What would you like to see Boards.ie become?

DeVore

We've talked a lot here about what each of us (admins) wants boards to become.

Theres a general feeling that there something really unique going on here and we want to commit time and effort to it.

The problem is that we've succeeded by almost always doing completely the wrong thing. Counter intuitive if you like...
We dont advertise and we get new users all the time, we dont exactly treat people nicely, I mean I shout a lot etc lol, but people seem to like it here... mods give us time and help but we make it clear theres no money in the kitty to even buy them a pint (hopefully soon there might be... one pint you understand. 250 straws....)

So, conventional wisdom seems to now work and I'm afraid that if we start changing Boards, we'll lose what it is... and I dont even know what that is to begin with!

We've mooted the supporters pack etc but to be honest that is a suggestion from us that people agreed with, which isnt the same as asking people what they want.



So, what do you want in the next 1-5 years from us? If you were the admins what would you do?

DeV.

ozpass

I'm not entirely sure that you can make boards.ie anything. In the relatively short time that I've been posting here I have come to recognise it as a microcosm of society, with all the complex interactivity that description implies.

As such I think boards.ie is great because it has grown organically. I would imagine it will continue to shape itself in this manner. Whilst I wholeheartedly support means by which we can contribute financially to the upkeep, I expect such add-on packs will ultimately do little to affect the overall character of boards.ie.

Boards represents a myriad small snapshots of peoples' thoughts. Administration, moderatorship and the technology itself enables and advances this process but ultimately does not guide it.

bubbles

I would love to see boards.ie become a democratic system .. it may take time, and effort for all concerned but it will make it a better place - just look at Germany today, even Russia is better than what it was, and hopfully tomorrow, Iraq will be a better place depending on the US not invading...

we dont exactly treat people nicely

I'm glad you've learned something from our little chat DeVore. Accepting you have a problem is the first step, and I for one am very proud of you today.

Anyway, moving along very quickly... I think that is a fairly hard question you asked. I mean, 5 years ago boards.ie was a discussion board. 5 years later it still is. Ok, it grew to be bigger than anyone had thought, even more fun than I thought it could be, and ever more corrupt, but is bascailly the same.

In 5 years time, its probably still going to be a discussion board, more than likley going to be even bigger, but unless boards.ie branches out into more areas so to speak, I think its going to more or less stay the same.

For me, and probably loads of other people, boards.ie is set as the default homepage in my browser... I open IE and behold, the same crappy boring mainpage (no offence - gets a bit dull after a few years) It's hardly updated. I think 99% of the people only look at the 20 recent posts and the quick links at the top. All that wasted space. I would love to see the boards.ie main page become more like a one stop shop for users - maybe 3 or 4 news headlines, maybe the weather report (for dublin only - rest of the country doesn't count)

I remember ages ago I won a cd writer (a real one!) from yourselves for submitting those ideas - shame it never really followed through even tho the idea won?

So much wasted space - so much potential.

Also, have you ever looked into sms messages? Lets say members can enter their mobile number into their profile - and members can send sms messages to these. Maybe limit it to 5 per person a week, or give a quota to each person who has subscription super best friends club thingy you where going on about before. Of course, I don't know the financial costs of this, but if ICQ and other sites can send free SMS messages without any ad's in the message maybe it is something you could look into.

And I think boards.ie should branch out into other things.. there is a great market out there for importing wives for example. These can be bought in bulk and wholesale from such countries as Russia and misc. loser eastern european countries. I've a good contact if your're interested. Bascailly, you buy them when they are young, invest in feeding them and then sell on for a nice little profit margin. Money that could be used to provide the sms service?

Victor

I don't want it to become anything, if it beceomes something, then is "has arrived" and cannot be improved on. Think Temple Bar c. 1993. Or the Celtic Tiger before someone called it the Celtic Tiger.

While there is the temptation to add and add and add, eventually it becomes like some of the ISP / dotcom / driven boards, full of ad.s and no community, no character, no continuation, no history, no .... folklore. One day people will tell their grandkids about how they were abused by Amp or were trolled by WWM or were aroused by the early threads on the Magnum board*. That won't happen to people on wasters.ireland.communities.groups.yahoo.com or whatever. Perhaps some boards should be hived off to a new site?

It must have space to grow, otherwise it will die.

*™®© Patented. All rights reserved. Payments of cake* will be accepted. Spam not accepted. This product, confectionary item and / or service is heartily endorsed.

