Can Boards.ie be rejuvenated?

PopZiggy

I was a member of Boards.ie from 2003 to 2010 (I deregistered due to the great email hack). I only recently rejoined.

The big difference I notice is there seems to be far less activity and people don't appear to be having as much banter or fun. Freedom of expression seems to be quite restricted indeed.

What is the reason for this? Is it other platforms taking boards place (e.g. reddit), excessive modding, trolls, all of the above perhaps?

What can be done to rejuvenate boards, or is it doomed to fail? If so, how long does it have left in it? If things don't change I'd say five to ten years tops.

WoodworkGuy

PopZiggy wrote: »

I was a member of Boards.ie from 2003 to 2010 (I deregistered due to the great email hack). I only recently rejoined.

The big difference I notice is there seems to be far less activity and people don't appear to be having as much banter or fun. Freedom of expression seems to be quite restricted indeed.

What is the reason for this? Is it other platforms taking boards place (e.g. reddit), excessive modding, trolls, all of the above perhaps?

What can be done to rejuvenate boards, or is it doomed to fail? If so, how long does it have left in it? If things don't change I'd say five to ten years tops.

Definitely the excessive modding compared to other sites imo

PopZiggy

WoodworkGuy wrote: »

Definitely the excessive modding compared to other sites imo

For example I noticed I made an innocent post in another thread asking if a user had a few beers (he posted four or five posts in a row on the same thread late at night). I didn't realise (s)he was a mod, but (s)he didn't take too kindly to the post. Back in the day this would just have been laughed off as harmless.

DoctorEdgeWild

I use it every day, find it really good to be honest. All forms of social media go through peaks and troughs in popularity, I don't really see anything broken that needs fixing.

The J Stands for Jay

I think it's also a lack of new blood. People, for some strange reason, seem more likely to use Facebook groups for arguing with randos or being offensive

The gospel of woke and preferred pronouns is eating away at the irreverent fabric sadly.

PopZiggy

McGaggs wrote: »

I think it's also a lack of new blood. People, for some strange reason, seem more likely to use Facebook groups for arguing with randos or being offensive

Yes this constant arguing over nothing. It's just people getting their kicks arguing over nothing. Must have v sad lives.

beachhead

PopZiggy wrote: »

I was a member of Boards.ie from 2003 to 2010 (I deregistered due to the great email hack). I only recently rejoined.

The big difference I notice is there seems to be far less activity and people don't appear to be having as much banter or fun. Freedom of expression seems to be quite restricted indeed.

What is the reason for this? Is it other platforms taking boards place (e.g. reddit), excessive modding, trolls, all of the above perhaps?

What can be done to rejuvenate boards, or is it doomed to fail? If so, how long does it have left in it? If things don't change I'd say five to ten years tops.

I agree with above.A lot of similar topics spread across different forums.Also,an absolute pain to log in sometimes and getting logged out randomly

To be accepted now as a newbie, try to make the correct Virtue Signals

Kilboor

Still better than any other Irish forum. If you think moderation is strict here, don't go near r/Ireland.

I'm so glad we don't use an upvote downvote system, less of a circle jerk.

PopZiggy

I actually think this site is a fantastic resource and would hate to see it go. But even creating this thread I'm afraid odd be banned and the mods will close it. Seems to be par for the course.

beachhead

Agree with posters here.Also,can be a pain to log in sometimes then be logged out randomly and posts not appearing

DrumSteve

Deleted User wrote: »

The gospel of woke and preferred pronouns is eating away at the irreverent fabric sadly.

Genuinely, point me to where the mods have come down hard on not using someone's correct pronouns?

Tacitus Kilgore

Deleted User wrote: »

The gospel of woke and preferred pronouns is eating away at the irreverent fabric sadly.

This post right here ^ is the reason there will be no new blood added, once people come in/come back and see that it has descended into a right wing echo chamber over the last few years people won't bother with it.

For a while it was confined to CA, but clearly not anymore.

everlast75

PopZiggy wrote: »

I was a member of Boards.ie from 2003 to 2010 (I deregistered due to the great email hack). I only recently rejoined.

The big difference I notice is there seems to be far less activity and people don't appear to be having as much banter or fun. Freedom of expression seems to be quite restricted indeed.

Fúck off.

PopZiggy

I don't want to be too harsh on the mods either, they obviously put a lot of their free time into a thankless job, but I do feel it goes overboard sometimes.

