General CA trolls - it's embarrassing

Folks, you should probably have a re-think about where CA is going. I know it was created as a way to corral the malcontents to a place in the site that they wouldn't impinge on the rest of the place, but it's a joke now. Racist, bigoted, trans hating on a daily basis. There's not enough mods to clear out all the sh*te. It's a failed experiment at this point.

I.R.Y.E.D

Not to disagree but you are going to have a certain number of idiots and scrotes on any forum of size.

The silly thing is that they think that it provides them with anonymity.

Gatling

Not true,

I Think people don't like being challenged and want to have one sided discussions where only certain pro agendas cohorts can post on topics,and Wave the bigotry,misogynistic, transphobic, racism cards to get any discussion closed,

odyssey06

If that's what you think of CA don't go near After Hours.

It's far more likely to be moderated on CA.

On After Hours you can be as bigoted, insulting or sectarian as you like as long as you don't actually abuse a specific poster by name. And even then...

Arghus

I just don't bother with CA 99% of the time.

An internet forum where people can post anonymously about Current Affairs, well, you know what you're going to get sadly.

I remember not too long ago that even posting a harmless photo or gif was forbidden in CA.

Even if the photo was statistics or something relevant to the discussion.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120532468#Comment_120532468

I think that was a performance issue with boards handling images and CA being such a busy forum.

EmmetSpiceland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120531620#Comment_120531620

Yeah, I actually think that it would help AH if CA was less moderated.

What’s happening is that lads are getting threadbanned, or forum banned, in CA and just hopping over to AH to avail of its laidback, or light touch, moderation and just “dumping” all over it. The prison bars are, usually, a giveaway. Never a good look.

There’s really no need for the imported, American, “Culture Wars” being dragged into, more normal, forums like AH so often.

Now, don’t get me wrong, if these “Culture Wars” have done one thing they are keeping a certain cohort of people distracted and giving them a sense of purpose, just stops them from getting in the way of anything important in “real life”, but would be better if regular, normal, users were spared the angry nonsense and it was just kept to CA.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120532510#Comment_120532510

Or the crap shouldn't be tolerated on AH either, as I don't think they would confine dumping to CA threads. There's no telling what threads they will dump this stuff on in AH as they can't let it go.

Even if CA is less moderated, well whatever the boundary is, the most blatant of this type will still hit it. It is obvious early doors the trajectory certain posters are on.

Beasty

Moved from Feedback. Forum specific issues are dealt with in Help Desk

Beasty

I've just spent the past 2 hours and 10 minutes dealing with the "sh*te"

We get to it. It may not be immediately (I was on a 6.40am flight out of London this morning and have since driven 200km or so home (and spent the whole of yesterday travelling), but we get to it all

CGI_Livia_Soprano

It’s unfortunate but this site has become overrun with bigotry towards immigrants, transphobia, Islamophobia, and racism. Usually it’s veiled under “concerns about identity” and other dog whistles but it has corrupted every corner of the site, not just Current Affairs.

Sadly posters such as myself who challenge these views are treated with contempt by the boards.ie moderation team who believe that a quiet life without any “conflict” is better than standing up to hateful dogwhistling and coded racism. They would rather someone spew bigoted bile in a manner that is perceived to be “polite” than another poster challenging them in a heated manner.

I have seen good poster after good poster being run off this site because they have been banned or threatened to be banned by moderators aghast that someone isn’t polite to racists. (One example is @RobbieTheRobber )

It is systemic on this site now that bigotry is tolerated. It’s been a slow creep over the past few years but it’s simply part of the culture now: boards.ie is a right-wing hate site.

Furze99

A good general guide is if you can't stand the heat in the kitchen, then get out. Rather too many here can't or won't tolerate that others simply have different views. They take umbrage and off to the mods with them.

HBC08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120533365#Comment_120533365

Lol!

Keep fighting the good fight.

questioner22

I don't bother with CA much. Last time I was there, someone reported me for making what they thought was a transphobic remark but completely misinterpreted it. That was bad enough, but the mod seemingly agreed that it was transphobic (or did not respond when I asked what their reasoning was). 

