Changes to Boards.ie Ltd. company structure

Boards.ie: Sean · 22-08-2018 4:29pm #1

We are announcing today some changes to the Boards.ie company structure that will be taking place over the coming weeks, in particular the integration of Boards.ie Ltd. (the company that owns and runs boards.ie) with Journal Media Ltd. (the company that owns and runs thejournal.ie).

Background

Since its launch over 20 years ago Boards has grown from a single Quake forum into one of Ireland’s largest and most popular websites. During its history it has undergone a number of changes in company structure and ownership, most recently separating its sales operation from daft.ie and adverts.ie in 2015. One of the reasons behind this move was because we believed that Boards could be more competitive and could win more advertising business if it operated independently. And indeed this was the case, in the three years up until the end of 2017 Boards grew its revenue by 37%, an important achievement given we plan for Boards to be around for many more years to come and in order to do that we need to make sure it is a financially sustainable business.

However, over the last 6 to 9 months we have seen some significant changes in the digital advertising market in Ireland which is where Boards generates the majority of its revenue. A trend has emerged where advertisers are increasingly choosing to advertise with a smaller number of larger publishers with large audience reach. What this means for Boards is that we are having to work harder and harder to generate the same amount of business as in previous years and it has become clear to us that if this trend continues we will struggle as an independent site. In our view the solution is to become part of a larger group which will allow us to continue to generate the revenue we will need to maintain, grow and develop the site.

Boards.ie: Sean · 22-08-2018 4:30pm

Journal Media

Over the last couple of months, we have been talking to potential partners that we could join with. We were looking for a partner who would:
understand and appreciate the unique place that Boards occupies within the Irish internet landscape
who would be committed to Boards continued growth and development
who would be complementary rather than competitive from a content perspective
who would offer strong synergies from a sales and revenue perspective
who would be of sufficient scale in the digital advertising market, thus ensuring Boards continued sustainability and potential for growth
who would respect the independence of Boards and our community
who would understand and embrace the ethos of the site

After talking with a number of potential partners, it became clear to us that by far the best fit was Journal Media and we were delighted that they felt the same way, seeing the clear synergies and benefits of the two companies coming together.

So what will change?

From a user’s perspective, nothing. Boards will continue to be run as Boards, what you see now is what you’ll see after the integration with Journal Media is completed. Same community, same mods, same rules, same site. There will be a change to the corporate and legal structure of the company that runs Boards but not to the site.

From a sales perspective, there will be some (positive!) changes. For example, when pitching to advertisers there will now be the potential to offer packages that include advertising opportunities across both boards.ie and thejournal.ie. We think this will be attractive to advertisers and help us win more business.

Will there be more ads on the site as a result of the integration?

No, there will be no additional ads. However, after the integration with Journal Media we will be able to more effectively sell the ads that we already have.

Boards.ie: Sean · 22-08-2018 4:31pm

What will happen during the integration?

As part of the integration, all of Boards.ie Ltd.’s assets and liabilities will be acquired by Journal Media Ltd. and all staff will move over to Journal Media Ltd. So the current Boards team will remain and will continue to work on their current projects. However, Boards.ie Ltd. as a company will be dissolved (i.e. cease to exist as a separate legal entity) leaving the site being owned by Journal Media Ltd.

It is very important to note that this will have no impact on the site itself, boards.ie will continue as is at present.

Does this mean that thejournal.ie will now be interfering in the site or dictating what can or can’t be talked about?

Absolutely not. Journal Media understands and values Boards and the community driven nature of the site.

thejournal.ie has a team of journalists and contributors to generate and publish its content. boards.ie has its user community to do the same. The two sites are very complementary in nature and each of us has our own areas of expertise. Just as boards.ie has no intention of telling thejournal.ie how to do their job, they have no intention of telling us or our community how to do ours!

Timelines

We expect the process to be completed in or around the end of September.

Boards.ie: Sean · 22-08-2018 4:31pm

Final thoughts

The overriding priority for us has been securing the long term future of Boards and it has become clear to us that it will be hard for us to do that as an independent company.

