is boards dying in popularity?

SmurfX · 07-03-2014 02:22PM

UtopianWarlord wrote: »

After hours is certainly less appealing, the thanks system hasn't helped. Threads usually start of with the first page or two filled with 'hilarious' quips, of which about 1 in 15 is funny. Usually the exact same joke gets repeated, then you have someone slow who repeats the same joke for the fourth time on page 5.

I brought this up with the mods of the day when I was more a regular poster around here about 3 years ago and got told it was part of the "charm" of AH which was met with unanimous agreement from others. I don't know if it's the same now or if people finally got sick to the teeth of it but it seemed back then as if that kind of thing was exactly what the majority were looking for when they came to AH.

md23040 · 07-03-2014 02:24PM

UtopianWarlord wrote: »

After hours is certainly less appealing, the thanks system hasn't helped[/b[. Threads usually start of with the first page or two filled with 'hilarious' quips, of which about 1 in 15 is funny.

For me the thanks function is extremely helpful because it allows you to quickly scan through say a fifteen page thread and only read those posts with so many thanks, then you completely get the gist of the thread without having to endure many of the less relevant.

Okay, just because a thread isn't thanked doesn't mean it has no merit but at the same time it's a great way to seperate, with a degree of confidence the wheat from the chaff.

[-0-] · 07-03-2014 02:26PM

Zascar wrote: »

What's dying is the frequency of actual decent discussion - it's just really bad puns and stupid jokes derailing threads most of the time. Maybe we can see the statistics I'm sure it's doing just as well if not better than in the past - but proper discussion of topics and events has certainly been going downhill for a long time.

The issue is people use After Hours for discussion, instead of actual fora. The reasons for doing so are numerous, and one of the main reasons is After Hours gets more traffic than the other fora on here. The issue is exactly this though. People treat After Hours as a playground and meaningful discussion rarely ever happens. One of the only meaningful threads in After Hours is the Depression thread started by Tom. That's it. Years ago The Thunderdome was the place for banality and mediocrity but that has spread to After Hours. It's a disease. :pac:

BillyMitchel · 07-03-2014 02:31PM

Taking the piss is the charm of AH. Stop people doing that and then that's when the numbers will drop and no one will post.

Some of the puns and jokes to be hilarious. When personal serious threads come up the posters on AH can show a lot of maturity and can and do be very helpful.

If someone wants a 100% serious discussion on whatever, without anyone taking the piss it would be easier for them to go to the religion/politics/relationship forums.

[-0-] · 07-03-2014 02:34PM

DeVore wrote: »

Yes, the "right" to close your account was somewhat forced upon us. We fought to have it moulded into something reasonable and I think its just about ok now.

People have been predicting the death of boards since year 1. We're now on year 16.

Boards will one day die I guess, like all things, but for now I feel like we have made an undeniable impact and that feels good. If it ended tomorrow it would still be a major event in my life and its impact (for better or worse) would be undeniable on Irish society and the Irish Internet. That gives me quite a bit of satisfaction.

The truth is that while the site is slightly down from its highest ever point (in terms of page impressions), its not by much. Certainly much less than other "discussion" sites which are all seeing a drop off. Other metrics remain stable.

Remember, Facebook and Twitter have come along now (last 3 years) and there are only so many hours in the day for everyone. So "leisure time" sites like Boards and others have to make room for them. I'm actually really pleased how we have held our own in this regard.

Boards will evolve of course, I was only in a meeting yesterday about possible directions to evolve in!

Do you not see Reddit has a huge threat?

Friend Computer · 07-03-2014 02:35PM

md23040 wrote: »

For me the thanks function is extremely helpful because it allows you to quickly scan through say a fifteen page thread and only read those posts with so many thanks, then you completely get the gist of the thread without having to endure many of the less relevant.

Okay, just because a thread isn't thanked doesn't mean it has no merit but at the same time it's a great way to seperate, with a degree of confidence the wheat from the chaff.

I'd say that, much like the same criticism that's levelled at Reddit, it just ensures popular opinions rise to the top. Any system that uses some kind of user-generated grading for posts will do that, just taking out the ability to downvote ("thumbs down" or whatever you want to call it) won't change it.