There are people in there waiting to pounce on anyone who doesn't partake in whatever alternate reality they've constructed, because anyone who's not in that same reality must by default be totally against their existence - this is the attitude. And so anything said that even touches on an issue remotely related to trans is pounced on and gone through with a fine tooth comb it seems by some of this group. Some are just totally paranoid. This would be fine if the thread was in the LGBT forum, but in CA this agenda should not be so pushed so much as if nobody else can speak on the issue or have their own view on it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120533365#Comment_120533365

It’s unfortunate but this site has become overrun with bigotry towards immigrants, transphobia, Islamophobia, and racism. Usually it’s veiled under “concerns about identity” and other dog whistles but it has corrupted every corner of the site, not just Current Affairs.

The poster is not wrong about this. ^

hayrabit

what happened to the "Balbriggan Postcode Gangs" Thread @Beasty ?

the one in the, seemingly, poorly moderated CA forum 😏

not as much as a : "too much bickering - thread closed" . Just disappeared without a by-your-leave 🙂

plenty of #inferred racism. those who (presumably) wanted no discussion on the topic calling out others as racists etc etc, or wanting to goad someone into a reaction #inferring racism that wasn't there, from others' posts 😴

were ya too lazy trying to dance on a pinhead trying to find an excuse to close the thread? that's if it was you, and am guessing it was

figured here's as good as any spot to bring the topic up - seeing as there's plenty of eyes/posts on this thread

sorry mods if this is the wrong place

☺️

Larbre34

All of Boards is subject to the situation described in this thread.

Boards is a shadow of it's one time self, which gathered pace since the platform change.

Gatling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120533933#Comment_120533933

They are wrong just like their generalisation sig ,

CGI_Livia_Soprano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120533933#Comment_120533933

I am absolutely dead right about it. Maybe I’m being too hard on the moderators but there are a lot of bad actors on here.

This forum is flooded with American style whataboutery and bad faith gotcha questioning. The same old braindead, stupid arguments put forth by the usual useful idiots you see online.

”Oh you think trans people should be treated with dignity and respect, do you? What about transwomen in women’s sport and prisons?”

So stupid.

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120533959#Comment_120533959

The OP is now permanently sitebanned. When doing the banning I inadvertently deleted all their content. Unfortunately although their "comments" were retrievable, all their "discussions" (ie threads started) remained deleted. I suspect this is another anomaly of this platform, but I have not noticed that before

The OP clearly wanted to stir things from a racial perspective and I had already deleted a number of their posts before sitebanning them. They have caused problems throughout their time on the site. I suspect they were a re-reg of a banned user, but although there were one or two links I could not pin them down enough to confirm that they were a re-reg. It was a case of allowing them enough rope and today was when it all came to a head. I had closed the thread with a note explaining there were a load of reports to work through before I dealt with the OP

I am posting this to explain what happened, but am not going to comment further on that user or the banning. It is not something for anyone to discuss further in this thread

Dial Hard

I don't post in CA. I don't engage with the "Wokeism of the Day" stuff in AH. I generally just avoid anything I know is going to act as a flare for certain factions on either side of the extremes of debate. But honestly, how any of you can sit there and say with a straight face that there isn't a *very* vocal right-leaning and seriously bigoted contingent on here - and that you're somehow being mistreated - is actually fcuking hilarious.

Give your heads a wobble, lads. Seriously.

I've asked to have my account deleted. Done. This place used to be fun but I'd rather not be associated with it anymore.

Jequ0n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120534226#Comment_120534226

That’s sad. We will miss your positive attitude and friendly posting style.

pjohnson

CA waa always a holding area for the trolls.

The prison bars thing is a weird feature. 99% of the time the bars are just replaced with an outright ban.

As by coincidence a new user pops up.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120533365#Comment_120533365

Boards isnt a right wing hate site.

Theres an element on boards like that but also as posts with opposite views and posts challenging such views. If boards was such a site those posters wouldnt be sanctioned by mods and or banned. They are.

