What happened to Boards.ie - genuine question

CGI_Livia_Soprano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120760618#Comment_120760618

You’re dead right.

May I only ask that you keep the evidence of their violent fantasies available to view? I cannot ever bring myself to enter a debate where I somehow need to “prove” that I am the victim of same again, as if anyone would make that up. 😔

hayrabit

"What happened to Boards.ie?"

say #"water is wet" - get warning

when poster have a sig what reads "Ireland is full of .....phobic ...ists" , and this is allowed and encouraged... for several months; well tis no wonder folke are staying away in droves ;)

other reasons too.. Site functionality and t'likes

but mainly delusionally partisan woke mods , IMHO

#admit a slight exaggeration there 😛

:)

nachouser

I suppose one possible way to make things a little better would be to prevent CA threads showing up on the first page. I would imagine that would sort a lot of problems. Then just be very direct about the kind of things that can be posted in AH.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120760916#Comment_120760916

There is a thread on After Hours openly discussing the charter of another forum (conspiracy theories).

Silly lighthearted threads that should be on AH shut down without reason. Threads that obviously should be in CA alllowed to continue on AH.

These are 2 of the major forums on the site and this drift is allowed to happen.

This would never have happened before the upgrade.

So many moderate reasonable posters have been lost there needs to be much clearer active moderation to restore order that before happened naturally.

2Greyfoxes

We had the answer in the first response, yet this has now created 7 pages of discussion... most of which seems to agree that Boards.ie and Forums in general are a dying thing.

Sure, Forum's popularity as a medium is most definitely down, and it faces a lot of issues with internet 2.0, but ai think they'll still be used in years to come.

That said plenty of Forums will fade in to obscurity, as the greying if the Internet continues. Those of us who experienced the early days of the internet, are no longer spring chickens.

Risteard81

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120760945#Comment_120760945

More moderation isn't required. The moderators and admins are the overwhelming majority of the problem with this site, especially one whose handle rhymes with Peasty.

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761033#Comment_120761033

Ceasty and desisty?

Overheal

Yeasty?

nachouser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120760945#Comment_120760945

I suppose I'm thinking of a more holistic approach. Back in the day, PI didn't turn up on the front page for a good reason. Now, it frequently does and it's rammed with trolls and so on. It should be there for people who genuinely need it and so it should not appear on the page. Same with CA. It was originally designed to take some of the slack off mods because trolls etc. But now it's pretty much the norm. CA is the new AH. And so on.

Folks complaining about echo chambers - grand. Take them off the front pages and they can all have their own echo chambers and I'll not notice.

I don't go looking to be aggrieved at something, but when I log on here for a bit of craic and see someone race-baiting, trans-baiting, etc, well, sometimes it is hard to not get involved. So - take that away from me (and others) on the front page and my boards.ie experience would probably be much better. The search engine is a piece of cr*p so I'm not going to go looking for someone or something on CA that would actively annoy me.

Beasty

Risteard81 threadbanned

suvigirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120759773#Comment_120759773

Well the forum games threads were great craic, everyone got along and had fun. The where are you thread is a nice thread where everyone gets along. There's nothing wrong with a bit of comraderie and maybe meeting/hanging out withike minded individuals, who enjoy the same things.

Actually just going on the internet for arguments sounds like a ridiculous thing to do......

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761366#Comment_120761366

Not ridiculous to everyone.

If you're not into heated discussion you don't have to engage in it.

@suvigirl

Discussions though @suvigirl. It's a discussion forum - you were discussing the sentencing of the woman who stabbed that man to death.

satguy

The owners might have been more hands on back in the early days,, the site grew,, it was a great place for discussion.

It did not matter what your view was, you could come on here and have a discussion,, it is what a forum does, and the only reason we have/need forums.

But the owners started taking more of a back seat, outside money and advertisers got involved,, and soon discussion was stifled the best Mods moved elsewhere. And a forum with no discussion is just a mouth piece for those with one view.

Now the wrong Mods are in the driving seat,, we all know who they are,, they pile in on new blood and drive them away,, and in the end, all that is left is a one sided slanted view, with no room for discussion.

