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Moving thread to different forums

Pelvis

I'm just curious as to how the decision is made to move threads to so called more appropriate forums?

I posted this thread on the MEP Brian Crowley in After Hours to bring attention to what I personally believe to be an important topic in one of the busiest forums on the site. This thread was then sent to the Politics Cafe to die, a forum which I didn't even have permission to post in, much like 99% of other members of the site I presume.

If I look through the first page of after hours, I see numerous other threads that could be sent to other forums but are left alone. For instance;

Time fillers on RTE in the 80's > Television (General)
illegal to video Gardai > Emergency Services
Are psychopaths born or does a child's upbringing have a greater impact than genes? > Humanities
Jordan Peterson interview on C4 > Television (General)
The Conor McGregor Thread > Mixed Martial Arts [MMA]
Are younger women misguided to think that we are very unsafe in today's world? > The Ladies' Lounge
What are ye eatin'? (NOW WITH DRINKING!!!) > Food

I liken my thread to the Conor McGregor thread personally.

Is there any process involved here, or is it wholly dependent on the whim of the mod in question?

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Cookie_Monster

Pelvis wrote: »

Is there any process involved here, or is it wholly dependent on the whim of the mod in question?

History suggests the latter as it's so inconsistent at this stage it's pot luck whether it actually gets moved or not.

I count at least 3 politics threads on the front page of AH right now that have been there for weeks.

kneemos

There's a lot of contemporary stuff that can't be discussed anywhere due to the persistence with the PC that hasn't worked for years.

Pelvis

Anyone?

I see another thread was just closed rather than moved, but a link was given to politics cafe... where users can't post without asking for access.

kneemos

Pelvis wrote: »

Anyone?

I see another thread was just closed rather than moved, but a link was given to politics cafe... where users can't post without asking for access.

The second thread in the PC had activity yesterday,the third one three days ago.

Persisting with it is a demonstration of futility. Or they just don't give a shoite.

Pelvis

Anyone?

Pelvis

Anyone

Mr. CooL ICE

Pelvis wrote: »

I posted this thread on the MEP Brian Crowley in After Hours to bring attention to what I personally believe to be an important topic in one of the busiest forums on the site. This thread was then sent to the Politics Cafe to die, a forum which I didn't even have permission to post in, much like 99% of other members of the site I presume.

Firstly, it is against the charter to post threads in After Hours to gain a wider audience. It doesn't matter how strongly you feel about a certain subject; if mods let people post whatever they wanted in AH for that reason, then traffic wouldn't go anywhere else on the site and AH would be a mess of people trying to get attention for whatever cause they deemed important.

Secondly, there are already two political forums in Politics and Politics Cafe. Why post a political thread in another forum when you already have two to choose from?

Lastly, thread don't get sent anywhere 'to die'. That's nonsense. If we wanted threads to die, we'd just close them. They get sent to other parts of the website if deemed more suitable.

Pelvis wrote: »

If I look through the first page of after hours, I see numerous other threads that could be sent to other forums but are left alone.

...

Is there any process involved here, or is it wholly dependent on the whim of the mod in question?

Yes, there are threads that could technically have been moved elsewhere. But a balance between catering for discussion and a total free for all has to be struck somewhere. It is at the mod team's discretion. Note 'team'. If a mod is unsure, they ask for opinions from other mods before doing anything. If it's clear cut, then it is moved. At the end of the day, the main factor for being kept in AH is how topical an issue it is. Brian Crowley's absence isn't exactly big water cooler talk.

Pelvis wrote: »

I see another thread was just closed rather than moved, but a link was given to politics cafe... where users can't post without asking for access.

Tbh, it would be faster if you PM'd the mod (me in the two cases mentioned here) in question asking why it was moved instead of going to Feedback first. But anyway...

Same reasons as the Brian Crowley thread above. It was political, but a presidential candidates use of a logo isn't considered topical enough.

biko

Yes, there are threads in AH that could, or even should, go into other forums.

I suppose the AH mods must think that if they move certain threads then the thread will die.

I think that having certain threads in AH deprives other forums as AH posters then don't venture away from AH to explore specialised forum, mainly Music and Literature.

In your case OP the move was valid, in my opinion, as Politics Cafe is intended for political discussion for people that don't feel comfortable in the main political forum (or maybe doesn't know boards has such a forum).
I see from your post history you know Politics forum exists so not sure why you didn't want to post there instead. Possibly the language of the OP would have got the thread closed?

kneemos

PC is redundant, doesn't work, nobody uses it,is pointless. The main politics forum is dependent on the view of the moderators if a thread can remain or not.
In the middle you have valid issues that can't be discussed in AH or the politics forum that get moved to the PC,in other words can't be discussed anywhere.

