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

Am I the only one that thinks boards is grand?!

It does what I need it to do anyway...

I get the odd rap of the knuckles from an overzealous mod every so often but overall seems fair enough....

To echo what others have said on this thread, one of the most frustrating aspects of boards- more particularly CA, are the small number of very prolific posters who use quite sophisticated group attacks, wearing down tactics, endless questioning, extreme labeling feigned ignorance, requests for "peer reviewed studies" and insults which nobody in real life would ever use, - all to the effort of getting less experienced posters on the other side of the various arguments angry and subsequently banned.

They do this all while remaining outwardly cordial and within the site or forum rules.

I could list at least a half a dozen from memory who just drain the energy and joy from the site, who can never see any good in the opposing argument or poster, These are the people who in my humble opinion ought to be permanently banned for destroying the site and removed each time they rereg.

Its often the genuine maybe less experienced poster perhaps with a short fuse who gets trolled into responding to days, weeks and months of utter dungposting by these very experienced and frankly downright nasty individuals.

That these individuals are so seldom visibly moderated or removed is what has most of us up in arms against mods.

No ordinary poster finds it suspect just those with grudges.

Yes some people have patented the whole "suicide by mod" move where they inflame things so much they guarantee themselves a ban, only to immediately scurry to dispute resolution to rant about censorship/free speech etc

There's a place for both to be honest. There are of course shytehawks who need to be asked for proof of their wild claims.

There are also decent sensible genuine people who aren't enough of a whack job to make stuff up to win an internet argument, and they get asked for links when they make a statement of fact obvious to all except someone trying to prove that black is in fact white.

^^^yeah it’s very clear modding - in addition there’s a time limit- banned for x days -I said it here already but no harm in repeating - a 24 hour no appeal ban could really help save a lot of mod time - it’s a long enough ban to potentially cool your heels but short enough that you’re not going to get overly worked up about it and will likely accept it - perma thread bans (and I’m not talking about any specific case here btw) should only be used if it’s a serious breach of forum rules like major abuse of another poster or if warnings or shorter sanctions haven’t worked -

In relation to mods posting in the forums they mod in, I think 85% of the time I’ve seen this working fine - but I’ve seen a number of mods through the years for have turned their forum into their personal playground -it never ends well when that happens. If there’s a particular thread a mod enjoys posting in that they are also a mod for, no harm in asking another mod to be responsible for modding that thread except in extreme circumstances - it gives the mod a chance to just be another poster posting for that topic. Just a thought

it’s actually just common sense and you’d think the mod themselves would have the cop on to do that- like how many times in the past have the same mods trotted out the olde line of “you’ve been here long enough you should know better” when warning other posters about something 🤪

!00% agreed. Everyone who reads that will know exactly who you are talking about. He/they are one of the biggest issues with AH/CA and nothing is done about it.

Well I'd go further than that. Anytime I as a regular poster, go to reply to another user that has 'Moderator'… or whatever under their name, a little alarm goes off. You'd be thinking 'I'd better choose my words very carefully here'. It's a bit like driving along and you notice a Garda car behind. Is this good or bad? I wouldn't say it's all that great for either poster or moderator. So maybe best be like Beasty and presumably others and stay off threads/ forums that are anyway contentious.

For example, I know you often contribute helpfully on personal issues which forum has a whole different atmosphere. But there are others where strong differences of opinion are common and where IMHO mods should stay off.

On a separate matter, I notice some here talk of 'winning or losing arguments'. Personally I don't see how this works, except in very simple areas. Views are expressed, positions modify one way or another or not and that's about it. I can't really think of a thread that concerns debate of any great substance where you say, this won or that lost.

this isn’t a court of law - there’s enough posters on this site who can sniff a troll a mile off - low level trolling by it’s nature is covert not overt - you combine a reduced amount of mods and limited time and it makes conditions that favour low level trolls - they can exist simply because boards doesn’t have the resources to deal with them- it’s that simple

I could call you a &@%#*# and get banned - that’s a simple one and done mod action.

But what if I stated for the 40th time in multiple threads something like - “do you have evidence to back up your claim Arghus?” - and then went down the rabbit hole of something like “well the daily mail isn’t exactly a peer reviewed article now is it” …

Try dealing with that type of bollox on a thread you and others are wishing to contribute to- a thread permitted by the mod of that forum - a thread running for quite some time- try that for a while and see how long you last before calling the poster -who’s only motivation is to troll the thread and never gets as much as a slap on the wrist -a pr1ck, before you get banned - try it- many have - they’ve lasted weeks some months - but ultimately these pr1cks win - well no more - every time one of these pr1cks does this I’m quoting this post and this thread when reporting them - they’re destroying this site.

Moderator: Last line removed. I get the frustration but don’t let your emotions cloud your othwise stellar contributions to this discussion. -Shield