Site is a graveyard - How can boards save itself? [Threadbanned users in 1st post]

Big Bag of Chips

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121980885#Comment_121980885

I didn't give you any warning.

I actually smiled at your little comment (I even put a smiley face at the beginning of my reply so you'd know you made me smile!)

However, your posts represent the type of posting that is being complained about here. If you can't stand by the strength of your argument without resorting to name calling and abuse well then you really need to consider how strong your point actually is. Your argument was beaten and you had nowhere to go other than name calling.

And no, nobody on here "should be able to tell someone to shut the f1ck up". That's the whole point people are making.

I didn't and won't warn you because I am engaging with you. Don't want to be "abusing my powers" now, do I?! I think I am capable of standing my ground and don't feel the need to warn you in order "to show you". However, the moderators of this forum may take a different view and issue a warning for abuse? off-topic? discussing moderator action on thread?

If you would like to continue to engage in the discussion and provide some feedback that might be of benefit then you have to abide by the rules of the forum and the rules of this particular thread, just like everyone else.

as I’ve said before if this site was left without mods it would be like YouTube comments.

I am glad boards is the diametric opposite of YouTube comments.

Shield

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121980885#Comment_121980885

Moderator:

This user has received another 2 points on his profile for continuing in an uncivil manner despite a previous 1 point warning for the same issue. He has also been banned from this thread for one week and may resume posting here again on April 12th. I have made it clear to him that if he breaches his thread ban, he will receive another two points on his profile, and will be permanently banned from the Feedback forum.

-Shield

Shield

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981064#Comment_121981064

Let’s keep it on topic though, yeah? That topic being “how can Boards save itself?”

Everyone else, keep the ideas coming. There’s some good signal getting through the noise.

Thanks.

-Shield

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121980130#Comment_121980130

One thing to note about the moderator/admin called Beasty (and possibly others) is that as far as I can see, they don't actively contribute much to threads these days. Bit of a sacrifice but far healthier for all concerned, certainly in forums and/or threads that are contentious. Another suggestion for ye lot to think about - no moderator opinions/ contributions in certain parts of the site, bar what's necessary to keep a thread legal.

Obviously different for forums that are more hobby etc related where the moderator may be there as a hobbyist.

ShamoBuc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981165#Comment_121981165

So you think Mods need to give up their posting abilities? A Soccer Mod will no longer be allowed to post in that Forum.

Eh ....no.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981184#Comment_121981184

Think of the greater good perhaps. The reduction/ removal of one facet that often appears to ordinary posters to be suspect, as evidenced by a good many posts here. It's quite normal in other areas of society for people to recuse themselves where they potentially have a conflict of interests.

JP Liz V1

I'm picturing a batcave where mods gather to take shop about boards 😄

Is Mike the only contact to America Milli Vanilla about the site issues and updates, has Mike any juniors or interns?

Spear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981241#Comment_121981241

Mike's the only employee, so anything going to Vanilla goes through him.

ShamoBuc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981228#Comment_121981228

I believe this particular piece of feedback will not be acted upon.

Imagine asking a poster to become a Mod and saying they would have to give up posting where they normally post 🤣

Trying to increase participation rather than reducing it is the aim.

Packrat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981228#Comment_121981228

I agree with most of your points both here and in your DR/Fedback threads.

This is probably too big of an ask though.

Ultimately mods are posters who came here to enjoy the chat. As much as we rail against some of their decisions, they probably became mods to support the continuation of the site. (I know some believe it's a power trip, but that would get old very quickly I'd say)

They're unpaid, and widely abused. If they can't post, then it's all negative interactions and they'd just leave and not be replaced.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981258#Comment_121981258

I was asked once years ago and declined for mostly that reason. I felt you couldn't get involved with your own opinions on tricky threads if you were a moderator. Obviously other peoples mileage varies but it can't always be a comfortable place.

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981228#Comment_121981228

Its the method of delivery of those ideas and expression of hatred to another or a group which gets banned.

Arghus

In a lot of the forums the mods in it are the most informed and most passionate posters in there. So it would be crazy to stop them from posting.

StevenToast

Am I the only one that thinks boards is grand?!

It does what I need it to do anyway...

I get the odd rap of the knuckles from an overzealous mod every so often but overall seems fair enough....

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981302#Comment_121981302

I agree totally.

The only complaints I see are from people like Mad Lad who complain when they get sensured for uncivil behaviour and think it's their fantastic ideas causing the problem.

Packrat

To echo what others have said on this thread, one of the most frustrating aspects of boards- more particularly CA, are the small number of very prolific posters who use quite sophisticated group attacks, wearing down tactics, endless questioning, extreme labeling feigned ignorance, requests for "peer reviewed studies" and insults which nobody in real life would ever use, - all to the effort of getting less experienced posters on the other side of the various arguments angry and subsequently banned.

They do this all while remaining outwardly cordial and within the site or forum rules.

I could list at least a half a dozen from memory who just drain the energy and joy from the site, who can never see any good in the opposing argument or poster, These are the people who in my humble opinion ought to be permanently banned for destroying the site and removed each time they rereg.

Its often the genuine maybe less experienced poster perhaps with a short fuse who gets trolled into responding to days, weeks and months of utter dungposting by these very experienced and frankly downright nasty individuals.

That these individuals are so seldom visibly moderated or removed is what has most of us up in arms against mods.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981258#Comment_121981258

to be fair and I am agreeing with Furze more than I ever thought possible, if you are heavily invested in a thread for any reason you really shouldn’t moderate it simultaneously.

I don’t think I should stop posting in AH and frankly I’m not going to, but if I am following a thread or very active in it I will refrain where possible from modding also. It can be a conflict of interest to be fair!

