Site is a graveyard - How can boards save itself? [Threadbanned users in 1st post]

Yeah not sure, even when there was loads of them, half didn't do any actual modding anyway.

Not bad for one thread in a forum that's dead on it's feet. Imagine the busier forums.

There’s a rake of posters who “blame” the mods for their own inability to follow the rules of the forum/site. They claim it’s because they hold the “wrong” opinions but, in reality, it’s because they can’t express their terrible opinions without being uncivil, attacking the poster or going way over the top.

Sure there’s some who post mostly in this forum, complaining constantly about the way the site works now, vanilla, the search function, cookie notifications and anytime the site is down for more than 2 minutes. They’ve hardly posted in other parts of the site but have been ever present in here.

Seems like it’s mostly “legacy” desktop users who have the majority of problems with the site, and are quite vocal about it, while the rest of us just get on with it and make the best of what’s here.

The, near constant, abuse of moderators should not be tolerated. The number of threads set up just to “have a go” at them has been excessive. It’s a thankless job that has gone unappreciated for far too long.

Would it be possible to remove the “Dispute Resolution” forum? Far too much time wasted there on terrible, terrible, posters who, from what I can see, are only there to waste as much mod/admin time as possible.

I miss the good friday pub thread!

Very frustrating to use on phone. Moving to the next page lands you at the bottom and you have to scroll to the top.

When every second post is by the same clown who has 50k+ post to his name you know it's best not to bother engaging or reading the thread.

Thinking on it long term I do think there's actually a bright future for this forum in the nationwide context, but no forum will ever match its pioneering days. I saw a discussion somewhere stating that globally the highpoint of engagement in online forums like boards was around 2008, after that social media platforms like FB diluted local fora all over the world.

In recent years I was finding myself posting less and less on reddit and then last year after the Hamas attack I made a reply on r/worldnews about consequences in which I stated if historical Israeli reactions were anything to go by then about 40 thousand Palestinians were going to die. The post was very matter of fact, a dry observation. I didn't use any invective or bias, it was a singular post so wasn't part of any in-thread drama, but merely stating a projection based on verified UN historical averages.

I got site banned for a week for that comment. It left me felling very weary of the forum. I don't think I would have been banned for the same comment here, as this place has a linear memory that reddit doesn't. I'm sure there are many other regular users who will get turned off it in similar ways. Anytime I look at r/ireland it really is just the same daily discussions and little useful information.

Reddit isn't a discussion forum. In ways it feel like the end of the internet rather the frontpage, similar in ways to how parents and grandparents turning up on FB killed it off for younger people.

From a utilitarian point of view I've always gone to boards for information. We were debating about getting an EV in the last couple of years but while we never had to post asking about it as there were loads of useful information in the cars forum discussions to help us weigh up the pros and cons around our own driving needs. There's a few other boards forums that I trawl for information without posting, and I'm sure there's people who never log in who do the same.

I would opine that sites like this have reached maturity, and those who love in-thread drama continue to find eachother across all forums while everyone else who just needs information gets that too.

The internet is the greatest social communications revolution since the printing press, and that kicked off the reformation wars! Perhaps we're just in another phase of internet, the post early adaptor phase where the early enthusiasm and general cooperative pioneer spirit of a new venture is overtaken by the arrival of the rest of society with all its personal biases and dramas.

For things that actually matter it's hard to beat Boards as a first stop query source.