Can we talk about AH?

Cookie_Monster · 29-01-2019 10:27pm

Mark Rippetoe wrote: »

It's a bloody light hearted forum.

It's not, it's been a long time since it was

Mark Rippetoe wrote: »

Light hearted and politics don't exactly mix.

Of course they do. Look at the Brexit or Trump threads in Politics, do you really think most people down the pub chat away like that or converse in a much lighter way?

end of the road · 29-01-2019 10:29pm

from the ah charter.

Please do not post any more political threads in After Hours
As most of you are aware, over the past couple of years Political threads have become more and more common in AH. We probably have 5 or 6 active threads in any given day. This isn't and was never the intended purpose of AH and the most obvious place for such discussion is the vibrant Politics Forum
Please do not post any more political threads in After Hours.

that seems very clear to me on the issue of political threads. no political threads in ah full stop. so therefore i cannot see how there is any room to be making exceptions. if political threads aren't allowed then they aren't allowed.

there have been such threads in ah since i joined the site so them existing in ah is a non-issue to me, however saying 1 political thread is allowed but not another not only makes no sense but goes against the charter.

Mr. CooL ICE · 29-01-2019 10:30pm

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

So

Thread titles
Thread topics
Thread movements
Thread closures

Are basically down to the mods and whatever mood they are in that day? One mods exception is another mods reason to close/move.

Dude, nothing is black and white. Can't write a charter that covers absolutely every scenario that might arise. Mod discretion is always going to come into it t some point.

Arghus · 29-01-2019 10:38pm

OldMrBrennan83 wrote: »

Exactly. No 'exception' for a thread about reading a book but one made for a thread on nurses pay. Could only assume at this stage it's because they forgot to close/move the latter so are peddling the 'exception' story now.

Or at least, if there is any thinking behind the 'exceptions' then at least publish some sort of guidelines to save people starting or posting in threads that will be sent to die.

I don't understand it at times.

It's a real pet-hate of mine how certain threads - which are usually even-tempered - are abruptly shifted off off out to the provinces, just because they could vaguely be described as being about something that has its own dedicated forum.

In my experience the posters don't follow the thread to the new forum and the thread just shuffles around for a day and then dies. So by moving the thread, conversation has been killed - and part of the enjoyment of seeing those types of threads in AH is the wide variety of posters who'll contribute and they'll usually be richer and more entertaining that what they would be elsewhere. Let them have their space in AH, jesus christ!

After Hours didn't even allow a thread on The World Cup last summer. The World Cup... seriously? The biggest sporting/cultural event of last year, which a huge proportion of the posting populace would be watching, irrespective of whether they had much of an interest in football to begin with. Yes, I know there was a dedicated sub-forum in Soccer solely about the World Cup, but the soccer forum would have kept that busy all by itself. The fun of an After Hours World Cup thread would have been that it was an After Hours World Cup thread; it'd be different in character to a soccer forum equivalent. It would have added something to the place for a month. But no. Not allowed. Even though the Euro 2016 thread there worked fine - and the one about the 2016 Olympics...

And other threads which could easily be housed elsewhere, if one was being a stickler are allowed to run and run, for absolutely no clear reason that I can make out.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 29-01-2019 10:44pm

Arghus wrote: »

I've kind of given up on After Hours changing at this stage.

It's still an interesting forum, but it's definitely beginning to go stale.

Posters are definitely allowed to get away with spewing more bile about sections of society than they used to. Most thread that are vaguely "hot-topic" get depressingly hot-take and stoopid the further they go on. There's a lot of stuff on it that would make you despair.

I know people are loathe to listen to people banging on about the halycon days of yore when it comes to AH - it has always been a haven, to some extent, for the maladjusted - but there did seem to be a bit more levity there, even as recently as about two years ago, than there is now.

Then again the place often doesn't help itself.

I don't like criticising moderation in general - it's a lame excuse usually peddled by those who want to be free to scatter-gun insult everything and everyone without any oversight - but there was a harmless thread running in the forum over the last few days named "Have You Ever Regretted reading a book?" It was a good old-fashioned AH thread, plenty of people contributing - BANG! - LOCKED!- MOVED! - "better suited to the literature forum". Okay, strictly speaking that might be true, but all that will happen in the literature forum is that it will die - and there's a lot of other AH threads that strictly speaking could be moved elsewhere, if everyone was being ultra-stringent about it. Come on. What harm was it doing? Taking up valuable real estate where yet another reactionary hot-take fueled thread could lay a claim?

Maybe they are happier leaving AH to be an ugly place.

I'll take this one as I made the decision to move it.

