Has politics.ie closed down ?

by8auj6csd3ioq

some sickos on p.ie alright. prefer abusing each other to debating

JohnnyFlash

Dulce Mango Padlock wrote: »

some sickos on p.ie alright. prefer abusing each other to debating

Sounds great.

Lemongrease

Closed permanently due to GDPR exposure is what I heard.

TomOnBoard

Lemongrease wrote: »

Closed permanently due to GDPR exposure is what I heard.

Heard?? Do tell..

hatrickpatrick

Thomas_IV wrote: »

Have you ever been there posting? With Stringjack who runs the place since the American who once took over a couple of years ago 'resigned' and left the place after around one year being the administrator and owner of the site. I know that place as I have been posting there for a couple of years, on and off. Stringjack had the habit to dishing out bans in various periods, going from a couple of days, weeks, months and finally permanent. When being engaged with some nasty or trollish offender over there, fighting back his insults, you would have been caught with that troll and receive a ban. Other posters who exceeded their 'credit' got scotfree and continued with their way of posting. I sometimes simply quitted my registration there as I grew more and more fed up with his way of moderating and administering the place. As one can't close down ones own account there, one had to do it via some unorthodox way. The NI section is the real madhouse of p.ie with the most idiotic and provocative Unionists and Loyalists. But I won't omit that their oppenent equivalents from the Shinners faction are doing their daily trench battles with them. A running in circles day in day out year after year.

So, I am not much surprised that p.ie seems to have finally gone down the toilet (some of them must have pressed the 'flush' button).

I prefer the moderation on b.ie over that on p.ie which in case of the latter one was either randomly or none existent.

I wasn't aware of any of this, I generally post in the social issues and current affairs sections and I just notice that unlike here, nobody closes threads because they've arbitrarily decided that "that's enough of that", regardless of the fact that the users want to continue discussing the subject at hand. This, on the other hand, is endemic on Boards and I for one find it totally infuriating. As far as I'm concerned, threads should be allowed to continue indefinitely until they naturally peter out organically. No forum I've ever posted on operates this "time limit" on contentious subjects the way Boards does - if Boards changed this policy, that'd be about 90% of my issues with Boards moderation sorted. On thread carding, post edits and infractions are normal moderation and I have no problem with them, but closing discussions for arbitrary reasons after they've gone on for X amount of time is infuriating.

For instance, in the last week we've had two major discussions shut down here - one on the ongoing gender newspeak situation and one on immigration. On Politics.ie, these discussions are just allowed to continue indefinitely until the users get tired of participating in them - and if you don't want to participate, you simply skip to the next thread. Simple.

Thomas_IV

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Thomas_IV wrote: »

Have you ever been there posting? With Stringjack who runs the place since the American who once took over a couple of years ago 'resigned' and left the place after around one year being the administrator and owner of the site. I know that place as I have been posting there for a couple of years, on and off. Stringjack had the habit to dishing out bans in various periods, going from a couple of days, weeks, months and finally permanent. When being engaged with some nasty or trollish offender over there, fighting back his insults, you would have been caught with that troll and receive a ban. Other posters who exceeded their 'credit' got scotfree and continued with their way of posting. I sometimes simply quitted my registration there as I grew more and more fed up with his way of moderating and administering the place. As one can't close down ones own account there, one had to do it via some unorthodox way. The NI section is the real madhouse of p.ie with the most idiotic and provocative Unionists and Loyalists. But I won't omit that their oppenent equivalents from the Shinners faction are doing their daily trench battles with them. A running in circles day in day out year after year.

So, I am not much surprised that p.ie seems to have finally gone down the toilet (some of them must have pressed the 'flush' button).

I prefer the moderation on b.ie over that on p.ie which in case of the latter one was either randomly or none existent.

I wasn't aware of any of this, I generally post in the social issues and current affairs sections and I just notice that unlike here, nobody closes threads because they've arbitrarily decided that "that's enough of that", regardless of the fact that the users want to continue discussing the subject at hand. This, on the other hand, is endemic on Boards and I for one find it totally infuriating. As far as I'm concerned, threads should be allowed to continue indefinitely until they naturally peter out organically. No forum I've ever posted on operates this "time limit" on contentious subjects the way Boards does - if Boards changed this policy, that'd be about 90% of my issues with Boards moderation sorted. On thread carding, post edits and infractions are normal moderation and I have no problem with them, but closing discussions for arbitrary reasons after they've gone on for X amount of time is infuriating.