Journal Media offers an exciting opportunity for Boards to continue its journey for many more years to come. They understand Boards and respect and appreciate our community, they are excited about the opportunity this presents and they are of sufficient scale to effectively compete with any of the major publishing groups operating in Ireland. And this is important … with the growing dominance of search and social (companies like Google and Facebook) and their ability to capture more and more of the digital advertising spend smaller publishers and websites will struggle. If sites like Boards are to have a future we need to have a bigger presence in the marketplace and integrating with Journal Media gives us that presence.

So Boards is here to stay … the integration will just let us say that with increasing confidence as we look to the future.

Sean Coughlan,
CEO, Boards.ie

Cabaal · 22-08-2018 4:41pm

I'm curious, will there be any integration for boards.ie accounts to comment on TheJournal.ie and the like?

sexmag · 22-08-2018 4:43pm

So y'all sold out?

Is that the announcement that was supposed to be had instead of that after hours day crap by freshpopcorn?

....... · 22-08-2018 4:56pm

The same people own Distilled Media as Journal Media so it cant really be considered selling out.

Boards.ie: Mark · 22-08-2018 5:00pm

Cabaal wrote: »

I'm curious, will there be any integration for boards.ie accounts to comment on TheJournal.ie and the like?

That's an interesting suggestion, though I imagine some discussion and investigation will be required.

sexmag wrote: »

So y'all sold out?

Is that the announcement that was supposed to be had instead of that after hours day crap by freshpopcorn?

The After Hours announcement was an After Hours announcement and initiative. We'll make site announcements through official channels so that there can be no confusion or uncertainty.

marcbrophy · 22-08-2018 5:03pm

I can't say that I'm happy about this.
I've a bad feeling about it.

sexmag · 22-08-2018 5:15pm

marcbrophy wrote: »

I can't say that I'm happy about this.
I've a bad feeling about it.

The only bad feeling I have is that the journal will own two types of media and have a bigger influence to push any agenda they may or may not have. I know they said they won't but just my gut being sceptical

I'm not saying they do but it makes me uneasy similar to Murdoch and O'Brien having influence over the media.

Boards.ie: Sean · 22-08-2018 5:21pm

Cabaal wrote: »

I'm curious, will there be any integration for boards.ie accounts to comment on TheJournal.ie and the like?

No, at the moment, there are no plans. As per the announcement, both sites stay as is and any integration will be focused on the sales and allowing Boards to able to compete in a changing and much more competitive market, something, as I said, we will need to do to if we are to remain a sustainable business.

begbysback · 22-08-2018 5:25pm

Where do I buy shares now?

Boards.ie: Sean · 22-08-2018 5:32pm

sexmag wrote: »

So y'all sold out?

People can categorise this whatever way they want, that's absolutely their prerogative and I won't argue the toss with them.

But I will say that not doing something like puts at significant risk the future viability of the site. Its costs money to keep the lights on and the site up and running, that's just the reality of it. So we need to generate money somehow which for Boards is mainly the ad units on the page and sponsored content.

We could not 'sell out' and continue as we are but from everything we've seen recently it looks like that would mean less and less money coming in. And in that scenario it is hard to see how we could keep the site up and running in its current form.

My own view on this is that far from selling out; we're doing what we can to to not only keep Boards as it but to give it the potential to grow and develop in the future.

Boards.ie: Sean · 22-08-2018 5:46pm

sexmag wrote: »

The only bad feeling I have is that the journal will own two types of media and have a bigger influence to push any agenda they may or may not have. I know they said they won't but just my gut being sceptical

I'm not saying they do but it makes me uneasy similar to Murdoch and O'Brien having influence over the media.

I hear you but I think there is one fundamental difference between Boards and The Journal and the examples you give above, and it's this ..

Other media companies create and publish their own content which is subject to editorial oversight. Media owners may have the potential to influence editorial policy and therefore exert some degree of control over the content (although I must stress that in my view this is absolutely not the case for The Journal).