Victor

Originally posted by *******
Also, have you ever looked into sms messages? Lets say members can enter their mobile number into their profile - and members can send sms messages to these. Maybe limit it to 5 per person a week, or give a quota to each person who has subscription super best friends club thingy you where going on about before. Of course, I don't know the financial costs of this, but if ICQ and other sites can send free SMS messages without any ad's in the message maybe it is something you could look into.

Yes, include mobile number in the profile*, when a message is received from that number, it posts on a 'separate' board (may need 3-5 mods to sort posts). Even accept images (Amp drunk in pub, Merc chasing random female bi-ped). And get a wholesale connection where you receive money for accpeting these messages. And while yes it might be open to abuse, a limit of 5 seems low.** people will then be able to post stuff that is literally up to the minute.

Originally posted by *******
Money that could be used to provide the sms service?

Always looking for practical solutions, eh?

* Do not tell the CIA.
** Oh help, save the world, I'm agreeing with *******

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.

Dustaz

Why does boards need to become anything?

As ******* said (i only name checked him to see if its actually censored), its been a BB for 5 years, why not another 5 years?

If some good ideas are evolved organically, then so be it. but PLEASE dont force them. All the best websites out there evolved. Let boards do the same thing

amp

BIGGER! BETTER! FASTER! LONGER!

Now, regarding the future of boards. I see growth, exponential growth. Growth to the stage were more Admins are needed. At the moment there's 5 or so of yiz. You'll need more.

As far as changing boards or offering new services, well the way we've always done it seems right. The member webspace worked out ok. The commercial interaction boards seem to be successful.

So I agree with mah man Dusty. A slow considered approach, trying out new things, giving time to them, and dumping them if they don't work out.

VOTE AMP FOR ADMIN! YOU KNOW IT MOCKS SENSE!

P.s Victor, I resemble the insinuation that I'm always in a pub.

P.p.s Bubbs, I know you're on a (t)roll, but could you trim them down a bit. Haven't got all day you know.

Bard

Originally posted by Victor
Yes, include mobile number in the profile*, when a message is received from that number, it posts on a 'separate' board (may need 3-5 mods to sort posts). Even accept images (Amp drunk in pub, Merc chasing random female bi-ped). And get a wholesale connection where you receive money for accpeting these messages. And while yes it might be open to abuse, a limit of 5 seems low.** people will then be able to post stuff that is literally up to the minute.

I suggested something similar here.

Originally posted by Mercury_Tilt:


[edit-- awwwww bubs name is a bad word ]

Just call him Bibbles. I do

Hobart

I suppose in a way we have to look at what it is to see what it could potentially be. Firstly yes it's a bulliten board, of course. But 5 years ago was just techies etcc using it(I would suspect).

I personally came across boards in conjunction with the spider awards and it was more what it was not that initially attracted me to it. It was'nt tech only, it was'nt Irish only and f**k it it' was'nt all male hetro-sexual. So I would suggest keeping up the bad work and let it become everything it's not.

Oh! on the SMS thing. Not a runner, unless you can cross sponser with Eircom/Esat or Meteor.And even if you do they will charge. ICQ have invested over $400,000 in the hardware and software for thier sms platforms. they recoup this investment on advertising. They were once a customer of mine on the SMS side.

Wook

If you would only ask the board-members what makes them addicts and why the return to this site over and over again , the sickening sound of the left click that makes me see the latest posts. The Hysteric laughter of another victim that has been drawn in by Mod-abuse. The politics of this 'micro-com-unity' that has often shown double standards, the thought provoking subjects from Retro to humanity. The inner-workings of the everyday people with the common love bug problem at PI.

Do you think 'bigger' is 'better' ?
And every SMS send to silly mobile phones takes away a nice little post from the boards. I for one am totally against the SMS service. The first time I arrived here it looked like the last remaining outpost amidst the wasteland of commercially run forums and boards abandoned long ago and just limping away on the few ads they still have. This place is where people came together to share a thought.. forced or not.

Just trying to warn you, that bigger is not always better, and never deny the fact that some people just want to get their idea and opinions out and not always looking for service. communication is just the medicine I need.

My two cents..and a confusing cent on top of that

DeVore

hmmm perhaps I should have set *some* boundaries

Ok this is all personal from Tom Murphy, not the collective thoughts of the admins.

I dont want investment. Investment means we have to make a LOT MORE money back because thats all the invester is interested it. Hell if we could make a lot of money to give back to Mr Investor.... why not make a little money instead and invest in ourselves in the first place! At least *we* know we care about us!


