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Boards is becoming a Ghost Town

WarZ

Is it just me or is boards.ie becoming extraordinarily quiet? It's something I've started to notice and its making me go elsewhere (Reddit is incredibly busy in comparison). I'm not sure if its because the quality of posting is taking such a dive or if its because of over zealous moderation. Perhaps both. I think a balance needs to be struck; posting needs to be better but at the same time a lot of mods in the forum have over exerted their influence to the extent where we've lost so many great posters. The site is becoming too nany-esque however I'm aware the site was suffering from a huge problem with trolls and racists. I'm just wondering what are the thoughts of the admins on this issue?

Seems like boards is dying out.

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CloudCumulus

Is there a process for reporting these mods or anything?
I only recently joined but I'm genuinely horrified by the way these people behave, just from reading warnings mid-thread.
I was a mod on my college forum years ago, I get that it's a slippery slope into thinking you're the leader of the internet but it's grossly off-putting and totally unnecessary.

smash

CloudCumulus wrote: »

Is there a process for reporting these mods or anything?
I only recently joined but I'm genuinely horrified by the way these people behave, just from reading warnings mid-thread.
I was a mod on my college forum years ago, I get that it's a slippery slope into thinking you're the leader of the internet but it's grossly off-putting and totally unnecessary.

Sure you're not a re-reg? I haven't seen any horrific warnings recently! :rolleyes:

KERSPLAT!

CloudCumulus wrote: »

Is there a process for reporting these mods or anything?
I only recently joined but I'm genuinely horrified by the way these people behave, just from reading warnings mid-thread.
I was a mod on my college forum years ago, I get that it's a slippery slope into thinking you're the leader of the internet but it's grossly off-putting and totally unnecessary.

Yep. Fire a PM to a cmod or admin with a link to the post you have issue with. Haven't seen any horrifying warnings myself but sure, send them on if there is

CloudCumulus

smash wrote: »

Sure you're not a re-reg? I haven't seen any horrific warnings recently! :rolleyes:

Not at all. I left a totally opinion based comment, I was accused of gender stereotyping, upsetting people and PM'd that I was not wanted there.
It's important for moderators to set aside personal opinions on topics.

Merkin

CloudCumulus wrote: »

Not at all. I left a totally opinion based comment, I was accused of gender stereotyping, upsetting people and PM'd that I was not wanted there.
It's important for moderators to set aside personal opinions on topics.

You were gender stereotyping. And who exactly PM'd you to tell you that you weren't welcome? Because if you're inferring that it's me you are in fact telling porky pies my dear. I suggest you report me rather than dragging yet another thread off topic.

Wibbs

28064212 wrote: »

To be fair, S&S was more or less deliberately killed off: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=76964053#post76964053

I dunno about deliberately. Or at least that wasn't the impression I got at the time. There was a brand new sparkly S&S test forum set up too. It just died on the vine and was never followed up(though the mods asked more than once. To paraphrase that saying Never attribute to malice deliberate action what can attributed to stupidity disinterest. I just don't think the interest was there, behind the scenes or in front. It was a forum that fair rattled along for years. It's still there for subscribers and mods but is now dead.

CloudCumulus wrote: »

Not at all. I left a totally opinion based comment, I was accused of gender stereotyping, upsetting people and PM'd that I was not wanted there.
It's important for moderators to set aside personal opinions on topics.

If it's the same post I saw that and TBH if I was modding the place I'd have warned you too. It was clear gender stereotyping where in your opinion men need to be "trained" into relationships. If you don't think it was I dunno what to say to you really. One might be of a mind to think you either a troll or not very self aware. Pick one.

BTW an "opinion based comment" means diddly. I know this comes as a shock to many, but your opinion is just that, an opinion. Without evidence it is not a fact, nor is it somehow precious, nor do you have any entitlement to have one and not get called on it. Not on a private website(and no, there is no "freedom of speech" US style in Ireland). I might make an "opinion based comment" such as "Belgians are a bit thick". I might believe it, but it would be daft and I would deserve any shítestorm or moderator action that followed.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

smash

Wibbs wrote: »

I dunno about deliberately. Or at least that wasn't the impression I got at the time. There was a brand new sparkly S&S test forum set up too. It just died on the vine and was never followed up(though the mods asked more than once. To paraphrase that saying Never attribute to malice deliberate action what can attributed to stupidity disinterest. I just don't think the interest was there, behind the scenes or in front. It was a forum that fair rattled along for years. It's still there for subscribers and mods but is now dead.

