What do you think of the politics of boards.ie

Semper Fi

it means Always Faithful by the way

Semper Fidelis

Semper Fi

CuLT wrote:

How's it working out so far?

Ok so far. No issues. I think I should have got a 32/32 rather than a 30/32.

I am not as slim as I used to be

seamus

Semper Fi wrote:

Who could be arsed reading that, above....

Not me. Actually. Sorry!

Boardsie is a left wing PC love in that uses right wing tactics to keep the left wing love in all happy and super happy. it's like Bush going on about democracy (a good thing) while bombing it into other countries.

Thats how it is. Deal with it.

Hiya Merc.

Semper Fi

seamus wrote:

Hiya Merc.

Hello Seamus!

How was kenmare ?

Semper Fi

http://pie.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=50353712#post50353712

smart people... Interesting ...

DVD time..

BuffyBot

Another long time reader, first time poster, eh

Must be the season

Gone West

Hi kev!
You coming to the beers?

rsynnott

Has anyone done a "Help, I'm being oppressed" Gathering card yet?

billy the squid

Ghost Rider wrote:

Well I'm just wondering why a thread I started about 911 earlier today was moved to the Conspiracy Theory board without anyone even PM-ing me.

I took considerable efforts to delimit my usage of the term "conspiracy theory" because I think it restricts the debate unnecessarily. Yet a moderator or moderators saw fit to re-classify the thread without discussion. Is that not a political gesture?

And by the way, I hope the moderators will recognise this discussion to be a properly political one too, and thus to fall under the stated remit of this board.

theres bog all wrong with the CT board i'll have you know.

In fact I would go so far as to say you would probably have more freedom on the CT board than politics.

Nukem

Read the first post and was bored already - you dont like the way its run -> leave.
We do our best,we dont get paid we do it off our own back,have to take everyone into consideration and do our best to treat everyone equal.Now if you feel harshly done by, report the mod. if you think an Admin is harsh tough they own the site and if a few thousand people like it and you dont.............well il let you ponder that one.

*Rant Over*

CuLT

Nukem wrote:

Read the first post and was bored already - you dont like the way its run -> leave.
We do our best,we dont get paid we do it off our own back,have to take everyone into consideration and do our best to treat everyone equal.Now if you feel harshly done by, report the mod. if you think an Admin is harsh tough they own the site and if a few thousand people like it and you dont.............well il let you ponder that one.

*Rant Over*

Oh Nukem, I think we try too hard, in fairness.

Though *gets all soppy*, whenever I manage to resolve a problem for someone, or help someone out who's a bit befuddled by the rules, it makes my day.

I don't *like* banning people, no moderator does (well, mostly :v: ). There's a feckload of effort involved in the banning process that makes my eyes water when I realize I have to do it for the umpteenth time.

Choose to ban, select forum to ban from, decide how long to ban them, PM them about it, almost always get argued with, often get abusive messages, when the ban time is up check to make sure it's the proper length, unban...

This is a frequent occurrence on the For Sales forums in particular.

Then there's reported posts. I get an average of ten reported posts a day. Sometimes it's twenty in one day, sometimes it's five, but they're always there. Each of these needs to be investigated to see whether it's just some sod unhappy that he didn't get what he wanted, or whether there are some rules broken. Often it's fairly ambiguous and the thread needs to be read in detail.

I also personally get five or six enquiry PMs a week, (I have no problem with any of this btw, I signed up for it) to do with For Sales queries, sometimes questions, sometimes bigger problems.

Despite all this workload, I love it. I love knowing that I'm contributing in some way towards keeping the gears oiled and helping people with problems.
I also have absolutely no doubt that every single moderator will be able to relate to this too because we all do it for the same reason; I don't even have to ask that of them

In conclusion, you, the user, are spoiled on boards.ie. You have a huge, clean, intelligent, and tightly knit core community around which to form and integrate with.
You can discuss serious issues, crack a joke, and express yourself in a civilised manner without being drowned in muppetry, trolling and other destructive (or just annoying) forces online.

Most people have to pay for something even close to this.

GoneShootin

rsynnott wrote:

Has anyone done a "Help, I'm being oppressed" Gathering card yet?

