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Future of boards.ie lack of young blood

Never Say Never Again

Boards.ie has a major Demographic problem, no young people aged 15/25 are joining the site anymore. This website faces the prospect of being as obsolete as vcrs and bank tellers. What can be done to address this problem ?

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Mister Vain

Maybe a boards story feature or snazzy filter would attract the young un's.

monnies

the soccer forum is private, there are still a lot of young people following football, but they can't post in the soccer forum,
i could understand that when liverpool and man u were contending, but as they are just contending for top 4 nowadays maybe new people should be allowed post in the soccer forum

Gerrup Outta Dat!

wakka12 wrote: »

Im 22. I think theres plenty of peopple in their 20's on here. I think the site is better without posters aged 15-18

Why?

FossilFoe

I'd say there a fair amount of people posting in there 20s on boards to be fair.

wakka12

Gerrup Outta Dat! wrote: »

Why?

Because teeny boppers are annoying

Heres Johnny

Because it's anonymous. Alot of youngsters want their friends to like their posts for validation and want to know who thanked them. Not an anonymous poster on a message board.
Plus the moderation is going to kill boards
eventually.

punisher5112

FossilFoe wrote: »

I'd say there a fair amount of people posting in there 20s on boards to be fair.

I still feel 20 does that count....

Autochange

Anyone ever seen the movie : The Purge

We need a 24hr window where we can say anything we choose no matter how nasty or offensive. Have one open thread. Participate if you wish.

Then delete the thread afterwards.

An tUasal C

Boards just isn't something most young people give much thought to.

punisher5112

Autochange wrote: »

Anyone ever seen the movie : The Purge

We need a 24hr window where we can say anything we choose no matter how nasty or offensive. Have one open thread. Participate if you wish.

Then delete the thread afterwards.

The guberment wouldn't allow as it would show them up for who they really are....

TheAnalyst_

Stuff like closing politics cafe and the modding in general slowly turned people away. Great success guys!

[Deleted User]

Henry Short Graveyard wrote: »

Two to three to years ago an AH poll gave the age profile as;
18-24 28.27%
25-30 28.27%
31-36 17.30%
37-40 8.44%
41-50 13.08%
50+. 4.64%

The youngsters are a clear majority. They must just come across as grumpy, conservative, mundane old codgers.

In 2005....
13-24 63%
25-29 14%
30-34 12%
35-39 5%
40+ 2.7%
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=3549

tomwaterford

Tbf it do be boring reading every second post people posting about their kids

Zzzzzz.....feels like alot of posters at that stage of life....and from outside looking in...it's boring af

Harry Palmr

I suppose the question for boards or any "legacy" www Mk1 site is this - how will the kids find it now?. If I were 18-20 now would I have heard of it? Unlikely, as it's been an age since I saw it referenced anywhere else.

Mister Vain

We need to bring back the "Irish women are bitches" threads. They were all the rage back in the day.

freshpopcorn

Mister Vain wrote: »

We need to bring back the "Irish women are bitches" threads. They were all the rage back in the day.

Don't give him any ideas!

screamer

Boards is a bit like the news.... it's only as you get older it becomes of interest to you. Boards I think will always have an appeal to older people.....and so what? it still often descends into a playground!

Gerald P Sheep

I'm 21 I go on boards every evening usually split between here and the farming and forestry section just signed up there a few minutes ago ðŸ˜…

leggo

Genuine suggestions:

The 'stay on topic' rule is dated in all forums except PI. If I was in a pub having a natural conversation, which can go all kinds of directions and that's what makes it fun, and someone told me to stick to the topic that started the conversation...they'd get at least a strong slagging if not outright told to "**** off." It's just not how people converse anywhere and doesn't fit in 2017.

Come up with a tagging system for posters to address particular posts. Multi-quite posts are the death of any decent conversation ever, they make for an impossible read and are literally only ever used when an argument has broken down and people are looking to points score with crap attempts at zingers than usually just come across as smarmy. If you can't make one coherent post without multi-quoting, you lose.

I don't hate the mods. They do this for free and mostly seem to get it right, and the odd one who gets too involved and are usually dealt with.

beauf

People de-rail topics deliberately if you allow posting off topic. So you can't discuss anything then. After hours is mainly gibberish as a result.

Multi Quoting seems to be the default on the mobile website. I'd love to know how to turn it off. The mobile website is a PITA to use.

The main design has dis-improved over the years. Navigation is harder. I don't both going to some forums now for that reason.

beauf

Never Say Never Again wrote: »

Boards.ie has a major Demographic problem, no young people aged 15/25 are joining the site anymore. This website faces the prospect of being as obsolete as vcrs and bank tellers. What can be done to address this problem ?