I've been here long enough to know well the cliques (and I will not accept anyone patronising me with the notion that there aren't any) and easily spot when they all thank each other's posts. It's not even a static thing, these groups constantly morph as members sometimes fall out of favour or are banned and re-reg or new ones replace them.

Generally I skip the first few pages of a thread if it looks like there's the usual slew of "hilarious" puns. Sure, there's lots of thanks but there's no substance to the posts. There's no actual discussion, just people stroking their e-peen.

maguic24 · 07-03-2014 02:36PM

[-0-] wrote: »

Do you not see Reddit has a huge threat?

No.

Boards FTW.

UtopianWarlord · 07-03-2014 02:37PM

BillyMitchel wrote: »

Taking the piss is the charm of AH. Stop people doing that and then that's when the numbers will drop and no one will post.

Some of the puns and jokes to be hilarious. When personal serious threads come up the posters on AH can show a lot of maturity and can and do be very helpful.

If someone wants a 100% serious discussion on whatever, without anyone taking the piss it would be easier for them to go to the religion/politics/relationship forums.

The problem is the thanks function means people rush in to be the first person to post in the thread, instead of posting something thats actually funny. So you see yore ma or whatever the current hilarious phrase is thrown around in every other thread where most of the time its neither funny nor makes sense.

Wibbs · 07-03-2014 02:40PM

UtopianWarlord wrote: »

After hours is certainly less appealing, the thanks system hasn't helped. Threads usually start of with the first page or two filled with 'hilarious' quips, of which about 1 in 15 is funny. Usually the exact same joke gets repeated, then you have someone slow who repeats the same joke for the fourth time on page 5.

Eh people thinking this "AH in the olden days was better" stuff really should go back I dunno five years, go back before the thanks button and you see way more of what you describe. Discussion on AH is far more "mature" than it was(along with the fun threads).

Over zealous mods don't help, one in particular gives the impression he's on a power trip.

Well that at least is a gripe that remains constant...

The biggest threat I think is that boards.ie can't allow anything that might lead to legal threats

Maybe in opposite land. The biggest threat to Boards is a legal threat with some weight and money behind it. With the way the law is, such a thing could close this site in the morning. That's why Boards has to be careful. But let's imagine in a perfect world(or not) that you could discuss anything on Boards. Such subjects would be very small in number and would attract precious few if any extra people. If anything it might put off more. I can certainly think of a few subjects at one time or other that I'm very glad they weren't discussed here.

AnonoBoy · 07-03-2014 02:43PM

Friend Computer wrote: »

I've been here long enough to know well the cliques (and I will not accept anyone patronising me with the notion that there aren't any) and easily spot when they all thank each other's posts.

What are you talking about? There's no cliques.

Cliques isn't even a word. Stop making words up silly Friend Computer.

Come on!

Yours patronisingly,

AnonoBoy.

Wibbs · 07-03-2014 02:43PM

[-0-] wrote: »

Do you not see Reddit has a huge threat?

I find reddit very sprawling, inconsistent and you have to wade through a lot of it's corners to find something interesting. It also seems to attract far more of the "my opinion" is fact demographic. Upvoting is all very well, but that can get very populist and it can often mean a majority of idiots agree with one post.

Tasden · 07-03-2014 02:47PM

I've never noticed any cliques that people are talking about. Like minded people are gonna thank the same types of posts and have similar opinions or interests, but I don't see how that translates to being part of a clique.

Also people complaining about having opposing opinions shouted down by the "mob", its a discussion forum, if everybody just said "oh yeah you're right actually " then there'd be nothing to discuss, its not anything personal or people ganging up on new posters or anything like that, its just the whole idea of the site, no?

UtopianWarlord · 07-03-2014 02:48PM

Wibbs wrote: »

Maybe in opposite land. The biggest threat to Boards is a legal threat with some weight and money behind it. With the way the law is, such a thing could close this site in the morning. That's why Boards has to be careful. But let's imagine in a perfect world(or not) that you could discuss anything on Boards. Such subjects would be very small in number and would attract precious few if any extra people. If anything it might put off more. I can certainly think of a few subjects at one time or other that I'm very glad they weren't discussed here.

