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Does Boards represent Ireland?

2

Comments

  • #32
    van_beano
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,346 ✭✭✭van_beano


    Does Ireland even represent Ireland anymore?


  • #33
    Harry Palmr
    Closed Accounts Posts: 40,059 ✭✭✭✭Harry Palmr


    No, boards.ie only represents boards.ie

    And that's not just a easy thing to say on AH it's also logic.


  • #34
    Freya Old Peanut
    Posts: 13,753 ✭✭✭✭ Freya Old Peanut


    It definitely represents modern Ireland better than Twitter.

    Ultimately, modern Ireland is still represented at the polling booth. It's quite refreshing in a way that people that pretended to despise each other can finally come together to admit that they're the same.

    I hate that same. It's not what I want for Ireland, but I am one man. I wouldn't wish to impose my utopia on anyone else.


  • #35
    MoashoaM
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 90 ✭✭MoashoaM


    Its members are mostly lovely people with sincere contributions, and then idiot chuckleheads like myself. Like society.


  • #36
    Rodney Bathgate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,440 ✭✭✭Rodney Bathgate


    [Deleted User] wrote: »
    It definitely represents modern Ireland better than Twitter.

    Ultimately, modern Ireland is still represented at the polling booth. It's quite refreshing in a way that people that pretended to despise each other can finally come together to admit that they're the same.

    I hate that same. It's not what I want for Ireland, but I am one man. I wouldn't wish to impose my utopia on anyone else.

    We are united in our hatred for SF.


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  • #37
    Silentcorner
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,631 ✭✭✭Silentcorner


    I don't think you'll ever understand Irish people until you understand that we hate ourselves!!!


  • #38
    PsychoPete
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,142 ✭✭✭✭PsychoPete


    Mr Meanor wrote: »
    Only for members to the private part of the site.
    25k earnings, 3 kids, a dog and a mortgage will limit you to After hours.

    Ugh, I didn't realise I was surrounded by peasants here


  • #39
    ILoveYourVibes
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,584 ✭✭✭✭ILoveYourVibes


    tayto lover wrote: »
    Nope. You have to be politically correct and only say what they want you to say.
    No rocking boats or anything like that.
    on boards on the real ireland


  • #40
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 14,242 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Rodney Bathgate wrote: »
    You had the moral high ground there until you insult the Happy Pear lads with ‘incestuous’.

    I admit my hands hovered over the keyboard with that one.

    I'll revise my wording, lets use a less controversial term like, "ridiculous"? or "asinine". Their food is superb, I wouldn't question that at all.


  • #41
    NasserShammaz
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 886 ✭✭✭NasserShammaz


    Only if you include all posters that have been banned and all the gemmaroids....and even then it's more of your suburban pub on a Thursday night when theres a quiz on


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  • #42
    GoatBoy74
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 140 ✭✭GoatBoy74


    It’s just rows and rows of comic book guy lookalikes.
    Worst post ever......


  • #43
    Freya Old Peanut
    Posts: 13,753 ✭✭✭✭ Freya Old Peanut


    Rodney Bathgate wrote: »
    We are united in our hatred for SF.

    I'm united in my hatred of FFG and Labour. They have destroyed my generation's future.


  • #44
    JupiterKid
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 14,972 ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    No.

    This issue has been discussed a few times before, and a survey of members done a few years back found that Boards was predominantly male and the average age of posters is mid 30s. The age profile has certainly increased in the 15 or so years since I joined up here.

    Splitting the Current Affairs forum away from After Hours was the best decision the mods/admins have made in a good while. The former is inhabited by extremists and reactionaries with a minority of posters who are informed and reasoned in their views.


  • #45
    SharpshooterTom
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,017 ✭✭✭SharpshooterTom


    OK which is more representative of Ireland?

    Boards.ie
    Reddit Ireland

    Reddit Ireland frequently attacks this site as more conservative, unionist and racist.