But in Boards, we (i.e. the company and its staff) don't generate our own content, the users of the site do. Therefore we have no control over the content that is created (other than removing abusive, spam, trolling content etc. that breaches the Terms of Use of the site) and neither will The Journal. It is up to Boards users to decide what they want to talk about and how they want to talk about it. I can't see how we or The Journal can, in any meaningful way, influence that.

And just in case anyone thinks that we may be able to influence things by promoting content we like and suppressing content we don't, the whole site is monitored and policed by our mods and admins, all of whom are volunteers selected from the Boards community and all of whom a) won't let us get away with trying to exert any undue influence on the site, and b) who are not shy about robustly challenging us back if they think we are in any way overstepping the mark

sexmag · 22-08-2018 5:54pm

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

People can categorise this whatever way they want, that's absolutely their prerogative and I won't argue the toss with them.

But I will say that not doing something like puts at significant risk the future viability of the site. Its costs money to keep the lights on and the site up and running, that's just the reality of it. So we need to generate money somehow which for Boards is mainly the ad units on the page and sponsored content.

We could not 'sell out' and continue as we are but from everything we've seen recently it looks like that would mean less and less money coming in. And in that scenario it is hard to see how we could keep the site up and running in its current form.

My own view on this is that far from selling out we're doing what we can to to not only keep Boards as it but to give it the potential to grow and develop in the future.

I'm not being smart but there has been a general fall of usership since 2010

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=IE&q=Boards.ie

Has there been nothing you guys could have done to increase figures over that time?

The AMA's have been great but I find it hard to believe you guys couldnt find ways to keep the sight increasing its viewing figures

TheValeyard · 22-08-2018 9:35pm

Will we have the low quality journalists from TheJournal.ie pushing their own views or agendas as sticky threads on Boards or will curent rules remain the way they are.

warsaw2018 · 22-08-2018 9:37pm

good luck

Harry Palmr · 22-08-2018 9:49pm

Vertical integration usually mean that eventually boards and thejournal will become merged by osmosis. One day we'll log on to find it's no longer a message board and more like reddit with story content mixed in.

Beasty · 22-08-2018 10:15pm

Murray TheDemonic TalkingSkull wrote: »

Will we have the low quality journalists from TheJournal.ie pushing their own views or agendas as sticky threads on Boards or will curent rules remain the way they are.

Obviously how the site is managed is now down to the combined business. However I would be very, very surprised if something like this happened. We are all fully aware that posters would not take kindly to any suggestion the "business" rather than users are driving content (outside the Talk To and verified rep areas, which are presumably continuing as revenue sources)

Ultimately though any "business" requires funding. The tech world has moved on very rapidly. Platforms evolve and people look for something different from their interactions on sites like this. In order to adapt (and indeed maintain the site even at it's current state) investment is required. Employees who try to keep the site running need paying

The site remains free to users, although they can "chip in" via subscriptions. However even if it has fallen back from it's "heyday" (and I would suggest that heyday was as much down to a lot more people having time on their hands to get involved in sites like this) it still shows long term growth trends. It will continue to evolve, but it will require investment to both maintain and adapt. It's no different from any business really (and to those who think it should not be a business, I would ask the question how would they think a site like this could survive without investment)

sexmag · 22-08-2018 10:24pm

Beasty wrote: »

It's no different from any business really (and to those who think it should not be a business, I would ask the question how would they think a site like this could survive without investment)

Well for one thing they could take a leaf out of reddit book*shudder* and have advertised pay to have a promoted posted every so often after a few threads, to be honest I wouldn't mind that so much but again not being smart I don't boards have the viewers required to sustain such advertisement deal

Beasty · 22-08-2018 10:39pm

sexmag wrote: »

Well for one thing they could take a leaf out of reddit book*shudder* and have advertised pay to have a promoted posted every so often after a few threads, to be honest I wouldn't mind that so much but again not being smart I don't boards have the viewers required to sustain such advertisement deal

This issue is getting the balance right. I appreciate your comment about whether there is enough critical mass to make it viable, but even if it is, what would the reaction of the general userbase be? We already have posters complaining about certain advertising content. Some of those complaints may well be valid, but generally there seems to be an aversion to having too much advertising content.

