Moderation of upcoming elections

dav3

I think we all noticed the disproportionate amount of posts supporting a certain candidate in the recent Irish presidential election. Most notably on After Hours.

As can be seen on the exit poll carried out by RTE/Red C, the number of people who voted for the candidate Peter Casey differs greatly from the support he received on certain threads within After hours.

https://static.rasset.ie/documents/news/2018/10/296718-rte-exit-poll-oct-2018-final-report.pdf




There is not a single demographic that voted for that candidate and it certainly cannot be explained away as a strange anomaly. You are being targeted, you are being targeted by users outside of Ireland. You will continue to be targeted if you do not take action against them.
I'm sure certain media outlets that have run stories on this phenomena, or even the main political parties themselves would be happy to share information with you if you require help dealing with this issue.
Using data from the likes of twitter, facebook or even the journal's comment section to justify certain positions is unwise. Like polls on boards.ie, they can all be easily manipulated. They don't stack up against actual election results, opinion polls and exit polls.

The people that run this website know exactly what their demographic is. As you can see from the data provided in the exit poll, your demographic completely disengaged from the debate in huge numbers. I'm sure this is a concern not only to the people who take running this website seriously, but also the people who pay to keep this website running.

We all hope that such a catastrophic failure by the moderation team in After Hours will not be repeated and any help they require to deal with the current situation will be provided to them.

I would like to know what measures have been put in place to prevent such an event from occurring again during an upcoming election?

I think you are well aware of what will happen if your main demographic is driven from the site. I suggest you seek help from other websites that have successfully dealt with this issue before it is too late.

Calhoun

Wait so all the people in the Peter Casey thread are Russian bots? Who are the we you are talking about?

How would you like to censor the people of boards? Do we just ban them all?

dav3

I'm not au fait with the feedback forum. Is the poster above part of the feedback team or should we just ignore it?

Muscles Schultz

dav3 wrote: »

I'm not au fait with the feedback forum. Is the poster above part of the feedback team or should we just ignore it?

Who are ‘we’?

listermint

Moderation has fallen on its arse in after hours. It has been run riot by minority extremists I don't think for any particular reason as in to give balance. but moderators don't even respond to flags. There is people in there telling other posters literally to f off and hounding them out of discussions and nothing is done.

The charter is out the window and there is blatant and obvious trolling going on. As in accounts setup recently who's sole purpose is to push extreme views. They don't even. Participate in other forum discussions. Nothing no to and fro on normal issues.


Something's up. Moderation is a pain in the ass job but either there isn't enough people to do it . Or they over all aren't bothered.

It's not reasonable anymore.

Signore Fancy Pants

LOL.

Drama Llama

listermint

Does feedback usually descend into name calling?


Yeah that's a way to address discussion....

Roger Hassenforder

#notabot

Signore Fancy Pants

listermint wrote: »

Does feedback usually descend into name calling?


Yeah that's a way to address discussion....

Youre right. My apologies.

The vital data that is missing is the opinion poll conducted after Peter Casey had made his comments. But for some reason we were not provided with that information even though the were two opinion polls carried out in the last week of the 2011 election. It’s also worth noting that the information listed on wiki regarding an opinion poll of this election was given an incorrect date. This made it look like Peter Casey was polling at 2% on the final week of election but it was actually the publication date and not the gathering of information timeline.

#notabot

kneemos

Who the hell cares who gets the president of Ireland job? Or which centre left party wins a general election for that matter.


The Board demographic probably represented what people were thinking,but weren't willing to vote for that eegit.

sydthebeat

This is hilarious levels of conspiracy theory.

I think occams razor should apply here

Calhoun

dav3 wrote: »

I'm not au fait with the feedback forum. Is the poster above part of the feedback team or should we just ignore it?

It's feedback you don't think that you can give feedback unchallenged did you ? As if your the sole arbiter of judgement.

Just comes across like the usual attempt to shutdown conversation. Your comments on the thread in question pretty much back this up.

Wanderer78

Unfortunately, it looks like Ireland has caught the new wave of populism buzz, the build up to the ge should be interesting, hopefully it doesn't disrupt too much, but I suspect casey will be the least of our worries by then. There's a lot of disaffected people here to, global democracy has a few serious issues to attend to.