Being a subscriber only forum is also a huge roadblock. There's plenty of AH threads that could have been moved there but can't be because the contributors aren't subscribers.

In saying that, if it was public it could turn awful creepy very fast and would probably be harder to moderate than AH.

Bongalongherb

smash wrote: »

Yes it is. There's currently 2 versions of boards.ie for mobile. They may not contain everything you need but they work. I'd say most of my browsing is done on the touch site.

Smash, I was being pedantic. I just said that because I hate smart-phones and tiny screens.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

LuckyLloyd

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

That's a view that was defeated somewhere around 2009 - 10. I'd fully agree with your opinion, but many will say (or said) that they didn't like the idea of separate communities and enclaves on boards. Hence the push towards homogenisation and 'safe pair of hands' janitorial modding.

FlipperThePriest

Traffic is down about 17% in just the last month according to Alexa.

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/www.boards.ie

smash

zippy84 wrote: »

Traffic is down about 17% in just the last month according to Alexa.

Alexa's great for fiddling stats. Because it's not reliable!

gandalf

zippy84 wrote: »

Traffic is down about 17% in just the last month according to Alexa.

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/www.boards.ie

Well thats pretty stark. It would be interesting to see the year on year figures for the last 4 years.

FlipperThePriest

gandalf wrote: »

Well thats pretty stark. It would be interesting to see the year on year figures for the last 4 years.

Actually looking back on the figures I have interpreted, what I should have said was the site's popularity in comparison to other websites is down 17% as oppose to actual traffic. I was using those 2 'Global Rank' figures, which doesn't really represent traffic numbers, but rather ranks sites against each other.

K-9

Wibbs wrote: »

+1 the recent Beta rollout makes this even worse. I mean who thought the idea of moving forum stickies to yet another level was a good one? Take one of the most popular and viewed threads on the site, the daily weather forecast in the weather forum. It's a sticky because, well it deserves to be one. Now it's not immediately visible in the beta site. Stickies are important threads, now gone stealth. That's before we get to forum charters and all that. I'd have loved to have been at that meeting. The mind genuinely boggles.

Must be the biggest go to daily thread yet now harder to find. It should be highlighted more, not made harder to access.

Wibbs

gandalf wrote: »

Well thats pretty stark. It would be interesting to see the year on year figures for the last 4 years.

I suspect G that's more about the DDOS attack and downtime than any overall trend as such. You'd have seen a similar drop after the hack too.

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

That's a view that was defeated somewhere around 2009 - 10. I'd fully agree with your opinion, but many will say (or said) that they didn't like the idea of separate communities and enclaves on boards. Hence the push towards homogenisation and 'safe pair of hands' janitorial modding.

+1. DeVore used to sometimes muse that Boards was a bit like a bus, people got on and people got off but the Boards bus kept going trundling along and I would agree, but somewhere in that above timeframe the bus itself subtly changed, in some ways for the better, but in other ways - and I would argue more - for the worse. The homogenisation and more "professional" and apart and "corporate" mod vibe increased, certainly in the higher traffic forums. It got "stuffier" overall. Now maybe that's a byproduct of more mods getting older and the elderly get more frightened by loud noises

but there was a subtle shift in things.

There's also a wider societal shift, a greater sense of polarisation on a few matters. More matters have turned into serious bizness in that time. In say 2008 who had heard of say MRA's, or SJW's or Safe Spaces, or Rape Culture, or Virtue signalling or Triggering to any great degree? None of that was mainstream and/or on Boards. You had to dig pretty deep on the interwebs to find it and it was usually full on loons who were spouting such. Sure we always had the Right on and the Right, by dint of the age and background demographic, but even there not to the same degree as today. I think that polarisation has led to less of a community spirit too. And there's eff all we can do about that.

dr.bollocko

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/www.boards.ie

Most people interact with facebook, reddit etc. on their phone.

Boards mobile apps and any mobile version of boards are just terrible.

Full of bugs, full of crap. Then obviously the recent numerous problems.

Completely inaccessible, then a new mobile app launched and it was just catastrophically bad. Had the veneer of a nice app but nothing worked. And still. Nothing works.

KERSPLAT!

dr.bollocko wrote: »

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/www.boards.ie

Most people interact with facebook, reddit etc. on their phone.

Boards mobile apps and any mobile version of boards are just terrible.

Full of bugs, full of crap. Then obviously the recent numerous problems.

Completely inaccessible, then a new mobile app launched and it was just catastrophically bad. Had the veneer of a nice app but nothing worked. And still. Nothing works.