A boards vlog.

Boards is effectively a texting when a lot of popular media is image obsessed.

jimmycrackcorm

riffmongous wrote:

In 2005.... 13-24 63% 25-29 14% 30-34 12% 35-39 5% 40+ 2.7%

It's almost as if people just got older over the intervening years.

pilly

Teyla Emmagan wrote:

We'd probably have to make AH a "safe space" for them. You may as well turn off the lights.

And this **** is why they're not on Boards.

Arghus

Boards is just facing the same issues that all "old school" traditional message boards are facing. They've become superseded in popularity by the likes of Reddit and newer forms of social media. The issue of moderation is just a red herring.

The user base is getting older, doesn't spend as much time on-line as they used too and go elsewhere for what they used to get from Boards - theres not as much dynamisim around here as there once was. There might be still a fair few people on here in their early twenties, but there's less and less of them as time goes by. Long term the writing is on the wall.

I think it still does pretty well, for now, in the face of this, for an internet forum it still gets plenty of traffic, though once you get beyond the busier forums - After Hours or Soccer and the like - it has become gradually quieter and quieter over the last few years. Even a relatively busy forum like Films is noticably less alive as time goes on. And the entirety of the music section is absolutely nothing in traffic and activity terms compared to the past - I'd love to see some form of amalgamation of forums for that section, it might breathe a bit of messy life into it again - it certainly couldn't hurt. The Galway City forum used to be hopping but it's barely alive now. And most of these forums aren't that heavily moderated, so you can't blame that aspect of boards for everything, as many are wont to do.

leggo

beauf wrote: »

People de-rail topics deliberately if you allow posting off topic. So you can't discuss anything then. After hours is mainly gibberish as a result.

That happens in real conversation too, though. I've often a class story that's gonna knock people's socks off and then the chat magically switches and it gets awkward for me to be like "So Billy you mentioned bears going ice skating ten minutes ago, funny you should say that but..." (Though I still do obviously, who doesn't wanna hear about ice skating bears??)

It happens and yet we persevere.

beauf

Depends if the conversation is about something specific or just chat. Context is everything.

Classic example is Windows, and IOS and Linux users de-railing each others threads.

beauf

Arghus wrote: »

Boards is just facing the same issues that all "old school" traditional message boards are facing. They've become superseded in popularity by the likes of Reddit and newer forms of social media... .

Some of the other forums I use are pretty much unchanged and as popular as ever. But they are far more consistent in every area, and the design, moderation, navigation than boards has been across all areas.

I find boards very hard to use on the mobile. Tend to avoid using it mobile.

JupiterKid

Arghus wrote: »

Boards is just facing the same issues that all "old school" traditional message boards are facing. They've become superseded in popularity by the likes of Reddit and newer forms of social media. The issue of moderation is just a red herring.

The user base is getting older, doesn't spend as much time on-line as they used too and go elsewhere for what they used to get from Boards - theres not as much dynamisim around here as there once was. There might be still a fair few people on here in their early twenties, but there's less and less of them as time goes by. Long term the writing is on the wall.

I think it still does pretty well, for now, in the face of this, for an internet forum it still gets plenty of traffic, though once you get beyond the busier forums - After Hours or Soccer and the like - it has become gradually quieter and quieter over the last few years. Even a relatively busy forum like Films is noticably less alive as time goes on. And the entirety of the music section is absolutely nothing in traffic and activity terms compared to the past - I'd love to see some form of amalgamation of forums for that section, it might breathe a bit of messy life into it again - it certainly couldn't hurt. The Galway City forum used to be hopping but it's barely alive now. And most of these forums aren't that heavily moderated, so you can't blame that aspect of boards for everything, as many are wont to do.

I completely agree. Most internet message boards seem to be getting quieter and the user age profile getting older. I’m an admin on another Irish web forum and compared to a decade ago when it was hopping it barely gets 5 posts a day now.

server down

beauf wrote: »

Some of the other forums I use are pretty much unchanged and as popular as ever. But they are far more consistent in every area, and the design, moderation, navigation than boards has been across all areas.

I find boards very hard to use on the mobile. Tend to avoid using it mobile.

You you use the touch site? That’s easy an intuitive to me.

hatrickpatrick

Boards is a hugely oppressive environment and has been for years, compared to other forums this place is like junior infants in terms of authoritarianism and rules. But for whatever reason, that's something the administration have determined never to change even if the alternative is the site dying a slow death.