Take your pick.

bonkey

Ghost Rider wrote:

I stand by my comments regarding the moving of the thread. It has implications far greater than the simple acknowledgment of the possibility of a political motive. (My God, these modalities are crippling...!) I was making a far stronger claim than "there might be politics at work here". I was saying there ARE politics at work here!

There still seems to be misunderstanding here.

I know you're saying there are politics at work here, however the only argument you've presented to back up this assertion - other than your insistence that it is so - is that it is not impossible for there to be politics involved.

What I'm pointing out is that this is unlikely to be seen by anyone as a solid argument. Why should anyone believe you, if the only reason you're offering is "because I say so, and look...its clearly not impossible".

Make a case.

That is to say, it's bound up with needs imposed by formal aspects of the medium in question

So you're arguing that the moderators are at fault for doing what they are supposed to do???

This is absolutely and definitively a political question,

No, its not. The political question which arises is "how should a board be best run", and as I've already pointed out, there is a dedicated thread for that in the politics forum. The discussion of "this forum isn't being run correctly" is for Feedback no matter what way you argue it.

You're not discussing policy, you're discussing the execution of it, and alleging that the execution of policy was flawed in some way, and that it was a politically-motivated decision (although you now seem to suggest that the politics in question was the need to moderate).

It may in fact be the key political question of our time,

What might me? That your thread got moved? Whether or not the mods of boards.ie are on a political (or other form of) power trip? Or the more general question which deals with discussing how this medium - in the general case - should best be run?

See, I'd agree that the third one could arguably be billed as a key political question of our time, but this thread has never yet been about that. Its been about specific actions of specific mods on a single specific board, on a single specific bbs.

Lets not get carried away here. Discussing whether or not gandalf et al are power tripping is categorically not the key political question of our time.

Even though I don't even believe that 911 was an inside, I can still see, as plainly as the nose on my cyber face, that the categorisation of the very question as conspiratorial is, quite simply, prejudicial to the answering of that question.

Speculating on whether or not some ill-defined or unknown group of power-mongers operating in secret to attack key installations within their own country is not a political question, and rewording it doesn't change that.

Just as ID is not and will never be science, theories about conspiracies are not and will never be politics. Theories about conspiracies are conspiracy theories. You can use window-dressing to try and induce someone other than conspiracy theorists to offer input but all you're doing is trying to get other people to partake in a discussion of a conspiracy theory.

A rose by any other name....

That and that alone is what makes it political

No, its not. That and that alone is what makes it not entirely apolitical.

My real worry is: can a serious debate be had about the subject of 911 if the subject is categorised as a "conspiracy" and, frankly, lumped together with a whole shed-load of fanciful garbage about ... I really don't think so.

Ahh. I see the problem. You see your conspiracy theory as being less crackpot than other peoples' conspiracy theories, so you want to seperate it from those in order to discuss it seriously. I'm sure all of the other conspiracy theorists say the same about their theories too though, so why is your case different? More importantly...given that you claim not to believe this theory anyway, why is your case different?

I mean...seriously...listen to what you're saying. (Correct me if none of these points have emerged along the way, or I've misinterpreted them.)

There's this theory that it was an inside job. Actually, there's a lot of similar theories, but lets not specify one in particular, just deal with a general class of them, but call it a theory to make it more respectable. I don't believe its true, and there is a lack of any quantities of evidence other than the "I think they should have done something else, so therefore...." type thats typical of conspiracy theories.

So anyway, we don't know of much solid evidence, I don't believe its true, but I do believe its more credible than those other crackpot conspiracy theories. I won't explain why its more credible, just insist that it is so.

I think therefore, this conspiracy theory that I don't even believe in should be considered a really important political topic rather than a conspiracy theory. Because I say so.

Oh, and the mods are on some political agenda by undermining me.
.

I mean...honestly...mix in a bit of international intrigue and this becomes a conspiracy theory. Its got the baseless allegations. Its got the "it must be true" reasoning. Its got no evidence.

The moderators, by contrast, have offered no reasons for any of their actions.

The overwhelming majority of people who get moderated insist the mods were wrong to mod them. Many admit the mods generally get it right, but in this particular instance the mods are wrong. They don't have time to placate every poster and get into a long to-and-fro of justification.