For instance, in the last week we've had two major discussions shut down here - one on the ongoing gender newspeak situation and one on immigration. On Politics.ie, these discussions are just allowed to continue indefinitely until the users get tired of participating in them - and if you don't want to participate, you simply skip to the next thread. Simple.

I have noticed the closing of threads on time limits on here too. I can't follow the reasoning for this and I agree with you on that matter. The last time I was on p.ie must be by now some two years ago. The place over there became more sickening, because of the way stringjack run the place and the always repeating topics in some sections which interested me, the behaviour of not less of the posters there which also provoked an equal response from my side to defend myself, did the rest to simply quit again and move on.

There is something else to tell about p.ie and the posters there which I knew. Around the time when I was fed up with it again and looked for another better place to go, some members on p.ie got fed up with the administration style of stringjack and established their own MB. It is called 'politicalirish.com' and many of those who registered there I know from the NI Forum on p.ie. So, for that reason and for the reason that I never Register on any private run MB set up by former members of another board which I know, I didn't follow them to their new site. But as this happens from time to time on other places too (I have seen the like years before that when the BBC was closing down one MB after another), at the start there is much increase in interest and registering, but as long as the old place keeps running, the new MB gets either used as well (boards hopping) or they return to the old place in the mid run. I have noticed on here by some poster who started a thread about p.ie which was closed by the moderators here in a very short time, that this new 'politicsirish.com' board is weak for hacking and that some irregular things happened there which seemingly were outside of the control of the providers. Therefore I wouldn't recommend anybody to go and register over there for the reason of the recent problems which resulted in member accounts being abused (means used in their absence) as a result for the site itself been allegedly hacked as on poster on the aforementioned thread on here mentioned.

P.ie has had very often technical problems besides the really worse sort of moderation or de facto non-moderation at all, but I guess that some other problems of which I don't know anything for the reason of my absence, have added to the probably final closing down of its site. I have met a few decent people over there, but I have met much more radicals, dogmatics, some real psycho and other extremists than on any other site I have been before. P.ie as been left to be run by its members and the result of that is that those factions who always wanted to bring it down appear to finally have succeeded in bringing it down eventually. I have seen more decent posters on p.ie leaving than new ones coming in. The standards went on a decline and that because the Moderators failed to stop the rot and some fierce posters with anti-social behaviour were granted too much freedom to continue but others who defended themselves against their abuse and assaults got the ban. That is what I call 'collective punishment'. This is what stringjack has done. Once a week, when the reported posts amounted to a peak, he simply dished out bans regardless of who was responsible for what and who started the abuse. Registration problems for a new registration played another part as well as getting no response on requests or complaints when posted either via their contact form on the Website or by directly using their contact email address. This is what I have observed.

The early closing of threads on boards.ie might be annoying, more so when one is in full flow on the topic, but in contrast to p.ie, one is better off on boards.ie.

Phoebas

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

On Politics.ie, these discussions are just allowed to continue indefinitely until the users get tired of participating in them - and if you don't want to participate, you simply skip to the next thread. Simple.

It isn't that simple.

Boards has moderation; p.ie has none to speak of.
So every contentious thread on boards requires moderator resources, unlike on p.ie.

SEPT 23 1989

It came back for a while the owner started a thread ranting about how ****e the site had become and now it's off air again

Muahahaha

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I wasn't aware of any of this, I generally post in the social issues and current affairs sections and I just notice that unlike here, nobody closes threads because they've arbitrarily decided that "that's enough of that", regardless of the fact that the users want to continue discussing the subject at hand. This, on the other hand, is endemic on Boards and I for one find it totally infuriating. As far as I'm concerned, threads should be allowed to continue indefinitely until they naturally peter out organically. No forum I've ever posted on operates this "time limit" on contentious subjects the way Boards does - if Boards changed this policy, that'd be about 90% of my issues with Boards moderation sorted. On thread carding, post edits and infractions are normal moderation and I have no problem with them, but closing discussions for arbitrary reasons after they've gone on for X amount of time is infuriating.

