Is there an clique on boards.ie who are immune to the rules?

sceptre

I had a long post done on cliques and the times in RL I've heard the word used. I've dumped it (at least for now) as I reckon clarity was lacking in it. Might come back to it.

In short though, I've often noticed in RL that there's a perception that a clique exists (or multiple cliques exist) in organisations where you've got an established group who are doing stuff and going about their business. It's not always described as a clique (older people call it different things and honestly put, they say it less or think it exists less than the yoof[1] do) but people can often think that they're outside something or being kept outside something when the reality is that you've got a group of people who have become accustomed to each other. It doesn't mean that "outsiders" are treated any differently, or even regarded as outsiders.

I can remember a time when there was a perception from some of the initial users on this site that their home was being usurped by the new crowd who arrived after 1998. It wasn't very prevalent - it sometimes came up but it wasn't a view that anywhere near all of the original people had. It's not an attitude I've seen around here for a long time and even when it was there, it wasn't all that serious. I'm mentioning it as to be honest, while boards.ie has grown into a massive behemoth of a beast, it's quite possibly never been more welcoming to newbies than it is now. There's the possibility to do more obviously - it's always hard for new people to accustom themselves to the rules and customs that have been built up over time - but with the amount of forums here on so many different topics of interest and the larger amount of forums that will develop in the future, it's stilla very exciting time to see so many new people start posting and develop into valued members of the community.

There's a large amount of moderators that I've rarely or never had any dealings with. There are still forums that I've never posted on and I'm sure there are some that I'll never post on. The site has grown to the size it is purely through word of mouth and new people arrive every day and post for the first time.

And while an occasional cynic like me might have the odd thought that there's a semi-organised wave of complaining at times (I guess that'd be a clique if it exists), most people are happy enough for the most part with the way the site is being run. And obviously there's always room for improvement. Over the years, lots of things have changed about the site, definitely most of them for the better.

This notion of the cliques... Perhaps I'm inside it so I don't notice. But apart from people I already know in real life and only know on boards incidentally, I've only ever met a handful of people from boards (for most of my time on boards I've been trying to push my way through college, often slowly as it's really been a penniless process, I've had virtually a full-time job all the same time as a full-time four year college course and I've had to take the odd year away from the course just to pay for it, zipping anywhere to get to boards beers etc hasn't been an option ever (finished this year though or at least that's the plan). Really, a handful. Unfortunately, I haven't had time. But if I was in a clique I'd notice. And where I've actually seen cliques in action, having been involved in a small number of college societies that actually had them acting in a detrimental way towards the people they were there to serve, I've usually been a hoor for highlighting it and destroying the gap that the "us" had of the "them".

There are groups of people on boards that get on well. There are groups of people that have laughed together, drunk together, pulled each other off the pavement or probably out of the toilet. That's familiarity. That's not a clique.

There is no clique holding power to itself for their own benefit, power for its own sake, making decisions to benefit their group of mates. If people were doing that they'd get slapped, probably by the admins rather than anyone else but there would be a slapping. If there was such a clique in that extremely negative way that a small number of people occasionally fear there is, I wouldn't be here. You've only got my word for that, obviously, but if you knew me at all you'd realise that that's worth quite a lot.

That was rather longer than I planned. Less clarity than hoped for too. Sorry about that.



[1]I'm 33. Age of Christ and all that. I usually look the same age as I did ten years ago though, it helps

Talliesin

Maybe the reasons the OP has no friends of his own is more about him than it is about this site.

Crash

DeVore wrote: »

Sorry, I should be clear.

1. Yes I called him a cnut in anger.

2. Yes that was personal abuse and I shouldnt have. I was wrong.

Just wanted to quote this bit and reiterate it actually, seeing as I have been one of the other examples of abuse from a "moral authority" as it were. Gandalf23, i'm pretty sure you know i disagree with a lot of your views, and especially the way you go about it, but insulting you as I did previously was wrong. I apologise.

A few points though:

1)using feedback as an example for people or groups of people getting preferential treatment by anyone is just silly. Feedback always has been and most likely will be less tightly moderated than any other forum really - right or wrong. Thats a discussion for another feedback thread though, IMO.


