Forum Requests - Charter & Procedure

The structure of Boards.ie

Before submitting a request, it is important that you understand the difference between a topic, a forum, and a discussion thread. Some users may use these terms interchangeably, which can cause some confusion, so here we will define what exactly is what:

Topics - Boards.ie is broken down into several different topics (these can be referred to as Categories too). If you hover your mouse over the topics menu at the top of the screen, it will open up revealing the list of topics contained within (Education, Entertainment, Motoring & Transport, Social & Fun, and so forth).



These serve as the basis for sorting different types of discussions from one another, and help to keep discussions organised, and easy to find based on what it is you'd like to discuss. These topics/categories however, are only containers, and are broken down further into more focused areas called Forums.

Forums - Every topic/category, is broken down into different forums. This is because a topic can cater to a huge variety of different things. For example, look at the Music topic - in here, you can discuss aspects of Music that range from Band Promotion, to Classical Music, to Instruments, to Songwriting. There are many others, and these are what we call Forums.



Forums help to organise and categorise different types of discussions, in order to again make it easier to find what it is you'd like to talk about. Without forums, everything would be all squashed in together (going back to the Music topic again, there'd be discussions on electric guitars, songwriting, classical music, band promotion, etc, all happening alongside each other - this would make it very hard to find what it is you'd like to discuss). By having forums, a user that wants to discuss electric guitars for example, would navigate to the Music topic in the menu at the top of the screen, expand it by clicking the small arrow, and then click on the Instruments forum. This way, everything is nicely organised, and easy to find.

Threads - Once you've found the forum you want to be in, you will see it is populated with different discussion threads. Threads are the final way in which discussion is organised and further focused. Taking the Music -> Instruments example again (the topic of Music, and the forum for Instruments), a user will see that the forum has multiple different threads within, all discussing different aspects of musical instruments. From here, the user can partake in an existing thread if they choose, or they can create their own thread if they'd like to discuss something specific that isn't already being discussed.

That is in essence, the structure of Boards.ie (Topics for broad organisation, Forums for general organisation, and Threads for fine organisation).

Forum Request Procedure

When any new forum request is made, the Request will be left open for a maximum period of 6 weeks from the start date. At the end of 6 weeks the number of *clear* votes of support or opposition will be counted up. If the final tally (votes in favour/votes against ) is greater than +18 then the forum will be considered popular enough for consideration. If the tally of votes is higher than +20 for a continuous period of a week then the forum will be considered popular enough for consideration and the remainder of the 6 week period can be discarded.

All requests have to be valid and valid reasoning provided. Please try not to suggest silly, inappropriate, or pointless forums. Each request will be dealt with on a case by case basis. There can and will be instances where certain forums deemed silly may be be approved. However please bear in mind this is down to the request, the support behind it and the final Admin decision on it. If a request is considered outright stupid and pointless and/or has lack of support, the request will be rejected.

Who can vote

A user must have 50 posts or more, AND have been a member of the site for at least three months in order to vote on any new forum proposals. Users less than 3 months old have not had enough time to explore boards or get a feel for how the community works, and, user with less than fifty posts have not really contributed to or participated in the boards.ie community and it would be unfair to give that user an equal say in how the community evolves until they've a better understanding of how things work. These restrictions are also in place to prevent abuse such as a user suggesting a forum and then either getting a load of friends to sign up to support it, or worse, signing up multiple accounts to give a +1 and then disappearing, or indeed a user doing the same tricks to oppose a suggestion.

Reconsideration Procedure

We have a 6 week window for forum requests to get votes. If the submission fails to get enough votes it can not be resubmitted for a time period determined by how many votes the original got (more is better):

For those with > 15 +1 responses, requests can be resubmitted after the original 6 weeks has elapsed, + 2 additional months from the post date of the original request.
For those with > 10 +1 responses, requests can be resubmitted after the original 6 weeks, + 4 addiotional months from the post date of the original request.
For those with > 7 +1 responses, requests can be resubmitted after the original 6 weeks, + 6 additional months from the post date of the original request.
For those with < 7 net +1 responses, requests can be resubmitted after 1 Year from the post date of the original request

There is no option for discussion of a decision once it is made. This is not to say that if asked, the admins wont clarify or expand on a decision, but we know well that some users can be quite passionate about a forum request idea, and arguments over a decision could go on for a very very long time.

Further Considerations:

• Existing forums do not set precedence for any other/new forum request.
• If a forum (new or old) is deemed as being dead, dying, or inactive, we do reserve to right to close that forum in order to keep the structure of Boards.ie as efficient and usable as possible.
• Requesting a forum does not automatically make you a moderator of that forum.
• Polls are forbidden to be added to requests - the reasoning behind this as a poll adds no more discussion to a request and frankly anyone can click yes/no without giving a reason, or while passing through
• You are allowed to make people aware of a forum request by means of a link or image in your signature - however we frown against users spamming support, or constantly posting over boards to get support for a forum