Very quiet in here

Sort of related. Current affairs was somewhat designed to absorb the more political posts of after hours. But I think the bans are resulting in posters migrating back to after hours to post the stuff that they know they wouldn't necessarily get away with on CA or that they simply can't post there due to a ban. So it feels like AH is often acting as a dump for controversial political views which I thought it was no longer really for. Maybe it is, in which case that's fine.

I don't really get the whole 'just ignore the shitposters' argument.

I mean, yeah, I do that (I stay away from the Immigration thread, for example) but even if I ignore them, they are still there. And, because not everybody is going to ignore them, they are going to get bites from people and drag threads way off topic and lower the quality of discussion. And their continued presence means that posters just don't get involved in threads because who could be bothered with that, so the quantity is lowered also.

So while ordinary users such as myself should indeed be doing our best to ignore them, mods whould be doing what they can to get rid of them and improve the quality of discussion. And I don't see a whole lot of evidence of that happening. Some of those posters have been poisoning CA with this stuff for years.

It's a bit like watching a referee in a football match endlessly allowing one team to timewaste, and the referee is all the while tsk tsking that this is terrible behaviour and something should really be done about it.

And like what usually happens in feedback threads, it becomes a place for personal attacks and for posters to 'get around ' the don't attack the poster rule.

Touche 😉

A bit harsh no? If as you say most bans comes from one thread, and those posters are not usually receiving bans in other areas of the site, then it's not very fair to suggest they should be banned from an entire category. As it is the ban from the CA forum is harsh enough I would suggest.

Given that the immigration thread(s) have attracted a lot of complaints, I would suggest, if not already done, that a second look is taken at the moderation of the thread - either by an admin or area CMOD etc.

I suggest this as in the past this would have happened through appeal \ DRP process. This would have established common standards.
But as the vast majority of CA sanctions don't enter that process, perhaps something is lacking there and is leading to inconsistency between moderators.
This may lead to some new ground rules for the thread \ forum etc so users and mods are clear on the approach going forwards eg is there a better way of stopping the invent a claim via anecdote rule*, putting onus on posters as per Politics to distinguish between opinions and statements.
* I have seen this tactic deployed elsewhere on boards

A sample review of both sanctions given and reports not actioned.

Note I don't frequent the immigration thread, and am only forming a picture of it from comments on this thread.

Agree with poster about spamming , ruins the conversation , but it happens on all sides of the debate unfortunately.

I said what I wanted to say earlier in the thread and appreciate the mods discussions in this .

There are some very good suggestions from many posters here and as above @odyssey06 and @osarusan especially.

All we can do is try to post within the rules but it would be helpful if those rules were consistent and not just trying to catch some posters out .

I agree with many here who think that accumulating time bans need to be appealable earlier and that all previous bans should be reviewed in this as they are relevant .

Finally there is no point having a CA forum on a site where people are made to feel that from the top down that as a discussion forum it is a cesspit and those who post there are somehow considered " less than" by the community on boards.ie.

Wasn't here when it was extracted from whatever fora it was originally and think that if such condescension exists among longer term posters , mods and admins towards the forum it is bound to be reflected in the treatment of posters posting in it .

I as others would have been drawn here by the advice threads and then to discussions on health and services then on to CA which is front page usually . I read a lot of other fora but infrequently post there except for music and weather .

If it is not to be encouraged move CA off the front page and close down threads that have past their sell by.or slowed posting Don't allow zombie threads to be resurrected after a time eg 6 months unused .

Allowing any old discussion for the sake of having A discussion is not worth the grief imo. When new news happens a thread will be started and if the old thread not closed permanently could they not be merged .

These changes are only within the preserve of management.

I think it's disingenuous to on one side castigate CA posters for being boring, repetitiveness and circular arguments ,but still allow the threads to ramble on forever , attracting newer posters who inevitably start the old arguments again .

But that's it I guess , it's footfall .

The operation of the site and the frequent and ongoing problems withit since Vanilla is a big turn off and it's perseverance by longterm posters for love of older boards that has kept it going. You see that in the feedback thread about bugs .

Final question on this ..what are the most popular threads and fora ? We have no idea since the change to Vanilla or does the trending now replace those statistics ? I don't think some of those trending threads are really trending, but just a mix really of what is going on on a given time .

^^^^

How could you possibly know what individual we are talking about 😀

Thanks for the response.

If Rule #2 is to be modified I would again suggest looking at the Politics charter and how they approach opinions versus statements of fact. Statements of fact should be supported by evidence and posters expect to engage with such requests.

Also, someone making a wild claim, especially about an ongoing event, should be expected to do some due diligence and not just repeat rumours etc without scrutiny or without disclosing the source. Or if they are doing so plainly categorise it as such. That is how I would interpret part of rule #2 at present around "Do not post any material that you know or should know… to be false or inaccurate."
Removing those parts of Rule #2 without some sort of replacement creates a blank cheque for the peddling of scurrilous rumours about events and fake news.

This would not involve mods in directly fact checking but in applying the standards around claims and how posters should engage.

Good idea.

Or some sort of cooling down period.

I see some people with multiple post within a minute or so of each other. That's just pure derailment of the thread.

Some basic parameters around how posts should be structured. Every post doesn't have to be absolutely perfect but one liners and snarky replies quoting other users are a waste of space.

Wasn't there something like a thirty second rule back in the day before the changeover? The system wouldn't let you post more than once every thirty seconds - Am I imagining that?

I doubt it can even be done, because Vanilla is such a pile of crap, but I wouldn't be in favour of post limits for posters. Surely you should be looking to up post count and engagement etc.

And what constitutes "spamming" is highly subjective. There was a reference to spamming in the Immigration thread in a post earlier today. To try to educate myself a bit on the context I went and had a read of the thread, (it was a slow work-day and maybe I need to get a life) - which I typically wouldn't read, let alone post in - and the thread itself was a predictable enough bewildering pitched battle between different posters, with all sorts being claimed and counter-claimed and with clear "sides" of the debate to be seen.

The supposed "spamming" in that context was just a poster putting their point across and, IMO, standing their ground. Maybe there's context I'm not aware of behind it all, but, just based on what I read, I viewed it as someone putting an opposing point of view out there and that causing frustration. That's not spamming IMO.