2)Just because I've only gotten around to reading this thread in its entirety, this idea of mods as moral authority that you raised a few pages back is completely incorrect in my eyes. I do not, nor have I ever deleted threads, posts, or banned user on grounds of my own morals. Its done for 1 simple reason: ensuring boards, or rather the boards I moderate, have the highest signal to noise ratio possible. (Unfortunately I did previously moderate what was at one stage the most spammed forum on boards, so it can be a difficult task, but still.)

If it were possible for posters to bicker back and forth, insult each other, and still maintain a reasonably high signal/noise ratio, i'd most likely be all in favour of letting it pass. Not sure of course how other moderators would see this, but that'd be my view.

Of course, I've been responsible for dropping that ratio myself previously, but thats why a hierarchy exists - an SMod can punish me, drag me back on track, or just point out how i'm being silly, an admin can do it to an SMod, but unfortunately now you're at the top of the tree. So someone like DeV does it, there's no one other than his own psyche to tell him off. Thats the way it is, C'est la vie. (unless Vex and Regi come around for some tough love street justice, which actually could be the most effective way.)

brendansmith

Overheal wrote: »

Poor SteveC will never be a mod at this rate

HA, i cant believe with the amount of groveling you do that you still havnt been made one.

Someone is deliberatly trying to keep you out me thinks:)

Overheal

where do I grovel? I spread gravel on the driveway once. DIY is a bitch.

randylonghorn

Jeez, but the January blues has really hit Boards with a vengeance this past week!

Gandalf23, you asked are there cliques on Boards. I haven't a clue tbh. I would estimate however that there are hundreds of groupings on or associated with Boards, some of whom know one another well in real life, some of whom have just got to know one another from interacting on Boards, or in particular forums thereof.

The defining nature of a clique is that it is somehow exclusive or unwelcoming to others.

Logic compels me to admit that it is likely that out of those hundreds of groupings that some are cliquish as per that definition, such is human nature, but I have yet to encounter any of those at close enough quarters to recognise that.

Maybe I've just been lucky, but I suspect it's more likely that the clarion call of cliques which arises so regularly is more in the eye of the beholder than the beholden.


Oh, and one of the favourite variants of the cry is about the "mod clique / conspiracy". Well, I don't know, but about a month ago I was asked to mod one particular forum, and I agreed (may the fates have mercy on me!)

I have never met any of the other mods on that forum in real life, nor indeed any of the users, apart from one user who very occasionally drops in. Now that might not be such a noticeable thing for some forums, but this particular forum has organised a number of beers and social events, and welcomed all its users (and their friends, neighbours and grannies) along, and many have gone to one or more of these. Thus many of the regulars DO know one another IRL, and the other mods all know each other and many of the users. I had never attended any of these events, not because I didn't feel welcome (I definitely did) but for reasons of work, distance, etc.

Yet I was the person who was asked to step up and replace one of the mods who was stepping down?

Now I know of course that one case neither proves nor disproves a theory, but I'm throwing it out there in the hope that the odd person might stop and wonder whether some of the assumptions which are regularly thrown out here have validity, or whether they are a subconcious throwback to the "us and them" attitudes which so often hold sway in the schoolyard.

sceptre wrote: »

I usually look the same age as I did ten years ago though, it helps

Baxtard!

Oh, wait!

Is that me banned for abuse? :eek:

Damnit!!

/kicks wall

The Muppet

Gandalf23 wrote: »

I will stand by what I have written.

I dont know dev from adam... all I can do is judge him by his posts and his conduct on this site. However, I have little respect for someone who believes he is above the rules he himself sets for others.

I'm surprised you dont agree to some extent ... I have seen you argue the same on a few occasions in politics!

Just my humble opinion tho ... cant see that changing anytime soon.

You are entitled to your opinion but in this instance that opinion is very wide of the mark. Making that judgememnt on an isolated incicdent is not very balanced or fair.

I have had many run ins with authority here and I have a couple of exchanges with Devore and he has never abused his position with me. He has always interacted with me in a fair manner.