GarIT

PopZiggy wrote: »

I was a member of Boards.ie from 2003 to 2010 (I deregistered due to the great email hack). I only recently rejoined.

The big difference I notice is there seems to be far less activity and people don't appear to be having as much banter or fun. Freedom of expression seems to be quite restricted indeed.

What is the reason for this? Is it other platforms taking boards place (e.g. reddit), excessive modding, trolls, all of the above perhaps?

What can be done to rejuvenate boards, or is it doomed to fail? If so, how long does it have left in it? If things don't change I'd say five to ten years tops.

I don't know if it's just a change in policy or what but the mods are way too strict now and the core principals of boards are ignored e.g. attack the post and not the poster

Atheists are no longer allowed in Christianity to debate.

Straight people are no longer allowed to give anything other than praise in LGBT.

Blast em with piss is no longer allowed in AH.

JoeyTheParrot shuts down anything they don't agree with calling it homophobia.

Social welfare threads are closed because they are social welfare threads.

Anything other than praising travellers is banned.

Talking about white on black racism is fine in Formula1 but talking about Hamilton's black on white racism is banned.

Essentially and chances of a genuine discussion is shut down.

Kilboor

Kilboor wrote: »

Still better than any other Irish forum. If you think moderation is strict here, don't go near r/Ireland.

I'm so glad we don't use an upvote downvote system, less of a circle jerk.

That isn't an Irish forum. It's a forum about Ireland. I don't think boards.ie even has one.

GarIT

Vert strange thing too is Fine Gael call anyone on boards keyboard warriors but the will of Twitter is to be obeyed at all times. So that puts new people off.

Tacitus Kilgore

Tacitus Kilgore wrote: »

This post right here ^ is the reason there will be no new blood added, once people come in/come back and see that it has descended into a right wing echo chamber over the last few years people won't bother with it.

For a while it was confined to CA, but clearly not anymore.

Aye.....its v.tedious seeing people raging about political correctness gone mad,on a site where calls for genocide againest travellers face no sanction

The lack of introspection is bizzare

PopZiggy

I'd like to see a few mods post in this also, maybe give their perspective.

MrMusician18

PopZiggy wrote: »

I was a member of Boards.ie from 2003 to 2010 (I deregistered due to the great email hack). I only recently rejoined.

The big difference I notice is there seems to be far less activity and people don't appear to be having as much banter or fun. Freedom of expression seems to be quite restricted indeed.

What is the reason for this? Is it other platforms taking boards place (e.g. reddit), excessive modding, trolls, all of the above perhaps?

What can be done to rejuvenate boards, or is it doomed to fail? If so, how long does it have left in it? If things don't change I'd say five to ten years tops.

Every now and again this thread pops up and we always leave it unresolved. I don't think anything can be done to save this site as the format - linear discussion, is of it's time 2000-2012 and new formats have taken over. The site would need to completely rejig itself and in the process would likely lose it's long time core audience. Just to note, moderation was exponentially more strict during the late noughties than it is now. Changes in this policy really haven't had much affect on numbers posting really.

If the site continues down it's current path, the userbase will get older and smaller, that's just the way it is. Rather than harking back to the days of yore, be thankful for what it is now - a useful resource in the specialist forums particularly and just hope that it can continue.

furiousox

Boards can still be useful/interesting a lot of the time but by christ there is way too much tedious bickering sometimes.
Check out the first and last pages of a lot of threads, the original discussion is long gone and it's just 3 or 4 posters endlessly disagreeing with each other on something which has little to do with the OP.

Necro

GarIT wrote: »

I don't know if it's just a change in policy or what but the mods are way too strict now and the core principals of boards are ignored e.g. attack the post and not the poster

Atheists are no longer allowed in Christianity to debate.

Straight people are no longer allowed to give anything other than praise in LGBT.

Blast em with piss is no longer allowed in AH.

JoeyTheParrot shuts down anything they don't agree with calling it homophobia.

Social welfare threads are closed because they are social welfare threads.

Anything other than praising travellers is banned.

Talking about white on black racism is fine in Formula1 but talking about Hamilton's black on white racism is banned.

Essentially and chances of a genuine discussion is shut down.

Mod:

This, this right here is why we cannot allow these threads to go on, it always descends into the same crap with people attacking other posters directly.

Thread Closed