Hurrache

While I do believe people are using After Hours to spam with political views that would be easily torn apart in the actual Politics forums, I don't believe to the extent in the OP, I think that's a stretch.

I'm not one for censorship, I've no problem when people use facts, but that never happens because rarely do some posters have them.

I never thought having the Politics Café was a good idea, but I've now come around to the idea that anything political should be moved there.

Only yesterday evening I was wishing there was a way to remove anything from After Hours appearing on the front page, it's depressing what some people see as discourse.

tabby aspreme

I'm amazed at the look of disappointment that remains on the faces of people who thought Peter Casey would get just 2% , not 23%, of the vote, three weeks after the election.

As regards support for Peter Casey on AH, I think it has increased with people who were disgusted with the recent hatchet job by Tubridy and other media who are trying to shut down any discussion, and most of these posters, post on many forums across Board's.

My Russian neighbour's did vote for PC , they grew up with communism, it was anyone but MDH

kneemos

Hurrache wrote: »

While I do believe people are using After Hours to spam with political views that would be easily torn apart in the actual Politics forums, I don't believe to the extent in the OP, I think that's a stretch.

I'm not one for censorship, I've no problem when people use facts, but that never happens because rarely do some posters have them.

I never thought having the Politics Café was a good idea, but I've now come around to the idea that anything political should be moved there.

Only yesterday evening I was wishing there was a way to remove anything from After Hours appearing on the front page, it's depressing what some people see as discourse.

Nothing should be moved to the Politics Cafe, it deserted.

Hurrache

kneemos wrote: »

Nothing should be moved to the Politics Cafe, it deserted.

Because people are expected to back up the points and arguments they make. Pretty hard to do when you can't or are just bull****ting.

MrMusician18

listermint wrote: »

Moderation has fallen on its arse in after hours. It has been run riot by minority extremists I don't think for any particular reason as in to give balance. but moderators don't even respond to flags. There is people in there telling other posters literally to f off and hounding them out of discussions and nothing is done.

The charter is out the window and there is blatant and obvious trolling going on. As in accounts setup recently who's sole purpose is to push extreme views. They don't even. Participate in other forum discussions. Nothing no to and fro on normal issues.


Something's up. Moderation is a pain in the ass job but either there isn't enough people to do it . Or they over all aren't bothered.

It's not reasonable anymore.

I couldn't disagree more. Moderation of AH has improved immeasurable since a few moderators moved on (these moderators had more of an interest in curating than moderating) and have been replaced with a more relaxed crew. To be honest, the moderation of AH from 2012 up until relatively recently did a huge amount of damage to the site, and it's no surprise that the site had seen a slide in traffic during that period.

There has always been strong anti-traveller sentiment in AH, it's just that threads on travellers would traditionally have been suppressed. It's hard to think that two or three years years ago that the debate regarding travellers and Casey would have been able to happen on AH. It wouldn't have.

As for the difference in the pro Casey posting on AH vs opinion polling: the demographic that uses this site did not turn out in ways like it did for repeal or marriage equality. It requires significantly less effort to vote online and as it is meaningless it can also be mindless. I for example may come across as a Casey supporter here, but I didn't give him a preference as I thought he would make a poor president.

While I'm sure our corner of the internet has seen foreign meddling, that now normally takes the form of forming divisions rather than pushing the right. If you look at the Casey threads, it's just a small number of surprisingly dedicated posters taking up the battle against him. Hmm.

Fann Linn

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

#notabot

#metoo

Calhoun

Also let's not forget there are a small bunch of dedicated posters supporting him.

People have gone over the line and been brought up on it by the mods.

MrMusician18

Hurrache wrote: »

Because people are expected to back up the points and arguments they make. Pretty hard to do when you can't or are just bull****ting.

No, it's because posters don't want to have to kindly ask permission to post. I won't

I was a regular contributor to the old Cafe, but both it and Politics were being run in a cack handed way, particularly when it came to Irish Water topics.

Hurrache

Well that's one way of cutting out toxicity, from both sides. Couldn't be bothered requesting access, or having to defend your points, don't bother so.

Calhoun

That misunderstand the nature of what AH is and why we have conversations there.

