What is Boards.ie? {To you} | Please DO NOT USE this thread to discuss moderation!

corkie

What is Boards.ie? {to you}

1. Boards.ie website, company and admin (Odhran, Mike)
2. Community of users!

Both of the above need to exist for the survival of it!

I would class the mods of the forums as user with inflated permission, who are only following their interpretation of site rules and acting accordingly when required.

For boards to survive, user and the community need to be protected, not decentavised from participation on the site!

If high profile accounts with good long term standing, are been banned over past small breaches of the rules, it would just send them to the alternative sites, taking any accounts who have respect for the user, with them.

I'm am not an admin/mod using an alternative account, to post! I'm just a long term user and would hate to see the site demise. Been here long enough to be through change of ownership, but boards.ie has always been the community of user to me.

Politely requesting you follow the rules of feedback, this is not the thread to state your grievances over a particular users ban. Take it up by DM to whoever issued it. So don't name accounts on this thread.

So what does boards.ie mean to you?

Note: - Hoping posting in the right feedback forum for this? @Big Bag of Chips please move as needed?

Charlo30

Simply a site I dip in and out off and have no emotional attachment too. If it closed tomorrow, then so be it. It would have very little impact on me

Jim_Hodge

Please DO NOT USE this thread to discuss moderation!

I'm totally confused, as that's basically all you did in the OP.

corkie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809594#Comment_123809594

I was just highlighting how the moderation can have an effect on the community.

I did not raise any moderation issues for/against any specific mod etc, or moderation of particular thread. Threads have been abused with ongoing complaints and shutdown, that is why I politely requested that in the title.

Electric Nitwit

Boards, to me, is the smaller subsections. I never go near Current Affairs, Politics, After Hours which I think is why I never encounter any issues with mods etc. And all the discussion around the nature of boards seems to focus on these, while missing a lot of its true value

The football threads are full of a great little community.

The music/gigs threads are a fount of wonderful people sharing amazing tips.

The film forum has some of the most well informed, erudite reviewers anywhere.

The bargains thread is endlessly useful.

and forum games is just the nicest bunch of people you could hope to encounter online.

I'll be truly gutted if I lose those

Cyclingtourist

"So what does boards.ie mean to you?"

It's another struggling forum among many. As apparently 'moderation' (misnomer) is off limits I will leave it at that.

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809624#Comment_123809624

Sorry, but you put a very clear slant on your opinion regarding moderation and specified a recent range of bans. I find that completely at odds with your request in the title.

Anyway, for me Boards is just a useful source of information and advice with a smattering of discussion. I too have no emotional connection to it. I don't relate to it being a 'community' and certainly don't identify with any particular users. To be honest, I don't usually retain what posters participate in what threads. I certainly wouldn't be following anybody to another site. I find I pick and choose what forums I'll look at depending on my particular interests or need for information. I abhor the toxicity of the CA and Politics forums. If Boards goes I'll probably just look for info and advice elsewhere, although the couple of wannabee sites started recently certain don't seem to hold much appeal in that regard.

corkie

@Jim_Hodge Your point accepted! I didn't raise any specific account ban or if I agreed/disagreed with action.

Just hoping to rule out this thread from following other thread patterns of been abused on the subject.

elperello

As I have said in other threads I want Boards to continue and I would miss it.

Sure it's not perfect but it's ours.

By that I mean almost all the discussions I'm interested in have a uniquely Irish slant.

I subscribed for a year early on in the hope that it would help to secure the future.

There's not much more I can do.

kabakuyu

Kudos to the many helpful and knowledgeable posters in all forums who have contributed unselfishly over the years,especially Home ,Garden,Construction,sports,renewables,and other lesser known forums.

But I Have to say bad cess to the small few who destroyed and infested other forums with culture war bs.

Oscar_Madison

Out of CA is where boards true value lies as others above have said - you don’t need CA to have boards TBH- there’s enough interested parties across the many subject topics to keep the show on the go from a user perspective - and maybe some old dead forums could just be archived
Saying that, CA has calmed down an awful lot since the change in rules recently -if arguments break out they naturally die a death or posters just tell the other to get stuffed - much better than the hoo-haa of bans and appeals for just stupid stuff that’s soon forgotten - should have been brought in years ago

Hasbaralies

Its always been a fantastic repository of knowledge, Ive been floating around for 20 odd years and found many things of value

EmmetSpiceland

Boards’ importance has spiked once you see who is populating the new alternative sites out there.

If the site does shut then maybe more normal users will start to sign up but it’ll be an uphill struggle to hang around when the tone of the sites are anger, fear, hatred and division.

For my 2c, I think boards should go subscriber only from tomorrow. There are resources within all the forums that I, personally, think people would pay to access. It’s the perfect time, considering the recent purge of a number of problem posters from the site.

PmMeUrDogs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123810258#Comment_123810258

There are plenty of regular boards users or former users who have never been banned, on the alternatives.

PmMeUrDogs

Boards to me, used to be a community that I spent a lot of time in, made a lot of IRL friends from, attended many beers from, etc etc.

Nowadays it's a place I dip in and out of and have no real attachment to. I won't go into my reasons for that, but I will be sad to see it go, if it goes.

Personally speaking, 99% of the mods I've ever interacted with have been sound.

EmmetSpiceland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123810716#Comment_123810716

That’s as may be but from what I’ve heard the most discussed topic on one of them is boards, and not in a good way.

A cursory glance at the other, newer, site and its mostly names you’d recognise as being previously banned, and terrible, posters saying the same things again.

Maybe that will change if the normal users start to outnumber the problem posters but without active moderation it’s not likely. Time will tell, I guess.

