Where has it all gone wrong?

Red Alert

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

Red Alert, the forum was created without a mod and following a thread in feedback ubrewolf was made mod IIRC

Cheers for the info KR - it's a long long time ago!

boneless

Sangre wrote:

Maybe if we modularised the forum it would be better.

Spam Post!!

rainbow kirby

And guess what? I made that thread in feedback.

Old-skool. \m/

Pantsless

panda100 wrote:

He's still a regular poster he just posts under a differnt name.

Regular is such a strong word. I wouldnt class myself a poster on this forum anymore.

Red Alert

Should we have the modular UCD forum and the old skool one

ferdi

The_Minister wrote:

The phrase "take it to feedback" springs to mind. Or, the mods could be annoyed that the blame may be put on them. I just think that a PM to the mods, telling them that this was here, would have been appropriate.

i think that this may be the issue.

18AD

I think the problem is I don't post enough. :cool:

The_Minister

Who are you again?

18AD

You don't know me. But I'm kinda a big deal.

The_Minister

18AD wrote:

You don't know me. But I'm kinda a big deal.

That's the second time in a month that that has been quoted at me and I still don't know where its from!

hullaballoo

Anchor Man. Anyway, back on topic please. And thanks.

Chinafoot

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

"older UCD boardsies", that made me laugh.
You've not even been on boards a full year.

Im not claiming to be old skool, but the crap that this board degenerated into in the second half of last year (coincidently when you started posting) was ridiculous.

Threads became so OT that you'd rarely find the answer to your question. For a discussion board it was totally useless.

Yes a lot of the regulars have left, kittenkiller, irlrobins, peachy, seb, MNG, Grimes - and whats worse (to many ppl) is that they have been replaced by a hoard of SU types.

When I was in first year I dont remember (m)any SU discussions.

Some posters think that the UCD board has changed - in truth its getting back to normal. Boards is a big website, each fora has its regulars and a community spirit and this board does too, and I for one thought that the extreme childishness of the spam last year was more indicative of the JC forum that a university one.

Agreed.

I personally don't post here anymore partly because I'm not in the college anymore so can't really contribute to a lot of the threads, and partly because this place is hack central and the bickering and SU-clique rubbish bores me to tears.

When I first started using this forum SU discussions were few and far between. I'm all for people being aware of whats going and being able to discuss it here as it's relevant to UCD, but the ucdsu.net/newsire is there and threads like "SU Council Motions for blah de blah" should be kept there. I'm sure some will disagree with that but you asked for opinions.

If you ask any of those that you consider the "older boardsies" what was so attractive about this forum in the beginning, they would probably mention the fact that it wasn't the newswire and it wasn't overrun with hacks.

Dajaffa, its a college forum. Do you reckon when you graduate you'll still be posting here to the extent that you do now? Of course you won't. People come and go and the nature of the forum, and those using it, changes. It's not always a bad thing.

I agree that it seems to have gone from spamville to hackville and neither are very appealling to a lot of posters, but if you want to get it back to the way it was (or how you think it was) in the "good 'ol days" why not organise some beers or something constructive to the forum instead of ridiculous polls placing blame.

Blush_01

To be honest, that's a bit unfair Peachy. There was a Beers tonight. There was one at Christmas. Neither were well attended, because nobody gives a shít anymore. Four people at a Boards Beers, and two of my friends? That's a joke. There was better attendance at the Forum tonight. DaJaffa, The_Minister, Scraggs, Zane, Gubbie and I were there, and a friend of mine. Elmyra happened to be there for about five minutes too.


As for the board: IMHO, this place might be hack-y in some people's eyes, but if that's what the posters here want, then that's what they're getting. If it's not what they want, then let them post other topics that they do want discussed. As far as I can see that makes sense. There's no restriction on posting a topic which is relevant to UCD in some way, unless it goes out of its way to personally abuse someone. (At least there's none that I know of.)

This time last year UCD - in it's vast disorganisation - was far more organised than it is this year. I feel that that's reflected in the posts this place gets. The general dissatisfaction of UCD students is visible here. People ask questions here that nobody else knows the answer to. IF that makes the place hack-y, then so be it. The vast majority of topics are not SU related, and to claim that this place is now hacksville because of a huge influx of hacks from the SU to boards is completely naive and a bit unfair. The fact is (plain and simply) a lot of people who were posters on this board last year decided to join the SU in September, and may even have been influenced by what they saw was lacking in the SU - as posted here.