Even if they could optimise the position, what works now may not work in a couple of years time (and Sean has already highlighted a change in advertising practices which have adversely affected this site)

Loughc · 22-08-2018 10:43pm

sexmag wrote: »

I'm not being smart but there has been a general fall of usership since 2010

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=IE&q=Boards.ie

Has there been nothing you guys could have done to increase figures over that time?

The AMA's have been great but I find it hard to believe you guys couldnt find ways to keep the sight increasing its viewing figures

What suggestions do you have to increase the viewing figures for boards?

Loughc · 22-08-2018 10:43pm

Whatever keeps the lights on and boards running is good news to me.

Boards.ie: Sean · 22-08-2018 10:56pm

Beasty wrote: »

Obviously how the site is managed is now down to the combined business. However I would be very, very surprised if something like this happened. We are all fully aware that posters would not take kindly to any suggestion the "business" rather than users are driving content (outside the Talk To and verified rep areas, which are presumably continuing as revenue sources)

I'd just to reinforce that point, as I've said Boards content is entirely driven by our users, that is the essence of the site and I think Beasty is quite right is saying that users wouldn't put up with anyone (us here in the office,The Journal or anyone else) trying to dictate or drive the content in a certain direction. And why would either us or The Journal try to do that? Where's the benefit? Ultimately, the business benefits most by having the maximum number of users possible visiting the site. That drives up the audience figures which allows us to sell more advertising for a higher price. Antagonising our users by trying to force certain agendas will only drive down the number of users on the site, not drive it up. And that will mean less revenue, not more. So, it is in everyone's interest not to do that, including from a business perspective.

Fears of The Journal or anyone else interfering on users ability to decide for themselves what content they want to put up on the site do not make sense - any attempt to do that, looked at from a purely business perspective, would be self defeating and negatively impact on revenue.

Beasty wrote: »

Ultimately though any "business" requires funding.

This is very true, there are not insignificant costs associated with keeping the site running and this money has to be found somewhere.

sexmag wrote: »

I'm not being smart but there has been a general fall of usership since 2010

Beasty wrote: »

The tech world has moved on very rapidly. Platforms evolve and people look for something different from their interactions on sites like this.

Boards operates in a very different environment than we did 10 or 20 years ago. The explosion in social media means a lot more competition for people's online time. The move to mobile has required a radical shift in how content is presented and consumed. So keeping an established site like Boards relevant and significant in this rapidly evolving landscape requires some thought and effort and just because we haven't seen the rates of growth that we did in the early days doesn't mean that we have been standing still.

There is an impression among some that Boards isn't a significant site anymore in terms of users and audience numbers. I just don't think this is correct and people don't realise how well Boards continues to do. Both looking at our own data and at external rating services (for example ComScore, Neilsen, Yahoo Alexa) we remain one of the most popular sites in the world for the Irish internet audience. This is no mean achievement for 20 year site and at times I don't think we help our self by being overly negative about the site.

Deub · 22-08-2018 11:08pm

I thought Boards would merge with a similar site in the UK. Something like:

- you could choose to go to the general discussions (UK and IE) or if you wanted to get specific information/discussions you would go the UK or IE area.

The benefits for advertisers would have been the ability to advertise for UK only, IE only or both. It gives access to more advertising companies and for users a bigger choice of discussions.

muffler · 22-08-2018 11:39pm

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

all of Boards.ie Ltd.’s assets and liabilities will be acquired by Journal Media Ltd. and all staff will move over to Journal Media Ltd. So the current Boards team will remain and will continue to work on their current projects. However, Boards.ie Ltd. as a company will be dissolved (i.e. cease to exist as a separate legal entity) leaving the site being owned by Journal Media Ltd.

So is this a merger or a takeover?

Beasty · 22-08-2018 11:53pm

muffler wrote: »

So is this a merger or a takeover?