Makes it more likely to lose posters or attract new ones though, especially irregular or new users who come to check up the reaction to big stories only to find they can't be discussed.

BillyMitchel · 07-03-2014 02:48PM

UtopianWarlord wrote: »

The problem is the thanks function means people rush in to be the first person to post in the thread, instead of posting something thats actually funny. So you see yore ma or whatever the current hilarious phrase is thrown around in every other thread where most of the time its neither funny nor makes sense.

It's really obvious the people that try too hard. Reddit system on boards would completely put me off. The things sad fockers do over there for a bit of karma, which in its self is pathetic. It's the Internet!

Martha Stewart done a good AMA yesterday! But I've even found after a few months I got bored of the gonewild/WTF/funny subs and found myself more on ask science or AMA or explain like I'm 5. Some really good stuff there.

Sh1tbag OToole · 07-03-2014 02:58PM

Does anyone remember the 'bury brigades' on Digg? upvoting and downvoting makes a site more cliquey. You'd have a bunch of lads with no life sitting around all day on the site waiting to pounce on certain commenter because he said something bad about atheism or ubuntu the week before.

Its a format that works reasonably well for news sites but i'd hate to see it rolled out on boards.ie you know sometimes its better to have a reasonable laid back discussion than a heated shouting match where everyone is out to collect the most thanks.

Where do I go to redeem my thanks anyway?

BillyMitchel · 07-03-2014 03:00PM

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

Does anyone remember the 'bury brigades' on Digg? upvoting and downvoting makes a site more cliquey. You'd have a bunch of lads with no life sitting around all day on the site waiting to pounce on certain commenter because he said something bad about atheism or ubuntu the week before.

Its a format that works reasonably well for news sites but i'd hate to see it rolled out on boards.ie you know sometimes its better to have a reasonable laid back discussion than a heated shouting match where everyone is out to collect the most thanks.

Where do I go to redeem my thanks anyway?

Have one on me Sh1tbag.

Akrasia · 07-03-2014 03:12PM

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

Does anyone remember the 'bury brigades' on Digg? upvoting and downvoting makes a site more cliquey. You'd have a bunch of lads with no life sitting around all day on the site waiting to pounce on certain commenter because he said something bad about atheism or ubuntu the week before.

Its a format that works reasonably well for news sites but i'd hate to see it rolled out on boards.ie you know sometimes its better to have a reasonable laid back discussion than a heated shouting match where everyone is out to collect the most thanks.

Where do I go to redeem my thanks anyway?

They were being stored in Bitcoin somewhere, let me check the balance...

ahh, damnit, they've been hacked!

DeVore · 07-03-2014 03:19PM

[-0-] wrote: »

Do you not see Reddit has a huge threat?

No, not really... I'm never all that concerned about "others"... I'd like us to do what we do better and do more, if we do that then we'll be fine. Can I learn from them? or others? sure... but I dont think along the lines of "threats" per se.

anncoates · 07-03-2014 03:21PM

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

Does anyone remember the 'bury brigades' on Digg? upvoting and downvoting makes a site more cliquey. You'd have a bunch of lads with no life sitting around all day on the site waiting to pounce on certain commenter because he said something bad about atheism or ubuntu the week before.

Its a format that works reasonably well for news sites but i'd hate to see it rolled out on boards.ie you know sometimes its better to have a reasonable laid back discussion than a heated shouting match where everyone is out to collect the most thanks.

Where do I go to redeem my thanks anyway?

Thanks might sometimes lead to whoring and in some rare cases, passive-aggressive deployment when people adopt 'team-thanking' - but nobody in their right mind would argue that it has the potential for badness that down-voting / negative rep/disliking has.

DeVore · 07-03-2014 03:23PM

I cant see us ever going towards a up/down voting system. I like the fact that you and I and him all get the same box and the same platform and no one can move your opinion to somewhere more or less prominent. (except mods can remove it, obviously)

I also find it makes Reddit horrendous to read as everything is out of context it seems. I actually can never really work out how reddit works or get a decent flow of conversation on it.