As a more or less catch all forum, AH gets a lot of posts. Some forums and threads I follow, I found out about from AH and those threads being moved from AH. Some posters have difficulty navigating the dropdown menus, I know I had difficulty in finding the Literature forum earlier so I think moving threads out of an already overcrowded AH isn't necessarily a bad thing.

There's already a thread on books in AH which could/should be moved but it probably appeals to a different demographic. Even so, there are plenty that post in the AH thread and the similar one in Literature.

For me, the central issue is what is the purpose of AH? Everyone disagrees what it should be and only their opinion is the correct one, in their eyes. Pretty similar to some of the backs to the wall posting on some of the threads. A rather larger proportion of Ahs current threads than i would like probably don't belong to AH but there simply isn't anywhere else to put them atm.

Arghus · 29-01-2019 11:14pm

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

I'll take this one as I made the decision to move it.

As a more or less catch all forum, AH gets a lot of posts. Some forums and threads I follow, I found out about from AH and those threads being moved from AH. Some posters have difficulty navigating the dropdown menus, I know I had difficulty in finding the Literature forum earlier so I think moving threads out of an already overcrowded AH isn't necessarily a bad thing.

There's already a thread on books in AH which could/should be moved but it probably appeals to a different demographic. Even so, there are plenty that post in the AH thread and the similar one in Literature.

For me, the central issue is what is the purpose of AH? Everyone disagrees what it should be and only their opinion is the correct one, in their eyes. Pretty similar to some of the backs to the wall posting on some of the threads. A rather larger proportion of Ahs current threads than i would like probably don't belong to AH but there simply isn't anywhere else to put them atm.

Fair enough and I appreciate that you've laid out your reasoning there.

What frustrates me from a user's perspective is that I usually partake in some of these threads and I find them interesting and relatively lively - you get a more varied bunch of opinions in AH - but they are 99% of the time killed completely stone dead after they are moved. It just feels to me like the, perhaps unintentional, neutering of conversation that can often be illuminating, entertaining and funny - a welcome respite from a lot of the front page on AH these days.

Yes there already a long running book thread in AH, but does that mean there shouldn't be any more? In fairness they tend to be be rare. Other subjects are allowed to proliferate fairly freely.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 29-01-2019 11:22pm

Arghus wrote: »

Fair enough and I appreciate that you've laid out your reasoning there.

What frustrates me from a user's perspective is that I usually partake in some of these threads and I find them interesting and relatively lively - you get a more varied bunch of opinions in AH - but they are 99% of the time killed completely stone dead after they are moved. It just feels to me like the, perhaps unintentional, neutering of conversation that can often be illuminating, entertaining and funny - a welcome respite from a lot of the front page on AH these days.

Yes there already a long running book thread in AH, but does that mean there shouldn't be any more? In fairness they tend to be be rare. Other subjects are allowed to proliferate fairly freely.

Tbh, I don't know if more should be allowed. But if more are allowed, where will it end and what subjects deserve multiple threads away from their 'proper forum? Are the rest of the forums to be asphyxiated to favour an already overflowing forum?

pleas advice · 29-01-2019 11:30pm

did we ever get a decision on whether to set up a Current Affairs forum, or not?

Arghus · 29-01-2019 11:50pm

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Tbh, I don't know if more should be allowed. But if more are allowed, where will it end and what subjects deserve multiple threads away from their 'proper forum? Are the rest of the forums to be asphyxiated to favour an already overflowing forum?

I don't know the answer to that question either, but I do know that in case of the thread I' ve mentioned that moving it away from where it was more or less finishes it as an active topic, which I don't really see much utilty in.

The whole purpose of the site is to have people conversing and sharing views, surely that's more important than killing things off by putting them in their asigned place?

You said yourself AH is a catch all forum whose purpose is ill-defined, so surely a bit of discretion can be applied where needed? Are people contributing to this thread? Do people seem to be engaged? Is it staying relatively civil? If the answers to all of these are Yes, Yes and Yes - then IMO let it continue where it is. Personally I think it'll do AH no harm and it won't add much life to it's new home - especially when it's locked after the move too!

Sweetemotion · 29-01-2019 11:51pm

pleas advice wrote: »

did we ever get a decision on whether to set up a Current Affairs forum, or not?

Have a sticky thread in After Hours called Current Affairs.

prinzeugen · 30-01-2019 12:16am

Mark Rippetoe wrote: »

So, get banned from posting politics in Politics, so post politics in After Hours instead? Nope. Not gonna happen.

We should not be getting banned from politics in the first place. The place is an echo chamber for one mod. Its bullying at this point. Abusing the infraction system to silence anyone that does not agree with him.