  • #46
    Mehaffey1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,715 ✭✭✭Mehaffey1


    Can only comment on the Forums I know well and that would really only be Farming and Forestry.

    I would be pretty confident in saying that the vast majority of regular posters in Farming and Forestry would easily feature in the top 20% of farmers or farm workers in Ireland. Therefore, they don't represent the average farmer to be honest.

    I don't believe boards users as a whole represent Ireland, mainly due to the forum nature of the website. Younger people aren't bothered since they're on social media like Facebook and Instagram. Older people have a disregard to the internet such as my parents for example in their late 50s only use the Internet for weather ajd news.


  • #47
    Fann Linn
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,837 ✭✭✭Fann Linn


    Wouldn't say so. Of my wife, kids, and their boyfriends I'm the only one on boards. The missus and the girls do FB and WhatsApp whilst the lads are too busy working or farming or both.


  • #48
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 2,264 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Deviants is a bit harsh. Losers, maybe.


  • #49
    Arghus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 16,418 ✭✭✭✭Arghus


    SharpshooterTom wrote: »
    OK which is more representative of Ireland?

    Boards.ie
    Reddit Ireland

    Reddit Ireland frequently attacks this site as more conservative, unionist and racist.

    I assume Reddit has a slightly younger age profile in terms of users. I think boards is, in some ways, a bit old fashioned. It feels like a place where a lot of the userbase are opinionated, close to middle aged, men.

    This has advantages. In many forums across the site there's useful, interesting and informed discussion. There's a lot of life experience on boards that you may not find as quickly on reddit. When boards is good, which it frequently is, it's superior to reddit IMO.

    But, it has disadvantages too. On the busier parts of the site there's a strain of angry, often completely thoughtless, conservatism that eventually comes to the fore in a lot of discussion. The amount of drivel that gets posted, parroted and thanked repeatedly in some crevices of the site is quite grim at times.


  • #50
    Mehaffey1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,715 ✭✭✭Mehaffey1


    Fann Linn wrote: »
    Wouldn't say so. Of my wife, kids, and their boyfriends I'm the only one on boards. The missus and the girls do FB and WhatsApp whilst the lads are too busy working or farming or both.

    Great point, I've been on boards for almost 8 years and have mentioned it in conversations many times and have never met another user. I am from the North so that can easily explain it as folk see a .ie site might as well be .indonesia.


  • #51
    joe40
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,851 ✭✭✭joe40


    Fann Linn wrote: »
    Wouldn't say so. Of my wife, kids, and their boyfriends I'm the only one on boards. The missus and the girls do FB and WhatsApp whilst the lads are too busy working or farming or both.

    Wife, kids, and their boyfriends?

    Is that an example of the Oxford comma.


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  • #52
    Arghus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 16,418 ✭✭✭✭Arghus


    Mehaffey1 wrote: »
    Great point, I've been on boards for almost 8 years and have mentioned it in conversations many times and have never met another user. I am from the North so that can easily explain it as folk see a .ie site might as well be .indonesia.

    I'd say maybe two or three people that I know - tops - use boards.

    I'd imagine no-one I know under the age of 25 uses it.

    That's not necessarily a knock on boards, it's just a reflection on who uses the site.


  • #53
    Potential-Monke
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,112 ✭✭✭✭Potential-Monke


    I think I only know of about 4 other people who have used Boards, but I couldn't tell you their usernames. Don't think it's representative at all, because we probably don't have any criminal scum posting here regularly, and there's plenty of those cnuts in the real world.


  • #54
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 14,242 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Arghus wrote: »
    I assume Reddit has a slightly younger age profile in terms of users. I think boards is, in some ways, a bit old fashioned. It feels like a place where a lot of the userbase are opinionated, close to middle aged, men.

    This has advantages. In many forums across the site there's useful, interesting and informed discussion. There's a lot of life experience on boards that you may not find as quickly on reddit. When boards is good, which it frequently is, it's superior to reddit IMO.