It could arguably be defined as either

In the sense the Journal company is acquiring a Boards business it could be considered a takeover

On the other hand the two businesses are being merged within the Journal legal entity

Either way, my understanding was that both businesses are ultimately held by the Distilled Media Group. TBH in such a situation it's semantics however it's described, as the resultant combined business will remain controlled by the Distilled Media Group

muffler · 23-08-2018 1:11am

Beasty wrote: »

It could arguably be defined as either

In the sense the Journal company is acquiring a Boards business it could be considered a takeover

On the other hand the two businesses are being merged within the Journal legal entity

Either way, my understanding was that both businesses are ultimately held by the Distilled Media Group. TBH in such a situation it's semantics however it's described, as the resultant combined business will remain controlled by the Distilled Media Group

My limited knowledge of business would have me believe that there is a difference between a merger and a takeover so Im a little confused as to why the CEO has described this activity as a merger given the fact that he has also said that all assets, liabilities and staff will be acquired by Journal Media Ltd. 2 companies merging into one would or should result in the formation of a new company.....BoJo Ltd would be a good name for it :P

Yeah, point taken that DMG will be the big bad daddy in all of this

The One Doctor · 23-08-2018 6:44am

well this news will make me think twice about creating threads in future

HandsomeBob · 23-08-2018 6:49am

Beasty wrote: »

It could arguably be defined as either

In the sense the Journal company is acquiring a Boards business it could be considered a takeover

On the other hand the two businesses are being merged within the Journal legal entity

Either way, my understanding was that both businesses are ultimately held by the Distilled Media Group. TBH in such a situation it's semantics however it's described, as the resultant combined business will remain controlled by the Distilled Media Group

In my experience it's better not to muddy the waters because it can't be both. Often takeovers will be described as "mergers" in order to make the staff from the company being absorbed feel more comfortable..... but that's not necessarily a good thing, as it causes all sorts of resistance, delays and confusion on both sides in the end.

Anyway, I couldn't give a toss either way. Congrats to ye. Hopefully this will lead to an enhanced user experience.

Loughc · 23-08-2018 7:38am

The One Doctor wrote: »

well this news will make me think twice about creating threads in future

Why?

jack presley · 23-08-2018 7:43am

Loughc wrote: »

Why?

With the Journal involved, it'll probably be cut and pasted into some other message board.

Cabaal · 23-08-2018 7:59am

jack presley wrote: »

With the Journal involved, it'll probably be cut and pasted into some other message board.

At least when thejournal.ie has run a story off of a boards.ie thread they've referenced boards.ie.
one example http://www.thejournal.ie/xtra-vision-xbox-1191845-Nov2013/

Over the years numerous local and national papers in Ireland have run stories off of content on boards.ie and never ever referenced where it was sourced, for a time in Kilkenny the Kilkenny People ran several. The sun, Daily Fail etc all did it as well.

Is sourcing news from boards.ie that bad? Very large media company's already do it from twitter and thats a smaller amount of characters

begbysback · 23-08-2018 8:11am

Sounds like a tax avoidance strategy to me

Yggr of Asgard · 23-08-2018 8:36am

Giving the dominant market position of boards. Ie does this takeover require some sort of approval by for example the CPCC?

Yggr of Asgard · 23-08-2018 8:41am

I am looking forward to loads of copy and paste onto journal.ie from excellent contributions here on boards.

I am not so much looking forward to more intrusive ads, journal on mobile devices already has large ads topped by floating ads.

Plus I wonder if the "journalists" from journal will now also contribute here in their unique style with comments off once the topic becomes too hot.

Than again maybe the comment section on journal will take boards login info or even redirect to a thread here. Integration of discussion.

Cabaal · 23-08-2018 8:47am

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

Than again maybe the comment section on journal will take boards login info or even redirect to a thread here. Integration of discussion.