A current affairs forum would be an idea. Somewhere people can post on Brexit etc without fear of being banned for posting a different view.

Let the so called "educated" people and mods that think they are still in the Trinity debating society post in politics.

Chips Lovell · 30-01-2019 7:34am

prinzeugen wrote: »

Maybe its because AH is the only place some people can post a view. If you have a viewpoint that a certain politics mod doesn't like you are carded and banned for petty things that others get away with. Dispute Resolution is full of complaints about him.

He censors politics and so people post in AH instead.

prinzeugen wrote: »

We should not be getting banned from politics in the first place. The place is an echo chamber for one mod. Its bullying at this point. Abusing the infraction system to silence anyone that does not agree with him.

A current affairs forum would be an idea. Somewhere people can post on Brexit etc without fear of being banned for posting a different view.

Let the so called "educated" people and mods that think they are still in the Trinity debating society post in politics.

It seemed highly unlikely that one mod would be permitted to pursue some sort of vendetta against you without anyone noticing, so I took a look into this and it turns out it's untrue.

You've been sanctioned by not one, but three different mods in the Politics forum. One one occasion you appealed to the DRP, alleging mod bias. A CMod and Admin reviewed and upheld the sanction.

So three different mods, a CMod and an Admin have reviewed your conduct in the Politics forum and found it to be wanting.

The vast majority of posters there, whatever their viewpoint, are capable of contributing without so much as a yellow card. When people do get sanctioned, it's for breaching the charter, not for their views.

Zorya · 30-01-2019 8:58am

Don't know why people are so shocked that posters have their backs to the wall and defend their opinions on threads? It's not like as if in real life in a kitchen discussion one argues one's point of view and when another person snorts at it in derision and declares it unacceptable, one goes Oh My Goodness, I see the error of my ways and shall adopt your opinion on the matter as swiftly as possible!

Twenty Grand · 30-01-2019 9:14am

Zorya wrote: »

Don't know why people are so shocked that posters have their backs to the wall and defend their opinions on threads? It's not like as if in real life in a kitchen discussion one argues one's point of view and when another person snorts at it in derision and declares it unacceptable, one goes Oh My Goodness, I see the error of my ways and shall adopt your opinion on the matter as swiftly as possible!

There's no point in a discussion if both sides are entrenched. You may as well be arguing about the existence of God.
Problem is there's plenty of threads that decend into bitchy back and forth, whataboutery, strawman arguments and people who just want to get the last word.

The serious threads in AH need a higher standard of posting than AH requires. So IMO they shouldn't be there. They should be moved to their respective forums.

Zorya · 30-01-2019 9:20am

Twenty Grand wrote: »

There's no point in a discussion if both sides are entrenched. You may as well be arguing about the existence of God.
Problem is there's plenty of threads that decend into bitchy back and forth, whataboutery, strawman arguments and people who just want to get the last word.

The serious threads in AH need a higher standard of posting than AH requires. So IMO they shouldn't be there. They should be moved to their respective forums.

But then there will probably be no discussions. Unless a general kumbaya love-in session is what is wanted. There are people who make no argument beyond drive-by shootings and to be honest they are easy to ignore, but if someone makes an effort, even if it is generally disagreeable to others, to you, to me, and that results in vigorous back and forth, so what? People will get sick of it themselves soon enough without the need for discussion being censored. I find that for me personally change of opinion can be a while happening - It may be a long time before another point of view seeps in and rearranges my prejudices. Shrugs. Life, innit.

hullaballoo · 30-01-2019 9:39am

Zorya wrote: »

But then there will probably be no discussions. Unless a general kumbaya love-in session is what is wanted. There are people who make no argument beyond drive-by shootings and to be honest they are easy to ignore, but if someone makes an effort, even if it is generally disagreeable to others, to you, to me, and that results in vigorous back and forth, so what? People will get sick of it themselves soon enough without the need for discussion being censored. I find that for me personally change of opinion can be a while happening - It may be a long time before another point of view seeps in and rearranges my prejudices. Shrugs. Life, innit.

I know it's a minor point in the scheme of this thread but the above, let's call it normal expected human behaviour, is in my experience of the site not what happens. Posters here are capable of arguing their position ad infinitum or at least far longer than anyone in a face-to-face conversation could fathom.

I am all in favour of allowing threads to die naturally where possible rather than slapping a padlock on them but some threads and quite a few are in AH just won't die. Even when you think they're dead, after a few months a group of drunks on a Saturday night will get back into it and the next thing you have another 5 pages of discussion.

Twenty Grand · 30-01-2019 9:50am

Zorya wrote: »

But then there will probably be no discussions. Unless a general kumbaya love-in session is what is wanted. There are people who make no argument beyond drive-by shootings and to be honest they are easy to ignore, but if someone makes an effort, even if it is generally disagreeable to others, to you, to me, and that results in vigorous back and forth, so what? People will get sick of it themselves soon enough without the need for discussion being censored. I find that for me personally change of opinion can be a while happening - It may be a long time before another point of view seeps in and rearranges my prejudices. Shrugs. Life, innit.

That's perfectly fine.

My question is: why is it in AH instead of a more suitable forum?
Why is AH the default go to forum for any crank who wants a rant againt the gubbermint, public sector, travellers, the dole, scumbags etc etc. which is all against the charter and mods do nothing?

Why can't we just have another forum for that, and AH to return to light hearted irrelevant topics.

Zorya · 30-01-2019 9:52am

hullaballoo wrote: »

I know it's a minor point in the scheme of this thread but the above, let's call it normal expected human behaviour, is in my experience of the site not what happens. Posters here are capable of arguing their position ad infinitum or at least far longer than anyone in a face-to-face conversation could fathom.

I am all in favour of allowing threads to die naturally where possible rather than slapping a padlock on them but some threads and quite a few are in AH just won't die. Even when you think they're dead, after a few months a group of drunks on a Saturday night will get back into it and the next thing you have another 5 pages of discussion.

Yeah, suppose that is a point. I will argue my point of view for a fair while on a thread and then just suddenly click the unfollow button to avoid annoying meself. Equivalent in real life of rolling my eyes and saying 'Away with ya!'

But I also have no trouble scrolling past the titles of threads I have no interest in - perhaps it may seem incredible but I have never (that I can recall, though gosh, there may have been the very odd mistaken slip) clicked into many of the longest running threads that are forever on the front page of AH, like what people are eating or cool tunes or did you know/guess what or the abortion electioneering thing or where are you now or any of the trivially things threads or facebook status thread or margaret cash visiting penneys or minimal alcohol prices or try harder ye jokers etc etc....and yet, somehow I seem to be able to use AH without going absolutely round the twist

Zorya · 30-01-2019 9:53am

Twenty Grand wrote: »

That's perfectly fine.

My question is: why is it in AH instead of a more suitable forum?
Why is AH the default go to forum for any crank who wants a rant againt the gubbermint, public sector, travellers, the dole, scumbags etc etc. which is all against the charter and mods do nothing?

Why can't we just have another forum for that, and AH to return to light hearted irreverent topics.

That would be a very good idea. I have suggested it elsewhere. A current or contentious affairs zone.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b · 30-01-2019 10:27am

Twenty Grand wrote: »

That's perfectly fine.

My question is: why is it in AH instead of a more suitable forum?
Why is AH the default go to forum for any crank who wants a rant againt the gubbermint, public sector, travellers, the dole, scumbags etc etc. which is all against the charter and mods do nothing?

Why can't we just have another forum for that, and AH to return to light hearted irrelevant topics.

I would question whether banning threads on Travellers, the dole, the government, the public sector, etc., etc., will return AH to light-hearted, irreverent (I assume you don't mean irrelevant) topics.

There are some people who want to put AH in a DeLorean, fire up the flux capacitor, get it up to 88 mph, and transport it back to 1999 or thereabouts. Their posts are filled with a kind of moany nostalgia -- "Remember when AH used to be fun?"

But what makes a forum enjoyable is not the topics but the people who post there. Ban the topics that people are clearly interested in talking about, and those people will drift off elsewhere. A banning spree won't magically resurrect AH circa 1999. It's more likely just to kill the forum, as has happened to other forums on Boards that have become ghost towns due to heavy-handed modding.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b · 30-01-2019 10:37am

Right now, the front page of AH has threads on snow, the nanny state targeting breakfast cereals, computer illiteracy in the workplace, cuckolding, payrises for nurses, trivial things that annoy you, where are you right now, Margaret Cash, have you ever stolen anything, rates of third-level education in Ireland, new revelations about Michael Jackson, stingiest things you've seen, chainsaws, grammar and proof reading in journalism, a film on James Bulger, trivial things that make you happy, what are ye eating and drinking, Inigo Montoya, and listed buildings burning down.

That seems to be a fairly decent balance between topical issues and trivial or irreverent ones. Something for everyone, in short. And yet people say they can't find anything light-hearted or irreverent or fun on AH?

Buford T. Justice XIX · 30-01-2019 10:38am

Twenty Grand wrote: »

That's perfectly fine.

My question is: why is it in AH instead of a more suitable forum?
Why is AH the default go to forum for any crank who wants a rant againt the gubbermint, public sector, travellers, the dole, scumbags etc etc. which is all against the charter and mods do nothing?