Thus, the thing in the rules about taking it to Feedback (it says Admin in the rules thread...bit out of date there guys). If you want to discuss the issue, take it here. To Feedback. Mods will not discuss moderation in Politics threads.

You ignored this, and looked for answers in a politics thread....but now suggest the mods were somehow wrong for ignoring your complaint?

but they may have to accept that that fact will limit the usefulness of a forum such as this to ask some really important questions.

Establish that your question is really important, and not a discussion on something you haven't clearly defined, admit there is a lack of solid evidence to support, and don't believe is true yourself anyway.

Then you have a case to ask for it to be moved back.

But so far - and please don't take offence at this - pretty much every one of your arguments has boiled down to "because I say so" being the underlying logic. The mods are acting politically because you claim they are. You can't say what their motives are, nor show that this is a pattern...you just insist it is so. Your question is important....because you say it is so. Its not a conspiracy theory but rather a theory about a conspiracy that should be dealt with as an important political question.....because you say so.

As you'll have noticed, now that the thread is moved to Feedback, there's an awful lot of people basically deriding it as "here we go again". The reason? Beceause here we are, going again. You don't like how you were moderated, and are declaring this act of moderation to be some act of oppression/political censorship/abuse of power for no other presented reason than because it was done to you and your thread.

jc

WizZard

CuLT, your post made me feel all warm and cuddly inside :v:

bonkey for God!

/me heads on over to the politics board to see if other posts are of the same quality

Ghost Rider

There are lots of little misunderstandings but there's one big one: yesterday you talked about agreeing to differ, and I concurred, but today you've gone back on that, having re-asserted your positions.

Now I admit my arguments may be unusual around here, but I've made them in a way I'm satisfied was clear and logical, and I simply don't have the time to re-word them. There may well be fundamental philosophical differences which are at the root of this disagreement, and there are also some less interesting semantic differences, but I just don't have the time to go into the details right now.

As for the state of the forum itself, I have my feelings about the mods and you have yours. We will have to agree to differ on this, if only because I won't be posting to the politics board again.

In marked contrast to so many other bulletin board exchanges, I suggest we end this one cordially with the Internet equivalent of a handshake. Capiche?

bonkey wrote:

There still seems to be misunderstanding here.


jc

bonkey

Ghost Rider wrote:

There are lots of little misunderstandings but there's one big one: yesterday you talked about agreeing to differ, and I concurred, but today you've gone back on that, having re-asserted your positions.

In response to you insisting that yours was still correct after I suggested we agree to differ. I took your response as a rejection of my offer.

Now I admit my arguments may be unusual around here, but I've made them in a way I'm satisfied was clear and logical, and I simply don't have the time to re-word them.

They are clear and logical. They're just not very strong arguments because at the end of the day they all assert that you are correct because you say you are, and for no other offered reason.

We will have to agree to differ on this, if only because I won't be posting to the politics board again.

Unfortunate but unsurprising.

I should point out that this is both the typical and encouraged reaction to threads like this:

You air your grievance, you discover boards isn't going to remould itself to how you think it should be, you walk away. So after all the to-ing and fro-ing, the one-liner responses of "if you don't like it, leave" turn out to be the most succinct advice and accurate commentaries on the entire issue.

In marked contrast to so many other bulletin board exchanges, I suggest we end this one cordially with the Internet equivalent of a handshake. Capiche?

/me shakes hands and walks away with a quiet, unexplained smile.

jc

bonkey

WizZard wrote:

bonkey for God!

Its the initials, isn't it.



jc

Gordon

thegent wrote:

I like to read through the posts on this site and would like to know what you all think of the politics of this site.
The Moderators/Administrators seem to be on some sort of power trip cutting in on interesting debates like fascists treating those involved like children telling them that if they 'ever see them doing this again' they will be blacklisted, banned even.
It reminds me of the Christian Brothers in school.
Any thoughts or does anyone care.
I wonder if my post will get through the censors

I have no problem with it. Do you have any specific examples or are you just annoyed about being banned?

Ghost Rider

bonkey wrote:

They are clear and logical. They're just not very strong arguments because at the end of the day they all assert that you are correct because you say you are, and for no other offered reason.

