What happened to Boards.ie - genuine question

CGI_Livia_Soprano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120756904#Comment_120756904

What happened?

osarusan

The ratio of decent poster:dickhead poster shifted in favour of the dickhead, and has never righted itself, and likely never will.

Flinty997

Other forums I use are still as active as always. I don't agree boards has changed solely due to outside influences.

The upgrade was a disaster. That was all internal. Since then many moderate members and informative long term posters were driven from the site, by certain behaviors. It's mostly internal issues.

spurious

IMO, the 'upgrade' killed it. People couldn't find threads, moderators couldn't moderate, terrible.

People tried for a while then thought 'meh' and went elsewhere.

Necro

Yeah the passage of time and people preferring their internet fixes in bite sized versions is the main reason. The world moved on, Boards (and other forum based sites) didn't. The Vanilla move will eventually sadly prove to be the death knell though. Haemorrhaging a huge amount of the user base and even volunteers who helped make it run is not something you come back from.

The complaints about moderation are whatever. If you look up threads from 15 years ago you'd have people complaining about that back then.

I can't comment on Boards pre 2015 as I wasn't a poster then. There are a few things I've noticed from that point to now. The user base, the moderation, the changing times, the different tech used.

Boards built itself from a community which means there will be dynamics among the user base and a consistency of posters. It wasn't transient. We built relationships and for some of us this place meant an awful lot.

To be sanctioned or locked out of where you feel you belong can be quite devastating even if it's "just" an online forum. Bitterness can grow, you might come back with an agenda of hate towards the place, sow seeds of discontent among others. That is one issue.

The other is less "you" and more "them"; moderation. A constant thorn in the side of so many people here. Yes it's impossible to please all of the people all of the time but it's not great no matter the leaning.

It took me a while to see it. There's an arrogance in some mods, ego and power and I'm in charge so cut it out. It's a horrible way to look after a discussion. I can almost taste the kick some get from closing a thread. There is a lack of diplomacy and emotional intelligence among some here. All a heavy handed approach does is get peoples backs up.

There is a fine line between garnering the respect of the community and being just and understanding but it is possible. There is no place for petulance, arrogance, personal opinions and control when moderating.

The internet is a different place to how it used to be. Discussion boards aren't popular and we here are getting older. I'm sure there are things we could try to move Boards in to a more relevant space. It would be nice to have more open debate for example and not be scared to look deeply at difficult issues. Maybe the sense of community which once was could become a sort of USP of the place.

I don't know. I'm not an ideas person. Boards doesn't mean what it used to for me because the veil has been lifted. I'd be sad to see it's demise all the same because it did give me so much once upon a time.

mikeybhoy

Definitely got much worse after the whole Vanilla debacle

mikeybhoy

Too many left wing msm moderators.

kirk.

Threads on current affairs are punch and Judy mostly not worth getting involved in, it would give ya a headache reading them

Other threads overzealous moderators pounce nuking threads

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120757593#Comment_120757593

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758170#Comment_120758170

There is a definite narrative on this site that allows posters with the accepted opinions to post freely.

If you're a Biden fan, can freely accept that a person can be any gender they want regardless of biology, think that Ireland can accommodate endless numbers of migrants and refugees etc, you have the "right" opinions.

There is a clear bias in how posters are moderated if they happen to have the wrong opinions though, and it's perfectly fine for others to call these posters a Trump lover, racist, bigot, transphobic or whatever, no matter how well thought out or non-discrimatory their debate is.

Turning Boards into an echo chamber will only hasten its demise.

EmmetSpiceland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120755988#Comment_120755988

It’s quite bizarre that users are going on about a “bias” towards more the compassionate users, the ones who don’t hate, aren’t bigots and accept people for who they are.

Anyone with half a brain can see that the, more, angry, hate-filled users have the run of that forum.

Some of them even set up their own little anti-boards hate site because they felt they couldn’t hate on trans people, immigrants and climate change enough. A place where they can make veiled death threats/murder fantasies against users of this site with impunity.

tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758286#Comment_120758286

All true but it was way more biased ten years ago, the liberal bias was chronic back in the day

tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758341#Comment_120758341

Emmet, I’ve always been a secret admirer of you’re deep compassionate nature, I wanted to come clean about that . I also admire the sincere compassion of others on the forum but I don’t want to embarrass them as they are more the shy kind

It’s mostly populated with tiresome old middle-aged men who think being contrary about everything is a personality trait. Smacks of low testosterone and crushed dreams. Not an entertaining read for the most part as a result.

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758391#Comment_120758391

The constant "middle-aged men" references are indeed tiresome.

Flaneur OBrien

I never saw the need to entertain non liberal types on boards. The internet is a big place, I’m sure there’s a forum fFor the less tolerant out there.

