Deleted User wrote: » The online dating thread over in After Hours has just been closed by Ken. His closing post was condescending and a little aggressive. This is why posters complain about moderation on here. That thread was harmless. A bunch of posters discussing their experiences, asking questions, making points, having fun. Why exactly was it closed?
dudara wrote: » I'm not aware myself why, but have you PM'd Ken or one of the other mods to ask why?
wyrn wrote: » You know, I may be the only one but I feel really sorry for the UX / UI designers who worked on the revamp. They were commissioned and HQ signed off on it, so it must have seemed grand. I'm sure they thought they'd created something wonderful and would give something new to boards, whereas it seems to have crashed and burned. They probably put a lot of thought and work into creating the responsive site and it must be hard for them to read some of these (even the constructive ones) criticism. I'm not a designer but I know I'd be crushed if I had created something and the users cried out for the legacy version instead of the new one. I really really really do not understand some of the changes (especially all the extra empty space) but I'm sure there was some sort of plan or reasoning behind it. So, if any of the designers are reading the feedback, I'm sorry it hasn't gone to plan for both you, your client and the users. I really hope some sort of happy medium can be found.
[Deleted User] wrote: » I have and the reason given was that it was going off topic and getting too chatty. I am now compiling a list of ridiculous threads which have been allowed to remain open. There is one currently over there called Art. It doesn't even have an OP.
Penny Tration wrote: » In fairness, they did give mod warnings to stay on topic, and some people were doing some pure cringey flirting.
KomradeBishop wrote: » Who cares if it's just the participants in the thread though? There was the occasional interesting discussion/point in it. No wonder people say the sense of community is disappearing, if threads get closed because they're 'chatty'.
Bambi wrote: » Y'see that's your problem right there Like every administrative system there's a tendency for the process to become a bureaucracy that only protects and benefits the administrator. Why should the guy get to field that question in private on a one to one basis?
Felix Jones is God wrote: » It's been reopened again
An File wrote: » I started reading that thread this morning and found it an excellent mix of posters' experiences and opinions, with just the right balance of flirty/chatty posts. Far better to let them post happily instead of having bitterness/arguments, especially in a topic where people were dealing with stereotypes and (often enough) uninformed opinions. Posters were self-regulating, from what I saw, so the mod intervention is just drawing an unnecessary headache on the AH mod team. Weird, really.
Myrddin wrote: » This post had been deleted.
Faith wrote: » The thing that really frustrates me is the concrete thinking in Boards HQ. It's like they can't possibly look at a situation in more than one way. For months (years?) we've had posters complaining about new layouts, and all HQ ever respond with is "Well, yeah, but this is how we're doing it". They've poured so much money into this redesign that they're terrified to admit they were wrong, so they're plowing ahead with it despite vocal, reasoned opposition.
gandalf wrote: » The issues imho are as follows. The problem is that for a content based site search does not work properly, it hasn't worked properly in ages. Now I tend to use Google to search boards myself but to have a content based site without a viable search is unforgivable. There are too many forums. A cleanup and amalgamation is seriously needed. The re-organisation of the forums was botched. I still use the legacy skin which thankfully has the old top menu. The latest one before the new site was a disaster and has been a major contributor to the drain of users/traffic.
Esel wrote: » Do the admin have any clout in the business side of Boards though?
Wibbs wrote: » However companies get to a point where the money and risk becomes a tipping point and then the "professional corporate" types come in. It's designed that way. And who does the designing? They need a purpose to justify themselves after all(and I'm no hippie BTW). That's what we're seeing here. From what I can recall Boards got a new CEO or CFO or CSO or some muy importante collection of three letters a couple of years back. Again IIRC there was some one off "introduction" and after that silence. I know he's a he, beyond that I know jack. Hell, he might be gone and they're now a she, or a thatched cottage in Mayo called Phillip. Who knows. There's your disconnect right there. I could say that's no reflection on the chap, but sorry, yeah it is. If your job is sustaining a community - which if anyone needs reminding is why Talk to and Adverts even exist - frankly your silence means you're not helping. In say 2006 I knew who the people running the place were and those people were engaged in the place. Today? Today we're getting the dribbled down secondhand missives from on high. Missives that are increasingly at odds and daft(no pun) with the community they're tasked in fostering. This recent rollout at I'm quite sure great expense in manpower and money is the perfect and wasteful example of the above. The category rejig another, though lesser example.BTW and to be very bloody clear here, our Dav - and I think I'm long enough here to see him as our Dav - can come in for some stick and is often the focus of our various grievances. As the Community manager he's in that biz hierarchy and that's a small but PITA part of his role. And he takes his role seriously. FWIW I can tell you that if you cut Dav he would bleed Boards blood. Blue corpuscles with two goggly eyes. Now you're bleeding. He really would. Honestly, though sometimes this fascist here thinks him a wet liberal yahoo and have disagreed with the man on a couple of occasions, the guy works like a bloody trojan for this community and has been here doing so from the very start.