As I said, I'm not getting into this. I'd like to, but I won't. If that, to you, is me tipping over my king/throwing in the towel/ handing in my cards, then so be it. Having conversations about the nature of politics (rather than about specific political issues) is difficult at the best of times. Over the Internet, it may not be possible at all - I'm not sure yet. If I was going to invest time in such a discussion, I'd need to have more confidence in the discussion forum. That is not necessarily a personal criticism of anyone - more a criticism of the system. Which brings me to your point i.e. that the system won't change on my behalf...

bonkey wrote:

You air your grievance, you discover boards isn't going to remould itself to how you think it should be, you walk away. So after all the to-ing and fro-ing, the one-liner responses of "if you don't like it, leave" turn out to be the most succinct advice and accurate commentaries on the entire issue.

jc

In fairness, I never had any problem with the philosophy of "if you don't like it, leave" (although I admit I don't always like the tone in which it is re-stated). In fact, I assumed that philosophy from the beginning. Who wouldn't? I'm not paying for this service. And, despite the implication of at least one poster to this thread, I'm not childish enough to expect the decisions of the moderators to go my way just because I take the time to state my disagreement.

Look: from the outset I was trying to ascertain whether or not a certain discussion was possible on the politics board, not on the conspiracy theories board (I have reasons for this but re-stating them would be going back into the original discussion, so I won't do it). It emerged quite quickly - after a couple hours, in fact - that such a discussion could not take place on the politics board. So now I'm moving on. What's the problem?

You and I may differ as to the reasons why such a discussion was not possible, and probably as to the value of what I was trying to do in the first place, but to get stuck discussing that seems to me now to be a waste of time. We could work at that, but it could take days or even weeks and I'm not at all convinced anything good would come of it. So far, we seem to have understood less about each other's positions, not more. Moving on, by contrast, is so easy.

WhiteWashMan

Ghost Rider wrote:

Having conversations about the nature of politics (rather than about specific political issues) is ....

...from the outset I was trying to ascertain whether or not a certain discussion was possible on the politics board, .

the answer is no for a simple reason.

discussions of this sort are purely theoretical and generalist at best.

people like to prove points, and pick specific incidents and examples for this.
moving from a generalisation to specifics will always turn any theoretical discussion into a fruitless point scoring debate.

as happened on this thread.
although, i would ask the OP to come back and give us some examples of some of the things he wants us to discuss. id much rather the OP discuss these things.

bonkey

Ghost Rider wrote:

So now I'm moving on. What's the problem?

Its not a problem. I'm just wondering how many times you'll tell me you're moving on before doing so.

If you want to walk away, walk away. I am interested in continuing the discussion but am happy to accede to your suggestion that we'll call it a day. That doesn't mean I'm agreeing to not respond to your posts. It means I'm agreeing to respect your decision to stop replying to mine.

So far, we seem to have understood less about each other's positions, not more.

Whilst you can speak freely for yourself and your own level of comprehension, I'd ask you not to make such disparaging comments about me and my abilities of comprehension if (as you claim) you're not going to discuss them.

jc

Ghost Rider

Thanks for the explanation. Although my 911 thread was not intended to be theoretical, my follow up comments regarding the moving of the thread were precisely that. If theoretical discussions aren't permitted within the politics board here, fine. I'll go elsewhere to have them.

When you say "OP", by the way, I take it you're referring to the person who started the "politics of boards.ie" thread, not me.

WhiteWashMan wrote:

the answer is no for a simple reason.

discussions of this sort are purely theoretical and generalist at best.

people like to prove points, and pick specific incidents and examples for this.
moving from a generalisation to specifics will always turn any theoretical discussion into a fruitless point scoring debate.

as happened on this thread.
although, i would ask the OP to come back and give us some examples of some of the things he wants us to discuss. id much rather the OP discuss these things.

WhiteWashMan

Ghost Rider wrote:

Thanks for the explanation. Although my 911 thread was not intended to be theoretical, my follow up comments regarding the moving of the thread were precisely that. If theoretical discussions aren't permitted within the politics board here, fine. I'll go elsewhere to have them.

