What happened to Boards.ie - genuine question

I'm not sure what you're trying to actually say here; some if not the majority of the posters you're alluding to I have had contentious exchanges with in one subject, I have had agreements with them in others. Hell some I have both agreed and disagreed with in this same thread. And there has been more than one effort on this thread to have a go at me, personally, and regularly unprompted.

You speak to me about "snarling and biting back at people" and you speak to another user about "someone who is baiting you," you can act like these thinly veiled generalizations don't convey what your true opinions are about the issue, but IMHO it is plain. Let me know what you're actually trying to say here first though.

I think the Internet in general has in the last 5 years generally become full of lots of arguments, resentment, anger, inability to have differing viewpoints and polarised. It isn't just Boards. 15/20 years ago there were lots of really great friendly online communities that have all disappeared. In the lgbt space we had lots of great spaces with fora like gaire, queerid, angry potato, gcn, gaycork, sapphicireland - they are all gone.

They were killed by Twitter and Facebook and never really replaced.

At the same time you also had really divisive culture war issues like Trump, Brexit, Abortion, Marriage Equality, Trans rights, Globalisation, Migration and covid in the middle.

A lot of those issues divided people on binary lines and they could never see the middle ground so you created this atmosphere of everyone cranky at each other.

Politicians saw this and loved it for gaining attention

Social media giants saw it too and capitalised on it too taking the long term view that everyone cranky at each other generating more content is good for their business.

Boards went this way too - generating more clicks and content out of people's anger and frustration is obviously part of the business model chosen by owners. So go for quantity content rather than quality content. In some ways it works - this thread as an example - lots of content. In many others it doesn't. People see all the bickering and walk away. Even this thread as an example - lots and lots of content but lots of mind numbing pointless bickering.

I agree, 'Post Reported' is a tactic used by some. I don't think I've ever felt the need to use the report facility. I take the view that most posters are of an age where they can choose to engage or not and if the heat is too strong, then get out. Beasty in partic has picked me up on this and advises that there's too much to process and reporting helps mods to identify problem posts. So it does work as a tactic by those who use the facility.

But still I'd greatly prefer not to engage in it, in particular as I note that on these threads there are often other mods active. Now they may be moderators for other forums but they are still supposed to be aware of what in general is acceptable and be in a position to intervene with whoever mods that area. Of course, there is an issue when some of said mods are among the offenders themselves.

As mentioned above by someone else, there is a case for advising anyone who is a mod not to engage as an individual in threads on specified forums like CA etc

Moderators! That is what happened. There some unhinged ones.... I know one at least who bans a lot of people or sends you lots of warnings for no reason.

Yeah, it is perfect for CA - but that's the part of the problem. We should be beyond the point of having threads like that kicking around, in AH or CA.

Always enjoyed boards and have had many great interactions with tons of people. Used to do coffee bean bulk buys with members of the Coffee&Tea forum. Have a Boards cycling jersey from way way back and it’s always been somewhere to have a conversation about anything with a huge range of diverse thoughts and opinions.

Platforms age and reinvent all the time, boards has remained relatively static in that regard, not an issue really. Worse, is the level of left or right polar opinions that inevitability lead to bickering and one person campaigns to have the last word or attempt to change another person’s equally held strong opinion. Those threads have to be picked apart to find value in responses. i.e. The Enoch Burke thread.

Still have love for boards, between this account and the past one used I’ve been hanging round near 20 years (feck, I’m old!)

Mixed race couples on TV, that's OK though? As a thread that is still there. In AH. How the f u c k is that not closed?

You seem pretty triggered by a thread you don't like or agree with. But when every 2nd ad literally features a black person when they make up such a small number of the population, people will notice and have a right to call it out for virtue signalling nonsense that it is.

What is flame baiting?

1.5% according to the latest census

So, we're still good with the race baiting thread then? Grand. Zombied by a certain user. All good.