As for it being an echo chamber? Honestly, so what? As people have already said this site was far more biased in the 2000’s than it is now. There are so many users nowadays that would have been banned in 2005 for their opinions.

Another thing is people don’t venture out of forums as much as they used to. So you could have an argument with someone on politics, but later that day be thanking them for the pizza base recipe they posted. You can look at people’s posting history to see how wedded they are to certain fora.

And flamebaiting is allowed now. I remember that was a rule across fora. Don’t post stuff you know is going to wind people up. Obviously incredibly subjective, but that’s where boards really did show it’s true lefty/liberal bias, which has been eroded over the last 10 years.

AyeGer

From my point of view I used to spend a lot of time on boards from around 2008 till covid times. I used it mainly on a desktop or laptop. Now that I mainly use my phone for social media I’ve migrated to Twitter.

I still use boards and hope it survives but the changeover has effected it negatively imo.

I also noticed it became more difficult to have a genuine discussion, people learned to jump to handy labels in an effort to stifle discussion or to shut down a poster or thread.

freshpopcorn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758407#Comment_120758407

It normally includes balding.

It's getting fairly old and pathetic at this stage.

magicbastarder

does everyone reckon the first few years they were on boards were the golden years? not sure what happened with my stated join date, but IIRC i joined in 2000 or 2001; and was banned from one or two subforums in very short order. one was for telling a stupid joke that would probably just earn a mod warning now. people have always claimed moderation is over the top, and i'm not saying that cannot be true, but once you're moderating you're always going to have complaints. and it can be a tricky tightrope; i remember when i first became a mod, it became obvious how some people used you as a target, knowing just how far they could go without actually tripping any wires. was an interesting learning curve.

...Ghost...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758508#Comment_120758508

I haven't seen that reference often, but I know the types who use it. The same ones who defer to the use of the word bigot, phobe, *trump lover, or whatever else is trending in the Biden-sphere. The aim is to shut down the conversation, because they can't handle their world view being questioned. The facts have been a brick wall they can't overcome. These are people who think it's good for children to identify as cats, wolves, or moons. If that's not some form of mental illness, then I don't know what is.

*I don't like Trump....I don't like Biden. Both are terrible for the US and the World....but at least one can remember what he had for Breakfast.

freshpopcorn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758554#Comment_120758554

Just personally I think one of the main offenders for using it is just a wind up merchant and want people to react.

Also, they like paying thr victim card and seeing people get banned and turning their backs on Boards.ie.

I.R.Y.E.D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758341#Comment_120758341

I mentioned on another thread when you brought that site up and the threats/fantasies etc, that some regular patients of my cousin who is a psychiatric nurse, who often rant about the topics you mention during their visits happen to be members of it and use it, gscript, bitchute etc to prove their rants are the real truth to my cousin, and that the members of this site who they post threats/fantasies about are most likely safe enough from them in the majority if they were anything to go by.

From what I remember one or two members here got their knickers in a twist about me saying that. Strange thing to get wound up about, telling someone that in all likely hood that their personal safety is OK.

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758580#Comment_120758580

Your cousin isn't very professional if she's telling such fanciful stories about her patients.

Emmet has stated he refuses to read that site as he doesn't want to "give it clicks", yet he seems to know a lot about it, and you just happen to be a cousin of a psychiatric nurse who knows the details of her patients' online personas and posting habits?

🤔🤔🤔🤔

tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758391#Comment_120758391

I’d say the low testosterone is more prevalent a condition amongst the priggish progressives

blade1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120753616#Comment_120753616

🤔🤔

I.R.Y.E.D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758596#Comment_120758596

Nothing unprofessional about it, especially if they don't identify them personally, more a comment on where their head is at and what's feeding it. Same as you would read in a study.

As for knowing their patients online habits as I said they provided them as evidence that their statements were the truth.

Had similar experiences when I worked with different types of addicts when they were at rock bottom.

But again bit strange for someone to be getting their knickers in a twist about someone telling members of this site that their personal safety will probably be OK.

Larbre34

Terrible management happened to it. Catastrophic technical changes.

It only exists now in zombie form. If there was any sort of subscription involved in posting here, the site would be long gone.

There are murder fantasies on the other site?

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758628#Comment_120758628

It's not the same as a 'study'. Any study, report, review etc would be compiled for statistical data or governance purposes.

A psychiatric nurse discussing their patients with a cousin, where and what they post, the nature of their illness in relation to whether or not they pose a threat to an anonymous name on Boards is unprofessional.

Assuming, of course, it's actually true.

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120758625#Comment_120758625

It that a chrome extension or the enhancement suite? Boards doesn't have the option built in like on the old platform.