Has the 1 week downtime & move to vanilla killed this place?

[Deleted User] · 24-07-2021 7:32pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117656906#Comment_117656906

Any F1 race is only a speck compared to a major soccer final.

fryup · 25-07-2021 9:54am

yes we missed the chance to gloat @ england's car crash

beveragelady · 25-07-2021 1:23pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117651874#Comment_117651874

Maybe I have missed something but it looks like you joined boards the day before you wrote this...

cena · 25-07-2021 2:01pm

This new boards site is very bad. I want the pop-down menus instead of searching for them.

Also seems fewer people are posting on here. This could be the start of the death of boards

mrslancaster · 25-07-2021 3:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117659103#Comment_117659103

Had a look at the other site mentioned earlier & there are an awful lot of familiar user names from boards on there.

cena · 25-07-2021 5:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117659346#Comment_117659346

Sorry I meant this boards

Buzzin-Hornets · 25-07-2021 9:43pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117658967#Comment_117658967

Yes you missed my first posted where I said ‘prompted me to sign up again’ :)

bodhrandude · 25-07-2021 10:50pm

Another annoying thing, on the old site clicking a link would open up a new tab, now I have to right click the link and choose 'open another tab' what you get is a message saying you are leaving boards.ie and you have to click the link again. The older style was much easier to use.

VanZan · 25-07-2021 11:04pm

Looks like a cut down cost cutting version of boards.ie because its number of users was dwindling. Sites change to something basic like this when they're on the way out. End of an era.

The_Wanderer · 25-07-2021 11:06pm

Concur with previous comments. New forum style is crap and really difficult to find threads you follow.

UsBus · 25-07-2021 11:25pm

Site is absolutely awful to view on a smartphone. I will miss the banter on the soccer match threads but the site is finished for me. A shame, I didn't feel there was anything wrong with the previous setup. The amount of white space and lack of info on it have meant I don't even think about logging in that much anymore.

Tom Mann Centuria · 25-07-2021 11:40pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655545#Comment_117655545

I really like this site, and have been here since '07 on my original username. If I'd have been offered the choice between the occasional downtime, quirks like new posts sometimes not being visible on mobile but visible on desktop (the Netflix thread a prime example) and whatever other curveballs old boards had, I'd bite your hand off to keep it, after seeing what we're left with now.

I just don't think there's going to be a presentable/user friendly version of this any time soon, truly awful. It's not like rearranging the furniture while the Titanic sinks, it's blowing more holes in to it to sink it faster.

[Deleted User] · 25-07-2021 11:53pm

Great shout for ****.

I don't have to request the desktop site every single time because the mobile site which causes issues elsewhere (a big no no if you want my ad data and email etc..) AND it has a dark mode. Tremendous.

Whoever signed off on this scutter should be ashamed. You're stealing a living.

Ciao

razorblunt · 26-07-2021 7:07am

It’s a shambles. Whomever sold them the idea of this being the way forward must be laughing all the way to the bank. They seem to have really killed it off.

Mr.Crinklewood · 26-07-2021 8:18am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117661514#Comment_117661514

I know what time you posted this at..

TefalBrain · 26-07-2021 8:23am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117661146#Comment_117661146

+1 for Gubu. Signed up last week and it's not over moderated neither which is a bonus.

[Deleted User] · 26-07-2021 8:44am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117661639#Comment_117661639

The person running it is great to directly deal with queries or suggestions too, even if it's not a yes they'll explain why. Early days and not a huge user base yet, but it makes for a good atmosphere. The software is light years ahead too.

sydthebeat · 26-07-2021 8:50am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117661692#Comment_117661692

The funny thing is... It's not...

The base software (phpBB) is 21 years old.. And the current phpbb 3.0 version is 7 years old.

The functionality of it as a discussion board though is eons ahead of this crap that vanilla has served up.

Of course, phpbb is very limited in what it does, and probably couldn't support a site as big as boards. But the powers that be here should be doing all they can to get a UI and UX as close to the current phpbb version as they can.

[Deleted User] · 26-07-2021 8:54am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117661718#Comment_117661718

Yeah I probably should have said usability more so than software. It's like they used to say about iphones - it just works. Boards is currently like 2014 touchwiz.

Wibbs · 26-07-2021 9:13am

Of course, phpbb is very limited in what it does, and probably couldn't support a site as big as boards.