You will be picked up on things in AH but your not forced to go get a peer reviewed journal.

listermint

MrMusician18 wrote: »

No, it's because posters don't want to have to kindly ask permission to post. I won't

I was a regular contributor to the old Cafe, but both it and Politics were being run in a cack handed way, particularly when it came to Irish Water topics.

So your a rereg then....

I mean just looking at your join date..........

listermint

Calhoun wrote: »

That misunderstand the nature of what AH is and why we have conversations there.

You will be picked up on things in AH but your not forced to go get a peer reviewed journal.

Much of the discussion decends into absolute nonsense, and very quickly.

Whats the point in the charter if its not adhered to

MrMusician18

listermint wrote: »

So your a rereg then....

I mean just looking at your join date..........

Yes I am.
Those that close accounts can re reg if they wish, as I have done.

dav3

dav3 wrote: »

I think we all noticed the disproportionate amount of posts supporting a certain candidate in the recent Irish presidential election. Most notably on After Hours.

As can be seen on the exit poll carried out by RTE/Red C, the number of people who voted for the candidate Peter Casey differs greatly from the support he received on certain threads within After hours.

https://static.rasset.ie/documents/news/2018/10/296718-rte-exit-poll-oct-2018-final-report.pdf




There is not a single demographic that voted for that candidate and it certainly cannot be explained away as a strange anomaly. You are being targeted, you are being targeted by users outside of Ireland. You will continue to be targeted if you do not take action against them.
I'm sure certain media outlets that have run stories on this phenomena, or even the main political parties themselves would be happy to share information with you if you require help dealing with this issue.
Using data from the likes of twitter, facebook or even the journal's comment section to justify certain positions is unwise. Like polls on boards.ie, they can all be easily manipulated. They don't stack up against actual election results, opinion polls and exit polls.

The people that run this website know exactly what their demographic is. As you can see from the data provided in the exit poll, your demographic completely disengaged from the debate in huge numbers. I'm sure this is a concern not only to the people who take running this website seriously, but also the people who pay to keep this website running.

We all hope that such a catastrophic failure by the moderation team in After Hours will not be repeated and any help they require to deal with the current situation will be provided to them.

I would like to know what measures have been put in place to prevent such an event from occurring again during an upcoming election?

I think you are well aware of what will happen if your main demographic is driven from the site. I suggest you seek help from other websites that have successfully dealt with this issue before it is too late.

It's only a catastrophic failure in your mind's eye because the AH poll did not reflect your views. To demonise users for their honest appraisal reeks of sour grapes. This passive aggressive whinging isn't dignified, get over yourself.

sydthebeat

dav3 wrote: »

.

the only meaningful data to be extrapolated from that table is that 63% of sinn feins own followers didnt vote for their own candidate.... thats very damning.

Calhoun

listermint wrote: »

Much of the discussion decends into absolute nonsense, and very quickly.

Whats the point in the charter if its not adhered to

Well thats your opinion, for some people the discussion is very much relevant. Some of the conversation is overdone and rehashed but its better its contained in one thread.

listermint

Calhoun wrote: »

Well thats your opinion, for some people the discussion is very much relevant. Some of the conversation is overdone and rehashed but its better its contained in one thread.

Id agree if it was discussion and not just a vehicle for attacking individuals.


Charter is meaningless.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

dav3 wrote: »

As can be seen on the exit poll carried out by RTE/Red C, the number of people who voted for the candidate Peter Casey differs greatly from the support he received on certain threads within After hours.

So what? AH does not represent the Irish electorate as a whole -- and this holds true on numerous issues. Before the same-sex marriage referendum, AH held a poll in which 17 percent of posters said they would vote against. In the actual referendum, 38 percent voted against. Similar figures were seen for the abortion referendum, which overstated the support for repealing the 8th, and very significantly understated the No vote.

AH polls are not conducted by professional pollsters, and shouldn't be regarded as authoritative in any way.

Calhoun

listermint wrote: »

Id agree if it was discussion and not just a vehicle for attacking individuals.


Charter is meaningless.

I thought the mods were acting on attacks?

MrMusician18

listermint wrote: »

Id agree if it was discussion and not just a vehicle for attacking individuals.


Charter is meaningless.

