After hours is dying

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118490908#Comment_118490908

That would inject life back into the place for sure.

I trhink the userbase is older and grumpier now. Most of us are pissed off and politics has become a more popular thing to argue about. It used to be more light-hearted but also a bit deeper. Maybe I remember it wrong. Still haven't found a site that would replace Boards. It's not going to be Reddit.

AckwelFoley

Facekicker would not be allowed to kick faces anymore.

Pighead who only spoke in the 3rd person went and married the 3rd person I'm a non denominatuonal ceremony

Crocodile Booze

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118491744#Comment_118491744

Yeah, and you used to be somebody before you sold out man..

sporina

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118489327#Comment_118489327

it use to be great - they killed it with what ever they did to it last yr

Burt Renaults

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118492037#Comment_118492037

What they did to it last year can be summed up in two words: Managed Decline.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118490400#Comment_118490400

Funny you mention the men's licence thread because I thought for a while there it was one of the best threads in AH for years.

We had a good discussion and some excellent points were made on all sides.

Mind you it's sort of lost it's way this evening but that's just the way these things go.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118492068#Comment_118492068

The thread I am talking about started yesterday

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118492109#Comment_118492109

Yes that's the one.

For a while there yesterday it was actually like a discussion forum.

Generally though I avoid AH because I couldn't be bothered trying to have a discussion with most of the posters on there.

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118490908#Comment_118490908

Perhaps it was all his auld sh1tetalk that hastened the demise of the place

c.p.w.g.w

Traffic seems way down on here, since the "upgrade" Fantasy Football board is a hell of a lot quieter than I can remember...

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118492568#Comment_118492568

The whole hidden soccer forum is a joke. Doesnt even show up on my bookmarked threads

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118490230#Comment_118490230

Ah yes, the infamous "neckbeards" that appear to be "indigenous" to AH.

josip

Maybe "He Who Cannot be Named" has secretly bought the site and is happy to let it wither

Trigger Happy

Nothing is as good as it was anywhere.

GLaDOS

Boards has been dying for a while now, smaller forums have been struggling for years. The update has accelerated things and now the larger forums are feeling the bite.

I remember seeing polls years ago on what age users where, and there was always a large amount of people in their 20s/30s and a healthy amount of teenagers. Same polls was done a couple of years ago and the difference was stark, with a clear demographic shift towards 30s/40s. A site like this needs fresh blood but instead we've the same prolific posters hanging about but very few new people. Younger people arn't interested in forums like this I guess; reddit, facebook and other social media fill that void.

r/Ireland will never be a replacement for boards, for various reasons, but the main one being reddit isn't built for discussion, it's built for one off comments.

Larbre34

Boards is dying, not just AH. The executive fatally wounded it last year.

Reddit ftw

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118494286#Comment_118494286

Reddit is good for a quick fix but as mentioned, it's terrible for long discussions or being a repository of information on a subject. I've a few niche hobbies that when I try to look for a bit of obscure information on, I generally get taken to an old, dead forum somewhere that folks posted a wealth of knowledge on years back.

Royale with Cheese

I can't really stand the format of Reddit, the only time I ever look at it is when I google something and a Reddit post has the answer. If I'm on my phone then half the time they'll try and get me to download their shítty app before I can look at the post too and they can fúck off if they think I'm doing that.

I have twitter but mainly just use it as a newsfeed for football, tennis and cricket; very little else on there and I pretty much never tweet myself. I deleted my Facebook years ago and was never on Instagram. If boards dies I'll probably just spend a lot less time on the internet and go and do something more constructive 😛

greenspurs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118490230#Comment_118490230

Have you been in the Conspiracy Theories thread ?!??

Now thats the place with regular posters that will make the worse thread on Reddit look intelligent, and i dont mean the 'Theorists' ...

Thelonious Monk

Reddit is a horrible format, it's good for looking at funny videos and pics though if you look at /r/popular.

The Ireland reddit is just anti-Brit, pro IRA fanboy posts, pictures of chicken rolls and fry ups, and people posting about how much they hate Dublin and looking for upvotes because they post about mental health.

Although boards seems to be full of cantankerous old cranks who hate anything resembling change, Reddit Ireland seems to have an average age of about 15, so I'm not sure where I fit in any more!

AckwelFoley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118492001#Comment_118492001

Ouch. RIP my fragile ego 😆

Arghus

I've made peace with what the new boards is. It's an absolute load of shyte compared to what it was pre changeover - but that older and, from a users perspective far, far better version, is gone and isn't coming back. I hope that gradually things will somewhat improve and that some period in the future the navigation, UI and functionality will return to an approximation of the past and that a certain amount of people will stick around to keep it worthwhile and alive in the meantime. For all of how much the place annoys me, I'd hate to see boards dissappear.

I've used reddit a bit here and there, I would have a quick browse at it nearly everyday. And it does have some advantages over boards - it's a bit livelier and it can be a bit saner than boards. Any current affairs thread here after a period typically gets dominated by a few head the balls, because they don't get downvoted into oblivion, they can usually carry on spouting nonsense and boards attracts an older, more male and more reactionary user. Of course, I am generalising there, but there's truth to it. Boards isn't as angry and demented as somewhere like twitter and Facebook, but it's still full of headers.

But the layout of reddit is as ugly as sin. New boards, as fugly as it is, still looks better than it, by some distance. Also, the way conversation is structured there, while having the sometime advantage of nuking the inane or the idiotic, doesn't lend itself to constructive back and forth, which, in theory though often not in practice, an old school message board like boards, is better suited too. And there's an awful lot of redundancy and repetition on reddit - because they aren't really "conversations" that take place there, more heat of the moment repetitions of whatever is in the news that appear and dissappear as fast as lightning, there's no real memory or ongoing nature to the discussion there.

Fathom

Morning here. After hours comes later.

elperello

One thing that might help would be to stop new regs and re-regs opening nonsensical threads on their first post.

Your heart would just sink when you realise you have clicked on another one.

It’s just become a forum where lads of a certain era give out about RTE, Dr. Tony, lockdown and the government. Used to be a cranky auld bastard forum for those lads. Might be time to shove them back there.

Hyperbollix

All the cool cats who frequented the site back in the day, when posting stuff on the internet was abit more lighthearted, all grew up, had kids and haven't time to bother with forums. Younger millennials and Gen Z'ers don't know what a forum is and the ones that do are just coming here to have a circle **** about identity and gender politics.

PalLimerick

Three Fiddy.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118494259#Comment_118494259

Facebook is very much for the older internet user now and ya reddit isn't a discussion site and is probably getting old too.

Forums like all other forms of entertainment will grow and die with their demographic. Boards is just another version of nu metal or skater punk

kowloon

Where do all the teenagers have conversations these days? We should go on there and wreck the place. We all have to move en masse though, anything else could look a bit Jimmy Saville.

lawred2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058228484/after-hours-is-dying

It's all covid this and that