Moderation of upcoming elections

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

dav3

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

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.

Hi Niamh, we should park talk of Russian bots for the moment. I'm not the one that brought that particular phrase up. It offers nothing to the discussion apart from spreading hysteria as can already be seen in this thread. You must however be aware that there are a large number of posters from certain countries commenting on Irish issues and urging Irish people to adopt a certain stance on issues.

I am surprised that boards.ie do not know the demographics of their users. There is not a single age group, gender, socio economic group, or constituency that voted for the particular candidate mentioned in my previous post. What happened in the run-up to the presidential election should be viewed as a test run for future elections. A test run in which boards.ie failed spectacularly.

We are not talking about users passionately debating a single issue. We are talking about a single candidate in an election who received a disproportionately high support on here compared to what was seen in every constituency throughout the country.

You are not giving a voice to the silent majority, you are not giving a voice to people who are normally afraid to speak out, you are giving a voice to a very vocal minority. A vocal minority, no matter what way you dress it up, that does not exist in any demographic within Ireland.

Certainly everyone needs to have a voice in a debate, but you need to be careful when you give 90%+ of the platform to people who only represent a fraction of that, and in some cases less than 1% of Irish people. This is the very definition of an echo chamber, this is what boards.ie are currently encouraging.

You can see how this might become an issue in the future, certainly in relation to any upcoming elections. When you pander to a small minority of people you leave yourself open to all forms of abuse by a those people. I highly doubt any of your sponsors would be happy paying to promote the views of a number of people that represent less than 1% of the population, views that are predominantly filled with hatred and intolerance.

I don't believe the website is doing enough to address the issues raised. I am happy to provide further suggestions to help combat the obvious targeting from certain groups that is currently taking place.

1. Block all new registrations in the run up to elections.
2. Set a minimum limit of posts required by a user before they can vote in a poll.
3. Set a minimum number of posts required by a user before they can like another post.
4. When a user is site banned, all posts, thanks and votes made by that user are automatically removed.

I would hope that the people running this website will take these suggestions seriously. I believe it is important to have these discussions on record for posterity so people can view how these issues were dealt with by the people in charge of running the site.

Mr. CooL ICE

dav3 wrote: »

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.

Well, that's one less person on my nonexistant Christmas card list...

But anyway dude, it's a poll. Who cares if it's different to the RedC survey? I wasn't active in the election threads but from what I saw, the vast majority of posts in both the election and exit poll threads from non-newbie accounts said they voted for PC. IMO, the posts in the thread represented the polls accurately. It's not like the polls were skewed by reregs signing up, voting PC and closing their accounts/getting banned ad nauseum.

Storm in a teacup springs to mind.

dav3

dav3 wrote: »

Hi Niamh, we should park talk of Russian bots for the moment. I'm not the one that brought that particular phrase up. It offers nothing to the discussion apart from spreading hysteria as can already be seen in this thread. You must however be aware that there are a large number of posters from certain countries commenting on Irish issues and urging Irish people to adopt a certain stance on issues.

I am surprised that boards.ie do not know the demographics of their users. There is not a single age group, gender, socio economic group, or constituency that voted for the particular candidate mentioned in my previous post. What happened in the run-up to the presidential election should be viewed as a test run for future elections. A test run in which boards.ie failed spectacularly.

We are not talking about users passionately debating a single issue. We are talking about a single candidate in an election who received a disproportionately high support on here compared to what was seen in every constituency throughout the country.

You are not giving a voice to the silent majority, you are not giving a voice to people who are normally afraid to speak out, you are giving a voice to a very vocal minority. A vocal minority, no matter what way you dress it up, that does not exist in any demographic within Ireland.

Certainly everyone needs to have a voice in a debate, but you need to be careful when you give 90%+ of the platform to people who only represent a fraction of that, and in some cases less than 1% of Irish people. This is the very definition of an echo chamber, this is what boards.ie are currently encouraging.

You can see how this might become an issue in the future, certainly in relation to any upcoming elections. When you pander to a small minority of people you leave yourself open to all forms of abuse by a those people. I highly doubt any of your sponsors would be happy paying to promote the views of a number of people that represent less than 1% of the population, views that are predominantly filled with hatred and intolerance.

I don't believe the website is doing enough to address the issues raised. I am happy to provide further suggestions to help combat the obvious targeting from certain groups that is currently taking place.

1. Block all new registrations in the run up to elections.
2. Set a minimum limit of posts required by a user before they can vote in a poll.
3. Set a minimum number of posts required by a user before they can like another post.
4. When a user is site banned, all posts, thanks and votes made by that user are automatically removed.

I would hope that the people running this website will take these suggestions seriously. I believe it is important to have these discussions on record for posterity so people can view how these issues were dealt with by the people in charge of running the site.

Still projecting your bias, this level of intolerance is ill-suited for constructive debate.

Calhoun

What i don't get is how are you the expert on the boards demographic? How do you know their is a silent majority afraid to speak because as far as i am concerned boards members are not shy of letting you know how they feel.