Yet you can make it personal by citing my join date, which contributes nothing to this debate.

Hypocrite.

kneemos

Looks like the malignant liberal influence of AH has possessed the OP to start his one and only thread in eight years.

Peatys

Seems I'm a bot.

Sure that's grand so.

listermint

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Yet you can make it personal by citing my join date, which contributes nothing to this debate.

Hypocrite.

No, just expressing its unusual for someone to rereg. It generally shows a sign that they made a name for themselves and wanted to shed it.

As you stated you used to frequent politics...

MrMusician18

listermint wrote: »

No, just expressing its unusual for someone to rereg. It generally shows a sign that they made a name for themselves and wanted to shed it.

As you stated you used to frequent politics...

In all my accounts I have never received even an infraction in Politics or the Cafe. I've been here in some guise since 2007. I dumped my first account after the hack and afterwards found that your post count does effect how people react to you.

Animal and Pets I think was the only forum I've received a ban in. And that was after a heated discussion on how a dog should be treated if it has bitten. I maintain my uncompromising stance on that btw.

Shedding accounts can be for a variety of reasons, dumping reputation or maintaining anonymity are both valid reasons.

Only a handful of posters here are on their original accounts.

I am no rereg troll or evading a permanent or temporary site or forum ban if that's what you're trying to imply.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

MrMusician18 wrote: »

I am no rereg troll or evading a permanent or temporary site or forum ban if that's what you're trying to imply.

Where did anyone say that?

Chips Lovell

dav3 wrote: »

You are being targeted, you are being targeted by users outside of Ireland. You will continue to be targeted if you do not take action against them.
I'm sure certain media outlets that have run stories on this phenomena, or even the main political parties themselves would be happy to share information with you if you require help dealing with this issue.
Using data from the likes of twitter, facebook or even the journal's comment section to justify certain positions is unwise. Like polls on boards.ie, they can all be easily manipulated. They don't stack up against actual election results, opinion polls and exit polls.

Hold the phone there. You're jumping to conclusions. There's no rule that says the demographic of any website ought to correspond to the demographic of the public at large. That's why online polls have absolutely no validity in terms of gauging public opinion.

Just because there was a great a proportion of Peter Casey supporters in After Hours than there was in the electorate at large, doesn't mean they were all Russian trolls.

sydthebeat

говорить для себя мой друг, я русский и гордый

Boards.ie: Niamh

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Yes I am.
Those that close accounts can re reg if they wish, as I have done.

They can indeed re-register, however with a join date of October 2018 you are not registered here long enough to be allowed post in Feedback. You can post in here again when you have been registered for 3 months, please don't post in Feedback until then, thanks.

You can read more details in the charter here.

Boards.ie: Niamh

dav3, I'd suggest as others have pointed out that a poll in After Hours is representative of the views of the regulars of After Hours and not of anything greater than that. Not the Irish electorate as a whole nor even Boards.ie users as a whole.

Concerns were raised a while back about Russian bots on the site when some people couldn't believe that so many users could be genuine supporters of Donald Trump, iirc. We looked into it at the time but there was no evidence of any intrusion or invasion from Russia or anywhere else. People just like to profess a support for Trump and his tactics online - whether the support translates to real life is anyone's guess but the posts were made by 'real' users and I'm confident that this is the case here also.

end of the road

MrMusician18 wrote: »

I couldn't disagree more. Moderation of AH has improved immeasurable since a few moderators moved on (these moderators had more of an interest in curating than moderating) and have been replaced with a more relaxed crew. To be honest, the moderation of AH from 2012 up until relatively recently did a huge amount of damage to the site, and it's no surprise that the site had seen a slide in traffic during that period.

There has always been strong anti-traveller sentiment in AH, it's just that threads on travellers would traditionally have been suppressed. It's hard to think that two or three years years ago that the debate regarding travellers and Casey would have been able to happen on AH. It wouldn't have.

As for the difference in the pro Casey posting on AH vs opinion polling: the demographic that uses this site did not turn out in ways like it did for repeal or marriage equality. It requires significantly less effort to vote online and as it is meaningless it can also be mindless. I for example may come across as a Casey supporter here, but I didn't give him a preference as I thought he would make a poor president.

