404 Social Groups - glitch?

Deja Boo

We can no longer access any content from the old social groups. Is there an accessible archive somewhere? ...or is this a glitch from yesterday's maintenance?

A "404 page missing" message appears when clicking on any of the old social groups. Never happened before. Archiving old discussions is understandable, but complete content removal is a pity - like tossing aside history of (atleast) one of the busiest social groups in Boards history (especially since we can access content on regular forum threads back many years).

Perhaps instead of removing content you might archive the old group threads within their respective private forums (the ones you created when discontinuing the social groups)?

Deja Boo

So - all social groups content was disregarded and discarded then? ...is all I am left to assume since no reply.

...yet we still can still relish the lively fart content of the ever popular mustard forum back to 2004

sad this.

Spear

I had hoped one of the office staff would have a confirmed this, but I believe they're gone now, removed when the albums content was also removed.

Mr E

A decision was made to disable Social Groups (and albums) back in 2013. You can read more about it here:

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=83764953

For what it's worth, they were a bit more trouble than they were worth.
Unmoderated, cliquey, and there was some very dodgy content in some of them.

Boards.ie: Mark

Hi Deja Boo,

The Social Groups were closed five or six years ago with Hosted Forums taking their place in many cases. Unfortunately, it would be a significant amount of work to transfer content to Hosted Forums (where they exist).

Social Groups are different to forums in that they were a feature, but one that has not been supported in some time. Forums come under review from time to time and indeed there is a push from the community to archive / fold quiet and abandoned ones into broader forums.

Deja Boo

Spear wrote: »

I had hoped one of the office staff would have a confirmed this, but I believe they're gone now, removed when the albums content was also removed.

Thanks for replying Spear ...Yes, Social Groups were closed and made into private forums back then, but the content of the social groups has always been accessible since then, until last weeks maintenance update.

As a side note, not everyone's albums were removed at the time, some users profiles still showed albums.... until last weeks content dump/maintenance that is.

Deja Boo

Mr E wrote: »

A decision was made to disable Social Groups (and albums) back in 2013. You can read more about it here:

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=83764953

For what it's worth, they were a bit more trouble than they were worth.
Unmoderated, cliquey, and there was some very dodgy content in some of them.

Yes, I recall. As you can read on the same thread, we fought to retain groups in some form, hence they were transformed into private forums.

For what it's worth, the groups I was involved with were well worth our (members) efforts (atleast). I am sorry you considered them troublesome.

The ones I was involved with were well moderated, and continue to be so as private forums.

Cliquey is a term that can be used in many public and private forums, even single threads alone... And "dodgy" can be found in many areas on boards, and yet those cliquey, dodgy areas are safe from content dumps? ....The social groups I am referring to had some great content, dodgy is not something I would attribute to them; albeit, given the size of the membership and the high post count (over 100,000 for one group alone), I am sure there was some level of dodginess that perhaps went on more in the early days, because I didn't notice dodginess as standard form in my day - but surely no more than can be seen anywhere on boards. And since many have continued on as forums, I would suggest being careful labeling any as dodgy.

Edit: Pardon me Mr E - I see you said dodgy in "SOME of them".... I was not part of those.

Deja Boo

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

Hi Deja Boo,

The Social Groups were closed five or six years ago with Hosted Forums taking their place in many cases. Unfortunately, it would be a significant amount of work to transfer content to Hosted Forums (where they exist).

Social Groups are different to forums in that they were a feature, but one that has not been supported in some time. Forums come under review from time to time and indeed there is a push from the community to archive / fold quiet and abandoned ones into broader forums.

Thanks Mark I am aware they were closed, some forums continued on from social groups, for which I (personally) am entirely grateful. But the content from the old social groups are what made us what we are today. Some great posters and superb content found there, that can't be accessed anywhere now.

I wish you would've informed us (perhaps in the private forums) beforehand of your intention to dump content, as we do did access that former data regularly. But (please forgive this, as you weren't party to it at the time), I shoudn't be surprised as Boards gave us no warning of social group closing (in 2013) prior to shutting it down.

You know the inner workings of this Boards forum format more than I, but it's sad it couldn't be archived somewhere. Why was it ok to leave it for 5 years then all of a sudden, it isn't now? No matter now.

I suppose worth to a business is different than worth to a community of users, the bottom line and all... And significant work, Mark - isn't that what businesses do daily (again, forgive me) but was there not a significant amount of work (years even) to create a brand new format for boards? (you know, the one no one can actually use without getting supremely frustrated?) PLEASE PLEASE let us know before you take away the Legacy format!

Yes, I do wish in your admin forum review (5 years down the line now), you could've archived/folded the contents somewhere into the new format.... or atleast (as proactive as you have shown yourself to be, Mark) informed us of the inevitable content dump, (atleast of the largest social group boards had ever seen.) It's a pity it's all lost.

Anyway, thanks everyone for the replies. Appreciate knowing what happened after the fact. Cheers, you can close the thread now, atleast we know now.

Deja Boo

Mr E wrote: »

A decision was made to disable Social Groups (and albums) back in 2013. You can read more about it here:

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=83764953

For what it's worth, they were a bit more trouble than they were worth.
Unmoderated, cliquey, and there was some very dodgy content in some of them.

May I just say, in reference to the clique comment... TLGH was created and known for inclusion for anyone, a safe place to post without bullying. It was filled with cheer and acceptance. Cliquey didn't apply in this instance

Thanks for hearing me out.