Same as the new responsive site so.

Benny_Cake

I think that discussion forums such as Boards are probably increasingly old hat, particularly to younger users. Reddit and Facebook groups are perfectly set up for smartphone users, and if you want to create a new group or community it doesn't take a couple of months to do so as it does on Forum Requests. The strength of Boards has been the Irish user base which is great for Ireland specific advice and information, but the terrible search functionality really limits it's usefulness.

Boards just seems to be drifting into irrelevance and I do wonder if the owners have any appetite to put the work into ensuring that it is still relevant by the end of the decade.

smash

Benny_Cake wrote: »

Boards just seems to be drifting into irrelevance and I do wonder if the owners have any appetite to put the work into ensuring that it is still relevant by the end of the decade.

The relevance of boards solely depends on the ever dwindling user base, which is what the owners need to concentrate on keeping and growing. Removing access to forums and replacing this access with the promotion of 'talk to' is just plain nonsense. Businesses already have FB pages, Twitter accounts and live chats. I can see them jumping off boards sooner rather than later. Especially with the userbase dropping. The new design alienates existing users and forum access!

Wibbs

Benny_Cake wrote: »

I think that discussion forums such as Boards are probably increasingly old hat, particularly to younger users.

There's much in that BC, though I'd see this as an opportunity. Don't try to exclusively appeal to "younger users". It can smack of middle aged dancing drunk uncle at wedding trying to be "cool". The new Beta Site* in that metaphor is the drunk uncle making passes at the 20 year olds. On the surface it might sound like a good plan to him, but vanishingly few are gonna bite. Now if he was to sidle up to the single 40 year olds… Maybe accept the changing demographic and appeal directly to them and how they are happier navigating and posting and reading. That keeps the existing folks and appeals to their peers. It doesn't have to be all about the snapchat generation and the Twitterati. Just a random thought.

*that it's been named "Responsive site" is the very definition of an oxymoron, "click here for Lead Balloon" would work as well.

K-9

Wasn't there an article about boards a year or so ago with the journo complaining about the structure of the site?

The main menu has got so streamlined that the actual whole point of the site, discussion, is getting less prominence.

Then when you get down into the sub headings there can be too many sub forums.

@permabear, politics is actually the simplest category, the cafe and general. The 2 sub forums in general could be merged into the general sub forum to just leave 2 choices.

If anything, that is too simplistic but that's the general direction things should be going.

On that note Toots as C-mod, the mods and admins did great work merging sub forums in languages and religion, and we do try and keep an eye on having active mods in fora.

dr.bollocko

Every major change made over the past 5 years has made the site worse. Re-orgs, search functions, mobile interfaces, home page layouts, mod tools. They were all changed and none of these changes improved on the original.

Couple that with the unreliable nature of the site and the refusal to make things work for mobile devices at all and what do you expect to happen? People stop coming here. Something that suits how people browse comes along.
The mobile app for iOS is so immediately buggy it just beggars belief it ever saw the light of day.

Starokan

I love reading Boards and from a viewpoint of reading more than posting its blatantly obvious that it is becoming a quieter site.

It's hard to know if its transforming or slowly dying - in fairness the site has not had it easy from hacks to the DDOS attacks - its a testimony to its popularity that so many people still have it as a go to site every day despite the numerous difficulties in accessing posting etc in recent times.

I think myself the future for the site lies very much in After Hours and how its treated, its the gateway to the site and figuring out how to capitalise on its mass appeal would seem to me to be the best way to retain users and regenerate

I would lose many of the sub forums , its discouraging when you go into a forum and see like maybe two posts over four months - why would you start a thread, comment on an old one or even revisit the area.

Keep the really active forums separate, lose the inactive forums and find a way to let all else through AH would be my way forward. Definitely do something about the search function too

On the site changes I am probably one of the few who liked the new look but the current version is too full of bugs and is simply to slow for anyone to use, its totally off putting to use it at the moment

I get the theory that the consultants say new users will be brought on board by the changes but I certainly believe from all I have read that this will not happen. I think the opposite may now occur and I base this purely on the level of feedback I have seen.

Often people will pick holes in something for the sake of it but in this case I don't think its the case, the quality of most of the posters is without question (by quality I mean well established long term users that are not trolls) .

The feedback is overwhelming - the vast majority do not like or want the new layout - i would imagine the amount of people clicking legacy is very very high.