While I'm sure our corner of the internet has seen foreign meddling, that now normally takes the form of forming divisions rather than pushing the right. If you look at the Casey threads, it's just a small number of surprisingly dedicated posters taking up the battle against him. Hmm.

i would mostly agree, all though in my experience it was a bit later on before traveler threads began to be suppressed. when i joined in 2012 i remember traveler threads going until naturally dying off, except in the very odd circumstance. i don't agree with threads being shut anyway unless there is a legal reason (or for a short time to clean it up)

end of the road

Hurrache wrote: »

Well that's one way of cutting out toxicity, from both sides. Couldn't be bothered requesting access, or having to defend your points, don't bother so.

sure, but that stance doesn't send out a good message to people in relation to a discussion forum, IMO.

Hurrache

That's the fine line isn't it, and it's hard to come to a solution that fits all, as has often been attempted on this site. But AH has really gone to ****, even for that forum, so much more lately when it comes to topics such as politics, immigration and so on.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

During the same-sex marriage and abortion referendums, a small minority of No voters were hounded relentlessly by Yes supporters.

When election discussions take place, support for Sinn Fein and various other socialist parties is far more prevalent on Boards than among the electorate.

And yet, when a few posters voiced support for Donald Trump, the staff of Boards.ie seriously spent time investigating whether the site had been targeted by Russians? Is it really that inconceivable that people can hold views that deviate from the progressive leftist orthodoxy?

Boards.ie: Niamh

Juniper Attractive Molding wrote: »

During the same-sex marriage and abortion referendums, a small minority of No voters were hounded relentlessly by Yes supporters.

When election discussions take place, support for Sinn Fein and various other socialist parties is far more prevalent on Boards than among the electorate.

And yet, when a few posters voiced support for Donald Trump, the staff of Boards.ie seriously spent time investigating whether the site had been targeted by Russians? Is it really that inconceivable that people can hold views that deviate from the progressive leftist orthodoxy?

It is disingenuous to suggest that the reason we looked into it was "OMG people support that guy?".

Some users expressed a genuine concern that we could have been infiltrated by Russian bots as other sites had been. Given the climate at the time, it wasn't an unfounded worry so we took their concerns seriously, looked into it and were able to assure the community that there was no evidence of this on Boards.

blanch152

Juniper Attractive Molding wrote: »

So what? AH does not represent the Irish electorate as a whole -- and this holds true on numerous issues. Before the same-sex marriage referendum, AH held a poll in which 17 percent of posters said they would vote against. In the actual referendum, 38 percent voted against. Similar figures were seen for the abortion referendum, which overstated the support for repealing the 8th, and very significantly understated the No vote.

AH polls are not conducted by professional pollsters, and shouldn't be regarded as authoritative in any way.

An AH poll had PBP leading SF with everyone else nowhere before one of the elections over the last few years. Don't know how if finished up, but at the time I looked at it, that was the situation.

They are completely unrepresentative.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

It is disingenuous to suggest that the reason we looked into it was "OMG people support that guy?".

Some users expressed a genuine concern that we could have been infiltrated by Russian bots as other sites had been. Given the climate at the time, it wasn't an unfounded worry so we took their concerns seriously, looked into it and were able to assure the community that there was no evidence of this on Boards.

Sorry, but I find this "genuine concern that we could have been infiltrated by Russian bots" a bit amusing.

There's a clear ideological bias here. As soon as any support emerges for Donald Trump, or Peter Casey, or anything else that could be labeled "right-wing," Feedback threads appear and alarm bells go off at Boards HQ.

Has the staff conducted an analogous investigation into whether Boards has been infiltrated by Shinnerbots, a well-known orchestrated contingent dedicated to winning the online war in Irish politics? Sinn Fein openly recruits people to bombard online forums with party propaganda -- you can even sign up online to become an Online Supporter for Sinn Féin -- and yet I've never seen any admin or staff member acknowledge the extensive SF support on Boards as being in any way suspicious. But a small number of people voicing support for Trump? Launch an investigation!

uptherebels

Juniper Attractive Molding wrote: »

During the same-sex marriage and abortion referendums, a small minority of No voters were hounded relentlessly by Yes supporters.

Yawn . Very blinkered view