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When is the life support machine being switched off?

  • 21-12-2021 9:17pm
    #1


    I have noticed a massive reduction in activity on boards over the years, not least since the migration to a new platform. I was a long time lurker, but felt compelled to rejoin when I noticed such a drastic change.

    Is it just me, or have mods in AH basically disappeared? I have posted a few edgy things, and no intervention. It is actually refreshing in a way.

    But alas, the activity of boards is far below sustainable levels. Noteworthy there's even no advertisers at the top or bottom of pages anymore.

    So, it is time to switch off the life support?



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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 591 Garlinge
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  • Moving to another platform was a disastrous error. Its all over the shop since. VBulletins platform was absolutely perfect.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 621 reclose
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    Has anyone stats on post count pre migration vs post migration?

    It feels like there’s a lot less posts after migrating.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,451 embraer170
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    Traffic data reports from places such as Sitechecker paint a fairly grim picture.

    Down from 3.5 million visits in July 2021 to 2.4 million in November. Those 3.5 in July would themselves be far down on the same time in 2020.





  • OP here. I would genuinely like to apologise to the staff and owners of the site for what was a cheeky post. Realistically, who am I to come along and start asking if they should shut THEIR own site down? I'm genuinely surprised the mods let it run, but am glad they did.

    The reason I did this (and it hasn't generated as much discussion as I would have hoped) is because without ad revenue, I cannot see how sustainable this platform is and I think the loss of boards would actually be a big loss.

    I would like to remind everybody the uniqueness and benefits of boards which would go by the wayside. Imagine how many thousands of people personal issues and work problems has helped? How many people have built communities and shared info in special interest sections. Unfortunately I think AH has been toxic for years, and we can't blame all of that just on mods, users have a part to play there too. But that is just one aspect of boards.


    It really is do or die time, and it's more than a "roll back" to the old site that will save it, radical changes to the platform are required. Having to sift through mounds of wrong advice and sh1t posting before hitting on golden posts is one such example.


    Best wishes for 2022



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 31,218 freshpopcorn
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    To be honest I feel like most of us knows one another at this stage. When your scrolling down and you see a username. You've a fair idea what they are going to comment without even reading it.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,227 Thinkingaboutit
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    There can be some cases where the advice either isn't wholly correct, or imprudent, that it would land someone with a wholly needless court appearance. What I think is there are places which need strict moderation as a shitpost response, taken as a course of action, will land someone in a world of (legal) bother, although no one should get legal advice from randoms on the internet, but other forums where it's just political opinion, which really doesn't matter. The oligarchs and insiders probably find political argument funny, given the matter has been settled privately, so to speak.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,397 ben.schlomo
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    I can never understand this type of comment. I pretty much exclusively used the site on mobile before the change. Still do now with next to no noticeable difference bar some aesthetic changes which are of no concern to me.

    Any forum I used was in my Chrome favourites, so one click to get there. After that I don't see any issues really. Certainly none that make it "practically unusable".



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,084 Esel
    Not Your Ornery Onager
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    if it hadn't gone to this platform it would have been switched off soon due to lack of funds.

    There were other platforms available - Xenforo, Discourse for instance.

    To me, Vanilla seems more aimed at CRM - give a commercial website's customers a way to ask questions about products etc., not for a forum-only site like Boards, which needs a feature-rich platform.

    There really is no denying the new platform was the wrong choice. IMHO, of course.

    Not your ornery onager





  • Without mods it would descend into YouTube levels of abuse. Any sort of debate would suffer as a result.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,718 Larbre34
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    Be under no illusion, the damage here was done by poor management at the executive level.

    The Mods are just posters, but the platform itself is a commercial activity and it does have a company behind it, which when I last checked is Boards Software Ltd, itself owned by Distilled Media, who own Daft, DoneDeal and others.

    So when you hear those other names, it's clear Boards doesn't matter a flying shyte to them anymore and it shows, in the way the migration project was the greatest farce since New Coke. We probably won't be talking here in a year lads.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,664 rogue-entity
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    That forums have declined in general is a hell of a pity, as there are often no other venues for asking questions, or having actual conversations which you just cannot do in any useable or meaningful way on any other platform.

