Very quiet in here

It's quiet because the owner no longer gives a f*ck and can't wait to get this albatross off his neck. I just wish someone else would buy it already*†

*Be careful what you wish for, etc.

†The dream is it gets bought by a conglomerate of boardsies.

Relevant to the earlier discussion on defamation.

Plumber awarded 40k award over Trust Pilot review:

A €40,000 damages award against a Dublin man who posted a defamatory review online of a plumbing company is “hugely significant” and should make people “think twice” before posting critical reviews, an internet law expert has warned.

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2025/05/17/damages-award-to-dublin-firm-over-online-review-should-make-people-think-twice-before-venting-online-says-internet-law-expert/

eh I wouldn’t get too excited over that, I mean the defendant did not even appear.

Both of those things are true, but it would still be an enormous shame if boards is just allowed to go to the wall or dwindle into total irrelevance, due to apathy.

I have no idea what the numbers of regular posters is at this point. Maybe a few hundred? The cast of characters is certainly decreasing.

But if boards is allowed to go kaputt that would be a big loss IMO. Aside from everything else, boards is a unique record of the social history of Internet era Ireland - it's unique, there's no real direct equivalent of it as a repository in that sense.

And also, as increasingly quaint and dated, as message boards are, there's still a value in them, IMO, that you don't see replicated on twitter, reddit etc, etc. When it's gone it'll be missed.

I remember back in the day that you could pay a subscription fee to boards for certain benefits and the like.

Now, this is real blue-sky thinking, but I'd happily pay a nominal fee every month if it meant the site could be maintained and treated with a certain degree of care.

I think there's a lot of goodwill towards the site from a lot of long tenured posters who'd be happy enough to contribute in some small way to ensuring that the place keeps going. Right now the state of the site is sad to see.

And also, there's so many people with technical knowledge here who could at least contribute to attempting to fix some of the bugs. The offers have been made.

I know that's all very optimistic and unlikely to happen. And I could foresee the problems with posters who pay to keep the site running, then falling into disputes with moderation etc.

But I'd love to know what the actual running costs of the site are and whether any businesses arrangements are in existence that preclude any of these things ever occurring.

As it stands boards probably won't exist in the medium term.

To cut down on mod time I think the warning scale needs to be looked at.

6 warnings to only get a 6 month ban seems light. If you dont get the hint after 2 or 3 what is going to change the posting style?

To me it depends how quickly they are racked up.

The warnings dont expire.

2-3 warnings in a short space of time should be treated differently to 2-3 warnings over a long time.

Sorry Irish Aris not the case for many .

There have been quite a few people including myself who did not get 0 pointers, or only one , before the quick 1 st and 2nd warnings were applied and while those were questioned by pm to the mod , but we're told no appeals , so we are stuck with that .

Where do we stand now ?

I think any warning should have the visibility of at least being stated on DRP so that if a person is racking up warnings because some mods differ in their application of the rules that that anomaly becomes clear to all.

I appreciate these new changes , longer term of warnings and earlier ability to appeal . But the fairness of the system where many posters lost the right to post or appeal or even make their case is not resolved by this change .

How does that address my post ?

Or are you replying to the first half of my post ? Then ok.

But what about future visibility or even past as regards some of these warnings ?