When you say "OP", by the way, I take it you're referring to the person who started the "politics of boards.ie" thread, not me.

dont mix up what i said with wha tyou are implying.
theoretical or generalist threads are always welcome. there are no rules such as 'no discussing politics as a theoretical subject'!

what im saying is that you may have the best intention in the world, but there are 40,000 users here, and you will always get people who will go off topic, will make things specific etc.

i havent read the thread to be honest, but if you are talking about some theory about the 911 bombings, im inclined to think its a conspiracy theory. whether i would have moved it or not is another thing entirely.
probably not tbh.

and yes, with 'OP', im thinking of the person that started this thread.

thegent

I didn't intend to start arguments here, just wanted to see what people thought. As I said I like to read through the posts I find them interesting but I've found that many a political debate has been closed for no apparent reason (esp. when that political debate involves the historical relationship between ourselves and England.) I understand that debates get heated that the moderators, for the most part, do their job well and do it for free but sometimes well a lot of the time it seems to be political and executed in an unprofessional manner.
I’ve seen worse and better but here are a couple of examples which I found today

‘Shutting down this utter tripe’
‘If they come to my attention again there will be bannings!’
‘And you can forget posting rights if you're not carefull’
‘this is just another post-count increasing thread and by the looks of it has **** all potential for insight’
‘I’ve never read such idiotic posts’

These types of remarks come in the middle of good debates, of course this is my opinion.

Other sites, admittedly foreign ones, allow much more freedom of speech and I find it slightly political that an Irish site constantly shuts down posts of an adversarial nature towards the English and their policies on the island we call home.

It seems as though this thread has become a haven for moderators to complain and I apologise if I have offended those of you who do the job well but, this thread has been moved from politics I would say unfairly, others would have a different opinion. There are so many posts on this thread since it was started yesterday I feel it should have been given time to develop a bit more in the politics section, again I'm not a moderator and that’s not for me to say

One last thing I've been accused of having a thin skin, maybe, but I’m the youngest of a large family with many older brothers so its not so thin that I would be offended by some writing on a computer screen

henbane

‘Shutting down this utter tripe’
‘If they come to my attention again there will be bannings!’
‘And you can forget posting rights if you're not carefull’
‘this is just another post-count increasing thread and by the looks of it has **** all potential for insight’
‘I’ve never read such idiotic posts’

These types of remarks come in the middle of good debates, of course this is my opinion.

Link to these "good" debates and explain your reasoning as to why these were political decisions and not the opinion of a mod whose seen these kind of debates and is using their judgment based on experience to make a decision. Using quotes out of context is not going to help your argument.

WhiteWashMan

thegent wrote:

I didn't intend to start arguments here, just wanted to see what people thought.

a perfect example of what i was saying about people talking generics, and people delving into specifics

thegent wrote:

‘Shutting down this utter tripe’
‘If they come to my attention again there will be bannings!’
‘And you can forget posting rights if you're not carefull’
‘this is just another post-count increasing thread and by the looks of it has **** all potential for insight’
‘I’ve never read such idiotic posts’

These types of remarks come in the middle of good debates, of course this is my opinion.

two things here.
i agree that its not up to a moderator to say what is good and what is bad in debate. whether someones point of view is right or wrong is simply not our job.
however, as a moderator, you need to be involved, becuase when something becomes heated, you do need to intervene at times.
and also, yes, sometimes, people do start coming out with such drival that it makes your eyes want to bleed. we see it day in and day out. just becuase you feel these comments are not needed in a thread you are looking at, please remember that the mod has probably seen this debate before, has seen the arguments, and has seen the same users make the same points.
and just saying the same thing over and over again is not n arguement.
and saying 'no, you just dont get my point' is a load of drival as well.

its pretty subjective, but i would give the benefit of the doubt to the mod every time. sure, we are not always right, but then again, show me someone who is?

thegent wrote:

Other sites, admittedly foreign ones, allow much more freedom of speech and I find it slightly political that an Irish site constantly shuts down posts of an adversarial nature towards the English and their policies on the island we call home.

i think you will find that everyone has the right to voice their opinion, but sometimes people say things that are just pig ignorant.

people saying 'all irish hate the english', and 'all english call irish people paddy' are just stupid and add nothing to a thread.
also, saying 'we were here first' really has no truck in debate like this.