I think everyone (no exclusions) needs to suck it up a little. It's not the place it was, it's probably not going to be again. But be it better or worse, it is what it is. It'll change again, and again, and again, and it will keep changing until it is no more. None of us can decide to stop it as is and keep it that way simply because we want to. Elements of it are always going to get under your skin - as other posters have said, so is life. Deal with it, or move on. Nobody stops anyone from posting here within reason. It's a public board, open to everyone, and therefore if it sways one way or the other so be it.

If you don't like it, it's not the only message board on the internet.

Chinafoot

Blush_01 wrote:

To be honest, that's a bit unfair Peachy.

I disagree, but such is the nature of the message boards. We don't have to agree I simply offered up my opinion as was asked in the opening post.

Blush_01 wrote:

There was a Beers tonight. There was one at Christmas. Neither were well attended, because nobody gives a shít anymore. Four people at a Boards Beers, and two of my friends? That's a joke. There was better attendance at the Forum tonight. DaJaffa, The_Minister, Scraggs, Zane, Gubbie and I were there, and a friend of mine. Elmyra happened to be there for about five minutes too.

Like I already said, things change. People come and go. Those who would have been almost always up for the beers in previous years either don't post here anymore or are too busy with college/work to attend. Because those two weren't well attended do you think that's it for UCD beers? I remember back at the start of my using the forum and the first beers I went to was attended by myself, seb, blondie and red alert. Hardly a wonderful turn out. There have been plenty of disastrous attempts at beers but you just keep plugging away and people will hopefully go.

Blush_01 wrote:

As for the board: IMHO, this place might be hack-y in some people's eyes, but if that's what the posters here want, then that's what they're getting. If it's not what they want, then let them post other topics that they do want discussed. As far as I can see that makes sense. There's no restriction on posting a topic which is relevant to UCD in some way, unless it goes out of its way to personally abuse someone. (At least there's none that I know of.)

I agree with you that there are plenty of people here who enjoy the SU discussions and thats great. Personally I don't and I know of a number of others that don't, but again Blush, I gave my opinion. I never claimed to be speaking for everyone nor do I expect people to agree with me. I also stated that I was speaking as someone who has left UCD and as such there aren't many discussions here that I can become involved in. I wasn't affected by modularisation last year and I have no interest in the SU. Simple really.

Blush_01 wrote:

The vast majority of topics are not SU related, and to claim that this place is now hacksville because of a huge influx of hacks from the SU to boards is completely naive and a bit unfair. The fact is (plain and simply) a lot of people who were posters on this board last year decided to join the SU in September, and may even have been influenced by what they saw was lacking in the SU - as posted here.

I don't know if anyone is actually claiming that the theres been an influx of hacks from the SU who were never on boards before. I know I certainly wasn't. I'm giving my opinion as someone who was around when SU discussions were nowhere near at the level they are now on the forum. Maybe I'm just a crotchedy 'ol git who doesn't like how things have changed, or maybe I've just moved on from UCD and don't see any reason to come back and post here like I used to. Possibly a bit of both, but mostly the latter. With regards to the former, however, I think the naievty is more in trying to blame it on one specific thing in a poll like this. But again, that's just my opinion.

Blush_01 wrote:

I think everyone (no exclusions) needs to suck it up a little. It's not the place it was, it's probably not going to be again. But be it better or worse, it is what it is. It'll change again, and again, and again, and it will keep changing until it is no more. None of us can decide to stop it as is and keep it that way simply because we want to. Elements of it are always going to get under your skin - as other posters have said, so is life. Deal with it, or move on. Nobody stops anyone from posting here within reason. It's a public board, open to everyone, and therefore if it sways one way or the other so be it.

If you don't like it, it's not the only message board on the internet.

I agree with you and that's what has been happening. People have moved on and people will continue to move on. I've moved on, boneless has moved on, seb moved on, blondie moved on and next year there'll be even more who will move on once they graduate. Apart from answering Dajaffa's question here, none of us have hung around the board píssing and moaning about the fact that we don't enjoy the forum as much as we used to so I'm not really sure your "if you don't like it, leave" message is all that necessary.

funky penguin

Global Warming.

hullaballoo

What about another, broader perspective? I've noticed over the past while that I post less and less on boards as a whole. It's just a little bit time-consuming to read some of the posts on it, and it's more than a little time-consuming to try to adjudge whether any particular posts breaks rules or is acceptable. Add to that any steps that should be taken to deal with it, and that doesn't leave much time for posting general fun stuff.

Recently, with the expansion of the site by the admins, more and more of regular posters have become moderators. That means that more and more people are trying to keep an eye over their own forum(s) and very few have time to post gibberish elsewhere, unless it's something that they feel is important. Taking that a step further; a lot of what people consider to be important gives rise to serious-looking threads. That excludes the potential for fun or happy threads, which seem to be confined to the less purpose-specific forums such as After Hours and The Cuckoo's Nest.