Doubt it would happen, but if that happened it might not be that bad.
The standard of discussions on boards.ie is above the standard in thejournal.ie comments section

smokingman · 23-08-2018 8:49am

Best of luck guys. I've been through a good few mergers/takeovers and there's always a fear in every employee that things might change for the worse (sometimes unfounded, sometimes true) but I'm rooting for all of you; you've been the Irish place to go for discussion for many years now and aside from trying a bit harder to keep the re-reg trolls out when Ireland is going through a serious societal change discussion, I wouldn't change anything else.

Beasty · 23-08-2018 9:21am

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

Giving the dominant market position of boards. Ie does this takeover require some sort of approval by for example the CPCC?

If they are already part of the same legal group (which is my understanding) nothing changes from a "market dominance" and relevant regulatory perspective

Inviere · 23-08-2018 9:39am

Best of luck with it, I'm sure at the end of the day users will notice very little, if any, change on their end. The only thing I'm hopeful of is that there'll now be enough fundage to completely scrap the "Responsive" redesign...it's a complete shocker of a thing, one which never should have seen the light of day.

Boards.ie: Sean · 23-08-2018 9:53am

Deub wrote: »

I thought Boards would merge with a similar site in the UK. Something like:

- you could choose to go to the general discussions (UK and IE) or if you wanted to get specific information/discussions you would go the UK or IE area.

The benefits for advertisers would have been the ability to advertise for UK only, IE only or both. It gives access to more advertising companies and for users a bigger choice of discussions.

I know where you're coming from but the majority of our revenue doesn't come from advertisers directly but from media buying agencies. Advertisers go to these agencies with campaigns they want to run and the agencies then work out how to divide up the budget allocated to that campaign. So we deal a lot with these agencies, persuading them that Boards is a great place to advertise on.

All these agencies have both Ireland and UK offices, so while the advertiser may be running a campaign in both countries, the agencies in Ireland will only be booking ads in Ireland and the same for the UK ones.

In this scenario, we have a much more competitive and compelling story for the Irish agencies when we have a large audience reach in Ireland as opposed to having an audience spanning Ireland and the UK.

Boards.ie: Sean · 23-08-2018 10:17am

muffler wrote: »

So is this a merger or a takeover?

muffler wrote: »

My limited knowledge of business would have me believe that there is a difference between a merger and a takeover so Im a little confused as to why the CEO has described this activity as a merger given the fact that he has also said that all assets, liabilities and staff will be acquired by Journal Media Ltd. 2 companies merging into one would or should result in the formation of a new company.....BoJo Ltd would be a good name for it :P

Technically what is happening is a merger by acquisition. This is a new merger process introduced in the Companies Act 2014. So yes, it is a merger and yes the assets and liabilities will be acquired by Journal Media Ltd. All of this is covered in the Act.

I think the confusion is that this type of process is relatively new and many people are not familiar with the new provisions regarding mergers in the 2014 Act.

Hope this helps.

Boards.ie: Sean · 23-08-2018 10:27am

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

I am not so much looking forward to more intrusive ads, journal on mobile devices already has large ads topped by floating ads.

I can only re-quote what I said in my original series of posts in this thread ...

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

Will there be more ads on the site as a result of the integration?

No, there will be no additional ads. However, after the integration with Journal Media we will be able to more effectively sell the ads that we already have.

DeVore · 23-08-2018 11:13am

Hey all...

I'm on the road today in the UK today but will hop in and out here when I can!

This is very much a nothing burger as they say in the US. The same people who own the vast majority of The Journal have owned the vast majority of Boards since about 2011.

In sales terms there is a benefit and an economy of scale to having the same sales person sell both Journal and Boards ads. Its easier for the buyer too.

There is no desire to alter the site or how it functions.

Rememeber that without our admins and mods and users ... we're f**ked.

Thats your ultimate guaruntee. Plus we've been here for 18 years. In all those years we've made lots of promises to you and kept all of them (imho). When we sold shares to Daft etc there was much consternation but nothing changed. Weve never sold your email addresses, not once, nor ever sold your private data or invaded your privacy despite almost every other site in the industry doing that.

Trust us now, this isnt something nefarious, its corporate restructuring by the people who already own the majority of the shares in the site in order to sell ads more efficiently.