I am not one of the yes men here, but I do respect DeVore for the way he interacts with this community.

As for your original question, Yes there are cliques here, ie groups of people who have a stronger realtionship than members that don't intereact all that well, they are called online buddies/ friends.

Are these users immune to the rules? I don't think so, and one of the reasons why they are not immune to the rules is the man you say you have little respect for. Devore just would not stand for that and the people enthrusted with enforcing the rules here know that.

muffler

See. Mention clique in a thread and you get more replies than you'd find flies on fresh cow shit

tbh

the problem is, gandalf, that it's very difficult to define exactly what it is you are asking, and what *you* think should be done about it.

When you say "clique" - what you are doing is presenting the theory that there is a group of posters on boards who knowingly turn a blind eye to the bad behaviour of other members of the clique, purely and simply because they are a clique. I believe that to be untrue. I don't believe there is a coterie of posters who happen to be mods who say "well <poster> broke the rules, but I'm not going to do anything about it because they are in the clique" - and I don't believe that you could find any consistent evidence to suggest that is the case (and, indeed, you obviously don't believe that yourself because you've not supported that argument).

Instead, what you are doing is asking "are some members of boards treated differently to others" and I would say that sometimes, yes, that is the case. There is a mod clique in the same way as there is an AH clique or a CN clique or even a PI or BGRH clique. Basically, posters who frequent certain forums know each other better than posters who don't. So, if I see posts from you of a certain nature over and over again in a particular forum, I can build up an idea of context, and get an impression of who you are and what's important to you.

It's the same in the mods forum. Like it or not, mods discuss things that are going on on the site in their forum (which really is more boring than any non-mod would believe) and so get to know each other a little better because of it. It's like anything else in life. People in a position of responsibility are reluctant to censure their "friends" because it would make things awkward for them. I think that you are exaggerating this tho, I would imagine it normally means that some mods wouldn't issue an infraction to someone they know, where they might issue to someone they didn't know. Again, it's a matter of context. I might not issue an infraction to someone (mod or non-mod) because I know them pretty well through boards, and I know the context in which they make the statement - rightly or wrongly. In these cases, I might send them a pm to ask them to lay off, and at the end of the day, all that matters is that their behaviour is "corrected", not necessarily how that happens. In thie case tho where someone is out of line, they will generally be banned. If you can find me an example (not from feedback) where this is not the case, I'd be interested to see it.

You yourself have probably made friends on boards, and you may have seen those friends attacked in feedback or whatever, and you've defended them. You may not have defended someone you didn't know in the same circumstances, does that mean you are in a clique? or does it mean that you are human?

In any case, you'd be amazed at the backstabbing and in-fighting that sometimes goes on in the mod forum. For every "clique", there's two feuds. It's just human nature. People that know each other and like each other, stick together. Do most users of this site have a problem with it? Probably not. The question is, what do you suggest we do about it?


ps - if I ban someone from a forum I mod, and someone tells me that "you can't ban such-and-such from the forum because they are friends with Dev (or whatever)", that's the day I no longer mod on boards. I'd say 99% of mods would be the same.

stovelid

Talliesin wrote: »

Maybe the reasons the OP has no friends of his own is more about him than it is about this site.

In some of the Feedback threads I've seen, you always strike me as the kind of person who turns up when the OP has got a good hiding and you push to the front of the crowd to kick him in the head for good measure.

seamus

tbh wrote: »

When you say "clique" - what you are doing is presenting the theory that there is a group of posters on boards who knowingly turn a blind eye to the bad behaviour of other members of the clique, purely and simply because they are a clique.

I think this is the core of his question:

Are there are group of posters on the site who are knowingly and willingly acting like some form of coven and actively undermining and flaunting the rules of the site, based on some formal pre-agreement that they won't take action against eachother?

The answer to this question is a resounding "No". Anything which gives rise to the illusion that such a group or agreement exists, is simply the community acting as communities do, for reasons I outlined early on in this thread.

Nevyn

eh Coven ?

Asiaprod

Thaedydal wrote: »

eh Coven ?