    While I've got my grumbles about the changes on this platform, so long as I can find my pinned forums I'm happy and I can't say this was the worst change that could have been made.

    The day this forum, goes the way of RadioWaves will be like Christmas Eve in 1988, which saw the death of truly independent broadcasting in Ireland.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,052 TheValeyard
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    I'll be honest at this stage, I can barely remember the old Layout and new version seems to be working grand on mobile now, not perfect, but getting better.

    Mods seem to be more hands-off, which is grand. Light touch approach can work.

    Shame if the place went, I'm very fond of a couple of sub forums here and have had a fair few good nights out with boards members pre Covid.

    All eyes on Kursk. Slava Ukraini.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,052 TheValeyard
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    Under no illusions. And people have been predicting the death of boards in my many regenerations here.

    It is what it is. I enjoy it. Same way I enjoy Reddit.

    All eyes on Kursk. Slava Ukraini.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,718 Larbre34
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    And the Search function has simply failed.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,430 EmmetSpiceland
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    Yeah, same here. I dunno, lots of angry nerds keep banging the drum about “dark mode” and “my forums” but seems incredibly nit picky.

    Really seems that an angry cohort of users really feel like they are owed something by the owners of the site and, simply, won’t “accept” that if the site wasn’t moved it would have gone.

    As for the moderation, I think the mods are doing a great job considering the “issues” with the mod tools but AH is getting overrun with Current Affairs “types” constantly putting up unseemly threads. If they could be flushed back into the “Current Affairs” forum, where they belong, that would be great.

    Incels and, angry, bigoted lads really bring down the “tone” of this forum.

    “It is not blood that makes you Irish but a willingness to be part of the Irish nation” - Thomas Davis



  • Posts: 3,801 [Deleted User]
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    And people taking about their favourite sh1ts. That’s not helping.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,316 the_syco
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    New platform sucks IMO. The lack of the dark theme makes long browsing uncomfortable. Lack of working search feature doesn't allow me to follow threads that I've posted in.

    As Wibbs has said, the old forum was very much modded. Each time there was an OS update, I assume they'd need to update all the mods as well as the package itself.

    Regarding the drop in modding, I assume COVID + life in general has meant some have less time to wade through the crap. Some have had kids, so that further limits the time they can spend wading through the likes of AH.

    As for the dent in users, meh. Happens every few years regardless, often when another forum opens up. Numbers usually pop back up after a bit.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,754 MrMusician18
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    I thought Distilled Media sold boards again?

    In any case, the problem with boards is that it hasn't innovated successfully since it launched adverts and hasn't been a success as a commercial entity by itself.

    The root cause of boards problems is a lack of money because it is a commercial entity and has to play by business rules. When it was decided to turn it into a for profit entity, rather than a community led non-profit, the seeds of demise were sown.

    And as for moderation being light touch now, well that's because a huge number of them abandoned the site at the changeover and there has been a steadfast refusal by admins to create replacements (for reasons only known to them tbh). There's even very few admins active now too, and it does look like all the heavy lifting is being done by one person. Even more bizarrely, the cmods do not know who the mods are of the forums under them.The whole setup is now unsustainable.

    While boards demise has been often predicted, it looks like the end is far more likely in the near term than it ever was.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,430 EmmetSpiceland
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    I, personally, would argue that the thread you’re, negatively, referring to, F, is an informative, irreverent and, downright, hilarious thread.

    Of course, it doesn’t sit “well” with some of the more humourless, and bound up, individuals on this site.

    “It is not blood that makes you Irish but a willingness to be part of the Irish nation” - Thomas Davis



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,091 Hyperbollix
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    I've been using boards since the mid 2000's, mainly AH. I didn't notice any discernible change to my interest levels in coming to the site until the redesign... Since then, I find myself checking AH less and less because the threads just interest me less and less. I'll often scan the first couple of pages and just go "meh" and leave, something that rarely happened in the old days....

    I presume it's partly due to an exodus of people since the change and maybe part of it is a generational thing. "Damn kids have no interest in the the same stuff as me!"