Necro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761366#Comment_120761366

Forum Games died alright which was sad. Before the change there was a brilliant community there and it was a bit of craic but unfortunately the new Vanilla format is no good for running any of the games played there.

Another place sprung up for a bit to try and hold that community sense together, it's still running but very quiet these days. The traffic Boards provided for new game sign ups was vital to keep things ticking so it sadly seems to be trickling out of steam now too.

suvigirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761407#Comment_120761407

Yes, I'm not saying there's something wrong with discussion, just there's nothing wrong with posters getting along in a thread where they agree with each other.

Savetheplanet

Out of interest was the reason a thread ban was imposed earlier because a poster had a dig at a certain Mod? I can't seem to see any other reason.

satguy

The site is dying on its feet,, new blood instead of being encouraged,, is rounded on, made to feel small, their posts deleted.

In the end, posters move elsewhere, and boards as a site, stagnates, and as I have said earlier,, a forum with no discussion is a dead forum.

Some of us old timers might still call in from time to time to have a read, but without new blood,, all we see is a dying site..

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761087#Comment_120761087

I agree.

What used to be only in AH is now all over. Pretty much drowned out everything else.

Savetheplanet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761671#Comment_120761671

Not at all strange, since I registered again last year I noticed it happens a lot these days. I wonder why all the other posters who put a take on a certain handle were not banned also. I better shut up now....

Goldengirl

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

Old , pathetic and balding?🤔

I am old ish now too , so not casting stones at anyone here at all ;)

Felt this thread was not for me initially as only here since 2015.

I had to get a lot of earlier posts deleted first couple of years because new to social media I had posted some identifying posts in my naivete and was getting into a bit of bother... same name always though. Thought I was going to leave but liked the more informative threads so stayed on .

I would consider myself moderate , slightly left leaning , but have been characterised as an awful lot more here over the years !

I avoid a lot of the ca threads but it's very hard not to row in when you see some of the stuff being posted over and over . So I tend to give my opinion and move on because I don't want to be getting into it ...but not always , I do admit. But there are some threads that would be complete echochambers if more moderate posters don't get involved. So that's my excuse !

Its hard to believe that posters get away with saying some of the stuff they do, so to say moderation is heavy is not true .

There appears to be an awful lot of right wing based threads with armies of right wing supporters , some who say nothing but thank their heroes no matter how nasty and offensive their posts , and then report anyone else . No matter how moderate or reasoned your post is it just doesn't count to a lot of these posters. You are just fodder for trolling and namecalling if you don't toe the line .

(One thing I won't do , lol.)

Surely the whole point of a discussion forum is that people will have differing opinions , but at least read another post and see what you agree with and what you don't and discuss , so the debate can move in some direction.

What happens in the end is a circular argument, posters insulting one another and trotting out the same canards over and over , people get frustrated with it and start bickering , and then the bans start . That's when the modding can get heavy but it is hard for mods not to delete whole reams of posts or ban all the posters bickering when it gets like that .

I was heavily into the Covid forum during the pandemic as it affected me personally and professionally.

I got some nasty attacks ..one in particular after somebody was banned and a poster reregistered to post a death threat , to me personally.

It didn't stop me posting as I just felt I would not be bullied or intimidated by some creep , but it wasn't nice ( understatement)

I am back to more general posting now and see some who I would have disagreed with over Covid are reasonable posters , and even if we don't agree we have moved on .

I know a lot of people including my family are surprised I bother to engage at all as they liken boards to other aggressive social media. Since the changeover with all the mistakes over personal data and loss of mods I am wondering myself at this stage.

But I think its improving slowly again . More mods taken on so less fighting going on.

Some great posters here who are a joy to read and make me laugh and think about stuff I might not think about day to day .

Isn't that what its for ?

People that have stuck with it have it in their DNA probably...;)

gormdubhgorm

What happened to boards ? You all got old and the next generation took over.

satguy

The word Troll should be banned on boards..

It is too easy to call a poster a troll, when is post does not conform to the accepted narrative.

