Boards.ie - a dictatorship

Sparky

Hobbes wrote:

Unless the forum is a hosted one, the moderators don't own the forum as such. Think of them more as caretakers.

So I "own" the 24 forum?

Boston

Hobbes wrote:

Unless the forum is a hosted one, the moderators don't own the forum as such. Think of them more as caretakers.

Moderators set policy on forums.

Asok

New Feedback Policy: Up with mini skirts.

Hobbes

LiouVille wrote:

Moderators set policy on forums.

They set the main policys yes. And generally if there is contention the admins review them. Even so if you have a straight out muntiny in the forum then it is possible to have a moderator removed. It does happen.

flogen

Can anyone imagine the horror that would be if boards.ie was a true Democracy??? A Republican Democracy???

Can you imagine if every four or five years the President (a single Admin), the Seanad (Smods) and Dáil (mods) were voted for by the members of boards.ie?? Imagine the election campaigns:

"I promise, as TD for the After Hours constituency to allow the posting of hardcore pornography"

"I Cork, as Mod of Politics will prohibit the discussion of all things that reflect badly on Fianna Fail and the PD's, which won't be too hard because such topics don't exist, right?"

Oh the humanity. Give me a dictatorship (benevolent as it is) over that any day, dictatorships mean the rational and right thinking people stay in "power" even if they're in the majority, which I strongly believe they are.

But if there is to be a Presidential election, I hereby promise to do everything in my power to rid boards.ie of... eh... George W. Bush...

Vote Flogen.

BuffyBot

God, Kraftwerk have gone downhill lately.

Evidently gone through a few Sugababes-esque line up changes too

Boston

Hobbes wrote:

They set the main policys yes. And generally if there is contention the admins review them. Even so if you have a straight out muntiny in the forum then it is possible to have a moderator removed. It does happen.

Look at the recent PSI thread. Most people will not "muntiny", but will rather leave a forum. At the end of the day, that is the only "right" people have here. Not to interact. They don't have the right to a review, of any sort, from an admin. The fact that sometimes a review is carried out is more a testiment to the benevolent part of what Dev was saying. But these reviews are hardly standardised, and what will get one moderator a smack down from the admins, often will not invoke the same reaction towards another moderator.

Lets be clear, this is the way boards works, I've accepted that along time ago. I've little issue with it. But I won't pertend it's fair or just. Often the only "review" someone making a complaint or critism recieve, is that of the "mob".

DeVore

For once I agree with LiouVille. The system is far far from perfect. Not all mods are perfect, not all admin decisions are wise. Sometimes we all make mistakes and my goal and purpose here is to keep those mistakes from being BIG mistakes. Its all one human can do really.

I too would hate to see elections, even though I support democracy as the only offline way to rule a populace. Its interesting that online, with infinite space to "relocate" to, people are free to become members of whatever "tribe" or community they want to. Or start their own "country" if they want. I'm all for that!

I would love to hear of a suggestion for an even BETTER way to work boards, but short of cloning myself 300 times, we have to work through intermediaries such as the mods. Mostly that works fine, but you can't please all the people all the time and sometimes you just have to hope that commonsense prevails.

For every person who loudly complains that they've been "oppressed" I'm pretty sure there is another thinking "damn I'm glad someone shut that guy up".

DeV.

BlitzKrieg

should this thread be moved to the politics forum ('politics of boards.ie' my new dissetation paper.)

I would love to hear of a suggestion for an even BETTER way to work boards,

ban everyone...


have you ever had to urge to wipe everyones account and just start over?

DeVore

BlitzKrieg wrote:

should this thread be moved to the politics forum ('politics of boards.ie' my new dissetation paper.)



ban everyone...


have you ever had to urge to wipe everyones account and just start over?

Every. Single. Day.


DeV.

Hagar

I can almost hear your head hitting the desk between each word.

mike65

No! Wait! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee:eek:k

Mike.

flogen

BlitzKrieg wrote:

have you ever had to urge to wipe everyones account and just start over?

It would be like what happened at the end of the Matrix Revolutions... I think... did they restart the whole thing or just carry on as before? And what was the deal with the Oracle and the architecht, were they doing it or what?
And did Neo die, or was he already dead... or something...

Anyway... yeah.

VIM

DeVore wrote:

For every person who loudly complains that they've been "oppressed" I'm pretty sure there is another thinking "damn I'm glad someone shut that guy up".

Not necessarily the case all the time. Just because people don’t scream bloody murder, it does not mean that they all agree with what’s happening in some forums.

My non-participation is my reaction to defective modding. Amp’s new sticky on Feedback is a good example of how some mods act in a manner that is detrimental to boards.ie.

There was a time when I believed that I would become a benefactor to boards, then just a subscriber, and now I find myself a sidelined viewer. This was my choice, so boards is not a dictatorship.

Some of us understand the intricacies involved in running a (semi) public forum, and we agree that muppets can ruin the experience and there is a need to deal with them accordingly. But with some mods constantly screaming in your face that boards is privately owned and not a democracy, and we should shut up and stop fighting the power ……… then more of us will actually stop using it.