ESP, the minute I saw that posted I just knew you would arrive:)

seamus

Yes Thaed, nothing to do with your coven, who only seek to undermine the rules of the universe.

mike65

tbh, best post of the thread.

Nevyn

Asiaprod wrote: »

ESP, the minute I saw that posted I just knew you would arrive:)

:P

Like I haven't been posting in this thread already or did you try stick a tracking device in the bristles of my broom ?

seamus wrote: »

Yes Thaed, nothing to do with your coven, who only seek to undermine the rules of the universe.

That's a solo effort atm and seems to be all the better for it and I am only trying to bend the rules which given the universe is curved shouldn't be that hard.

I just find that use of the word for a collective to be odd given the context.
Yes coven's tend to have a focus and a goal but so do teams and I don't like that fact that the term is being used to imply a sinister context is all.

COME AND SEE THE INHERENT RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION IN THE SYSTEM,
LOOK THERE THAT SMOD AT WHAT HE SAID OPPRESSION!!!

I think the term gang is better cos then it's at that exact school yard level
and it seems when people think they are not allowed to be in the cool kids gang they start a gang ware fare here in this forum.

Steve

seamus wrote: »

I think this is the core of his question:

Are there are group of posters on the site who are knowingly and willingly acting like some form of coven and actively undermining and flaunting the rules of the site, based on some formal pre-agreement that they won't take action against eachother?

The answer to this question is a resounding "No". Anything which gives rise to the illusion that such a group or agreement exists, is simply the community acting as communities do, for reasons I outlined early on in this thread.

+1 and to be clear about my earlier posts where I claim that cliques exist, this was not the definition I was talking about.

Wibbs

Do groups of people who share common bonds and interests exist on this site? Yep. Just like anywhere else in life. Do they sometimes give more leeway to some than others, especially new people? Yep again, for reasons given before. Just like life. Does this site seek to and indeed minimise such situations, by a system of rules, checks and balances and common sense evolved over time? Definitely. Indeed I would say considering the size and scope and diversity of this place I have found it actually better and fairer to the large middle ground majority than most real life situations. I've seen more cliquey behavior in one day in an office of 20 people than I've seen here in years. Actually I've seen more cliquey behavior in a small group of friends, so the fact that it is minimised here given it's scope is part of what fascinates me about the place TBH.

Fight the powah is all very well. Indeed I often like to see the status quo getting a shakeup where needed, but the trick is to pick your battles and IMHO this isn't one of them.

Ludo

Wibbs wrote: »

Do groups of people who share common bonds and interests exist on this site? Yep. Just like anywhere else in life. Do they sometimes give more leeway to some than others, especially new people? Yep again, for reasons given before. Just like life. Does this site seek to and indeed minimise such situations, by a system of rules, checks and balances and common sense evolved over time? Definitely. Indeed I would say considering the size and scope and diversity of this place I have found it actually better and fairer to the large middle ground majority than most real life situations. I've seen more cliquey behavior in one day in an office of 20 people than I've seen here in years. Actually I've seen more cliquey behavior in a small group of friends, so the fact that it is minimised here given it's scope is part of what fascinates me about the place TBH.

Fight the powah is all very well. Indeed I often like to see the status quo getting a shakeup where needed, but the trick is to pick your battles and IMHO this isn't one of them.

Answers the original question perfectly.

seamus

Thaedydal wrote: »

I just find that use of the word for a collective to be odd given the context.

I have a tendency to ignore the literal meaning of a word and instead use a word where it's visual connotations are valid given the context.

In this case, I visualised a group of people meeting under cover of dark, perhaps in black robes, to meet and discuss, before breaking and going back to their normal day-to-day lives.

"Coven" is the word that came into my head to describe this picture, though it's probably not what most covens do at all.

Winters

Jesus titty christ. Do none of you have any work to be doing? Seriously?

Crash

Wincest is best! wrote: »

Jesus titty christ. Do none of you have any work to be doing? Seriously?

Shh, its the internet. its serious business.


aaah that felt good..

stovelid

seamus wrote: »

I have a tendency to ignore the literal meaning of a word and instead use a word where it's visual connotations are valid given the context.