Beasty

kneemos wrote: »

PC is redundant, doesn't work, nobody uses it,is pointless. The main politics forum is dependent on the view of the moderators if a thread can remain or not.
In the middle you have valid issues that can't be discussed in AH or the politics forum that get moved to the PC,in other words can't be discussed anywhere.

I made it clear in the AH "Slow Death of Forums" thread that PC was a topic we would take away and discuss further among the Admin team. We have another Feedback thread discussing this precise issue, and we are now considering some of the points raised in that thread

Rather than repeating what's already been raised in that thread, can posters confine specific discussion of PC to that thread. If anyone has some new ideas then please feel free to share them there. Currently we are considering the points already raised, but recognise there are merits and flaws with many of those suggestions

We want to find something that will work for the majority, which is likely to result in some posters being disappointed. Alas that's a consequence of feedback, and finding something that pleases everyone is a bit of a pipe dream

Cookie_Monster

Beasty wrote: »

I made it clear in the AH "Slow Death of Forums" thread that PC was a topic we would take away and discuss further among the Admin team. We have another Feedback thread discussing this precise issue, and we are now considering some of the points raised in that thread

Oh great, another PC feedback thread that will be ignored, same way it has been for the last two years or more. None of the feedback from previous threads has been listened to, why do you think this one will somehow be different?
Last post in that thread you highlight was a month ago, what's been done since, anything?

Beasty

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Oh great, another PC feedback thread that will be ignored, same way it has been for the last two years or more. None of the feedback from previous threads has been listened to, why do you think this one will somehow be different?
Last post in that thread you highlight was a month ago, what's been done since, anything?

Maybe you failed to read what you quoted?

we are now considering some of the points raised in that thread

Now we have done several things with PC over the years, and all they have done is prove there is no quick fix to the issue. Yes we see feedback here, but we also need to discuss any proposals internally. I would rather do something that hopefully delivers a long term solution than a short term fix. There are no guarantees either way, but I can assure you that I am of the view that doing nothing is not an option

Cookie_Monster

Beasty wrote: »

Maybe you failed to read what you quoted?

Now we have done several things with PC over the years, and all they have done is prove there is no quick fix to the issue. Yes we see feedback here, but we also need to discuss any proposals internally. I would rather do something that hopefully delivers a long term solution than a short term fix. There are no guarantees either way, but I can assure you that I am of the view that doing nothing is not an option

Frankly I don't believe you, there been more than enough feedback over the years that's been ignored. The vast majority of it simply asking to restore PC to the way it was without all the BS registration et al. It's broken now and has been broken for an age, it needs a short term fix because the long term one will not happen in any sort of reasonable time frame.

Same with that AH thread, whats happening there? It's been ages and nothing has happened, how long do internal discussion need to be?

Pelvis Parsley

Time was when a Feedback thread would incite engagement. Good bad or indifferent. The respondents were often told in so many words that they were cranks, that all was well, or that THINGS WOULD BE DONE.

Oftentimes, such threads engendered a hundred or a couple of hundred responses.

Now. Nobody cares. At the time, the “cranks” said that any company in the world would be glad of such voluntary feedback and that it would be missed when it’s gone.

And now it has. If you want a microcosm of decline, there’s one. Nobody cares any more.

Beasty

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Same with that AH thread, whats happening there? It's been ages and nothing has happened, how long do internal discussion need to be?

Maybe you should read through the AH thread again. Plenty has happened, but I guess that does not suit your agenda

Pelvis

Dole Scrounging Vegan Crossfitter wrote: »

Secondly, there are already two political forums in Politics and Politics Cafe. Why post a political thread in another forum when you already have two to choose from?

As I said in my OP, my thread was less about politics and more about a guy screwing the tax payer, who happens to be a politician. I didn't post in the politics forum because I wasn't looking to discuss Brian Crowley's politics. The same reason people post dole scrounger threads in AH instead of the Economics forum.

Dole Scrounging Vegan Crossfitter wrote: »

It is at the mod team's discretion. Note 'team'. If a mod is unsure, they ask for opinions from other mods before doing anything. If it's clear cut, then it is moved. At the end of the day, the main factor for being kept in AH is how topical an issue it is. Brian Crowley's absence isn't exactly big water cooler talk.