The One Doctor · 23-08-2018 12:34pm

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

But in Boards, we (i.e. the company and its staff) don't generate our own content, the users of the site do. Therefore we have no control over the content that is created (other than removing abusive, spam, trolling content etc. that breaches the Terms of Use of the site) and neither wiull The Journal. It is up to Boards users to decide what they want to talk about and how they want to talk about it. I can't see how we or The Journal can, in any meaningful way, influence that.

That's fairly easy. Contact a number of respected boardsies through a third party, give them a list of controversial topics and ask them to choose two. Then suggest that they start a thought provoking thread on a certain day in return for a small consideration (voucher etc) if the thread views reach a certain figure.

That's what I would do.

nuac · 23-08-2018 12:58pm

Best of luck to the new platform(s) and all who sail on it(them)

Boards.ie: Sean · 23-08-2018 1:44pm

The One Doctor wrote: »

That's fairly easy. Contact a number of respected boardsies through a third party, give them a list of controversial topics and ask them to choose two. Then suggest that they start a thought provoking thread on a certain day in return for a small consideration (voucher etc) if the thread views reach a certain figure.

That's what I would do.

I would point out that:

Anyone could do that now (it wouldn't be hard to identify some respected Boardsies with a cursory search through the site) even without the integration with Journal Media
As it hasn't happened to date I don't think there is any reason (and there's absolutely no indication or evidence) to think it suddenly will after the integration is completed
Even if there was a reason to think it will (which there isn't) I am 100% confident that the Boards team (all of whom are included in the move to Journal Media) wouldn't stand over it
Even if the Boards team would stand over it (which they wouldn't) I think that the community would quickly smell a rat and call us out on it

Yggr of Asgard · 23-08-2018 2:12pm

While I certainly trust the boards crew more the corporate drones over at journal sooner or later their corporate culture will be adopted in one way or another.

Or boards staff will find that being in a office with copy and paste drone masquerading as journalists is more sole crushing than expected and leave.

We will have to see if boards continues to be a place for all where real people can have a conversation or if it will became the left wing kindergarten that the journal comment section is.

McCrack · 23-08-2018 10:50pm

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

I hear you but I think there is one fundamental difference between Boards and The Journal and the examples you give above, and it's this ..

Other media companies create and publish their own content which is subject to editorial oversight. Media owners may have the potential to influence editorial policy and therefore exert some degree of control over the content (although I must stress that in my view this is absolutely not the case for The Journal).

But in Boards, we (i.e. the company and its staff) don't generate our own content, the users of the site do. Therefore we have no control over the content that is created (other than removing abusive, spam, trolling content etc. that breaches the Terms of Use of the site) and neither will The Journal. It is up to Boards users to decide what they want to talk about and how they want to talk about it. I can't see how we or The Journal can, in any meaningful way, influence that.

And just in case anyone thinks that we may be able to influence things by promoting content we like and suppressing content we don't, the whole site is monitored and policed by our mods and admins, all of whom are volunteers selected from the Boards community and all of whom a) won't let us get away with trying to exert any undue influence on the site, and b) who are not shy about robustly challenging us back if they think we are in any way overstepping the mark

Im not quite convinced about that

Im around Boards many years now and I have a sense certain threads are started by Boards employees. I pointed it out before in AH and I got a lot of support in agreement.

My hunch anyway.

In any event I wish the company continued success.

Beasty · 23-08-2018 10:56pm

McCrack wrote: »

Im not quite convinced about that

Im around Boards many years now and I have a sense certain threads are started by Boards employees. I pointed it out before in AH and I got a lot of support in agreement.

My hunch anyway.

In any event I wish the company continued success.

Rather than throw out unsubstantiated allegations like that could you perhaps provide even a single example to support your claim/hunch?

McCrack · 23-08-2018 11:00pm

Beasty wrote: »

Rather than throw out unsubstantiated allegations like that could you perhaps provide even a single example to support your claim/hunch?

As I said its a hunch, a feeling based on intuition.

I cant put it any further

Changes to Boards.ie Ltd. company structure

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