Agree with you 100% there, the moderation here is generally quite good but the closing of threads is absolutely infuriating. Couple of months back a mod closed down a thread on Judge Martin Nolan when there was still lots to discuss. No reason given, just locked it and left. So I PMed him asking for it to be re-opened or at least a reason given for its closure when the topic was still very much alive. I didnt even get the courtesy of a reply. Its that kind of sh1t that really turns me off Boards sometimes and as you said it appears to be endemic on here.

end of the road

at antigravity2.

there are definitely mods on p.ie . unlike boards there is no title under their username to identify them though.

Thomas_IV

end of the road wrote: »

at antigravity2.

there are definitely mods on p.ie . unlike boards there is no title under their username to identify them though.

That was always the way to be, but there is (was) a thread in the members forum in which new moderators were announced so that everyone can check and it's been the case that the moderators were chosen from the long standing members on p.ie. But at the time I was leaving p.ie, it appeared that it wasn't maintained anymore, so apart from the always present and known, one didn't know who's on and who's off of them on the list. But there were always complaints about the moderators over there. In my experience and observations during my time there, they mostly did as they pleased and personal preferences came into that as well (at least one couldn't avoid having that impression the way they made their decisions, like letting the usual suspects post as much rubbish as they pleased, whereas others were not treated the same way).

TheValeyard

snoop_catt wrote: »

was a great little site , only site where conservative views were in the majority , reddit is more PC than boards

Reddit Ireland can be extremely left wing, but the sh*tposting is good.

Thomas_IV

snoop_catt wrote: »

was a great little site , only site where conservative views were in the majority , reddit is more PC than boards

No idea how you can say that with lots of anti-immigrant and even far-right supporters and Holocaust deniers posting there. I could tell some names but I won't as this would go too far. But I also know that there were lots of conservative views expressed as well. The FF bashing was a daily business over there whenever they liked to have it.

Lemongrease

I remember it around 2009-2012 as having some relevance. There were some class trolls like Tompatrick and Gregory. There was some rep function that certain users were very precious about until Tompatrick destroyed it. Then they made a known deviant admin to fight the trolls and it went downhill from there

hatrickpatrick

Thomas_IV wrote: »

No idea how you can say that with lots of anti-immigrant and even far-right supporters and Holocaust deniers posting there. I could tell some names but I won't as this would go too far. But I also know that there were lots of conservative views expressed as well. The FF bashing was a daily business over there whenever they liked to have it.

The trouble with Reddit is that the ranking system inherently favours the zeitgeist and makes it harder for minority views to be heard. It's one of the issues with Reddit's otherwise very clever thread ranking system. Of course, you have the *option* to view threads and comments chronologically, but most people, particularly new or unregistered users, generally don't bother unless they have a specific reason to. So in practise, unfortunately, when it comes to matters of ideological difference Reddit's system has the creation of echo chambers / ideological ghettoes pretty much hard-coded into it.

It was probably always inevitable that left and right would have to split into two separate sites (Reddit and Voat) but it still a massive shame. And ironically, Voat has an ultranationalist view which encourages pushing away any new right wing community which migrates from Reddit after Reddit's content policy moves further to the left, because they're paranoid about protecting the status quo when it comes to votes - a direct hangover from the days in which they existed on Reddit but always got hidden by being downvoted into the minus figures.

Because of this, Voat is a bit of a disaster. Over time, its overton window has moved further and further right to the point at which even members of /r/The_Donald were driven from Voat in an organised manner, for being "cucks", after Reddit changed its algorithm specifically to prevent The_Donald appearing on the front page.

I just miss the days when the internet was a proper thunderdome of argument, as opposed to two parallel internets for left and right wind views where the opposing side is tolerated so little by the side running a particular site, that you never really get a proper argument going. Politics.ie is unique in that regard, in that while it has a right wing bias (probably due to migration from other mainstream sites which have slid to the left over the years), they're happy to debate and don't tend to try to push people away when they go there with opposing views to discuss.

