Boards News - November 2016

Greetings, all.



It's time to update you again on some things that are happening across Boards. To get started, one small, but welcome change is that you can now watch embedded YouTube videos in full screen.

We recently rolled out a lowered restriction on new user accounts. Now, a new user needs just five posts and an account that's 24 hours old to be able to post images and links; the Responsive Site is being worked on to follow suit. This makes it much quicker and easier for users to get involved in the likes of the Cool Vids & Pics & Links forum, which is great news for all of us as there should be even more content to entertain.

One of the things we have to highlight this month is the efforts of the Fantasy Sports Arena forum. They have raised €640 for the Galway Hospice Foundation with 40 Boardsies taking part in a Champions League style tournament with their Fantasy Football teams. This charity was chosen by regular forum contributor (and the inaugural FSA Premier Champ), Zarquon. You can follow the tournament as it unfolds in the Fantasy Sports Arena forum.

The Bargain Alerts forum was bustling last month, thanks in part to a weekly competition. The best post each week got a €50 One4All voucher, while the rest of us got tips for going to Lapland and Orlando on a budget, free courses from Udemy, and M&S vouchers. It'll be worth keeping an eye on the forum (or perhaps even following it) with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas deals to come.

We also had to update the Bargain Alerts Charter recently. An issue was raised by a user in relation to plain text being converted into Skimlinks, a change that were unaware Skimlinks made. Sean did some investigation and the tech guys here then made changes to our Javascript to prevent links being converted automatically. If you'd like to find out more about Skimlinks, including how to opt out, you can find all the information in this thread.

The Christmas forum is now in full swing (although to be honest I'm pretty sure there are some regulars who start the countdown to Christmas Day as soon as St. Stephen's Day hits! ) At the very least, you can start putting Christmas events into your calendar. Meanwhile, if you're buying a console this year, but have no idea where to start, the Xbox Megathread is now open; there's no such thing as a silly question and some posters should be able to steer you right.

And if it's wisdom or guidance that you're after, perhaps you should mosey over to the new Home Automation & Internet of Things (IOT) forum. Here you'll find advice and discussion surrounding all manners of connected devices that should make your life more convenient and certain processes around the home more automated.

The swift creation of this forum follows in the footsteps of the Forum Games forum, which just wrapped up an exciting Halloween-themed Werewolf game. Just between us, I may have spent more time reading the daily activities and theories than I should have! Shhh! A new (and more standard) game is about to kick off and you can register your interest here. Members of the forum are also planning to go for beers in the near future. There should be just as many stories to be told and laughs to be had as when games are in progress, though hopefully fewer lynchings and slaughters! Keep an eye on the forum for more details.

The Cycling forum is also having a bit of a get together with a small group planning a mountain biking spin in Ticknock, Dublin. Hopefully the rest of us will get to enjoy some stunning views afterwards, thanks to the 'Photos taken on your cycle' thread.

The AMA (Ask Me Anything) forum recently hosted one of its most popular AMAs with a member of An Garda Síochána. It provides a fascinating insight into the job, the system, and how they'd handle a chase of The Dukes of Hazzard. Meanwhile, we held another AMA recently, but not in the AMA forum. An infant milk scientist answered questions in the Newborn & Toddlers forum on the scientific side of infant feeding.



A home improvement project that caught our eye was this Penny Floor from Fozzie Bear, which is made up of 2c coins. It's unlikely we're going to tackle such a project any time soon, but it is an incredible piece of work and something we might be tempted by...someday!

Finally, congratulations to the Boards.ie Golf Society (who unsurprisingly reside over in the Golf forum). They took home the Ryder Jug 2016, defeating The Rep Society 5-1. You can read over some of the match recaps right here.

If you've anything that you'd like to highlight (meetups/events/achievements in a forum, for example), or anything that you'd like to see covered in future updates, please get in touch.


These are a few of our favourite things:

• Pro tips for Tillman/Tillwoman racing
• DeVore shares the conversation that spawned the Monster
• The classic tale of boy meets girl over Xbox Live
• More controversy in the Toblerone redesign
• How to know you live next to a (certain type of) Boardsie - Example 1 // Example 2
• UFC 205: Alvarez v McGregor