If the topic wasn't "big water cooler" talk why not just leave it and it would have faded away unnoticed. Moving it to a forum where 99% of people don't even have permission to post hardly encourages discussion.

Saying it's at the mod team's discretion? This is just a more formal way of saying you make it up as you go along. Another recent prime example is the Book Worm thread which was left alone when it could have been moved to the more suitable Literature forum, and the Best Podcasts thread which was moved to the Podcasts forum.

For the record, I have no issue with threads being moved, once there is some logic behind it. But if you make it up as you go along then some are going to feel aggrieved.

Mr. CooL ICE

Pelvis wrote: »

As I said in my OP, my thread was less about politics and more about a guy screwing the tax payer, who happens to be a politician. I didn't post in the politics forum because I wasn't looking to discuss Brian Crowley's politics. The same reason people post dole scrounger threads in AH instead of the Economics forum.

That is fair enough. You are entitled to your opinion. But I disagree.

Pelvis wrote: »

Saying it's at the mod team's discretion? This is just a more formal way of saying you make it up as you go along. Another recent prime example is the Book Worm thread which was left alone when it could have been moved to the more suitable Literature forum, and the Best Podcasts thread which was moved to the Podcasts forum.

I would be in agreement if you hadn't removed the context from my post. You left out this important bit:

Dole Scrounging Vegan Crossfitter wrote: »

Yes, there are threads that could technically have been moved elsewhere. But a balance between catering for discussion and a total free for all has to be struck somewhere.

The way I see it, mods have 3 options; a) Let AH be a free for all and allow every type of thread that wouldn't get the site in trouble, b) move as many threads possible to more appropriate forums or c) strike a balance between (a) and (b).

Mods currently opt for (c) because we believe this is what would please the majority of the forum users. What would you suggest yourself?

Tom Mann Centuria

I'd move them all.

Beasty

Tom Mann Centuria wrote: »

I'd move them all.

Might just move this one to Rugby League to give you a bit more exposure....

Cookie_Monster

Beasty wrote: »

Maybe you should read through the AH thread again. Plenty has happened, but I guess that does not suit your agenda

and what agenda is that exactly?

Beasty

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

and what agenda is that exactly?

You are not exactly positive in any feedback you offer, but in this case I find it both frustrating and annoying that you ignore all the follow up to and within the AH thread

Cookie_Monster

Beasty wrote: »

You are not exactly positive in any feedback you offer,

245 posts over 10+ years and you think it's all negative? It may not be as positive as it once was, I'll agree with that, but there are very obvious reasons for that. Look around you, feedback is a husk of it's former self, most posters simply don't bother any more. I still try and provide some feedback because I care. If you want to simply dismiss it out of hand I may as was unsub from the forum and not bother any more, like most posters seem to have done over the years.

Beasty wrote: »

but in this case I find it both frustrating and annoying that you ignore all the follow up to and within the AH thread

such as?
Ok pics are back in AH and thats a plus point.
But:
Mods still close or delete threads for trivial reasons despite a big part of the feedback being to leave them to live or die by their own popularity. Rarely are fleshed out & properly justifiable reasons for locking posted. Something like Ï think we're done here" isn't exactly a helpful way to post when a thread is locked.
Moving threads to more appropriate fora is still 100% hit and miss, there is simply no consistency of what's allowed and what's moved.
Despite everyone knowing PC is dead threads still get bumped there, hence this thread and others. What happened to either a current affairs forum or allowing it in AH, how long does it take to make a decision?
Moderation in general is still inconsistent...
Last posted update in AH of any kind of change or amendment is 18-01-2018

Just to add one thing from recent discussions here. Politics Café remains certainly on my radar, and is perhaps the next thing we need to prioritise. We'll have a discussion amongst the Admins and probably the Mods and CMods as well, and get back when we've given it further consideration

This is from your last post in that thread on 16/08, 7 weeks ago. What's happened since then? 7 weeks is a very long time in business to make important yet trivial changes to your product, never mind the 8 months between that post and the start of the thread.

Beasty

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

This is from your last post in that thread on 16/08, 7 weeks ago. What's happened since then? 7 weeks is a very long time in business to make important yet trivial changes to your product, never mind the 8 months between that post and the start of the thread.

On this specific point we have had a number of discussions amongst the Admins. The problem is we have seen various attempts to deal with this issue, but to date no acceptable solution has been found. In the middle of those discussions we have seen further commentary on certain points concerning Politics Café 2.