Boards will always be free. Boards will always centre around communication of people to a large number of others without the structure of mass-media barons in the middle. Thats what the potential of the Internet is.... not just selling you dental plans and viagra....


I like the idea of communication so I'd like US to become the communcations centre for the internet.

The only problem with all this is that I DONT want us to become the next Yahoo.... but some of their ideas are good.


Democracy is an interesting one. I really dont know about it. People elect stupid people. Or power cliques form and it all turns nasty. The same old same old will elect themselves possibly...
What I have thought of , which is kinda whacked out is to sell shares in boards. Let people who make the community OWN a part of the community and then have a *say* in the running of the community a little like shareholders have a say in the running of a company at the AGM every year but the directors and managers look after it day to day...


In conclusion, Boards isnt broken so I aint looking to fix it. What Wook says is very good... we need to find out why people are addicted to boards!

Theres a future coming thats going to be incredible....video streaming for example.... currently we have blogs but next maybe we'll Public Access Broadcasting on the internet.... make your own tv-show. Yes they'd be crap and low production quality etc etc but feck it, I'd rather watch something made by some of the headcases here then another episode of Pissed Brits on the Beach. (Anyone remember Father Dwayne? )

These are just thoughts in my head....

Perhaps some of you can answer a question... why do you prefer Boards to soemthing like P45 or Online.ie ? (presuming you do hahaha)

DeV.

bubbles

Shares in boards.ie - I'll buy 51% of them for €5,000 right now.

Interested?

DeVore

hehe *******... nice try.

DeV.

tom-thebox

Some very good thoughts and feedback and makes a very good read. Some might say you may be bordering on commercial genius As for making any Comments I dont feel I know this place well enough to make any yet. Best of luck.

Regards

ozt9vdujny3srf

I think you could really sell the commercial interaction boards idea to a lot of companies. It would bring in lots of munneh and would advertise in an unimpeding way (i.e. banners that take up much of the page and the like)

DeVore

See, munneh isnt really what I'm after.
Money is good, money gives us the ability to DO STUFF but the fact is that we've already done a lot without money.

What I'm searching for is what we want to do...

I want to see a big collective group of people powering their own direction on the internet rather then waiting for commercial companies to decide there is a big enough margin in some offering or other to make it worth their while....

DeV.

Wook

just a thought but maybe we can be more educational ?
As in we have a lot of experts in something and we could share out this information in more or better structured way then now.
Writing manuals (white pages?) set up Q and A forums for the purpose of learning rather then opinions?

Attract people from different specialised boards (tourism, ahum -love and relationships-Etc) or even allow people from their prospective profession to do some work here if interested like our own in house shrink..? (I am sure loads of people could use on here )

Invite political figures to have a regular post here to 'get in touch with the plebs' ?

Have media , do polls here ?

etc etc etc..


Disclaimer:
do not hate me or flame me, for this was merely a 'brain fart'
and just use what ever you can or completely alter these suggestion to your liking. Just trying to get the ball rolling and see where we end up

amp

Originally posted by DeVore
See, munneh isnt really what I'm after.
Money is good, money gives us the ability to DO STUFF but the fact is that we've already done a lot without money.

What I'm searching for is what we want to do...

I want to see a big collective group of people powering their own direction on the internet rather then waiting for commercial companies to decide there is a big enough margin in some offering or other to make it worth their while....

DeV.

You misspeelled "empowering" and "paradigm shift"

DeVore

Wook....
"if at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it..."

Amp...
You misspelled "misspelled".


I dunno.... it just feels like we're the only ones doing this from a community perspective. Now, we may have to look at the commercial end of things but directions like the "Commercial Interaction" boards seem to have actually gelled nicely with the community ethos.

Money isnt evil.. its not wrong or sinful or selling out. Money can give you the power to do STUFF as I said, but we have to work out what STUFF we think is worth doing.

I'm not planning on retiring off of Boards.ie... hey if it happened I wouldnt complain.... I'd love to do this for a living but I'm not PLANNING on it.

I just get the feeling that everyone kinda missed the whole point of the internet... it can be soooo much more then another mass marketing shopping-channel...

Maybe I'm just a hippie in a suit... :^/


DeV.

Keeks

Originally posted by DeVore
See, munneh isnt really what I'm after.
Money is good, money gives us the ability to DO STUFF but the fact is that we've already done a lot without money.