I think the suggestion does have some merit and should not be readily dismissed anyway

Anaki r2d2

maybe a blanket ban on any thread on gender sexuality or race.

Once these threads start, they are immediately shut down or shut down within a day. Begs the question, why allow them to start?

Example the one shut down today over some young fella being a dick in Ennis/Limerick.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981347#Comment_121981347

I'm probably a bit guilty of that myself in the past, but to be fair: people coming i. and making wild dubious claims that are nothing more scaremongering crap and passing it off as 'well known' will invite claims for proof. And then being told to go and Google it.…?

I'm all for wide-ranging opinions but at least don't try and pass them off as fact.

Vote4Squirrels

Please don’t laugh but what’s vanilla!?? It seems to be really important and I feel a bit lost!!!!

ShamoBuc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981362#Comment_121981362

Except that is not what they said.

99% of my posts in any Sport Forum is discussion based - not Mod based. But they think Mods should give up the 99% — utter nonsense.

If I am engaged with a poster and it gets heated - another Mod will moderate of course if it is necessary - that's common sense in fairness. Unless it is blatantly obvious that a warning should be given eg " You are a stupid prick/wanker" - that's a no brainer and cannot be argued and no conflict can exist.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981228#Comment_121981228

No ordinary poster finds it suspect just those with grudges.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981302#Comment_121981302

No.

Reddit is such a sinkhole. It has its uses but I've seen actual pro-genocide stuff on r/europe along with raw, mod-approved hatred for Irish and Spanish people. I find it very useful for very niche things like political memes and tips for Swedish strategy games but so many subs are just vile.

This place has its flaws, not least the handicapped framework we're lumbered with but at least there's actual conversation and you can just ignore threads and forums that do not interest you. With Reddit, you only ever get to see stuff that's upvoted and any dissent just gets sent to the bottom.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981331#Comment_121981331

Yes some people have patented the whole "suicide by mod" move where they inflame things so much they guarantee themselves a ban, only to immediately scurry to dispute resolution to rant about censorship/free speech etc

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981403#Comment_121981403

It is the software platform Boards runs on... replaced a more bespoke platform that was stuck together with gods glue but over tine had evolved to be user friendly.

During the transition the site was down for a week or so. A lot of posters lost during the migration downtime / or were put off by the initial interface which was lacking a lot of user friendly shortcuts.

The current interface is more usable but there are still recent glitches such as losing the bookmarks icon on desktop

Packrat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981384#Comment_121981384

There's a place for both to be honest. There are of course shytehawks who need to be asked for proof of their wild claims.

There are also decent sensible genuine people who aren't enough of a whack job to make stuff up to win an internet argument, and they get asked for links when they make a statement of fact obvious to all except someone trying to prove that black is in fact white.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121982209#Comment_121982209

Yeah, but you get the same issue: how can we discuss something only one person seems to know about?

And I don't ask because I want to prove them wrong, I ask because I want to read something alternative. There are times when I learn more about an issue or someone else's stance by understanding the influences that formed their opinion rather than the opinon itself.

TheChrisD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121955338#Comment_121955338

If anything, DRP just showcases how much red tape seems to be involved in the overall moderation process here. Warnings have to be appealed first to the mod in question (since all mod actions are advertised as coming from a specific mod), then escalated up the tree to CMods/Admins; however, the amount of time that is allowed to pass between each of these steps seems almost ludicrous.

If appeals went straight to all mods and CMods of a forum as the first step, I'm sure there would be a lot less of the nonsense you see in DRP; and perhaps much better and quicker resolution.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121957265#Comment_121957265

Comments like this don't necessarily help the opinion that a fair portion of the userbase has regarding the moderation team…

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121958403#Comment_121958403

€100-200 a month? I mean it's definitely nowhere near minimum wage, but factoring in the amount of time some mods probably spend performing moderation duties during their spare time, it would seem fair.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121964834#Comment_121964834

If you appeal a Reddit ban, your appeal goes to the entire mod team; and is always permanently accessible in modmail to the entire team. While there is never any public logs of bans or appeals, there's also no public notices that a specific user is banned from a particular subreddit (only if they are suspended or site-banned by the admins).

Now there is a difference in that a user can be muted from modmail, which prevents appealing for that period; but mod teams which ban and mute at the same time have been actioned by the admins in the past for not allowing a proper appeal system.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121965056#Comment_121965056

Boards tried a mobile app in the past and it didn't work out. But not having an app means that posts can be hard to make (Vanilla often struggles with mobile browsers, and most mobile ads are pretty invasive), and notifications of things like replies or new threads don't get sent. It's probably why Reddit tends to be more favourable towards mobile-focused users.

Heck, I can tell you from the r/ireland traffic stats that about 75% of all our unique users are on mobile in some form (between the official Reddit apps, and mobile browsers in general), and they contribute over 80% of the pageviews.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981184#Comment_121981184

Perhaps not having every mod labelled as a moderator site-wide would be a start. I don't know if Vanilla offers a way to "distinguish" mod/admin posts as such like we can do on Reddit, but it would might help for a start in terms of distinction.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978545#Comment_121978545

You're making me want to go looking through the ban list to have a look see as to what you did to cop a ban. Anytime I hear someone complaining that they're being censored, they're almost always actually being abusive somewhere in the comment tree.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121979972#Comment_121979972

Why am I suddenly getting the feeling that you are one of the people that were in our modmail recently enough trying to play the Digital Services Act card to contest a clear-cut abuse ban? 🤔

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981089#Comment_121981089

I like this, there's no ambiguity about whether a post has been actioned or not, although it does make more work for mods.

I shall, however, absolutely disagree when it happens to me. 😂