KomradeBishop wrote: » Yea similar 'Management' is what came close to killing Slashdot a couple of times, once they were sold on between different companies - recently though, they seem to have gotten their shít together - but their community is far smaller now as well. Maybe worth Boards management reaching out to Slashdot - if there'd even be a reply - and try and learn a few lessons from them, because the mistakes being made here, are eerily similar to the Slashdot Beta disaster (pushing a new UI that the community hated, and which was eventually completely abandoned), and the 'management'-style hard-headedness that site took in pushing its changes through.
Permabear wrote: » This post has been deleted.
Wibbs wrote: » Going on current evidence no, he doesn't have "good ideas". Reads like the usual business puff piece to me. And reading it it seems he's the one pushing for the recent changes and his "ideas" come across as more puff. EG from the article;"Boards.ie is also quite hard to find your way around; something that Coughlan acknowledges and wants to improve." Eh no. No it's not and for future reference a good maxim to follow; Almost never listen to an industry journalist about anything. These are the sort of muppets that it seems Boards management were listening to. However in the rush to Do Something About This(™). They have decreased ease of access and the numbers dropping and dying forums prove this. As does the recent overwhelming negative reaction to the redesign. Well done. *slow handclap*. I know this may come as a shock to those who get the horn for Meetings(™), but y'know the users that have built the site from the ground up and were there at the very crest of the Boards wave had no issue finding their way around. "Improvements" come along and they do? This really isn't rocket science, but apparently it is. But hey, seeing to be doing something is good too I suppose.
Links234 wrote: » I've mentioned earlier about how the sense of community is being killed off, and there's definitely something to be said for the place being 'managed' into the ground, but something that strikes me is, what's happened to all the boards beers? It used to be the case that there would be quite regular meetups and all that, organized by each different community on boards, but that's all but disappeared it seems. What's the story there? Have they been discouraged, or are people just not that interested any more?
Lurkio wrote: » It would be interesting to compare the busiest forums at certain times of year 4-5 years ago, vs now.
We'd love to hear if you have any other ideas of how to keep everyone informed about what's going on with the site
IRLConor wrote: » For what it's worth, during the time I was working for Boards.ie there were several threads saying "Forum X is dying" or "There aren't as many posters around any more". The data showed the opposite. It's really difficult to judge what's actually happening as a regular user. I don't know whether Boards.ie is growing or shrinking these days, but I would caution people against assuming that it's doing anything in particular. What might seem obvious to you might actually be a false impression. Or you might be right. But you won't really know, so be wary about drawing conclusions.
Edward Hopper wrote: » Well shrinking would be a good guess, no false impression
IRLConor wrote: »
IRLConor wrote: » I would caution people against assuming that it's doing anything in particular. What might seem obvious to you might actually be a false impression. Or you might be right. But you won't really know, so be wary about drawing conclusions.
_Tombstone_ wrote: » I was thinking this for a long while, when they just keep on pushing all the awfulness (and some awful mods) maybe it's not actually hitting the figures but it's noticeable big time now...but figures are secret so we'll just use alexa where globally Boards is down another 200 in the last month or so and down 1 to 33 in ireland.http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/boards.ie Christ even Bargain Alerts isin't worth looking at anymore...
smash wrote: » Maybe it's just me... but Conor, what I've just quoted comes across as almost threatening in manner. It's a bit odd to read.
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