Just keep doing stuff like ye're doing now, like the boards beer and boads awards. Just expand it a little. Such as the boards involvement int Vexorgs walk across Peru. Anything that has some sort of community involement. Thats whats it all about isn't it. A community?

As for the secret of boards. We've Irish. Irish people like t o talk a lot.....see where I'm going with this. Listening to 2FM this morning where they were doing a broadcast from Finland and they were commenting on how the Fins have those akward silences in the middle, but no one takes any notice. Here we feel we have to fill that silence......thats boards secret.

Victor

Originally posted by DeVore
Democracy is an interesting one. I really dont know about it. People elect stupid people. Or power cliques form and it all turns nasty. The same old same old will elect themselves possibly...
What I have thought of , which is kinda whacked out is to sell shares in boards. Let people who make the community OWN a part of the community and then have a *say* in the running of the community a little like shareholders have a say in the running of a company at the AGM every year but the directors and managers look after it day to day...

The word you are loking for is stakeholder (shareholders, management, staff, customers, community).

Originally posted by DeVore
In conclusion, Boards isnt broken so I aint looking to fix it. What Wook says is very good... we need to find out why people are addicted to boards!

Is this cos we is sad gits?

Victor

Originally posted by DeVore
You misspelled "misspelled".

As is the convention when pointing out mispeelings. Amp can I be your buddy again? The pub remark was only because thats the only place I have ever met you (and been groped by you).

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

mike65

Originally posted by Victor
I don't want it to become anything, if it beceomes something, then is "has arrived" and cannot be improved on.

Agreed, boards.ie is like a joke. I mean its not wise to anaylise it.

Either you get boards.ie or you dont.

Also you know how some things thrive on benign neglect? well maybe boards will...

Mike.

DeVore

Benign Neglect is right hahah! I think the Boards part of Boards is actually functioning incredibly well for what it is and I wouldnt really want to make changes to that. We'll redesign the front page when I get a second to draw up what I want but beyond that I love it just as it is

What I'm thinking is... well we kinda beat all the commercial companies with their millions for the top slot in Communities in Ireland and I'm looking for another niche to expand and borg

Keeks, yep it is all about community and people get it or they dont...

Daveirl, we're sorting out the bank account... we havent had one for 5 years lol... shouldnt be long but we also have to identify or write software to do all the extra stuff (like mail set up etc).
Shouldnt be tooooo long...

DeV.

Dont be at yourself

I'd like to see boards.ie become more than just bulletin boards - I'd like to see it as the portal for the oirish on the interweb, featuring everything from news and weather, to move and music reviews, to e-mail and sms really excites me. In that way.

I'm sure that there's many talented boards.iers who would be only too delighted to help for free. The willingness of the community to support boards is something that hasn't really been taken advantage of to the fullest, in my opinion.

mike65

I'd like to see it as the portal for the oirish on the interweb, featuring everything from news and weather, to move and music reviews, to e-mail and sms really excites me. In that way.

:eek: the P word!

Portal=Bloated, slow and fragmented.


Mike.

ironbrew

yeh it could also evolve into a porn website!!!!


good stuff!!

Bard

Originally posted by Hobart
Oh! on the SMS thing. Not a runner, unless you can cross sponser with Eircom/Esat or Meteor.

You'd be surprised what a company would provide you in exchange for advertising on one of Ireland's highest hit web sites...

bubbles

You mentioned streaming video ealier DeV - how about boards radio? I know you mentioned it before it IRC a couple of times over the year. Wouldn't take that much to set up a shoutcast server and I'm sure you would get **** loads of support and help from people.

Might even be fun.

BTW I demand 2 one hour prime time slots every week, after the watershed of course

Clintons Cat

One area of concern for me, in the longterm direction of boards is how do we prevent it being reduced to the lowest common denominator as it grows?

Dont get me wrong boards bandwidth is broad enough to accomodate infinate "what colour panties are you currently wearing" type discussions,where i do have a problem is where offtopic flavour of the month spamming starts intruding on serious topics.
of course what constitutes a serious topic and where and when to insert an appropriately subversive cohen brothers quote could probally fill a volume or two on Nettiquette.

I think the recent changes to the Admin board and the implimentation of [article] tags on the society boards are both excellent ideas that should help reduce alot of the outright spammage that has plagued both boards whilst not overly increasing the workload of either admin or mod.