I find your post to be quite manipulative and sneaky, first you bring up the echo chamber which lets face it hasn't seemed to be an issue until now. Second that this small minority based on your opinion are just hate mongers and by allowing them have a voice in discussion that it will impact on the sponsors for boards.

You are literally following the social justice playbook on how to shut down discussion.

The only thing i will concede on is the possible echo chamber remark but as i pointed out above that was always ok as long as it was on message with the social justice narrative of the day.

kneemos

dav3 wrote: »

Hi Niamh, we should park talk of Russian bots for the moment. I'm not the one that brought that particular phrase up. It offers nothing to the discussion apart from spreading hysteria as can already be seen in this thread. You must however be aware that there are a large number of posters from certain countries commenting on Irish issues and urging Irish people to adopt a certain stance on issues.

I am surprised that boards.ie do not know the demographics of their users. There is not a single age group, gender, socio economic group, or constituency that voted for the particular candidate mentioned in my previous post. What happened in the run-up to the presidential election should be viewed as a test run for future elections. A test run in which boards.ie failed spectacularly.

We are not talking about users passionately debating a single issue. We are talking about a single candidate in an election who received a disproportionately high support on here compared to what was seen in every constituency throughout the country.

You are not giving a voice to the silent majority, you are not giving a voice to people who are normally afraid to speak out, you are giving a voice to a very vocal minority. A vocal minority, no matter what way you dress it up, that does not exist in any demographic within Ireland.

Certainly everyone needs to have a voice in a debate, but you need to be careful when you give 90%+ of the platform to people who only represent a fraction of that, and in some cases less than 1% of Irish people. This is the very definition of an echo chamber, this is what boards.ie are currently encouraging.

You can see how this might become an issue in the future, certainly in relation to any upcoming elections. When you pander to a small minority of people you leave yourself open to all forms of abuse by a those people. I highly doubt any of your sponsors would be happy paying to promote the views of a number of people that represent less than 1% of the population, views that are predominantly filled with hatred and intolerance.

I don't believe the website is doing enough to address the issues raised. I am happy to provide further suggestions to help combat the obvious targeting from certain groups that is currently taking place.

1. Block all new registrations in the run up to elections.
2. Set a minimum limit of posts required by a user before they can vote in a poll.
3. Set a minimum number of posts required by a user before they can like another post.
4. When a user is site banned, all posts, thanks and votes made by that user are automatically removed.

I would hope that the people running this website will take these suggestions seriously. I believe it is important to have these discussions on record for posterity so people can view how these issues were dealt with by the people in charge of running the site.

Agreeing with what someone says and voting for them are completely different things.
The poll for Casey was mainly a vote for his views on travellers,not a representation of actual voting intentions.

Boards.ie: Niamh

dav3 wrote: »

Hi Niamh, we should park talk of Russian bots for the moment. I'm not the one that brought that particular phrase up. It offers nothing to the discussion apart from spreading hysteria as can already be seen in this thread. You must however be aware that there are a large number of posters from certain countries commenting on Irish issues and urging Irish people to adopt a certain stance on issues.

I'm aware that people from all over the world use the site but that the vast majority of users are in Ireland. Of those not in Ireland, the vast majority are Irish people abroad. They have as much right to comment on Irish issues on an Irish discussion site as anyone else, regardless of their views or what anyone thinks of those views.

dav3 wrote: »

I am surprised that boards.ie do not know the demographics of their users. There is not a single age group, gender, socio economic group, or constituency that voted for the particular candidate mentioned in my previous post. What happened in the run-up to the presidential election should be viewed as a test run for future elections. A test run in which boards.ie failed spectacularly.

We are fully aware of the demographics of our users. In what way did Boards fail spectacularly? The poll you are referring to was run in After Hours. It was not an official Boards.ie poll. Even if we did run an official, site-wide poll which we have done in the past and may again in the future - we don't expect the result to be exactly representative of the outcome of the election or referendum at hand. It is not a scientific experiment nor is it conducted by experts in market research/voter sentiment. We are not professional pollsters, we are just polling a very small segment of the population that use Boards (or in this case AH). You would need to look to the likes of RedC for a poll with results more representative of the electorate as a whole.

dav3 wrote: »

We are not talking about users passionately debating a single issue. We are talking about a single candidate in an election who received a disproportionately high support on here compared to what was seen in every constituency throughout the country.

You are not giving a voice to the silent majority, you are not giving a voice to people who are normally afraid to speak out, you are giving a voice to a very vocal minority. A vocal minority, no matter what way you dress it up, that does not exist in any demographic within Ireland.

Certainly everyone needs to have a voice in a debate, but you need to be careful when you give 90%+ of the platform to people who only represent a fraction of that, and in some cases less than 1% of Irish people. This is the very definition of an echo chamber, this is what boards.ie are currently encouraging.

We do not give any more or less of a platform to any users. The platform is equally available to all users provided they post within the rules of the site. You are right that "everyone needs to have a voice in a debate" and that is the case on Boards. People do not receive bans based on their opinions but rather how they choose to express those opinions - again provided they are not also breaking any site rules, e.g. being racist, posting anything that could be scandalous to the courts, defamation, etc.

dav3 wrote: »

You can see how this might become an issue in the future, certainly in relation to any upcoming elections. When you pander to a small minority of people you leave yourself open to all forms of abuse by a those people. I highly doubt any of your sponsors would be happy paying to promote the views of a number of people that represent less than 1% of the population, views that are predominantly filled with hatred and intolerance.