But I think the mods need to be wiser to them and their whistling tactics and constant low level trolling and bad faith posting - especially in AH.

Also such tactics of low level trolling not just used by those on the right.

looksee

But I think the mods need to be wiser to them and their whistling tactics and constant low level trolling and bad faith posting - especially in AH.

Most of the time the mods are aware, but if they actioned every dog whistle - which by its nature is an indirect and often superficially harmless looking comment - and every bit of similarly debateable low level trolling, then you have posters whining about restrictive and officious moderating.

This is not a recent development reflecting the decline of Boards, there has always been aggressive, destructive, trolling posting, though there were more mods to deal with it. Then the big complaint was about heavy-handed modding.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120534188#Comment_120534188

This sums it up. Why people bother with the never ending refugee or green policy threads now is beyond me. A few forums are still ok though.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120533987#Comment_120533987

Yes but part of the reason is that veteran After Hours posters simply got old but it hasn't sunk in yet.

What happens to someone who was a fun-loving, leftish but not boring-about-politics, spontaneous person in their 20s when they hit 38 or 40? They have become so acclimated to professional office culture that they are now a scold, managing other people's social attitudes in their spare time (their spare time!)

Of course they still think they are fun, youthful people and don't recognise their own staidness.

Then of course they clash with all the right-leaning people who have fled to internet forums - including ex-posters of politics.ie after that site was ruined - because official rl political discourse carefully excludes non-left opinions. Tedious arguments ensue.

In general political discourse is too bitter. The American-influenced "liberal" and "conservative" political tendencies both encompass a lot of vengefulness, in practise, and that is reflected on boards too. Yet many people become addicted to the tit-for-tat.

Usually when a person says they don't care about politics or they hate politics I take that as a good sign, since what they often mean is they dont like resentment-fuelled bickering.

However many boards posters say they don't like bickering but they also expect perfect conformity to their own left-wing opinions, which they will insert into any and every discussion, including After Hours threads (and later complain that AH has become politicised).

Lastly, I would just say that a person who speaks like a Human Resources Officer would speak in all their interactions with people in rl will rarely receive any pushback. Only when that person has left the room will people say what they really think. The left-leaning AH poster takes this surface reflection as meaning that "everyone" agrees with them.

Think logically: if polls continually show that 70% of Irish people have doubts about immigration (and they do), and you and two of your friends walk into a room which contains 7 other people then... Yeah.

growleaves

As for the prison bars, to me it carries about as much real stigma as being sent to jail during a game of Monopoly.

Thelonious Monk

I think no matter what way you look at it the site is now a very conservative leaning site when it comes to politics. It's in its final days. Just look at younger sites like reddit ireland if you are worried about how right leaning and anti everything ireland has become, it gives you at least a little hope.

Oh and I'm 42 and feel like I have nothing in common with most of the other aulfellas who post here.

bucketybuck

If you want to find the real problem just look in your feedback threads, the absolute worst posters are always front and centre here. Everybody knows who they are.

The real problem is the declining membership. When the numbers are high these busybody trolls are drowned out by the noise. As the numbers drop then they become louder, and a dozen or so middle aged men start to become the only thing anybody ever hears. Shouting down anything that goes against their own valueless opinions.

These people are smothering discussion in what should be the most popular forum.

cdeb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120535200#Comment_120535200

Agree with that. CGI_Livia in this thread is a good example. So they post stuff like "It’s unfortunate but this site has become overrun with bigotry towards immigrants, transphobia, Islamophobia, and racism" here, which sounds horrible, but actually it's nonsense. Really posters like that just mean that people disagree with their views - and too often, when someone challenges their views, they quietly slip away for a while.

I do agree with you that posters who just shout down things they don't agree with don't help discussion. They're not interested in discussion. Too often these days people are unable to even remotely countenance a view that doesn't align with their own (and not just on boards)

super_furry

I find myself visiting and using boards.ie less and less and the main reason is the naked bigotry and racism that has taken over the site in some of it's most prominent forums. Current Affairs is probably the most prominent alright.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120535255#Comment_120535255

It's not nonsense, and its rife on this site, and in particular on both CA and AH. Bigotry is bigotry.

