What would you do if you owned the site?

Pintman Paddy Losty

Imagine you've found yourself in a situation where you've come in to a good bit of money, and for whatever reason you decide to buy boards.ie.

What changes would you make. What direction would you take your site? How would you breathe new life in to a site from a bygone era?

gifted

Id lay off the drink first anyway.

Jim_Hodge

I'd look at the traffic and seeing, as right now, there were posts in over 50 distinct threads in the past 20 minutes I'd run a campaign to sell more advertising. What would you do yourself?

Ubbquittious

I would take the site off whatever hosting it's on now and throw it onto a Raspberry Pi running phpBB because shur it's getting feck all traffic anyway.

Slideways

I doubt you would need “a good bit of money”

The site is worth 4/5s of fûck all.

You could say Boards.ie were trend setters, they took a thriving website and did a Twitter on it long before Elon came up with that idea

jj880

Id go at it awful and very hard with a few devs to create a top quality mobile app. Then probably never use the mobile site again.

Gregor Samsa

1. Collect Underpants Buy Boards.ie
2. ????
3. Profit

freshpopcorn

I'd get a function that would allow you to make certain forums invisible!

Jim_Hodge

I'd get rid of posters who constantly complain about the site but still are willing to use it F.O.C.

EmmetSpiceland

First thing I would do would be to give all mods an anonymous account, one they could run along side their “personal” account. I believe this would attract, more normal, users to the job and would eliminate any potential doxxing or attacks by deranged users of this site, or others.

I would, then, set up a “dedicated” forum for the shinnerbots, specifically designated for their whatabouttery and propaganda.

After that it would be another forum, this time designed for the MGTOW types, and the others with clear “issues” with women, just to keep all their odious, and contemptible, opinions away from, more normal, forums like “After Hours”.

Finally, I would remove as much moderation from the “Current Affairs” forum as possible. As “light touch” as possible. Only serious breaches of site-wide rules would be actions. Far too much time is wasted on trying to police the place and actions in there tends to poison the rest of the site when those reprimanded, or banned, scuttle out and infect other areas.

z80CPU

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058321770/what-would-you-do-if-you-owned-the-site

For some reason this reminds me of a text based adventure for the zx spectrum, " Kill YS" where instead of buying out the your sinclair magazine staff, you've killed them all.

Then you have to deal with the clients of the magazine

If I ended up owning boards.ie I'd quickly dump it for what shekles I could get pretty much.

The opinion is already pretty much decided before it is discussed anyway

z80CPU

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121344577#Comment_121344577

A raspberry pi 3 should do.

ancapailldorcha

Frankly, I am amazed the site still exists. I can't imagine that it turns a profit and there are still glaring technical issues on top of features that were lost in the transition from vbulletin to Vanilla.

To answer the OP's question, I'd probably either flog it or keep it going if I could afford it. In the event that I couldn't do either, I'd have to shut it down.

eightieschewbaccy

Probably a large scale consolidation of forums that are rarely used.

Creamy Goodness

I'd put it out of its misery and pull the plug to be honest. It's a shadow of its former self for a multitude of reasons.

People - myself included - would be happier without it and the majority of cesspool discussions that are here.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121346108#Comment_121346108

I'd be sad without it and, without going into detail, I've seen the ugly alternative option to this place.

Creamy Goodness

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121346114#Comment_121346114

So would I, I did work for boards many moons ago (2010-2012) so it has a place in my heart. The alternatives suck but I haven't built an affinity to them like I have checking boards somewhat regularly (dwindling more and more for various reasons).

Would love to turn it back to what it was in the earlier days, small microcosms of life in Ireland. The first place you check for hyper-specific things in Ireland, not to see 500 threads in a week about dole bashing. Which I don't think it's possible to do as those people have grown up and left, moved to other platforms like fb/instagram/whatsapp etc.

jj880

Definitely keep it for now. The discussion is still good for topics Im interested in. As Ive said in the Welcome To New Boards.ie thread I cant afford to not be on Boards. The amount of great bargains and offers that members post is excellent. Easily saved me 1000+ euro this year.

TheAnalyst_

< admin snip> <user warned>

Strumms

I’d invest in it being less glitchy… if I use boards for 90 minutes a day in total…. You’d lose track of the number of occasions now that it crashes or reboots … usually mid post creation…so I’d try sort that.

otherwise probably different attitudes to moderating certain aspects of it….

its a good site but probably frustrating that certain issues DO at times detract from the user experience…

Ezeoul

I'd switch if off, then switch it on again, and see if that fixed it.

TokTik

1. Advertise it. How are potential new poster meant to know the place exists? More traffic means more advertising income.
2. Cut moderation to abuse, anything illegal, circular conversations and sh1t-posting. Just because someone has a different opinion to a Mod shouldn’t mean they are persona non-grata. Not everyone supports Israel and Russia as examples, and once they are not being abusive etc they should have a voice here.
3. Hire more mods and have a Chinese wall between mods and those above them. I’ve seen people complain on here about disagreeing with a mod action, being told to take it higher, and the same mod is the higher power also. A ridiculous situation.
4. Find a suitable host. Vanilla is horrible.
5. Try to have more varied and interesting AMA guests and have them stickied on top of home page to draw people in.
6. Decent mobile app.
7. Sell it for billions to Elon.

antimatterx

Migrate it off vanilla to a custom build in a modern stack.

BrokenArrows

Id put the website back to its design a few years ago. Whatever they did is absolutely terrible. Impossible to find anything.

highgiant1985

Fire all the mods!