Fighting Irish

akaanon wrote:

Before my departure(indefinite banning,etc, welcome by some probably), I'd like to raise the question:
Is this a forum where a person can raise a valid question, and have it answered by the public, or only is it a forum where 'one' can only post when the question meets the approval only of some 'call centre worker' that needs to have a power trip to add some meaning to their life?
Is this forum not a prime example of how a government can go wrong, or how a business can go out of business?
For those who see this, I personally give this website a year and a half before the cost of hosting the site is more than the subscriptions, the extra half year is due to the momentum the site has gained. My point is anything posted here that resembles free speech is locked without reasonable judgement.
My challenge to whoever responds, if you have any dignity, is to at least spell / grammar check your response.

Incompetent responses will be ignored!

You should have paragraphed all that but yes i agree with you, too many mods lock threads because they don't like what the content is even if its not against rules. IMO mods should only inforce the rules and thats it, but other than that they're doing pretty good

Fighting Irish

seamus wrote:

3. Free speech does not apply here. You need to educate yourself on exactly what free speech is. You most certainly cannot say whatever you want here, because the owners of this website are liable for whatever you say.

could members be made agree before they sign up that they are liable and not boards?

BuffyBot

My non-participation is my reaction to defective modding. Amp’s new sticky on Feedback is a good example of how some mods act in a manner that is detrimental to boards.ie.

Yes, but amp's paticipation on this forum is not as a mod, but as a user. The problem with the setup on boards.ie is that people feel that moderators must act in a certain way across all the boards, and not just the ones they moderate. There distinction between moderator becomes blurred, and people who aren't so much in the know find it hard to distinguish between X the user and X the moderator of such and such a forum. Yes, the signs are there (i.e the listings of the forums they moderate etc), but that isn't immediately obvious to people.

You could start giving moderators stand out, seperate identities on the forums which they moderate, and normal "user" entities for those they don't - however, it's more complex from an administration viewpoint - if a little easier for people to understand. I'm sure there are other ways to try and clarify to people how to differentiate moderator behaviour outside the forums they moderate as normal user behaviour.

nesf

Fighting Irish wrote:

IMO mods should only inforce the rules and thats it, but other than that they're doing pretty good

But since we write the charters in the first place.....


Tbh, I think that it's more a case of charters being "rough guides" and moderators only enforcing things that seem to go against the grind of the forum's normal functioning. Hard and fast rules don't work that well imho.

DeVore

nesf wrote:

But since we write the charters in the first place.....


Tbh, I think that it's more a case of charters being "rough guides" and moderators only enforcing things that seem to go against the grind of the forum's normal functioning. Hard and fast rules don't work that well imho.

Rather like the police and the law...

VIM. Considering that interaction between users and site is going north at an alarming rate, I think that speaks volumes. I don't mean page impressions, I mean new threads and new post stats. Which kinda contradicts your argument...

DeV.

Hitler II

.

Hagar

Its gobshites like that that give gobshites a bad name.

amp

VIM wrote:

My non-participation is my reaction to defective modding. Amp’s new sticky on Feedback is a good example of how some mods act in a manner that is detrimental to boards.ie.

How is it detrimental exactly?

mike65

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! Godwins Law invoked - you loose!

Mike.

Sparky

Sad.

KTRIC

opressing the Irish public since nineteen dickity two

GoneShootin

K-TRIC wrote:

opressing the Irish public since nineteen dickity two

Stark

Where's that hillarious "boards.ie, now ye're conforming" mockup of the front page that someone did a while back?

rsynnott

akaanon wrote:

...
My challenge to whoever responds, if you have any dignity, is to at least spell / grammar check your response.

Incompetent responses will be ignored!

Your grammar is none too wonderful yourself.

Hagar wrote:

This is like "Groundhog Day".
Every morning I log on and this thread is here, same whining, same irrelevent drivel, same shite basically.
Only the poster's name changes. It's getting boring at this stage.

This one's more wacky than normal, tho. I can just picture him, hunched over the computer in some lab in DCU, enraged.

VIM wrote:

But with some mods constantly screaming in your face that boards is privately owned and not a democracy, and we should shut up and stop fighting the power ……… then more of us will actually stop using it.

Fortunately, it'll only be the annoying people who stop using it. So the system works, then

Fighting Irish wrote:

could members be made agree before they sign up that they are liable and not boards?

Such an agreement would have only very limited legal bearing.

VIM

DeVore wrote:

VIM. Considering that interaction between users and site is going north at an alarming rate, I think that speaks volumes. I don't mean page impressions, I mean new threads and new post stats. Which kinda contradicts your argument...

DeV.

And it will continue to grow for obvious reasons until it reaches critical mass. The trick then is to sustain the numbers and postcount. It is at this stage that the actions of a few bad moderators could dismantle the hard work put into the venture. The seeds of discontent may well be sowed in the present.

The level-handed approach to modding (as demonstrated admirably by your own posts) should be a requirement and an arbitrary council of mods may be a way to deal with contentious disputes. It may be a pain logistically to do this, but at least an attempt of fairness would be displayed. From a personal aspect, I only wish boards.ie the very best for the future.

dudara

VIM wrote:

The level-handed approach to modding (as demonstrated admirably by your own posts) should be a requirement and an arbitrary council of mods may be a way to deal with contentious disputes.

A council of mods! It all sounds so very Arthurian.