attracts new & different comment as a lot of posters might not go near the GAA forum.

dudara

Discodog wrote: »

A nudge for what ? To remind them that we were told that this wouldn't happen anymore ?

In ideal world, everyone would do everything perfectly right, all the time, like robots. This isn’t the real world and things occasionally get forgotten. Plus there was also a big outage. A quick PM will usually move things on quick enough. Is that too much to ask?

Discodog

dudara wrote: »

In ideal world, everyone would do everything perfectly right, all the time, like robots. This isn’t the real world and things occasionally get forgotten. Plus there was also a big outage. A quick PM will usually move things on quick enough. Is that too much to ask?

The whole PM a Mod thing was well discussed. A lot of people won't put their head above the parapet especially if they are new - the exact people we need. They will just see another closed thread.

The easy way to remember would be to make it so that one Mod can't close a thread. Either a C Mod or two Mods have to do it.

Timberrrrrrrr

Pa8301 wrote: »

To be fair, that particular topic arises pretty often in the GAA forum so perhaps the OP should have checked there for a relevant open thread before starting a new one in AH.

I wouldn't post in the GAA forum if i was paid to, the AH thread was a good read.

Wibbs

I have one question regarding AH I particular. Why do mods not leave redirects as a rule when they move threads? From what I can see the vast majority of the time they don't. Hardly rocket science to see why doing it this way is counterproductive. The biggest forum on the site with the most traffic might get traffic elsewhere with redirects(that are appropriate). Plus when threads get moved a heads up to the destination forum would be good. Just report the post and it'll be seen.

Though it would be my humble that redirecting threads, nearly always into low traffic forums is pointless anyway. People rarely follow beyond their own forums. Doubly so in AH.

Also the notion that AH is the "fun forum for light reading" is woefully behind the times. It hasn't been that for donkeys and went that way organically, even with phases of over moderation at times. Let it be organic for god's sake. Redirecting threads kills discussion here and rarely creates it elsewhere. That might have worked ten years ago when people's inclination was to post in specific forums, but they don't work so much that way anymore. Clearly, as numbers may be down, but they're not that far down yet compared to ten years ago it's a handful of forums that get the lionshare of the traffic. So let them, encourage them.

Closing threads for any reason other than legal is beyond wrongheaded. If a discussion has a few eejits, do the job, get rid of them and leave the thread alone to die off, or not of its own accord.

RandomName2

Now some people may have taken issue with him for what could arguably called heavy handed modding, but it seems that Permabear is gone and all of his posts consigned to the recycle bin.

I've seen a couple of posters now who have all of their posts deleted. Some of Joe Swanson's useful advise in travel forums is gone forever.

It seems that deleting an account automatically does this, though I think Permabear decided to have all his posts deleted. Not sure why (since the posts can't be read now).

I know that Nodin decided to quit due to what he considered unfair reprimanding. I think I disagreed with literally every view he had, but I think it's a shame that he's gone (unless Odhinn is him, returned).

_Kaiser_

RandomName2 wrote: »

Now some people may have taken issue with him for what could arguably called heavy handed modding, but it seems that Permabear is gone and all of his posts consigned to the recycle bin.

I've seen a couple of posters now who have all of their posts deleted. Some of Joe Swanson's useful advise in travel forums is gone forever.

It seems that deleting an account automatically does this, though I think Permabear decided to have all his posts deleted. Not sure why (since the posts can't be read now).

I know that Nodin decided to quit due to what he considered unfair reprimanding. I think I disagreed with literally every view he had, but I think it's a shame that he's gone (unless Odhinn is him, returned).

I noticed that as well lately and assumed it was something to do with GDPR requests by those users.

fergus1001

Pa8301 wrote: »

To be fair, that particular topic arises pretty often in the GAA forum so perhaps the OP should have checked there for a relevant open thread before starting a new one in AH.

I put the thread in after hours specifically because I wanted a broad discussion on the topic not just the same few people in the GAA forum, plus you get more comical responses in AH


I have contacted the mod but it's to late the thread is now dead

Boom_Bap

fergus1001 wrote: »

I put the thread in after hours specifically because I wanted a broad discussion on the topic not just the same few people in the GAA forum, plus you get more comical responses in AH


I have contacted the mod but it's to late the thread is now dead

Looking at how the thread was closed, yeah, there could have been a bit more of an explanation.

But, from the forum rules

Do not post here to reach a larger audience.
Posting on After Hours to reach a larger audience is not allowed. If there is a more suitable forum for your thread, post it there.