after all, this site has come from humble beginings and a small number of people. it has remembered to tolerate other people, to have humility. to have threads that are just about slagging off different nations, people, types really goes against the spirit of this site. call boards.ie the band aid of ireland if you want, but i think it promotes harmony, rather than bringing up old wounds, creating factions, debating things that happened hundreds of years ago. or even last year.

thegent wrote:

It seems as though this thread has become a haven for moderators to complain and I apologise if I have offended those of you who do the job well but, this thread has been moved from politics I would say unfairly, others would have a different opinion. There are so many posts on this thread since it was started yesterday I feel it should have been given time to develop a bit more in the politics section, again I'm not a moderator and that’s not for me to say

One last thing I've been accused of having a thin skin, maybe, but I’m the youngest of a large family with many older brothers so its not so thin that I would be offended by some writing on a computer screen

people will always defend themselves when they feel attacked.

thegent

WhiteWashMan wrote:

we are not always right, but then again, show me someone who is?

People will always defend themselves when they feel attacked



'i think you will find that everyone has the right to voice their opinion, but sometimes people say things that are just pig ignorant.'


contradiction,say what you want but not if you think a particular way.



'call boards.ie the band aid of ireland if you want, but i think it promotes harmony, rather than bringing up old wounds, creating factions, debating things that happened hundreds of years ago. or even last year.'



QUOTE]

so your saying again that there are limitations as to what can be discussed on the site
What happened 100 years ago should be discussed what happened last year should be discussed and if you'll open your eyes, old wounds are still fresh.
I'm all for harmony peace and love but not at the expense of truth.

bonkey

thegent wrote:

Other sites, admittedly foreign ones, allow much more freedom of speech

And others provide less, and each finds their audience. None of which suggests one model is better or worse than another, just different.

and I find it slightly political that an Irish site constantly shuts down posts of an adversarial nature towards the English and their policies on the island we call home.

It shuts down threads of any nature which get excessively adversarial.

If you want to wonder why the Irish threads get such short shift, its because of the trackrecord of such threads. The moderators have long, long experience with such threads are going. If it starts off the same, with the same usual suspects thrownig their usual hate- and insult-ridden comments around, its a safe bet its going down the same road.

Its not the moderators fault that particular sub-groups of posters show a time-proven willingness to be civil. If anything, the moderators have a duty to other posters to be more proactive in dealing with such users, given the premise that the forum is for rational, civilised discussion.

If one wants more leeway to criticise the English (or whoever), all one need to do is be critical without hate-mongering either at the English or the "unpatriotic west-Brit scum" (or whatever the current trendy insult is). If one wants more leeway to engage in such hate-mongering, then the solution is to find the appropriate site, because this ain't it, and no amount of complaining about the moderators is going to turn it into one.

It seems as though this thread has become a haven for moderators to complain

So what? It was ok to start a thread for posters to complain about mods, but when the mods complain back its unreasonable? As far as I can see, most of these complaints are of the form "you don't appreciate or understand our job".

And as I've already clarified, despite the misleading tag below my username, I am not a moderator. Of any forum.

this thread has been moved from politics I would say unfairly,

But why is it unfair? As with Gost Rider, is it just because you say so, or have you another reason to offer as to why it ws unfair?

You clearly wanted to address abuse of power by specific moderators in a specific forum. There's even a rule in the forum's charter telling you to take it elsewhere.

seamus

thegent wrote:

contradiction,say what you want but not if you think a particular way.

That's not what he said. The ethos of boards.ie is most certainly not "Say what you want". You are pretty much free to discuss anything you want here, excluding certain illegal/dodgy topics, it's how you say it that will get you censored. A person is, for example, perfectly entitled to say that they dislike British people, but how they say it, and their reasons for saying it are just as important as their desire to say it.
You could say that boards.ie enforces civility, but that's so that people can enjoy the forums, not in order to oppress people.

so your saying again that there are limitations as to what can be discussed on the site
What happened 100 years ago should be discussed what happened last year should be discussed and if you'll open your eyes, old wounds are still fresh.
I'm all for harmony peace and love but not at the expense of truth.

There are subtle differences between discussion and debating. Certain topics, such as recent history, are usually high on discussion and low on debate. Other issues such as current events, are often low on dicussion and high on debate.

Ghost Rider

Did someone say there was a forum for suggesting ideas for new boards? If so, where is it?