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

That thread has been pruned (slashed) back into a nice tidy little pseudo-thread.

The changeover a few years back was a complete and utter disaster.

It took several days (if not weeks) of site outage when it was planned to be completed initially over a weekend. Then it took several more weeks (if not months) before it became clear what the new experience would be like.

The complete disappearance of critical functions, specifically around modding (cards display system for example) showed that the scope and agreement with vanilla for the changeover was mismanaged and not even understood appropriately before any contract was even signed.

Some other things that were lost directly in the changeover that impacted the users experience which again influences visitors to the site was the loss of the 'Most thanked' posts tab. That was something that used to bring me to the site every day and often I would spend significant time on the threads linked from that tab. Poof, gone, in the changeover, never seen again.

And because of the changeover many long term contributors (many of who modded as well) stepped away from the site and have never returned. Aside from their mod duties, many of these contributed on a lot of conversations. One in particular also ran 'Best……..' competitions which were highly popular and again gave people a positive experience when coming to the site.

Aside from this, unless you were on the site, you had no clue (and still don't) as to what is happening on it. I know Boards doesn't have a budget for advertising or anything like that but I'm sure the likes of 2fm/todayfm would run a no cost piece once a week where they'd talk about some key conversations that were happening on the site as a form of advertisement. Those stations would happily use such an update for 5 minutes to provide content for their shows. Also, I'm nearly ten years a member now and can set up my account to send me emails every time someone quotes me or whatever. And yet, I've never received an email from the site telling me about popular threads or topics which again could drive traffic back to the site. Has there been a single planned initiative to bring traffic to the site?

And added to all this, and as I've said before on threads like this, the modding experience since the changeover is just shocking. For all involved. There is zero accountability for the most senior mod now in their style or implementation of modding and that has been a very large reason why I've posted maybe 4-5 times total in the last 6 months or so. I respect the effort they have put in to the site for so long, but because of the absence of other strong personalities around with or involved with the site, it has gotten out of control and overall paints a negative image of how the place works right now. I'd say I was banned from a total of 1-2 threads in my time on here (7-8 years) up until the changeover. Since then, it's probably 4-6 threads, all by this same person and when I've asked for CMod review etc, I've had zero response or engagement. It's a problem.

This also caught my eye just now.

A site administrator, several years in to the new site, does not understand the moderation system and process. No disrespect to the posters involved here, at all. But for such a situation to exist at this point is a massive red flag with respect to structures/process/communication at the mod/admin level. I don't think any site could expect to thrive in such an environment. Unless it was deliberately courting crazy conspiracy type posting, which Boards obviously isn't doing.

And this is probably a quote from the last one of these threads last year or whenever but I still stand by it; 'Good Moderation won't bring people to the site, but bad moderation will make them leave'.