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123810926#Comment_123810926

That was my impression. It's currently rife with disgruntled people regularly banned on Boards. And they're more than a little obsessed with that. There's no evidence of moderation and the admin joins in their less than complimentary comments. By the time it ever gets an influx of normal users I fear it will be too late to build the kind of atmosphere found on boards away from CA and Politics.

corkie

I haven't been banned and I have signed up to a few of the alternatives. As a fall back, if boards.ie is shutdown.

I like to build a profile on different platforms, just in case of that scenario. There is topics/platforms that I want to discuss that boards doesn't want me to (or allow). So I was forced of the site to do so. Became a top 1% contributor to reddit sub because of that.

On the polite request of no moderation discussion, I would like to highlight that is more referring to discussing specific mods and or certain forums. I think we all can agree that moderation is a requirement on a public platform.

But I don't think, discussing Moderation in general and the effect on the community, would be objected to or get the thread closed down.

Regards

John

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123810975#Comment_123810975

Please stick to your own OP and leave moderation out of it. You asked what Boards means to people and you are the very one raises moderation on Boards at every opportunity.

fofo90

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123810258#Comment_123810258

for 250 users? You may as well set up a discord chat and create a few sub groups under it. No one is going to pay for a forum like boards these days.

kabakuyu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123810258#Comment_123810258

Problem posters,I thought it was mainly posters perceived to be right leaning.

BTW what exactly would change if it was made subscription only tomorrow?there doesn't appear to be the numbers of paid members needed to keep the site alive just yet.

corkie

@Jim_Hodge You questioned my OP message (how I phrased it) and I only want to clarify what I meant in the title. Because others mentioned they where been limited by it:-
"As apparently 'moderation' (misnomer) is off limits" ~ @Cyclingtourist

con747

Parts of Boards are cesspits where normal people should only venture into so they can see what type of people are actually out in the living world, but only a very very small part consisting of a few forums. The vast majority of Boards is why I joined with people who go out of their way to help others as much as they can. The community is still here but it needs a wake up call badly to survive.

taxAHcruel

I'd say most of what it means to me is nostalgic at this point. I have had a strange journey through life in a few ways (those who know my posts know I have a weird relationship, weird approach to parenting, weird pets, weirdly active politically, and weird interactions with my locality on a social level) and Boards was always a great sounding board - sometimes even a combat training arena - and sometimes an actual resource - for living through much of that.

But it definitely has lost a lot of it's luster in that regard and not just because of the obvious failures of the management and the software and the culture. Or that it went through the same culture wars as the rest of the western world.

It has a lot to do with just me. I either do not need it as a foil as much any more - or I personally do not bring as much to it as I did in the past to even deserve a foil in the first place.

But I have some things in my life to be thankful for from it all the same. Not the least of which is what I hope will end up being a life long friendship and hero worship of my favorite user off it who alas barely ever reads or posts on it any more.

Cookie_Monster

Its just a shadow of its former self tbh and I find myself less and less interested. The major problem being an owner who is totally disconnected from the community and seems not to care about what's best for the forum aside from €€€ generating.

forumdedum

I dip in and out. Have had some great advice. Found the Tennis people very strange. Don't recall being reprimanded by moderators. Doesn't appear to be much info about boards closing down or looking for subcriptions.

Fr Tod Umptious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123810258#Comment_123810258

If the site does shut then maybe more normal users will start to sign up but it’ll be an uphill struggle to hang around when the tone of the sites are anger, fear, hatred and division.

No, normal users won't sign up to the alternative sites.

The reason most of us are here is because we came for advice and then stayed for the debate, all while at the same time getting more advice from the range of good categories that are on here.

But now a days people don't come to message boards for advice, or how to fix something, they get it from AI chats, or YouTube videos.

So no one new is going over there unless you they are looking for an argument with the cranks that have come from here.

Fr Tod Umptious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123811306#Comment_123811306

I've been here 20 years.

Who owned the site never bothered me, it never had a bearing on what I thought about the place.

The reason it is a shadow of it's former self is because the world has moved on

Strumms

What is Boards.ie? {to you}

1. Boards.ie website, company and admin (Odhran, Mike)

I don’t know anything about the company, the owner or owners or people who run it. I don’t know any of the moderators or admin, as far as I know anyway. To me boards is just a place to come and read, and discuss topics, it’s interesting, broad number of topics and opinions etc.

2. Community of users!

The majority of people here are grand, agenda free folks just using the site out of a sense of interest/fun/debate/information sharing etc. There are exceptions of course, but that’s just life…

I’m not active elsewhere on any other discussion forums so I’ve nothing to compare it to in that sense.

The negatives I’d associate with boards we can’t really discuss, and it’s not something that I or anyone can change or influence so, it is what it is…if the negatives ever outweigh the positives I’ll just disappear. For now, they don’t quite so it’s just boards for me.

con747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123811376#Comment_123811376

You need to spend more time in those threads that are still thriving with people seeking and receiving advice. I have multiple threads in multiple forums bookmarked and all are still busy enough on a daily basis.

sonic85

I love Boards. I don't post much but I'm on here every day lurking in various forums. I'll miss it terribly when it's gone

1. I don't know or care who owns it or runs it. It has absolutely no influence on my use of the site.
2. I love certain forums here. I always browse through CA - it can be a mess at times but there can be good topics of conversation on there and I find peoples opinions on certain things interesting. I spend loads of time in Motorbikes, Films and Soccer too. I spend a lot of time on Boards in general - that's why ill miss it! I don't really do social media - can't stand the likes of Facebook. Boards is where its at for me - there's no other place quite like it in my opinion.

Its a pity it can't be saved but it really does look like the writings on the wall for it unfortunately