Just my two cents anyway. As I say, maybe I'm unusual in this, but I really miss the days when the only rule on the average discussion forum was "if you can't hack the sesh, feck off. Otherwise, enjoy your stay."

Grayson

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I just miss the days when the internet was a proper thunderdome of argument, as opposed to two parallel internets for left and right wind views where the opposing side is tolerated so little by the side running a particular site, that you never really get a proper argument going. Politics.ie is unique in that regard, in that while it has a right wing bias (probably due to migration from other mainstream sites which have slid to the left over the years), they're happy to debate and don't tend to try to push people away when they go there with opposing views to discuss.

But you could say that boards has taken that place. Sured there are some extreme views that will get you banned but there's plenty of offensive stuff said.

Harry Palmr

get it while you can.

http://www.politics.ie/forum/current-affairs/265572-absolute-state-politics-ie.html

that PoliticalIrish site looks appalling - ie full of nazis.

Thomas_IV

Harry Palmr wrote: »

get it while you can.

http://www.politics.ie/forum/current-affairs/265572-absolute-state-politics-ie.html

that PoliticalIrish site looks appalling - ie full of nazis.

Thanks for the link as I have seen that nothing really has changed over there. No need for me to look into that site again. It's already gone down the toilet and no wonder by the statement of the owner after years in which due to his absence the decline was running continuously. I just read the first page and that was enough for me. All the same, the blame lies always somewhere else on someone else and never by the posters themselves as the many of them have as usual a lack in self-reflection.

But I like to Quote one poster from page one of that link:
Post #6 by The King:

Why did you even buy an Irish Political site Monte, what are your real interests here?

Would it not be better to just sell the place to someone who really has an interest in Ireland and Irish politics with a bit of know how?

No idea what you paid, but I am willing to bet if you sold it you could still turn a profit.

Time to hand it over to people who actually care.

I think that he's damn well right in his opinion. Such boards needs to be attended by the owner and the moderators needs to be checked on the feedback from the users. Monte (the owner) did that at the start when he took over the ownership but after a while, he seemed to have lost interest and I wouldn't complain much about it, given the behaviour of many users over there and their attitudes to treat one another. I have to admit that I was dishing out in return as well if I saw it necessary to defend myself or just to pay someones rudeness and insults back. But that was the spirit that took manifestation over there by many users which left one with some choices either to 'returning fire' or to increase the names on ones ignore list. Civilized and meaningful exchange of opinions in a normal and civilized manner I have experienced with just a handful of posters over there and they were those with no radical or extreme stances. The rest were just going there for the daily craic and some just for ruining every thread they liked to spoil.

hatrickpatrick

Grayson wrote: »

But you could say that boards has taken that place. Sured there are some extreme views that will get you banned but there's plenty of offensive stuff said.

The problem with Boards isn't moderation of individual users, the problem with Boards is the locking of threads which stray into an area which is too controversial for the mods' liking, usually when it encompasses a debate involving far right viewpoints - immigration, Islam, the recently locked thread on gender identity, etc. Usually the excuse is either "we've had this conversation before", "there are other threads on this [which tend to also get locked, so it's a moot point]" or "this has gone on long enough". Totally arbitrary and can't ever cite a specific site rule which has been broken, since the actual "rule" they're going by isn't actually written down anywhere - "thou shalt not have discussions which make people too uncomfortable or are too blunt / harsh in their disdain for the current mainstream zeitgeist".

Politics.ie doesn't do this, which is why I maintain that as a political discussion forum, it has an edge. Again, I don't believe Boards' moderation of individual users to be a problem, Boards is generally very good about handing out cards and infractions when they're needed, and not doing so unfairly or unnecessarily. It's the wholescale shutting down of entire threads because their subject matter is too controversial or too "squeamish" in the context of what is currently considered an acceptable range of opinions by polite society. No other website I post on does this, and in my view Boards really suffers for it.

Dravokivich

Boards is more interested in protecting itself which is why the controversial topics get closed. They were also pointed out as a reason behind people becoming less involved with the site.

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hatrickpatrick

To be fair, Boards' dislike for hosting controversial and un-PC discussions, and Boards' fear of legal repercussions from libel etc, are totally different issues.