Those who claim they want to have constant discussions about their bigoted views, are not interested in real discussion. They just want to spread and feed the flames of their own hatred against the target of their particular bias. They're not interested in listening to other points of view or working to change anything.

And as soon as you call them out on it bigotry, they pout about "censorship" and being shut down.

There should be no oxygen given to such blatant racism, an example of which was the thread mentioned earlier. None. It should be possible for adults to have discussions without being racist. Example, the recent thread.

"Youths running amok in Dublin suburb with machetes" could have been a legitimate topic for discussion, but once the OP framed it as "African youths running amok in Dublin suburb with machetes", well, that puts a whole different slant on it and its fairly obvious to anyone with half a brain what the OP was truly getting at.

And I'll give credit to Beasty, (though god knows I've disagreed and clashed with him myself in the past), he is probably the only mod I can see who does actually act on reports of transphobic and racist posts.

cdeb

There's nonsense on both sides I'm sure.

But let's not pretend it's all one-way. CGI is one of the worst posters I've encountered for that. If you disagree with CGI on trans issues, for example, you're transphobic. But try discuss the implications of the Tavistock scandal and CGI vanishes. So when you say "They're not interested in listening to other points of view or working to change anything.", that applies to posters like CGI too. (And not just them, though they'd be the main one I'd have encountered here)

So there's an irony in CGI's complaints here.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120535383#Comment_120535383

Lets not pretend that Boards.ie is not a very transphobic site in general. The level of transphobia and transphobic posting allowed here is off the scale.

cdeb

Which, interestingly, is exactly the sort of internal bullying stance which was reported by a significant number of NHS staff in the Tavistock GIDS unit which was shut down last year for some appalling practices.

You do seem to be one of the posters who tries to leverage "phobia" into a post as often as possible and think that's a point. This is the flip side of things I referred to.

There's nonsense on both sides. Leave the mods at it. They're by and large doing their best. Posters - and people in general - should try engage more in open debate rather than think anyone who disagrees with you is phobic or something or other.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120535355#Comment_120535355

I reported the “African kids with machetes” as racist when it had three posts. I came back an hour or two later and it had around a hundred posts, lots of racism and some good people standing up to racism.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120534114#Comment_120534114

And all the questions about women’s sports and women’s prisons generally coming from people who never gave the slightest toss about conditions in women’s prisons or support for women’s sports previously.

eggy81

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120533365#Comment_120533365

Soo dramatic. Jaysus.

Jequ0n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120535407#Comment_120535407

It really isn’t unless you chose to interpret any different opinion as a phobia to shut down the discussion.

There are extreme posters who would fall into the right/ left wing definition but the majority of posters are not.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120535508#Comment_120535508

I am one of those posters who calls it what it is. That truly bothers some people. (Their problem, not mine).

Transphobia is transphobia. Racism is racism. And so on. Why shy away from calling it what is is?

If you can't do that, then attempting to have any kind of debate is far from open. It is meaningless and dishonest from the start.

Gatling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120535637#Comment_120535637

But in the absolute majority of cases the transphobia, Islamophobia, homophobic, racist is only ever used to either shut down a discussion or to silence people,and it's the same cohort of posters in the same discussions ,who the run to feedback when they don't get a quota of mod actions on a thread

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120535568#Comment_120535568

I've followed women's tennis and camogie for years but never claimed to care about sports like women's soccer or women's rugby and still don't.

My own contributions to those threads were to point out sexually dimorphic differences in muscle mass, upper body strength, torso strength (when you go to hit a ball with your arm, the power in your arms comes from your torso (if you are hitting properly)). You had no answer to the studies I posted.

All people have an interest in women not being endangered. Just because left-wing double-talkers claim women's sports as one of their special political projects is neither here nor there. I wouldn't like to see men's soccer defunded to give the money to women's soccer - but questions about basic safey on the pitch precede that.