In terms of this forum per se, UCD, D has become a high-stress environment for students. Continuous assessment and exams twice a year means that people are finding more and more of their time is spent on course work, and worrying about grades. Add to this the fact that UCD is heart-breakingly inefficient and (much the same as other semi-state enterprises) incredibly poor at implementing what in reality are just mediocre plans for development.

Personally, I'm sick to the guts of it, so if I have something to post in the UCD forum, it's less an less likely to be in praise of this ugly concrete degree mill. As for the SU, well most of you will know where I stand there, but I will concede that any progress they would be likely to make if they took their heads out of their arses would be limited by the bureaucratic administration who just do not want to help students.

Student: "I sat my exams two months ago, when do you think the results will be out?"
Admin: "26th January."
Student: "Oh. That's quite late, I've a friend in DIT who sat his exams two weeks ago and has his results already."
Admin: "There are more students here."
Student: "There are more staff here."
Admin: "Well, we're actually on illegal strike because we didn't get our benchmarking agreement."
Student: "Is that right, well go fcuk yourselves. This institution is a pile of siht. I'm going to write a blog about this. Fcuking cnuts."
Admin: "Oh, you're results will be out on 9th March."
Exeunt.

Blush_01

Hang on there for a second Peachy. I said your comment about needing more Beers was unfair. There have been more beers this academic year than there was last year, and all have been poorly attended. The lack of beers is not to blame for the comparative lack of community atmosphere around this place over the last year.

The rest of my post was detached from my response to your post, it was simply MY two cents. It appears you thought that everything I said was directed at you, and I apologise for that as I should have made it clearer that it was simply my take on things, rather than an argument I was proposing in direct opposition to your point of view. As you have pointed out repeatedly in answer to my post, your post was your opinion. Mine was mine. It's that simple.

Pantsless

Im going to get shot for this but who cares. Internet bullets only hurt my massive ego.


Its the lack of spam. The general chattyness of this forum before it became "official" and all the crap that went with it led to a clique and a community. Now with a clampdown on spam there is no friendliness about this forum and hence why people drifted away and dont attend beers. they dont feel like they know anyone anymore on this forum.

Now yes there are more "noobs" on that arnt secluded due to spam but the cost of this has been the general social decline of the UCD Boards community.

My 50 cent.

Blowfish

I actually kindof agree with pantsless. The forum has basically gone from one extreme to the other. The problem is though that there probably isn't actually completely viable solution to keep it at a balance between being drowned with irrelevant (and frequently bizzare) spam, and the hackville it has become.

/wanders off

the evil lime

Blowfish wrote:

The problem is though that there probably isn't actually completely viable solution to keep it at a balance between being drowned with irrelevant (and frequently bizzare) spam, and the hackville it has become.

There's always what I did last year: read the stuff you're interested in and ignore the spam threads. I did find that they helped with the community feeling though.

Now we seem to have a very formal board which seems to funcition as an information and q&a system. It's more useful, granted, but some of the community spirit seems to be gone. This used to be a place to kill time, but now it's just a place I use to get and give answers to questions.

I don't think anyone is really to blame for this though, it's just a function of people moving on, and even the changes in the university itself.

I miss it though. It was a way to pass the time.

Sangre

Hmm, I got an impressive 9 votes and am currently in 3rd.

panda100

Personally I just think theres only so much about UCD you can talk about. After 4years writing on here I think Ive commented/started threads/ disccused almost ALL aspects of UCD life. So until more newbs come in with fresh ideas,new threads and things about UCD that they want to discuss then I think we dont have anything more to say to each other on the UCD boards,if that makes sense
I mean I know red alerts,Zanes,scraggs opinions on UCD better then I know my own at this stage. We just need some fresh blood!


Also I predict that the ONE person who voted that UCD admin was the cause of the forums troubles was mloc cos he blames Brady for everything

arbeitsscheuer

I blame the UCD Administration. But that may just be out of force of habit, or I'm just venting. Nonetheless, it's as reasonable a scapegoat as any other. Why should the other options on that poll be more valid? It's not like anyone has presented any evidence in favour of ANY of the other choices as to why this place has gone downhill faster than my academic performance (which, trust me, has truly nosedived despite my absence from boards).

The truth, I suspect, is that more of us dislike eachother than in previous years. Maybe in previous years we were just lucky enough to get a group that was pretty sound. Boneless, Peacheh, Zane, blondie, Red Alert et al...

Whereas you lot? You suck.*

* intended as a light-hearted swipe, please do not take offence. Seriously though, you suck balls.