Personally for me Boards is the place i come to try out all the big words i have picked up but wouldnt have the confidence to use in public conversation,a bit like a transvestites club for the inarticulate.

Evil Phil

http://www.boards.ie.gov

Its been suggested before.

Dustaz

Originally posted by *******
You mentioned streaming video ealier DeV - how about boards radio? I know you mentioned it before it IRC a couple of times over the year. Wouldn't take that much to set up a shoutcast server and I'm sure you would get **** loads of support and help from people.

Might even be fun.

BTW I demand 2 one hour prime time slots every week, after the watershed of course

Best idea on the thread so far.

The great thing about radio is that content is extemely cheap and easy to provide. The oppurtunity for community based stuff is broad also.

It would also be a great launching pad for gaming shoutcasts and community talk shows.

10 thumbs up (and an extra two thumbs up for "Straight Talkin' With Bubbles" )

bubbles

Please note that Dustaz's comments on being the best idea so far also included the acknowledgement of me getting the 2 slots a week.

Boston

imagine that, a live web talk show, hosted by bubbes with weekly guesses. sounds great.

Bard

Jesus I can just about imagine it...

"Hi you're through to 'Straight Talkin' wif Bibbles'! What's your point please?"



/me gives that one a :

(Name changed to protect the innocent/guilty)

ballooba

---

Originally posted by Hobart
Oh! on the SMS thing. Not a runner, unless you can cross sponser with Eircom/Esat or Meteor.

---

Originally posted by Bard
You'd be surprised what a company would provide you in exchange for advertising on one of Ireland's highest hit web sites...

Would be willing to talk to you about this dev (not the advertising bit.. I'm not Agha Khan*).

*probably spelt wrong but i don't care

WhiteWashMan

i would like to see two things happen.

i would like to see a consolidation of 'boards.ie' and for it to become 'less spread' and disorganised (or appearing to be....)

and secondly,

i would like to see a second site formed where the prols from boards have more of an input. a sister site (not a buliltan board, no point in having two of those) but a board where people can show of art work etc and its a lot less sensible, a bit more anarchichal.
like a boards beer

Hobart

On the SMS thing, If you think it's a runner, I would be willing to give my time on the product design. However unless you have a hook-up with one of the telco's you won't get far. You could piggy back on ICQ or there is a South African telco called MTN who are pretty open to the idea of sharing resources, have no idea what they would want in return but they are a portal so who knows? Technically you could setup a basic store and forward solution on Linux but you would need an IP/SS7 link into an STP somewhere and an STP is not cheap.

Wook

Originally posted by WhiteWashMan


i would like to see a second site formed where the prols from boards have more of an input. a sister site (not a buliltan board, no point in having two of those) but a board where people can show of art work etc and its a lot less sensible, a bit more anarchichal.

a place where we can upload some pictures would be nice

Dustaz

I volunteer my unique blend of Adult Oriented Soft Rock and Old School Vibes for BoardsFM btw.

Bard

As bibbles' real name is censored on the boards, would you have a "bleep machine" on Boards FM for every time someone tries to say it?

Victor

Originally posted by Hobart
or there is a South African telco called MTN

Spam merchants.

Hobart

Originally posted by Victor
Spam merchants.

Very constuctive Victor. Keep up the good ol' work.

yossarin

P45 and Online.ie are commercial entities - they did not grow organicly, and (this is a presumption but i think that it's valid), their owners don't really care about their members or a board's contents.

each board is given time to grow here - boards are not created until there is a clamour for them or they have to be created to aleviate traffic on an existing overcrowded board. For me anyway, this slow growth is what has given boards its stregnth.
that and pictures of buffy.

Victor

Originally posted by Hobart
Very constuctive Victor. Keep up the good ol' work.

No, sorry, they are commercial spammers, they take your e-mail address and give it to people who spam you, l o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o ts.

DeVore

Originally posted by *******
You mentioned streaming video ealier DeV - how about boards radio? I know you mentioned it before it IRC a couple of times over the year. Wouldn't take that much to set up a shoutcast server and I'm sure you would get **** loads of support and help from people.

Might even be fun.

Yes, we have played about with this before and indeed we installed Shoutcast on the old server last night.

Now we need to be careful about the cost of broadcasting rights. We cant play copywritten music or we have to have a license but we are looking into some kinda community radio along the lines of Public Access TV in the states...

BTW I demand 2 one hour prime time slots every week, after the watershed of course

The Father Dwane hour?

DeV.