Boards - as good as it used to be?

People have been whinging since boards was set up that it's "going downhill", "bring back the good old days", and of course complaining about it being too PC and mods too heavy-handed.

Has boards gotten a little more PC? Yeah, I think so. It's moved beyond a place where gamers and almost exclusively young men congregate and call each other retards & fags while making the same sexist and racist jokes over and over ad nauseum, to somewhere that you wouldn't be embarrassed to show your partner or your parents.

And that's not a bad thing. As the Internet has moved beyond the realm of computer scientists and gamers to being used every day by your average person on the street, the likes of 4chan have fallen more and more behind and become a "dark corner" of the web. There was a time when 4chan was just a little bit edgier and more nefarious than some other forums, but it was pretty popular. Now it appeals to a tiny corner of the web, most rational adults steer clear.

Even reddit, which somewhat prides itself on being a wide-open talking shop with a diverse userbase has a population massively skewed towards young white middle class males, moreso than most other popular sites.

Boards has for the most part been able to keep with the times and deliver the kind of thing that most people want to use - somewhere that you can have a discussion or post a question and you get back mostly coherent and respectful responses rather than an unintelligible stream of crap or some obscure meme response. Look at facebook. You cannot have a rational and coherent discussion on facebook, unless it's between a couple of friends. There is no forum for debate there because there's no control.

smash wrote: »

Have you seen the new beta website?

Yep. It's not bad. A few bugs, a few missing features.

Mobile and tablet displays are quickly overtaking desktops as the browser of choice online. Last company I worked sold stuff online and the mobile -v- desktop contingent was 3:1, increasing from 1:20 in the space of 24 months despite the company's site looking like sh1te online.

There's still a lot of browsing from work for sites like boards, but I imagine the mobile traffic is quickly catching up on desktop, if it hasn't already.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, we're going to have to accept the fact that as time moves on most sites will put the bulk of their energy into optimising for mobile displays and desktop will become a little sterile.

A bit like dial-up users who started complaining that 10kb was too big a page size for boards, it was taking forever to download, eventually those who don't move on in technology have to be left behind.

What has happened is, every moron with a connected device feels he has the right to say what he wants, without fear of consequences.

Well newsflash, you cannot say what you want, you are not anonymous on the internet and both you and Boards.ie can be held accountable for what you say.

So get over it.

What is missing is the cutting satire that can be witty, gets the point across while remaining civil.

I've definitely found AH to be a far more unfriendlier place as the years go by, with people very quick to jump down each other's throats for ridiculous reasons or grammar taken up the wrong way (Which I'm sure is nearly intentional in a lot of cases).

There's a select few who continuously shít on threads the moment they start because they themselves don't find the topic interesting or remember that the topic was covered back in 2009. It's not very inviting for someone to start a topic if the clique are going to come down on them like a ton of bricks.

AH's lowest point for me was the sticky about misogyny, that left a very sour taste for this forum.

Funny how most of the people complaining about boards and After Hours in particular not being 'as good as it was' often seem to have new accounts.

The King of Moo wrote: »

I like the new competition to shoehorn simplistic political polemics into the most unrelated threads possible:

Has anything genuinely creepy or unnerving ever happened to you?
"When the government used my tax money to give the banks a blanket guarantee! :rolleyes:"

Stingiest thing you've seen stingy people do
"I know this fella called Enda, even though he promised he wouldn't, hes cut my wages to pay the bondholders, and of course he blames the fella before him! :rolleyes:"

Trivial things that annoy you
"Having to pay for water twice, even though it falls free from the sky :rolleyes:"

So is prostitution to be outlawed in Ireland or what?
"Doesnt look like it, sure havent we all been pimped out to Angela by this government? :rolleyes:"

No more coppers
"Dont worry, there'll still be plenty of coppers trying to stop peaceful protestors who for some reason think its wrong that we have to pay for water. :rolleyes:"

Cutting dole for criminals
"What about cutting bonuses for the banksters, arent they the biggest criminals of all? :rolleyes:"

What's your favourite colour?
"Blue, because that's how I feel about the bondholders taking my hard-earned tax money! :rolleyes:"

What time is it?
"Time to burn the bondholders who are making us pay for water! :rolleyes:"

It's worse on facebook, any news story your guaranteed to see any of the above and more.

jamesbere wrote: »

It's worse on facebook, any news story your guaranteed to see any of the above and more.

Don't even look at the comments on Thejournal!

Robsweezie wrote: »

looking through old threads from about 2010-2011 and you see a lot of banned posters, messy grammar and people just being pure dicks to each other . all of these are seen at a much lesser extent nowadays it seems. cleaner, more sterilised. a lot of ''trolls'' have been weeded out.

I think the site has grown up a bit and changed, but for the better? is it as good as It used to be? ive only been on 3 years so im not familiar with the early days.

Also a lot of posters have become americanised :rolleyes: