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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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Turtyturd

You can't really say that Admins have to put up with abuse from trolls so are entitled to dish it out. Would you expect a guard to act the same way as some scumbag on the street who was abusing him or would you expect some degree of professionalism?

I think everyone agrees that the Prison forum is a necessity, it just has to be used right. Wasn't there a period where one of the wannabe boards celebrities was allowed post there for the 'bantz'?

If a troll tries to play dumb all an admin has to do is put up the information they have and it will most likely kill the thread. Other users will see it and think the user was rightly banned. Or if they go the other way and don't screen the posts of banned posters other users will see what admins are subjected to, and other users will think they were rightly banned.

As it is now providing a space to appeal a ban seems to be it's secondary purpose, and I would say most posters only became aware of it through AH threads pointing a laughing at prison forum threads.

ibarelycare

Deleted User wrote: »

But it doesn't appear that they are equal. Dav gets the criticism, not Niamh.

I can't comment on Dav doing things his way because I haven't been around long enough but perhaps he is only doing what he is instructed to do?

I think that's cos Dav has more of a presence on here (no offence to Niamh, I'm sure they're equally as involved behind the scenes).

What is frustrating though, is that the two "Community Managers" have had absolutely no input to a 10-day, nearly-500-post thread that the COMMUNITY has contributed to. The feedback on this thread has been fantastic IMO, and people have been respectful and constructive.

It seems like boards is far more concerned with the "community" that's lining its pockets.

[Deleted User]

ibarelycare wrote: »

I think that's cos Dav has more of a presence on here (no offence to Niamh, I'm sure they're equally as involved behind the scenes).

What is frustrating though, is that the two "Community Managers" have had absolutely no input to a 10-day, nearly-500-post thread that the COMMUNITY has contributed to. The feedback on this thread has been fantastic IMO, and people have been respectful and constructive.

It seems like boards is far more concerned with the "community" that's lining its pockets.

I agree but I think Niamh should have a presence on here as well.

Yes I also agree that either Dav or Niamh should have been contributing to this thread.

Tombi!

If you look at it from the point of view of Boards (just my opinion on how they see it): it's their job. Whether it's the job of the CEO to keep the place running neatly, or the developers to keep the site from breaking or the community managers keeping the place running smoothly, they need to keep things working right.
If they did run the site into the ground, they'd be out of a job.
Just because they're not responding to everything doesn't mean they're not doing the right thing.

Let's face it: people are going to pick out words, manipulate the context to have a go at whoever posts whatever. Dav or Niamh can go "okay, we'll fix things to how all you people want" and someone will say "oh look, they're bending over backwards without understanding the effect it has".
Likewise, if they don't respond promptly enough, they get complained at

K-9

Comparisons to Guards and courts.

Tis only the Internet, but not if you are an admin of course.

Maireadio

FA Hayek wrote: »

used to shut down debate.

Oi. Surely one the most overused phrases on boards? People disagreeing with you, even strongly, are not trying to "shut down debate". They are just disagreeing with you.

smash

Maireadio wrote: »

Oi. Surely one the most overused phrases on boards? People disagreeing with you, even strongly, are not trying to "shut down debate". They are just disagreeing with you.

Disingenuous
Logical fallacy
Straw-man
shut down debate
Thinly veiled

Jesus, you're right!

Turtyturd

K-9 wrote: »

Comparisons to Guards and courts.

Tis only the Internet, but not if you are an admin of course.

Well it was more about the expectations of a person in a role of authority than a direct comparison, but you knew that.

[Deleted User]

Turtyturd wrote: »

Well it was more about the expectations of a person in a role of authority than a direct comparison, but you knew that.

The way I see it is what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Or something.

Eugene Norman

fred funk }{ wrote: »

I enjoy reading the prison forum. Anyone who's getting the piss taken out of them generally deserves it.

How do you know? All you see is a pseudonymous poster attacking another one.

Dav

You know, I've been working on a response to this thread all week. Short answer: it's not finished yet. There's a lot in this and almost all of it is important and beyond merely useful. I'll get it finished and posted on Monday. I'm sorry folks, you deserve better and that's on me, but in my defence, I've only got so many hours in the day.

Esel

Dav wrote: »

You know, I've been working on a response to this thread all week. Short answer: it's not finished yet. There's a lot in this and almost all of it is important and beyond merely useful. I'll get it finished and posted on Monday. I'm sorry folks, you deserve better and that's on me, but in my defence, I've only got so many hours in the day.

Shortish paragraphs please.

Maireadio

As someone else already mentioned above, I cannot fathom why 'Regional' gets its own heading. It just seems so arbitrary.

_Tombstone_

Are Boards staff on a million quid a week??

_Tombstone_

Esel wrote: »

Shortish paragraphs please.

No poetry type stuff? I'm disappointed.

Esel

Maireadio wrote: »

As someone else already mentioned above, I cannot fathom why 'Regional' gets its own heading. It just seems so arbitrary.

Please change 'Regional' to 'Arbitrary'.

Beasty

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Are Boards staff on a million quid a week??

If so I suspect the business model is doomed to failure....

Esel

Esel wrote: »

Shortish paragraphs please.

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

No po-e-try type
Stuff monkey puzzle climb tree
Son I'm disappoint.

FYP

Hi cú Noh fup yuo
Noh rhyme noh crime noh hard time
That is not my dog

Referring I was
Dav's post in that other thread
Moon rise strong arm kneel

Hai karate key
Ah heyore no need for dah
Jake it's Chinatown

Close enough for jazz
Instrumental solo bar
Closed open no sin

Red Alert

Boards.ie as far as I can see it is becoming irrelevant, but slowly. Back in 2002 or so when I joined first I'd easily spend a wet saturday afternoon on Boards. AH was genuinely edgy, Personal Issues was a useful and supportive place, Politics was a wide church in terms of seriousness and viewpoint. Later forums like TLL and TGC added positively to that mix.

There are a few problems now. The first charge levelled by a lot of members so far is that of excessive moderation. I used to be a mod of the Postgraduate forum and later a CMod of Education (along with Tom Dunne and later Spurious). In a few cases I did make safe decisions to snip content where I thought that boards.ie, myself or the posters themselves could end up in trouble. You can't run a site without doing that. However, there is now a trend towards avoiding offence or even just disagreement with the prevailing approved left-wing attitudes on sexism, LGBT, religious, abortion, drugs, traveller lifestyles, social welfare. Humour is discouraged on many topics. That is not good.

The second is that boards.ie has become undeniably more corporate and both of its community managers have exhibited on occasion contempt for user viewpoints. The policing of the Talk To forums by Niamh is quite one-sided. Companies come on here (and I do realise that they pay), but they are facilitated access to the boards.ie user-base. The least people can expect is not to be waffled at. Users are not stupid, but just look at the nonsensical question avoidance by BoI and Virgin in particular. Others like eircom and Three do a better job, but the only Talk To forum that seem to offer real service is Richer Sounds. Niamh said no to any system of rating the helpfulness of Talk To forums some time ago on the Feedback forum. Niamh even stepped in on another standard forum where a so-called craft beer was under discussion, effectively taking the side of the brewer. With Talk To clearly becoming more important to the owners of Boards.ie, it's possible that an ethical re-think is needed.

Third: advertising. If I didn't have an aggressive Adblocker I just couldn't wade through Boards.ie anymore. However, AdBlockers are clearly unwelcome.

Fourth: The redesign. What were ye thinking? You got plenty of constructive feedback but Dav clearly didn't want to hear anything less than positive. Happy users visit a site more often and recommend others to do so as well. An unusable front page and navigation structure is a one way ticket to somewhere else for most people. The best companies realise when they've made a mistake: Apple rowed back from skeumorphic design for example. It's not too late to revert to a design that people like.

Fifth: external. Things are becoming less monolithic in general. People are gravitating towards ad-hoc Facebook groups, WhatsApp groups and the like. That's not something that Boards.ie has direct control over but it does point to the importance that smaller (in some cases private) forums might have. One of the few reasons I still visit boards.ie regularly is the excellent Online Dating forum, which has retained much of the great atmosphere that the main forums in Boards formerly had.

If one good thing could come from this thread, that would be to get a fulsome reasonable response from both Dav and Niamh. They're essentially in the driving seat. People here have come on this thread with a range of viewpoints. At least do them the courtesy of a basic response.

Chorus_suck

This post has been deleted.

Calhoun

Great post red, couldn't agree with it more. As I have said on this thread already when you let a platform for discussion like boards become a marketing platform for the most current popular political agenda you are definitely in trouble.

Boards bit by bit has become an echo chamber for a certain political viewpoint and to think different is not popular.

ibarelycare

Calhoun wrote: »

Boards bit by bit has become an echo chamber for a certain political viewpoint and to think different is not popular.

I agree. As I read elsewhere, boards is no longer a discussion site, it's an agreement site.

Chorus_suck

This post has been deleted.

Calhoun

Chorus_suck wrote: »

And a platform to make our community available to "talk-to" corporates.

Well you know what they say if something is free your not the customer but the product. Which I suppose isn't so bad if there was substance to it and not a tool for general optics.