Also, we tried Karma some time ago in Boards history. Lets just say we wont be doing that again.

MultiUmm · 07-03-2014 03:27PM

I think it would be an awful shame if boards died out, it still serves as a relevant useful and often entertaining site imo. I joined back in '09 and I remember people were saying the same stuff then as they were itt now - "Oh it's all cliques, mods are power trippers, thanks whoring is terrible, blah de blah blah". I think it is what you make of it, if you go around looking for stuff to get annoyed over you will obviously get annoyed. And if people have such a problem with AH, why do they view it in the first place? There are literally hundreds of other forums on the site to view if it irks people that much.

Aside from that, I've gotten some very useful advice in the past on boards. I still remember threads from years ago to this day, threads that provoked and challenged my opinions and my view of the world and frankly changed it for the better.

If boards were to die out what would it be substituted by? I'm sure something else would eventually come along (the internet is ever evolving after all) but I imagine it would be replaced by some more "social media" crap where people get a network to talk themselves up and promote their own narcissistic shíte. How many times has anyone seen really good discussion or debates on facebook twitter and the like? The majority of people who post on public posts on those sites seem to be among the highest order of morons, probably because of the sheer volume of people on them. In contrast you can actually get intelligent reasonable discussions here and that's something else that makes board great I think, considering there are too many loudmouth idiots with a keyboard (and appalling, lazy grammar too) on the internet already.

I can't say I know much about reddit but tbh, I'm not fond of getting mostly American opinions in threads and I presume it has a mostly American demographic. Boards has a large Irish demographic which is another advantage of it.

It's not perfect, but it is what it is. It probably will die someday but for now enjoy it and contribute meaningful posts instead of whinging about the lack of them, maybe that will help improve the site for people who are giving out about it. :P

The Narrator · 07-03-2014 03:29PM

I used to come to boards to find out what was going on in the world and learn what people's opinions were on that news.

The way boards is moderated, as well as the legal fears this site has, means that often subjects can't be discussed.

It's still a great resource as it has a lot of Irish users with knowledge on a multitude of subjects, but the discussions/threads seem to go in cycles with the same ones being repeated.

I wouldn't say it's dying in popularity, but is definitely changing.

DeVore · 07-03-2014 03:34PM

Exactly... since the first days of Boards, literally the first few months, people have proclaimed that its lost its way and that its heading south. etc... All this has happened before and will happen again.

Our user figures are actually rock steady, page numbers have declined maybe 10% but that could as easily be explained that the same number of people have less time to read pages. Or that the navigation changes have made it easier to get to the info you wanted to read. Or that other online stuff is eating the spare time. Or that people in general are "getting in and getting out" rather than "hanging out" online.

Marshall McLuhan famously said "The Medium is the Message".... I think we're witnessing the change of that... the medium is no longer interesting to most users. The message is now coming to the fore. People dont "surf the web" as much as they used to as its novelty is wearing off. People want to find info, or discuss something and then get on with their lives.

Akrasia · 07-03-2014 03:35PM

The Narrator wrote: »

I used to come to boards to find out what was going on in the world and learn what people's opinions were on that news.

The way boards is moderated, as well as the legal fears this site has, means that often subjects can't be discussed.

It's still a great resource as it has a lot of Irish users with knowledge on a multitude of subjects, but the discussions/threads seem to go in cycles with the same ones being repeated.

I wouldn't say it's dying in popularity, but is definitely changing.

I think that boards moderation is actually very good

There is another discussion forum based in Ireland that we won't mention by name, but their moderation policy is very different and over the past few years, it has been almost completely taken over by trolls and conspiracy theorists

Sometimes I go back there for a peek but I can't bring myself to stay for long.

DeVore · 07-03-2014 03:35PM

The Narrator wrote: »

I used to come to boards to find out what was going on in the world and learn what people's opinions were on that news.

The way boards is moderated, as well as the legal fears this site has, means that often subjects can't be discussed.