Maybe a site as big as Boards was Syd, but over the last few years where most of the hundreds of subforums were dead or breathing their last? Where the majority of the traffic was going to what? A couple of dozen forums? There are quite the number of busy enough forums out there still using old style bulletin board platforms seemingly without much issue. Here's just one example of a car brand forum, so niche enough: https://honda-tech.com/forums/ over three million threads, just under fifty million posts and over half a million members. Here's another and even more niche in many ways https://www.watchuseek.com/ going since '05, eighteen million posts, four hundred odd thousand members. [spot the guy who likes watches and drives a Honda] 😁

Now maybe this Vanilla thing was an effort to garner more people to sign up to Boards with it's new interface, but IMHO that was a silly move. Forums in general are and have been on the back foot for years. Someone on one of these threads reckoned Boards was full of middle aged men. OK, let's say that's true, but they're a demographic too and one that usually has spare cash so advertisers like them. A forum like Mumsnet which is pretty focused is huge. There's a niche there to build on that and Boards could have. They're also a demographic more resistant to change and a change like this that makes the site more confusing and harder to browse and harder to find things for anyone coming in is going to piss that demographic off even more.

And it seems it has. About the most replied threads on the site now are about how pissed off the vast majority of posters are at this retrograde change.

GerardKeating · 26-07-2021 9:26am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117661639#Comment_117661639

Well, not a lot of traffic to moderate so far, plus newbies maybe on good behaviour

GLaDOS · 26-07-2021 10:07am

I've seen a few different changes and policies declared as the thing that would kill boards (And some of the smaller fora have been dead or dying for a while), but I do worry this may actually kill boards.

Posting is way down across the site, in a way I've never seen before. The soccer forum in particular is a disaster as it is designated a group instead of a forum.

The longer this goes on, the more you'll wonder can things recover.

[Deleted User] · 26-07-2021 10:21am

It doesn't seem this software is meant to run a forum website. It's meant to be integrated for support or a small section of a bigger site.

https://vanillaforums.com/en/

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Is it any wonder it struggles to come in after vBulletin? It was never meant to. Xenforo was the obvious choice and it's a joy to use. Bananas decision that could handily cost people jobs.

TefalBrain · 26-07-2021 10:26am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117662039#Comment_117662039

Boards has been dying for a couple of years now anyway. It's gone far too liberal and any kind of conversation that mods don't agree with is removed and posters warned/banned/lectured etc... Good posters who don't have mainstream opinions have left or been banned in droves and all you are left with is an echo chamber.

[Deleted User] · 26-07-2021 10:26am

And this must be the only largish forum online that doesn't host themselves or have access to the codebase. Having to wait for people in another country to sign off on pull requests when those pull requests are your entire business is fairly unheard of.

Buzzin-Hornets · 26-07-2021 10:39am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117662117#Comment_117662117

Well that's pretty shocking if it is the case. How on earth could someone make such an ill-informed decision with something so big?

I'd expect to be looking for a new job if I did something like that.

Pawwed Rig · 26-07-2021 11:13am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117661692#Comment_117661692

There is 1 person dealing with around 200 posters most of whom are just talking about boards. Small sites are easy to manage as instant decisions can be made and everyone is on board with the newness of it. Was Niamh to start making new forums or deleting old ones on request without consultation with a wider audience the feedback would be overwhelmingly negative.

Simple business rule is small businesses are fast moving and can easily respond to change. Large companies are slow and resistant to change.

archfi · 26-07-2021 11:47am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117662359#Comment_117662359

Not true about most of the discussions yakking about here.

There's one or two threads and I think it's extremely normal for an Irish based site to discuss something happening in Ireland that affects mostly Irish people.

Suckit · 26-07-2021 11:58am

I'm on a few forums that have updated over the years and were running the same version of vbulletin as boards, they still use it, without any complaints and update it as needed. Not sure why boards didn't do this.

I come on to boards and realise I can't find any threads I was following, can't continue any discussions, and so I leave.

I'm Struggling to stay here. The law of averages tells me that eventually I will land on a site or forum that suits me better than previous ones I have landed on, and I can't imagine I'd be using boards as much from then on once that happens.

EDIT - I'm outta here again now to go browsing/look elsewhere, when normally a Monday morning would be my tea, Danish and boards..

JupiterKid · 26-07-2021 12:14pm

Given the comments and feedback over the past 10 days or so, it's obvious that the regular posters are very unhappy (rightfully) at these stupid and unnecessary changes and I would also agree that it does look like Boards is dying a slow death.

Wibbs made a very good point here that as the demographic of Boards has aged over the past 20 or so years, the needless changes to the familiar format of the site are only serving to drive posters away.

Has the 1 week downtime & move to vanilla killed this place?

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