Boards' fear of allowing any discussion relating to court cases stems from a total clusterf*ck of the Irish judicial system which took place in the mid-2000s. In either 2006 or 2007, there was a spate of violence and vandalism at one of the Oxegen campsites, and when people took to Boards (which in that pre social media era, really was the central hub for Irish people to discuss pretty much everything) to complain about the security arrangements and the fact that the situation had been able to spiral out of control, MCD promotions promptly took Boards to court for libel and secured a temporary injunction against any discussion of any event related in any way to MCD. Because of the ridiculously slow pace of the Irish courts, this meant that all MCD events were off limits for discussion on this site for years - possibly up until around 2011 or 2012. For instance, the U2 concerts in 2009, arguably the biggest selling concerts of that year in Ireland, were an elephant in the room here - you couldn't so much as mention their existence without your post being deleted, because of that ridiculous injunction.

Ireland has no "safe harbour" rules with regard to the internet, which is a huge, huge problem. In Ireland, if someone posts something illegal, the platform is legally responsible, not the individual user who posted it. Because of this, if I for instance libel someone on Boards, it's not me who gets sued for millions of euro, it's Boards itself. This causes a gigantic chilling effect. Other websites such as Reddit and Facebook are less exposed because they're not hosted in Ireland, so they're not subject to our moronic laws around libel and who is responsible - Ireland's laws regarding the internet are similar to holding a bartender responsible for libel because someone he's served a drink to shouts out that some local lad is a rapist. It's moronic, but it has caused legal problems for Boards in the past with MCD, so their paranoia is understandable.

This has nothing to do with ideological / Overton Window thread closures though, and those are the ones which I for one find totally infuriating.

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hatrickpatrick

....... wrote: »

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I post regularly on it, but it's not quite - you'll notice that if an article mentions an ongoing court case or investigation, they don't allow comments, just like here. In fact, when the article about GSOC's Ian Bailey report was published yesterday, they weren't allowing comments on that.

The legal censorship isn't Boards' fault. The ideological censorship absolutely 100% is.

Harry Palmr

Re MCD - boards.ie had two run ins with them, the first in 2005 when a diabetic and her partner who both posted here often enough were accused of trying to smuggle in drugs, presumable heroin as it was insulin!

http://janet.ie/opps/

http://www.mulley.net/2006/09/03/more-mcd-woes-boardsie-users-biting-back/

I think they were just itching to take their revenge and the 2006
Oxygen debacle gave them the opportunity to have a go at boards. The wiki entry for the festival that year has a whole section on it.

DEFTLEFTHAND

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I think O'Dwyer was an active member of boards for a few years.

This might have been the reason why his case couldn't be discussed on the site. Very awkward situation.

Keplar240B

Politicalirish is much better technically just needs more people.

https://www.politicalirish.com/

Muahahaha

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Yeah the Belfast rape trial too. Even though it was a different jurisdiction Boards would not allow discussion on it till after the case despite other platforms allowing discussion. I followed it on Peoples Republic of Cork and despite the controversial nature of the rape trial none of the posters were going around defaming anyone, it was a civilized discussion

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Ireland has no "safe harbour" rules with regard to the internet, which is a huge, huge problem. In Ireland, if someone posts something illegal, the platform is legally responsible, not the individual user who posted it. Because of this, if I for instance libel someone on Boards, it's not me who gets sued for millions of euro, it's Boards itself. This causes a gigantic chilling effect.

Thats one of the main problems with our defamation legislation which really needs to be reformed. When Nell McCafferty called Mary Harney an alcoholic on Newstalk it was Newstalk who Harney sued, not Nell McCafferty. What this results in is a media who have to tip toe around many issues and avoid other ones altogether for fear of being sued for what someone else says on air.

Lemongrease

What was that leftist breakaway a few years ago? Politicalworld.org. Full of commies !

Mike Hoch

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It's hardly a free for all is it. They got rid of down voting because it was an unwelcome reminder of public attitudes to things like the refugee crisis, the Ibrahim Halawa trial and other topics the Journal liked to write left wing puff pieces on.