It's still a great resource as it has a lot of Irish users with knowledge on a multitude of subjects, but the discussions/threads seem to go in cycles with the same ones being repeated.

I wouldn't say it's dying in popularity, but is definitely changing.

People hopefully will begin to realise its not the "legal fears we have" but rather the "oppressive bollocks of laws we ALL live under".

Witness Pantigate to see Irish society go "WTF now?!"

Welcome to my world

P_1 · 07-03-2014 03:51PM

Yeah reddit is a decent enough site but the upvote/downvote bollox does my head in at times there. A chronological order of posts is a much simpler way in my eyes.

The legal system in this country wrt defamation and what you can and cannot say is an absolute mindfcuk too, there are times when mods and admins steering conversation away from certain issues raises my hackles but then I realise the idiotic rules we all have to follow

padd b1975 · 07-03-2014 03:53PM

Would the whole close account/open another problem benefit from the following tweaking?

If I close my account for no apparent reason and decide to 'start afresh' with a new username, I think I should only be allowed back in with a minor adjustment of my original username.

Obviously there are valid reasons why posters close their accounts and start again a while later, but I feel genuine reasons can be accommodated by a short explanation on the registration page. Admin. would then give the green light to activate or deny the new account.

Zascar · 07-03-2014 03:54PM

For me it's really only After Hours that constantly infuriates me with rubbish talk and crap jokes etc. The vast majority of threads go miles off course straight away with random comments of no value - usually one liners. If someone wants to genuinely contribute something intelligent and useful to the conversation it's rarely just one line long. Personally what I'd love to see is a new forum (or several forums) for general topics - for proper discussion where none of the BS of AH would be allowed. Often you see stories posted on news or current events that warrants opinion and discussion but 99% of the time goes down the toilet within two pages and never returns. I come on here to hear peoples opinions and views on topics and events - but it's like trying to have a debate with a class of 'special' teenagers. I know you'll say "We have humanities" but that is not the same.

I dont expect it to ever change, at all, although I'd love to see some experimentation around some ideas to improve things. Personally if I was in charge I'd be embarrassed about the general quality of discussion/debate - on the largest forum on Irelands most popular message board.

BillyMitchel · 07-03-2014 04:49PM

Zascar wrote: »

For me it's really only After Hours that constantly infuriates me with rubbish talk and crap jokes etc. The vast majority of threads go miles off course straight away with random comments of no value - usually one liners. If someone wants to genuinely contribute something intelligent and useful to the conversation it's rarely just one line long. Personally what I'd love to see is a new forum (or several forums) for general topics - for proper discussion where none of the BS of AH would be allowed. Often you see stories posted on news or current events that warrants opinion and discussion but 99% of the time goes down the toilet within two pages and never returns. I come on here to hear peoples opinions and views on topics and events - but it's like trying to have a debate with a class of 'special' teenagers. I know you'll say "We have humanities" but that is not the same.

I dont expect it to ever change, at all, although I'd love to see some experimentation around some ideas to improve things. Personally if I was in charge I'd be embarrassed about the general quality of discussion/debate - on the largest forum on Irelands most popular message board.

But do you not think its because of all the laughs and jokes that has its one of Ireland's message boards.

If all that stopped AH would be empty and people would go over to the more serious forums and express their opinions there.

AH is not meant to be taken seriously, it even says so in the charter.

I don't always agree with the up/down voting system on reddit either but when there's a topic that's a couple of thousand posts long, then it does have it advantages. Boards would generate anything near that so it would be pointless on here.

spank_inferno · 07-03-2014 04:58PM

Modern social media can gravitate to the extreme.

As a poster of the politics forums I'm grateful of the quality of moderation keeping things civil & sensible.

Without it, there is just the mob & opinion sharing & discussion dies.

An example is the (mostly) unmoderated cousin site: TheJournal.ie.
Its comoments area are often an awfull example of every prejudice people can articulate.
Some pretty vile stuff.

Boards is the sensible guy in the middle.
So therefore some may feel its lost its edge.
However, IMO, that's a good thing!

is boards dying in popularity?

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