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,138 Gregor Samsa
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    Vanilla is successfully used by Digital Spy, which is a UK forum with a much, much bigger user base and much, much more traffic than Boards. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the platform - any technical issues are due to the implementation.

    Fact is that people would have been giving out no matter what software they moved to.

    A lack of dark mode (I personally don’t care, but the kids seem to want it) and broken search (annoying) aren’t in themselves going to stop people posting here. Boards has obviously taken a hit over the past number of years with the rise in social media and Reddit. I do think the prolonged outage in the summer during the migration didn’t help. It probably broke the habit of visiting and posting for many, and they just never picked it up again.

    Does anyone know how the alt-boards that was set up at the time is getting on? They seemed to think they’d take over and usher in a modless utopia. I checked into it a couple of times at the beginning, but it was just full of people patting themselves on the back that they weren’t posting on Boards any more, and looking forward to giving out about travellers even more than they did previously. I can’t remember what it was called.

    As for the Etiquette thread, I’ve never posted in it, only read a bit of it when it was first posted and have no interest in it, but it’s more true to the original spirit of AH than any number of threads giving out about so-called wokeness, or raging about American spelling. It’s like CA lite here sometimes.



  • Posts: 18,749 [Deleted User]
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    Well now, I posted here earlier, and quoted another poster.

    Both posts about mod actions or inactions, not even complaining, just stating facts, both now deleted. Nothing on my PMs, nothing said on thread, just disappeared.

    Why? Because they mentioned mods? Who knows! I dont, because no-one said anything. Disappearing posts, what is the point?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,039 zell12
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    Bebo, Yahoo Forums, MySpace, Boards



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 36,711 pixelburp
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    Speaking purely from a technical perspective, the version of vBulletin used by Boards was not "absolutely perfect", and not anywhere close. I know that may not be what you meant but still; It was going to collapse as it had been duct taped, patched, fixed and customised so far past "baseline" vBulletin it was t possible to just flip a switch and migrate to vBulletin latest. 20 years later and sounded like a stiff breeze would have brought the whole thing down.

    I get people are dissatisfied or frustrated with Vanilla - cos I am too barring some great additions like Drafts, a real enabler for more considered posting - but the old software was bordering on breaking beyond the finances or manpower available to fix. It was always going to change from what we knew. Whether it was vanilla, eh. That's another matter.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,239 Pussyhands
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    Late Late Toy Show thread 2020: 2366 posts.

    Late Late Toy Show thread 2021: 1005 posts.

    58% reduction.

    The drop off is massive across all fora I frequent.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,239 Pussyhands
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    My personal opinion is within 2 years it will be dead.

    Boards was already struggling years ago with multiples of todays member count. Talk To fora are gone which was apparently a decent income source too. So I don't know how it will survive, which is a pity.

    I believe boards was "sold" and now stands on it's own two feet. I would guess this was a tactic by Distilled Media to allow the company to take on debt but in the case it went tits up the debts wouldn't follow them. Boards Software Limited was registered in November 2020.



  • Posts: 18,749 [Deleted User]
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  • Posts: 17,378 [Deleted User]
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    The frustrating thing about the search is that it is great in vanilla, but implemented terribly in boards.ie's theming of the site.

    If you're on desktop, click this link and search. It has the proper parameters that make it work. I have it bookmarked so I can search properly.

    You can even search within threads by pasting the thread title inside " " on the right. The functionality and actual Vanilla search function works fine. I've been pointing this out for ages and no changes have been made.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,239 Pussyhands
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    I like boards. Has great knowledgable people on it. But I liked it better a decade ago. The craic is being squeezed from online fora.

    You can't make any jokes for fear of it being against the rules. I made a joke, which was a popular line from Little Britain and I got a warning for it. It's like being in church here nowadays, gotta be on your best behaviour.

    Why bother when I can post in the whatsapps or twitter and not have any moderators muting me because they got offended on behalf of someone etc. No rumours allowed here either.

    Discussion boards are dying because you can't give your honest opinion without being muted. Moderators can mute people, but it's not going to change peoples opinions, in fact it'll be the opposite.