Too many people are using this to keep discussion at bay ....

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761403#Comment_120761403

Ironically I think that's the point of spamming the forums with vexatious arguments. Drown out all other opinions, by sheer weight of posts. Some threads are 50-70% the same poster. There is no room for anyone else's opinion.

satguy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761721#Comment_120761721

Yes,, This is what the Mods should be looking at,, Some threads are 50-70% the same poster and drown out all other opinions.

Look,, I have said earlier,, some Mods here are killing the site,,, we all know who they are,, and a place that once was a discussion forum, is now dead.

Slutmonkey57b

I think there are a number of reasons. And I was here when it was the Cloud Boards. (Well, I was listening to other people talking to each other in computer labs about threads they were reading.)

• When this site started out the internet was new and the rules were being made up as people went along. Therefore, it naturally had a more freewheeling element to it.
  • Back then, the real-world implications might be a friend of a friend saying in the pub to another mate "he's an awful eejit, did you see what he posted yesterday" and then moving on with their day. Perhaps someone might say it to your face and then you'd have a think about whether they were right.
  • Making a funny or entertaining post was seen as the most valuable input anyone could have. Nobody expected to be solving the world's problems on a forum dedicated to quake and quake-adjacent nonsense.
  • "I'd never post that today" can be true for "I currently don't think that" and also "I don't think that's unreasonable but I know that it would have real-world consequences if it got out because context is no longer a thing".
• "It was better in my day" is standard practice for all human interactions, and the internet is no different.
• Everything fades over time
• Intolerance
  • "Yeah you're right the far right transphobic racists have taken over" / "Yeah the woke mob won't even let you open your mouth". Not what I mean.
  • As with many things, an American "2 sides" philosophy has been imported into the country - one side (mostly) by the youffs and one (mostly) by their elders. Both sides are naturally antagonistic and assume that the other side are stupid or willfully ignorant. The truth is that everyone is stupid and willfully ignorant and the problem is actually that people have forgotten that fact.
  • People need to accept that they don't know as much as they think they do, and maybe other people have a point.
  • Everything has a sliding scale. However the scale is becoming narrower and narrower as people buy into the idea that they have "turf to defend" from the other side. Thinking about accepting the idea that it's possible that you personally might not know everything and that someone commenting from another part of the scale might have a valid point isn't actually a bad thing. It doesn't mean that you've immediately "conceded" and the rabid extremists at the far other end of the scale have "won".
• Selling out to Daft was the first downward move because a commercial focus was required to come in (in fairness, the admins couldn't continue paying out of their pockets forever).
  • The next downward move was the UI "reorganisation" which hid all the forums. Don't underestimate usability and discoverability. I still can't find my way around using the "Topics" because it's not at all obvious where something should be.
  • The vanilla downgrade was a catastrophic event. I still don't know if admins have produced actual figures but there is no way that the site being down for a month and then effectively unusable for another month didn't kill the momentum of whatever shadow of itself boards had been at the time.

There is however a simple fix.

• The site should go back to actively shunning posters who aren't actually funny. It should be the case that the funny posters are brought to the fore and the dry shites are buried or permabanned.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761705#Comment_120761705

It's hard to disguise very specific and repeated behavior.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761704#Comment_120761704

Seems to be going well ..

satguy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761911#Comment_120761911

Great Post,, you are here since 2002,, and no matter what your post count is,, the joined in 2002 should carry weight.

Back in the day it was fun,, tongue in cheek,, clever .. Those same tongue in cheek posters are now called Trolls,, and have posts deleted. How did we come to this..????

Where is all the fun gone,, Dads Army was a fun show,, but one of the characters was a killjoy,, and ran the Church Hall like it was his own business ...

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761705#Comment_120761705

It’s backseat modding and you should report when it happens.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761860#Comment_120761860

What do you want done about this? Have mods enforce how many people for one side of an issues debate there are allowed to be? If a dozen users want to converse with another 1 or 2 users, and those 1 or 2 users want to reply to each of those users posts; so what? Isn’t that the purpose of discussion? How do you anticipate enforcing any such thing