    But, it has disadvantages too. On the busier parts of the site there's a strain of angry, often completely thoughtless, conservatism that eventually comes to the fore in a lot of discussion. The amount of drivel that gets posted, parroted and thanked repeatedly in some crevices of the site is quite grim at times.

    That's a really good explanation. I like reddit and I like boards. I'm trying to find a way of saying this that doesn't sound totally sycophantic, but one of the reasons that I prefer boards is that I like sensible posters like you. Boards somehow manages not to amplify hysteria, and that's good.


  • #55
    Wibbs
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,387 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Arghus wrote: »
    It's a bit angrier and more argumentative than Ireland as a whole.

    I don't know how people can say it's too PC, Current Affairs is rammed full with half-baked reactionary bile.
    Schrödinger's Boards: Both full of of "PC Lefties" and "Alt Right Fascists", at the same time, with only the observer determining the bias.

    Many worry about Artificial Intelligence. I worry far more about Organic Idiocy.



  • #56
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 7,852 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Wibbs wrote: »
    Schrödinger's Boards: Both full of of "PC Lefties" and "Alt Right Fascists", at the same time, with only the observer determining the bias.

    It’s more a case that there’s so many extremes one way or the other here that you wouldn’t find in such abundance in real life. Not as openly anyway.


  • #57
    super_furry
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,387 ✭✭✭✭super_furry


    Definitely think it's far more right-wing, although the dozens of brand new accounts that seem to show up every day espousing far right idiolgy probably influence that.

    It's a far older audience too. Kind of like Facebook in that no-one under the age of 25 seems to bother with it.


  • #58
    begbysback
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,909 ✭✭✭begbysback


    Arghus wrote: »

    But, it has disadvantages too. On the busier parts of the site there's a strain of angry, often completely thoughtless, conservatism that eventually comes to the fore in a lot of discussion. The amount of drivel that gets posted, parroted and thanked repeatedly in some crevices of the site is quite grim at times.

    Look, the Man U supporters thread was never great at the best of times, but now that Liverpool have won the league it’s probably best to stay out of there altogether.


  • #59
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 7,946 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Irish posters on Boards.ie saying its not representative of Ireland is worthy of entry into YLYL.

    It may be slightly more older, wealthier, male,* than the general population it is still representative of Ireland similar to a survey of 1,000 people being representative of electoral voting intention.

    * example of Oxford comma.


  • #60
    joe40
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,851 ✭✭✭joe40


    [Deleted User] wrote: »
    Irish posters on Boards.ie saying its not representative of Ireland is worthy of entry into YLYL.

    It may be slightly more older, wealthier, male,* than the general population it is still representative of Ireland similar to a survey of 1,000 people being representative of electoral voting intention.

    * example of Oxford comma.

    Not quite the Oxford comma is the comma after the last item on a list before the word and.

    It's normally not important but sometimes is. The poster talked about his "wife, kids, and their boyfriends"
    With the comma after kids it sounds to me like the boyfriends of both his wife and his kids.

    "Wife, kids and their boyfriends" takes away the uncertainty.

    It was only a late night observation after a few beers. I just thought the possible two possible meainings were amusing. Certainly not a criticism in anyway.


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  • #61
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 1,732 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    I think a lot of people come here to reveal the worst versions of themselves. To say the things they never would to people in the real world, and there seems to be a lot of angry and unhappy people on some of the forums that get a kick out of trying to make other people feel bad.

    I think there are a lot of refugees from the early internet boom here who haven't really moved on and started using other social media.

    It's a bit antiquated and as someone else on here said, there seems to be a lot of conservative and angry middle aged men here so I'd say it's not very representative at all.

    Some of the threads that I find the most bizarre are the ones where someone asks for help/advice and a few trolls emerge, turn the post on its head and attack the OP. When the OP defends themselves, the attacker gets personal. It happens over and over again here and it's really off putting.

    If Boards were representative, then Peter Casey would be president and social welfare would be abolished. To be honest, I don't know of anyone else who uses it.


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