  • Fair enough. I was speaking more from an interface and usability point of view. I find Vanilla to be disastrous personally. I havent used boards as much these past few months which may not be such a bad thing lol





  • I think you will find it's called feedback and it's what every internet-based company looks for in terms of making improvements etc. Yeah i get the point that the old infrastructure was creaking, but from an interface point of view, i dont feel the new site is working as good. It is of course just my honest opinion



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,430 EmmetSpiceland
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    Nonsense, B. I see that you’re new here but I’m a happily married man, furthest thing from an incel.

    Unless, you’re not new and are just one of those lads who can’t follow the “rules” of the site, hmm?

    And as for angry, well, it’s Stephen’s Day, I’m after a fine feed at the in-laws and, once the kids are in bed, I’ll be settling down to some “nibbles” and a bottle of wine in front of the TV with my, wonderful, partner. Couldn’t be happier. You enjoy your mug of cold beans and whatever grotty “viewing” you have lined up on the computer.

    Merry Christmas, everyone!

    “It is not blood that makes you Irish but a willingness to be part of the Irish nation” - Thomas Davis



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,184 riclad
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    My theory is alot of people use social media at work. the office. Since many people started working from home there's less reason to post on any forum, since you can look at twiitter or listen to a podcast whole working from home without getting seen by your boss boards is an essential resource,Mods need to intervene when people start getting rude on a thread or going off topic or there's nothing positive left to say on a topic. Boards is essential because it's a forum to comment on topics from an Irish point of view or things specific to Ireland , politics, current affairs, TV etc everyday I see people giving honest opinions on various diverse topics forums with no mods tend to be negative, chaotic or tend to be taken over by trolls or people posting fake news conspiracy theory's etc posting on some American website is not the same as they are mostly run by American moderators who do not understand the Irish point of view or Irish current affairs politics in context Twitter is mostly used by journalist members of the media or else by people promoting their product company or links to their articles most writers or commentators are on twitter. I'm not a tech expert but I think the new layout is fine the only thing I, d like is a dark mode . Websites and services are constantly changing due to the livestyles attention of their users, the YouTube of 2021 is completely different from 5 years ago, I read now people under 30 spend more time watching tik Toks than watching YouTube videos



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,904 Galwayguy35
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  • This tit for tat nonsense is another reason boards is in decline. There's a bit of a want in people who engage in it.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,876 The J Stands for Jay
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    The lack of email notifications when there's been a post on a thread I'm following has reduced the amount of times I visit the site. On the other hand, but being able to figure out how to turn off the notifications at the top of the page means I'm ignoring the 948 notifications I can see there.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,832 Donald Trump
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    Deliriously obvious biscuits in a Ford Transit.





  • I remember seeing a thread about 10 years ago where posters were complaining that boards had gone to crap it’s not like it used to be. So that’s nothing new.

    Someone mentioned earlier that boards was being ruined by people of a certain political leaning. Look at the world out there, people have differing opinions on how society should operate. Just look across water to Brexit or those who elected Trump. It’s a crazy world. Why do people expect a safe space here? A sort of echo chamber where only their side get a say. Not going to happen. People disagree.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,503 Mad_maxx
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    The new site is fine , took a while to get used to it but it's grand



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  • Posts: 6,192 [Deleted User]
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    Tbf the covid and everyone being home,probably gave all the forum etc a wee lifeline and maybe its an unfair conparison using 2020 figures?(honestly i dunno,but would feel that way anyway)


    But the over the top modding etc seen the likes of tatlelife about influencrs etc take off and likely cost em massively in the views/visits....not subject matter,id be overly interested in,and can see how toxic it was and the need for the moderation,otherwise be sued out of exiatance...but the heavy handness of it,drove away posters,whom had little interaction elsewhere and thus never come back



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,381 end of the road
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    before 1989 there was no legal commercial radio in ireland and no ability to apply for licenses.

    during the 1980s a large amount of pirate radio stations sprung up around the country catering to all tastes and formats, there had of course been pirates before hand but not on the same scale.

    at the start of 1989, a new licensing regime was implemented, and any of the pirates who wished to apply had to close by the end of the year to be able to apply.

    instead of a regulatory format based on the successful model that was operating before hand, we got a highly regulated, high cost base model of radio forced on operators by the new regulator and legislation.

    a basic summery so as to not take the thread off topic so much.

    if you would like to know more there is lots of material out there from sites such as radiowaves.fm and pirate.ie etc.