Why can't we just have another forum for that, and AH to return to light hearted irrelevant topics.

From my experience of AH, the first few pages of any thread is quite full of irreverent one liners and p!$$ pulling. Once the jokes have died off, and AH is exactly the place for those first few pages, where do those threads go?

The only ones remaining then are those unwilling to leave their bunkers and engage in any movement toward the other extreme and I'm OK with that tbh once they remain within the rules of Boards. I have no interest in those threads, just popping in every so often to guage the situation on them, and I think those posters are probably best left there and let the rest of AH continue on its sometimes merry way?

Zorya · 30-01-2019 10:51am

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

From my experience of AH, the first few pages of any thread is quite full of irreverent one liners and p!$$ pulling. Once the jokes have died off, and AH is exactly the place for those first few pages, where do those threads go?

The only ones remaining then are those unwilling to leave their bunkers and engage in any movement toward the other extreme and I'm OK with that tbh once they remain within the rules of Boards. I have no interest in those threads, just popping in every so often to guage the situation on them, and I think those posters are probably best left there and let the rest of AH continue on its sometimes merry way?

Yep, just lave us at it

McMurphy · 30-01-2019 11:49am

Yet another dole related thread in AH this A.M.

Sigh.

Boom_Bap · 30-01-2019 12:08pm

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

Yet another dole related thread in AH this A.M.

Sigh.

and now another

Gimme A Pound · 30-01-2019 12:09pm

What do those who tediously trot out "Another dole thread" want? For the topic to be banned?

It is a perfect example of something they could just ignore. It's dishonest too the way they pretend all social welfare claimants are criticised. They're not. Only the freeloaders are, and it's beyond me why it could be such a problem to have a go at them.

retro:electro · 30-01-2019 12:23pm

AH to me is like being at a dysfunctional family wedding. The loud uncle who you get stuck chatting to who has been spouting the same rhetoric for years about migrants taking our jobs, you politely indulge him for a while until you excuse yourself and chat to someone else about how annoying you find him. You then toddle over to another table to see people deep in chat, seems to be about welfare, there’s the odd laugh so you sit around and engage for a while.
After a while it’s enough of that so you go for a pee, you get chatting about mundane and inane but chatty waffle to a group of girls but before long you’ve divulged your whole life story. You probably divulge a bit too much info but they seemed nice so why not. That’s enough of being sentimental about things, so you get back to your table and start chatting to your brother who’s a guard, or your sister who’s a nurse.. you look around and your drunk uncle is still wearing the ear off someone about migrants and it doesn’t look like he’ll be budging for the night. This time he seems to be surrounded by supporters and he’s getting even more extreme.

It’s never going to be all things to all people. What’s too much for some won’t be enough for others. It’s near impossible to have it strike a perfect balance and keep everyone happy. I think there’s a good mix of topics at the moment and with such a diverse mix in tone what is a charter breach in one thread might just scrape through in another, I believe that’s when “discretion” will come in. As extreme and sometimes offensively ignorant as some people’s views can be I have to say I do like reading them. It’s the only way to know your opinion on something is solid and objective.

McMurphy · 30-01-2019 12:45pm

Arely Dazzling Sidecar wrote: »

What do those who tediously trot out "Another dole thread" want? For the topic to be banned?

It is a perfect example of something they could just ignore. It's dishonest too the way they pretend all social welfare claimants are criticised. They're not. Only the freeloaders are, and it's beyond me why it could be such a problem to have a go at them.

It's not a problem to have a go at freeloading dole scrounging layabouts loopers.

It's a problem to see threads being opened on an almost daily basis with the dole or S.W (in some form) being the centre of then discussion, and included in the thread title.

What then happens is , the usual 6 - 12 posters of opposing sides will engage in the usual back and forth bollocks, for days on end.

Today I see a thread asking if the dole should be cut to pay nurses? FFS.

Have an "All things dole related bashing" thread and be done with it, shunt any dole related new thread in there and let the faithfuls enjoy their own echo chamber, on both sides of the debate.

Boom_Bap · 30-01-2019 1:01pm

That's the nature of AH recently. There will be a forefront topic that gets threads from a 'new and fresh' angle opened regularly instead of tacking it on to the many others. Those new threads generally end up in the same discussion as the others. And if they are merged up end up in a megathread situation.

This continues until the next en-vogue topic comes up.

Standman · 30-01-2019 1:13pm

There can be some gems of threads on there, like the "I bet you didn't know that" thread, but generally it's a good forum to avoid if you value your mental health.

Can we talk about AH?

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