We do not have sponsors but I assume you mean clients who pay for Talk To forums or advertising space. They are here to promote their own business or service, they do not promote Boards.ie nor it's content. We also do not endorse any content posted by users. If posts are filled with hatred and intolerance, please report them.

dav3 wrote: »

I don't believe the website is doing enough to address the issues raised. I am happy to provide further suggestions to help combat the obvious targeting from certain groups that is currently taking place.

1. Block all new registrations in the run up to elections.
2. Set a minimum limit of posts required by a user before they can vote in a poll.
3. Set a minimum number of posts required by a user before they can like another post.
4. When a user is site banned, all posts, thanks and votes made by that user are automatically removed.

I would hope that the people running this website will take these suggestions seriously. I believe it is important to have these discussions on record for posterity so people can view how these issues were dealt with by the people in charge of running the site.

Thanks for the suggestions.

1. We will not be blocking new registrations at any time.

2. I don't know if the system can handle setting a minimum limit of posts required before a user can vote in a poll but based on other things we are unable to set by post count, I'd imagine not. However I'll check it out in case it's a feature that may be useful to some forums/mods.

3. Ditto above #2

4. In the case that a user who is a persistent re-reg is site-banned, all of their posts are usually removed. If they have been abusing the thanks system, their thanks are also removed. I'll have to check if votes in polls can also be removed in this way. Polls usually allow a user to only vote once per poll so I can't imagine it'll make a huge difference. For your average user being site-banned we would not remove all of their posts. What if it was not a permanent site-ban? What if they appealed and it was overturned? If particular posts are an issue they should be reported individually and dealt with by the local mods.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

dav3 wrote: »

I highly doubt any of your sponsors would be happy paying to promote the views of a number of people that represent less than 1% of the population, views that are predominantly filled with hatred and intolerance.

Less than 1% of the population? What are you on about? Casey received 23 percent of the vote nationwide, and more in some constituencies (37 percent in Tipperary), because many people agreed with the points he was making -- not because they're filled with "hatred and intolerance."

Yes, the Boards poll overstated the extent of Casey's support. But previous polls have also overstated support for same-sex marriage, for repealing the 8th, for Sinn Fein and People Before Profit in general elections, you name it. The presidential election poll was just par for the course.

Informal polls on After Hours make no claim to represent a random statistical sampling of the Irish electorate. Nobody should regard them as analogous to Red C.

kneemos

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

We are fully aware of the demographics of our users. In what way did Boards fail spectacularly? The poll you are referring to was run in After Hours. It was not an official Boards.ie poll. Even if we did run an official, site-wide poll which we have done in the past and may again in the future - we don't expect the result to be exactly representative of the outcome of the election or referendum at hand. It is not a scientific experiment nor is it conducted by experts in market research/voter sentiment. We are not professional pollsters, we are just polling a very small segment of the population that use Boards (or in this case AH). You would need to look to the likes of RedC for a poll with results more representative of the electorate as a whole.


How do you know the demographics of Boards?
Don't ever remember being asked to give or given any info other than an email address.

Boards.ie: Niamh

kneemos wrote: »

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

We are fully aware of the demographics of our users. In what way did Boards fail spectacularly? The poll you are referring to was run in After Hours. It was not an official Boards.ie poll. Even if we did run an official, site-wide poll which we have done in the past and may again in the future - we don't expect the result to be exactly representative of the outcome of the election or referendum at hand. It is not a scientific experiment nor is it conducted by experts in market research/voter sentiment. We are not professional pollsters, we are just polling a very small segment of the population that use Boards (or in this case AH). You would need to look to the likes of RedC for a poll with results more representative of the electorate as a whole.

How do you know the demographics of Boards?
Don't ever remember being asked to give or given any info other than an email address.

That's because you were not asked to provide any info other than your email address, the same as any other user.

We use Google Analytics for website statistics. You can find further information on the data collected via Google Analytics at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB and you can also read more under 'What we collect' in our Privacy Policy as well.

dudara

Juniper Attractive Molding wrote: »

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?

TBC, I raised a concern during the 8th referendum debate, not because of Trump. I saw a long of long-term accounts come back to life (some dormant since before the Boards hack) and it made me suspicious that there could be some concerted effort at play. We found no evidence to support that theory, and it was simply far more likely that the old accounts were re-energised by the debate to post on Boards.

Personally, I think moderates are increasingly unlikely to take part in debate in forums like this. And as a result we have more polarised discussion, as evidenced by the Peter Casey poll. All that poll tells us is that the people who cared enough to vote in the poll preferred Peter Casey.

In general, what do you want from this discussion? I think it’s fair to say that Boards wants to allow an open atmosphere for discussion, with the exception of illegal discussion or discussion that contravenes the terms of use. So while a discussion may not be palatable to you or others, it doesn’t automatically mean that it should be closed.