Having said that, this evening I have been drafting up a new charter for what may become Politics Café 3 or "Current Affairs", following a prior discussion on the latter. It's not easy, and we need to agree something among the Admins as a starting point before discussing it with CMods and Mods, and then in Feedback. We don't want to simply implement something without giving the wider userbase an opportunity to give their own views

Now back on that AH thread. the mere fact we are openly discussing this here is as a result of one issue raised in that thread. The AH mods have adopted a less strict moderating style based on feedback (of course, we now see criticism of mods not doing enough) We have implemented a Mod Handbook to try and encourage more consistency in moderation. We have de-modded a lot of inactive mods, and I will be taking a fresh look at that shortly. We are considering where we can streamline Categories more, and some changes have been made with more on the cards. That has been quite low down the priority list though. And of course, yes we're getting round to the whole Politics and Politics Café issue

Yes it would be great if we could do more, and we will continue to review certain areas. TBH though I think we need to see some of the existing initiatives play out before trying to do too much more. Let's face it, when we do implement changes we find some people like the changes, and others may prefer things the old way

kneemos

Beasty wrote: »

On this specific point we have had a number of discussions amongst the Admins. The problem is we have seen various attempts to deal with this issue, but to date no acceptable solution has been found. In the middle of those discussions we have seen further commentary on certain points concerning Politics Café 2.

Having said that, this evening I have been drafting up a new charter for what may become Politics Café 3 or "Current Affairs", following a prior discussion on the latter. It's not easy, and we need to agree something among the Admins as a starting point before discussing it with CMods and Mods, and then in Feedback. We don't want to simply implement something without giving the wider userbase an opportunity to give their own views

Now back on that AH thread. the mere fact we are openly discussing this here is as a result of one issue raised in that thread. The AH mods have adopted a less strict moderating style based on feedback (of course, we now see criticism of mods not doing enough) We have implemented a Mod Handbook to try and encourage more consistency in moderation. We have de-modded a lot of inactive mods, and I will be taking a fresh look at that shortly. We are considering where we can streamline Categories more, and some changes have been made with more on the cards. That has been quite low down the priority list though. And of course, yes we're getting round to the whole Politics and Politics Café issue

Yes it would be great if we could do more, and we will continue to review certain areas. TBH though I think we need to see some of the existing initiatives play out before trying to do too much more. Let's face it, when we do implement changes we find some people like the changes, and others may prefer things the old way

Why can't the inactive mods be used to mod an open PC forum? Surely it ain't rocket science?

end of the road

kneemos wrote: »

Why can't the inactive mods be used to mod an open PC forum? Surely it ain't rocket science?

i'd imagine the mods that are inactive have had to step away for whatever reason so are unable to actually mod. presumably they plan to come back at some stage hence not stepping down but things get in the way. but that's a guess on my part.

dudara

An inactive mod is an inactive mod, regardless of why. It doesn’t matter if real life has gotten in the way for a bit, or if they’ve stepped back from Boards but not informed us. Either way, they don’t have the interest or time to mod any additional forums and it wouldn’t really be right to ask.

It can be really challenging to recruit new mods, especially for the more “lively” forums which ask a lot of the mods.

end of the road

dudara wrote: »

An inactive mod is an inactive mod, regardless of why. It doesn’t matter if real life has gotten in the way for a bit, or if they’ve stepped back from Boards but not informed us. Either way, they don’t have the interest or time to mod any additional forums and it wouldn’t really be right to ask.

It can be really challenging to recruit new mods, especially for the more “lively” forums which ask a lot of the mods.

yes agreed.

kneemos

Could be inactive because they're a mod on one of those forums that hasn't had a post for several years but still has three or four mods listed?

Beasty

kneemos wrote: »

Could be inactive because they're a mod on one of those forums that hasn't had a post for several years but still has three or four mods listed?

If they are active on the site we can talk to them to establish their future intentions

The ones I was referring to are mods who may not have logged on for 6 months or more, let alone post. Even in those cases we try to message them (via PM) to check everything's OK and ask if they intend getting back active again

In some cases mods so alert us to anticipated absences in which case we may simply alert CMods to ensure there is adequate cover

Some forums are so quiet/dead though that it can prompt a review of the viability of maintaining the forum

dudara

kneemos wrote: »

Could be inactive because they're a mod on one of those forums that hasn't had a post for several years but still has three or four mods listed?

When we check inactive mods, we also check their overall activity on the site, so we get the full pucture