Case in point is the recent tesco thread about security policy that disables your network without warning and requires you to send a passport to verify who you are on a payg network. I don't think it's been answered to date and it probably won't as it's a bad pr story. All the fluff is still there though .

At the end of the day the sheep (users) are a product with free mind and eventually if the scales tip so far they go elsewhere.

LiamoSail

Red Alert wrote: »

The second is that boards.ie has become undeniably more corporate and both of its community managers have exhibited on occasion contempt for user viewpoints. The policing of the Talk To forums by Niamh is quite one-sided. Companies come on here (and I do realise that they pay), but they are facilitated access to the boards.ie user-base. The least people can expect is not to be waffled at. Users are not stupid, but just look at the nonsensical question avoidance by BoI and Virgin in particular. Others like eircom and Three do a better job, but the only Talk To forum that seem to offer real service is Richer Sounds. Niamh said no to any system of rating the helpfulness of Talk To forums some time ago on the Feedback forum. Niamh even stepped in on another standard forum where a so-called craft beer was under discussion, effectively taking the side of the brewer. With Talk To clearly becoming more important to the owners of Boards.ie, it's possible that an ethical re-think is needed.

Couldn't agree more with this. I used to the talk to forum recently to ask a question which the company steadfastly avoided and would offer only illogical evasive answers to. When I questioned this, my post was swiftly deleted, and I get a swift PM full of condescension with my warning, a tone akin to how teachers used to speak to pupils at school.

Boards.ie own their site and can run it as they chose, but I'd question the wisdom in how users are treated at times as well as the Internet God attitude of some that run the place. Shame really, because it used to be a great site

kneemos

LiamoSail wrote: »

Couldn't agree more with this. I used to the talk to forum recently to ask a question which the company steadfastly avoided and would offer only illogical evasive answers to. When I questioned this, my post was swiftly deleted, and I get a swift PM full of condescension with my warning, a tone akin to how teachers used to speak to pupils at school.

Boards.ie own their site and can run it as they chose, but I'd question the wisdom in how users are treated at times as well as the Internet God attitude of some that run the place. Shame really, because it used to be a great site

Condecending,overbearing and dismissive,puts people's backs up from the get go and makes them defensive,yet we are expected to be courteous in our dealings with the mods.

Can't hardly be bothered starting a thread anymore tbh,you have to go through a mental checklist to ensure everything is present and correct,even then it'll be closed,locked or moved.

[Deleted User]

LiamoSail wrote: »

Couldn't agree more with this. I used to the talk to forum recently to ask a question which the company steadfastly avoided and would offer only illogical evasive answers to. When I questioned this, my post was swiftly deleted, and I get a swift PM full of condescension with my warning, a tone akin to how teachers used to speak to pupils at school.

Boards.ie own their site and can run it as they chose, but I'd question the wisdom in how users are treated at times as well as the Internet God attitude of some that run the place. Shame really, because it used to be a great site

But thats the thing,they CANT run it as they choose.they think they are above the law but they are not.some of think they are comedians in the prison threadand seem to think bullying is not covered by the law.sooner or later it will come back to bite them.they wouldnt have the balls to say some the things thats said on the prison forum to the persons face in reality,just because its in the internet most certainly doesnt make them above the law

LiamoSail

droidman123 wrote: »

But thats the thing,they CANT run it as they choose.they think they are above the law but they are not.some of think they are comedians in the prison threadand seem to think bullying is not covered by the law.sooner or later it will come back to bite them.they wouldnt have the balls to say some the things thats said on the prison forum to the persons face in reality,just because its in the internet most certainly doesnt make them above the law

I can't speak about the prison thread as I've no experience, only the talk to thread.

I used it last week and the PM I received from Niamh, who I believe runs it, essentially told me to eff off and don't be questioning this particular business.

I did query it, however she didn't have the courtesy to reply

[Deleted User]

I have defended Dav on here because he is a human being who I know is working hard.

However, and Jaysus this thread has me contradicting myself, Red Alert your post is excellent.

The users of this site do need to be put further up the pecking order than things currently stand.

Pelvis Parsley

There wasn't a whole lot in the way of replies, back in the days of boards deals (Remember them?) either. Plenty of prevarication alright.

Not to go over old ground, but the adverts debacle was handled in a very similar manner, a totally blinkered and heedless approach to the wishes of the users, and a dogged and naive determination to drive on regardless. It seems that the people at the very top (and I'm not referring to community managers or reps) don't seem to give a sh1t either.

If they did, they wouldn't allow such poor decisions, a lack of communication of any sort, or a redesign of the whole thing every six months, seemingly for the sake of little else bar shoehorning in more ads, and making the talk to fora (ineffectual as they are) ever more prominent.

I don't see a way back, when the culture has seemingly come to this.