    I'm very highly educated. I know words, i have the best words, nobody has better words then me.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,381 end of the road
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    you can change the email setting notifications by going to the homepage, click notifications and click notification preferences.

    note that you will get a separate email each time someone posts rather then the old system that sent an email when someone posts but would only notify you again if you visit the thread so your inbox might get clogged up quite quickly if the thread is busy.

    I'm very highly educated. I know words, i have the best words, nobody has better words then me.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,876 The J Stands for Jay
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    Actually, this sounds familiar. I think I did get a million emails and turned it off.





  • I find that the indexing/search facility is poor on Vanilla incarnation. Vanilla is not so suited to the more complex database structure that has been intrinsic on Boards. The querying facility is very poor, and I think it has made for difficulties in moderation where in VBulletin filters could be easily applied. Vanilla is more typically used for tech support forums, where searching for your appropriate forum can be achieved by a straight Google search. VBulletin had a rich filtering system which we miss so much in our experience of using the site.





  • One thing I find is that Vanilla Forums software doesn’t sit well with iPhones, I believe relating to RAM issues. Apart from not being able to easily search for what I’m looking for within Boards, I find that coming across a post I want to reply to requires an initial refresh or “quote” won’t work. Then after refresh the post has spun off somewhere after several very annoying bounces about on my screen. By that that I’ve almost given up the will to reply.

    When trying to search for an old post I try to remember some keywords that might have been in it, then from Google try Boards+ whatever terms I am searching. I find that is often the only way to retrieve old posts.





  • Since Boards declined in usership I have tried to get some edgy discussions going but they have either died a quick natural death due to lack of traffic or been shut down 😂 but I do get some interesting pms at times by folk who like a topic that goes close to the wind, so to speak.

    It really is up to remainders, though, to try and revive and resuscitate a forum dedicated to an Irish perspective that promotes a certain freedom of speech and hence democracy. Exiting Boards I feel is almost like spoiling your vote because the candidates all seem a bit sh1te.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,717 Muahahaha
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    Ive gotten used to it but my browsing of the site is down considerably due to two problems. Firstly the Most Thanked posts feature never came back and thats what I used to discover all sorts of other threads to read. It was a kind of upvote system where the cream would rise to the top. Now its gone I dont have the inclination to wade through tons of mud to find the best posts so my browsing is significantly down. Secondly the sense of the site being some way busy is completely gone. When I see subbed threads only have 1 or 2 posts in the previous 24 hours its just pointless clicking in. When something feels like a dead zone lots of people dont bother posting, its a vicious cycle.

    The lack of a dark mode is a third problem. I never used dark mode and have no problems using the site without it. But thousands of users did use it becasue their eyes hurt browsing bright web pages. That much was clear back in July when there was hundreds of posts asking for a dark mode. The powers that be never addressed that problem so those users clearly left the site becasue they werent going to hang around using something that made their eyes hurt. Not implementing a dark mode was Boards single biggest way of culling thousands of users.

    Reddit and specifically r/ireland has clearly eaten a sizeable chunk of the Boards userbase. They were just below 400k subs back during the upgrade here in July and are now on 465k today. Thats 65k new users who came from somewhere, likely many from here as you can see a good few Boards usernames over there. Plus they have a dark mode for those who need it. r/ireland is now much closer to what After Hours was like 5 or more years ago. To me anyway the After Hours irreverence and humour has clearly migrated over there.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,825 Relikk
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    You want a dark mode? Like every modern website has? Only "angry", "bigoted", "incel nerds" want that.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,217 Wibbs
    Mod ✭✭✭✭


    I can well understand people who want dark mode. Put it another way, I"m the opposite. I can't deal with dark mode for very long at all. I find it incredibly hard on the eyes and it does my head in. If Boards or any other site was permanently in dark mode with no option to switch it off I wouldn't visit.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



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