Heighway61

If I bought boards I'd try to get rid of the mod/admin personal fiefdoms. Be that in forums, categories or site wide. Ok, it can help in keeping the plebs under control but it chokes the site. Let the place breathe again

I would merge many of subforums back into their parent forums. Would mean a single post would have more visibility and a better chance of interaction.

I would try to find a way to recognise (or reward) the genuine, helpful, friendly, intelligent posters. Some are pure gold but not appreciated. They are perhaps the site's biggest asset. With the demise of the commercial Talk To forums would some form of community Talk To work? A large number of first posts are in the Feedback forum. People come to the ste with a question or problem. I would look to have an easier path into the site for these first time posters rather than closing or moving the feedback post (eventually) and/or chastising the new poster.

If I owned the site I would bust my balls to try to get Community back. The commercial approach hasn't been a great success. Maybe it's enough of a success for the current owner but as per the op if there was enough financial room I would try to regroup, stabilise, and go again with incremental commercialisation, taking on board the mistakes of the past.

Boards 2010 would probably open a feedback thread for this topic. Boards 2023 will probably close this thread.

Ask the community for advice, particularly with regard to looking for a way to clean up the Vanilla mess as cheaply as possible, but reliably this time.

ruth...less

Increase anonymity.

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121348160#Comment_121348160

Well you could just change your username…. less….ruth ?

ruth...less

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121349470#Comment_121349470

They don't allow name changes so yes that would be one!

tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121349636#Comment_121349636

Yes , a circle jerk of right on progressives is always a Mecca for comedy and laid back banter

TinyMuffin

I’d have a section for like minded individuals to meet.

And fornicate.

Burt Renaults

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121349671#Comment_121349671

Interesting that someone would view a site without sad old men, who feel left-behind, constantly droning on about the usual sad old man topics, as being a "circle jerk of right on progressives". I'm sure there's a happy medium somewhere in between.

tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121352154#Comment_121352154

No , all you’re left with is woke progressives trying to out do each other to see who is the most pure

you can never go left enough

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121352586#Comment_121352586

I identify as a cat so I'd probably win

Rothko

Permaban anyone with multiple accounts

clampedusa

First off would be a redirect to a foreign domain, so that theres little/no fear of legal consequences for what people say on the site. Isolate the company and the site from Irish law as much as possible. Boards.ie redirects to boards.sexy or whatever.

Next is a tier system, you can access most of the site as an anonymous nobody, but with less functionality than those who have gone through an anonymous small donation process. (To the site itself or to certain charities)

There are increasingly exclusive areas of the site, which are accessed based on money and identifying information given, so to access certain areas and to have certain authority requires either proving who you are, and/or paying token subscription levels €5, €10 etc. Increasing access and control of the site is dependent on having something to lose. This way you lower the number of trolls, bots, and troll-mods. And those who gain power on the site simply to silence opposing opinions, or just mods as we call them today.

Users are given something equivalent to the reddit trophy case, you can click on a user and see representative badges/awards which act as proof of what this person is about. With links to the comment which earned them the badge. These may also be negative awards, you can have an extremist ideologue badge, or a helpful member badge. Or a bullshtter badge. Which brings us to...

There is an internet court established. Presided by employees and higher tier members. Badges are awarded for cases won, lost or drawn. You can get a liar badge, a prolific false accuser badge, a useful idiot badge, etc. Dodging a summons gets the comment removed. And theres a tight limit on cases you can make, open to discretion of higher tier members.

Unlike boards today you can be required to prove what you say, or prove what you allege another user to be, or stfu and retract the accusation.

A thunderdome section is re-established where you can duke it out, and you can also call someone what you like in private messages up to a daily limit, with a prior deactivate/talk to the hand option for those who dont want to hear it.

CGI_Livia_Soprano

I would ban anyone who is hyper-fixated on abusing public figures and report them to the guards.

Rubberchikken

Gave up for over a year after they moved to vanilla or whatever. Couldn't take the nonsense that was the mobile app.

Only came back when the tubridy scandal reared it's ugly head. Just knew there's be some interesting scuttlebutt 😁

Only glance/comment on the.odd thing. If it disappeared tomorrow I probably wouldn't notice.

Don't go on other discussion site. No interest/time. But I'm guessing it's mild compared to some.

CGI_Livia_Soprano

I would also make it a permabannable offence to make any allusions to another user’s previous closed accounts, or their real life identities.

BorneTobyWilde

I'd charge every user 0.027 a day to access site. A yearly payment, of 10 euro.

Boom, site is now in profit

Cookie_Monster

I'd put a bit of effort into it anyway at least

Birneybau

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

FrancieBrady

I would give the government fans what they always wanted. A forum where nobody answers back and the Village and Ditch are never mentioned.

Sure fire winner. Loadsa money!

K-9

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121349636#Comment_121349636

That's me fecked then.

The feedback suggestion by another poster was very good. Point new posters from feedback in the right direction and if the subcategories are reorganised and slimmed down, more chance of getting a timely response.

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121355925#Comment_121355925

Ah phuck all the public figures, they're all sh1te

Paterson Jerins

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121355217#Comment_121355217

Yes doctor. Very unhinged.

I'd ban the three amigos if i owned the site. Or maybe just allow them to post in ranting and raving. They seem to repeat the same points, constantly moaning about boards. Their rants about men are ott, and if it was any other group, the three would be banned moons ago.