Nicola Sturgeon lost her leadership of the SNP over the prison issue. How many ordinary Scots are subject experts in prison conditions though? Few I'd imagine. But commonsensical objections to imprisoning women in the same cell as a man won out.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120535658#Comment_120535658

Well, I am only speaking for myself.

I only make reports when I think the post is serious enough that it crosses a line and deserves mod attention. Then I will report it, and I will continue to do so, because like I said - in my opinion such bigotry should receive no oxygen.

Note, as a poster we never know which mod is going to respond to a report, or how they will choose to act on a reported post. Often we never know.

I personally have never made a thread in feedback, and I think this is the first time I have joined in on a thread here. Maybe I will do so more often.

cdeb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120535637#Comment_120535637

But the Tavistock case - where a woman successfully sued the NHS for not questioning her enough when she said she was trans - shows exactly why people who "call it what it is" and label any divergence from that view as "phobic" are actually potentially extremely damaging.

Are people who say that "You don't get to be a man just by identifying as one" not also calling it what is? So we need a better debate than to label people as phobic. Which people on both sides - including yourself, it would seem - are increasingly incapable of having.

Edit - I don't mean to drag this thread into the Tavistock debate again, I should add. I do want to point out that people who dismiss those who have different views to them about certain topics as "phobic", and back it up with guff like "I am one of those posters who calls it what it is. That truly bothers some people. Their problem, not mine" are every bit as much to blame for the issues in CA, such as they are.

hayrabit

well, they were "African Youths"

even if they were Irish born and bred (maybe they are) and the Gardaí came by - after the fact - and clocked an innocent bystander (likely onlooker) and asked him what happened. If he did his best to not say they were "coloured" (the Media - going on what they're told by GHQ - never mention the suspect/s' colour in their press releases, when giving out details of a suspect) individuals, and just said: "a bunch of Dublin scangers (if Irish accents) - couldn't get a good look at them as they had hoodies on.,,, No, I didn't know any of them.!"

do yis not think the Guard would ask the witness questions re the ethnicity of the perps?

I think they would - but don't dare mention it on here

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120535706#Comment_120535706

I am not and have never been involved in any discussion about the Tavistock case, so I don't know why you keep bringing this up to me. I also didn't join this thread to get into a debate about what constitutes transphobia.

Maybe you should start another thread on that, though as a rule, I actually try to avoid threads I know are or will become openly transphobic. I don't actually visit Boards with the purpose of looking for bigots to argue with. Though I will if I have to, but as a rule I prefer not to give them the oxygen they want.

And often you can tell from the tone of the opening post, what kind of response the OP is looking for. I don't engage in the "Wokeism" or "Sports" type threads for that very reason. But sometimes, transphobia or racism is simply impossible to avoid, given how prevalent both have become across this forum.

Look at the recent AH thread on the protests at Paul Murphy's home as an example. Posters simply couldn't stick to debating the rights or wrongs of protesting outside a public representative's private home, (a valid topic for discussion) without dragging in his and his partner's choice to raise their baby as gender neutral into the "discussion".

Notably, once a mod stepped in and told posters to stop making comments about the child, the thread dried up.

I have previously suggested that Boards should consider a feature where posters could put whole threads on ignore, so they wouldn't appear, in the same way they can block unpleasant posters. I would really like that, but I suppose it would lose Boards a lot of clicks.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120535669#Comment_120535669

I'm not going to repeat the whole debate again here. I'll just ask you how many posts you made in your posting history about conditions in women's prisons before the trans bandwagon appeared for you to hop onboard?

I don't follow Scottish politics closely, but I thought the Sturgeon thing had to do with the issues that caused her husband to be arrested?

bucketybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120535407#Comment_120535407

This is the sort of rubbish that is driving people away.

Boards isn't transphobic or racist or whatever, the problem is that certain people imagine transphobia and racism behind every word and are very loud in crying about it.

Perhaps there would be more discussion in general if a loud minority stopped dragging everything back to their pet topics.