At some stage in any plan you have got to sit back and go maybe we got this wrong - feedback here certainly indicates this is the case . Based on the numerous posts from the core mass of regular users I cannot see the sense in implementing the new look, if these posters follow through by using less and less or closing then there will simply be very little going on that can attract and retain the new user. I know from all I have read that switching from V bulletin must occur - no issue there but perhaps time to revisit the new layout as in listen to the feedback and change it up before its too late.

I hope boards keeps going, its a super site and hopefully the slow down in posting reverses itself.

ThisRegard

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Many people have stated this, but it's being ignored.

Used to be that I'd hover over (for example) "Science" and then the drop down would come, and I'd see the list of "sciency" topics and go into them one by one. I literally never do that any more, because nothing happens automatically any more. It's effort. I've no particular interest in any of the science topics at all, so I don't make the effort to go into them.

But "The Office" either don't understand the issue there, or are of the opinion that there is a huge horde of people just waiting for a major site redesign before actually posting. How many different "betas" have we seen in the last couple of years? Has the posting base increased or decreased?

Lots have raised this issue on this thread, and it was raised a lot coming up to the redesign of the menus, predicting exactly as above.

smash

I'm subscribed to 9 forums. Over the last 5 hours there's been only 35 threads updated from those 9 forums. That says a lot for how slow the site is going with user interaction.

_Tombstone_

Myrddin wrote: »

@Permabear, some good points there

What good are they when no one listens?

Theirs nothing new in this thread that hasn't been mentioned in all the other ones...you'll lock this tomorrow or the next day and sign off with "Lots here to take in....Talk about it behind the scenes...we'll get back to ya"

Never to be heard from again.

I'm amazed we haven't had some version of "Why are you posting if you don't like it so?" in here yet from some Mod or Admin, the usual dribble that comes out of one of ye in these Threads...rather than like do your Job and listen to the Feedback.

That's actually a big problem here, their's lots of Mods who want to be seen to be Mods but that's it. If you can manage to get a reply outta some of them (if needs be) it's a how quick can i respond to this eejit and get rid of him response.

smash wrote: »

I'm subscribed to 9 forums. Over the last 5 hours there's been only 35 threads updated from those 9 forums. That says a lot for how slow the site is going with user interaction.

I've been on Boards for over 10 years now. I'd be classed as a "content creator". Depending on my interests at the time I've bombarded be it Tech, Gardening, Science....whatever over the years with News/links/breakthroughs etc and it's ALWAYS been a pain cuz of awful Mods.

One particularly memorably time in one of the Tech Forums, I had a Thread about Android phones deleted for being Spam, I was like

so I PM'ed Mod and it turned out he hadn't even read it at all. "It looked spammy" and I was relatively new on site so he just deleted it. And he wasn't undeleting it. Presumably cuz he'd then look like a silly head.

He's has no interest in the Forum Topic, nearly never posts, shouldn't be a Mod there.

I'm now banned from Aviation for asking on thread why the Mods there let the same user write "clickbait" on 3 threads I'd started. And why they'd deleted a Thread about Radar lock - never got an answer to that, it never reappeared.

Here's my all over the place ban post that mentions other problems

Stupid Forum.

I've gotten the same sort of hassle from Mods all over the site - only place I haven't is in Astronomy & Space...I've 97 Threads there...half of them talking to myself unfortunately (give up now) but looking...one mod hasn't posted in there in 3 years and the other is nearly a year so that's probably why....they shouldn't be Mods either, if you've no interest in the Topic then why are you modding it long term?

Anyway, that's some of my reasons for going elsewhere lately or doing anything else other than coming here but for the habit of coming here.

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

I used to enjoy reading your posts in Astronomy & Space, haven't clicked into that forum in a while though...

LizT

The category reorganisation has spoiled boards for me. I used to love going to the front page and finding random threads in forums I didn't know existed. Now I pretty much stick to my subscribed threads and forums and rarely venture outside them.

Something that could be driving users away is the perceived lack of response to feedback. For example, with any recent redesigns all we've been told is 'we're moving away from vbulletin, it has to be done.'
That's fine but I don't think we've been told why we have to completely change the look of the whole site? I know they did some testing with people who haven't used boards before and the feedback was that they found it nearly impossible to use. I don't know how the new site could be an improvement, you've lost nearly half the content that used to be displayed in one page. I can't be arsed with the new 'topics', it's takes twice the amount of time to get to where you want to go on the site now. That's not creating an easier browsing experience.

There's definitely a feeling that boards are pushing for new users, rather than asking what will keep our existing community alive.