In this case, I visualised a group of people meeting under cover of dark, perhaps in black robes, to meet and discuss, before breaking and going back to their normal day-to-day lives.

"Coven" is the word that came into my head to describe this picture, though it's probably not what most covens do at all.

You were thinking of cabal perhaps?

Which I always think sounds kinda supernatural as well.

Abraham

Wibbs wrote: »

Do groups of people who share common bonds and interests exist on this site? Yep. Just like anywhere else in life. Do they sometimes give more leeway to some than others, especially new people? Yep again, for reasons given before. Just like life. Does this site seek to and indeed minimise such situations, by a system of rules, checks and balances and common sense evolved over time? Definitely. Indeed I would say considering the size and scope and diversity of this place I have found it actually better and fairer to the large middle ground majority than most real life situations. I've seen more cliquey behavior in one day in an office of 20 people than I've seen here in years. Actually I've seen more cliquey behavior in a small group of friends, so the fact that it is minimised here given it's scope is part of what fascinates me about the place TBH.

Fight the powah is all very well. Indeed I often like to see the status quo getting a shakeup where needed, but the trick is to pick your battles and IMHO this isn't one of them.

Wibbs....you are a Rock of Sense. Couldn't agree more.
The controls exercised here on B.ie are probably better and healthier to what's on offer on some other fora.

stovelid

Wincest is best! wrote: »

Jesus titty christ. Do none of you have any work to be doing? Seriously?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession

Winters

stovelid wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession

Nice to see fúckwits just sitting about expecting it all to fix itself. Why not try do something to help yourself or at least get back to work and prove you are worth that over-inflated salary you are currently on and should only just take a pay cut and not get fired.

The Recliner

Wincest is best! wrote: »

Nice to see fúckwits just sitting about expecting it all to fix itself. Why not try do something to help yourself or at least get back to work and prove you are worth that over-inflated salary you are currently on and should only just take a pay cut and not get fired.

Ooh someone forgot to take their dried frog pills this morning

stovelid

Wincest is best! wrote: »

that over-inflated salary you are currently on

Damn straight.

faceman

OP, there is in essence 2 parts to your original question. Although from reading this thread, it seems it has divulged into something completely different, and unnecessary.

I dont know how to officially define what a clique is. Im sure every dictionary gives a slightly different explanation of it. However by my understanding of it, im pretty sure almost every forum has some level of cliqueness about it. Whether is regular old school posters who "get" the in jokes, or its regular posters who know each other in RL and up the banter on boards etc, Im sure its all defined as a clique to some degree. Thats not to say its a bad thing, there arent any public forums i aware of where new posters arent welcome or welcomed by regular posters, as long as they abide by the rules

But whether cliques exist or not isnt really your issue. Your issue is whether or not some people get preferential treatment above others. I dont know if they do, i dont have any examples myself, and from reading the thread it seems the OP doesnt either. What i do know however, is that boards.ie has implemented what i deem to be a fair structure whereby there are escalation points a poster can complain to, e.g. S-Mods etc, if they feel there is an issue. While Feedback will always get complaints that someone was banned unfairly or someone else wasnt banned at all, there is nothing to stop users reporting posts or escalating if necessary.

While my reply might sound very clinical in response, it is how as i see it, as a regular user, the way things work. And it works well in my view.

metrovelvet

tbh wrote: »

When you say "clique" - what you are doing is presenting the theory that there is a group of posters on boards who knowingly turn a blind eye to the bad behaviour of other members of the clique, purely and simply because they are a clique.

.

He hasnt presented anything. He asked a question. What is the big deal? Why are people getting so upset? Why is Thaedaydal excoriating him with lectures on ettiquette? It is really astonishing how uppity people are getting about this with how dare you's.

Its an Irish website-its bound to carry over characteristics from the culture at large, which incldues cliquishness, favoritism, and the how dare you question my authority or I'll put you right back in your place and really bad negotiating and conflict resolution strategies.

Again, I ask what is the point of feedback when nothing changes?