I promised a thread on the future of Boards...

Ludo

Karl Hungus wrote: »

Seriously?

And a 'constitution'?

...

Seriously?

Am I the only one here thinking that boards.ie is in danger of becoming a parody of itself? It's a message board, and there are other message boards on the internet far, far more vast and popular than boards, yet none of them even seem to flirt with this 'nation state' ambitions.

SNIP REST

+1

Thought I was the only one thinking all this but I guess not.

FlutterinBantam

DeVore wrote: »

Ok Fluttering... but if you look at the feedback thread that Boston started, its clear that many DO want to have a say in where it goes and how its managed.

If you arent interested, grand, but dont let your cynicism stand in the way of other people getting involved.

You basically took the time to post "I dont care enough to take the time to post". Oh and some tired barbs about commercialism.

Let me make this clear, in case you think I'm hiding something:

I want to retire one day and have that retirement funded by Boards.ie. I have always said this. But along the way, its ALSO possible that we create a unique place online the like of which no other country has and in doing so create something SO powerful that it bends the will of politicians and companies alike to interact with it along the lines IT chooses.

If I could create that, I would consider my life to be a success. To do that I need to be thinking about how this site works when I'm dead. When no one knows what Quake is. When Internet access is a "right".

You think I'm "greedy" but you have no idea of the scope of my ambition, it goes far far beyond mere money.

If it was all about the benjamins, why would I be trying to create a system which governs itself free from control by any single group or person?

So, I understand you arent interested. Thats ok, you can take your cyncism, and leave.

DeV.

I think Dev ,you have misinterpreted my post entirely.

The point I was trying to make is that in my opinion,the direction that Boards.ie needs to take is of little consequence to 90% of the posters here.

I may be cynical in a lot of my posts but not in that one.
I am a subscriber and have over 6000 posts so if I was that "anti" I would hardly be still around.

I have no problem in the site owners or people like yourself doing well out of Boards.ie fair play to you and long may you gain from it.Well deserved in my opinion,well run and well moderated.The Corporate direction of Boards.ie is your business and you have every right to maximise it's impact.

I know and understand that people can become very protective about a "baby" they have been heavily involved with since gestation, but telling a customer and user that if you don't lit you can leave is in my humble opinion not the way to react to point raised.

Again best of luck with any direction you feel boards should take

DeVore

Ok, sorry that I was short with you then.

People are over thinking what I'm getting at and presuming I'm doing something I may well not do at all. Considering I havent decided anything myself, certainly there is no "plan" yet. There may not be at all. But it bears thinking about.

DeV.

FlutterinBantam

Appreciate that,for the record I have no axe to grind with boards.ie.

None whatsoever.

Just be careful that boards.ie doesn't lose it's unique identity and become something that maybe that is too far removed from it's core activity,and hence tend to alienate the rump of people who at the end of the day are needed to keep the show on the road, your average jaundiced, cynical, acerbic and misinformed poster.

seamus

itsallaboutheL wrote: »

It's a lazy option imo, just because something isn't broken doesn't mean it can't be improved upon..

I think the core of any kind of constitution or mission statement is simply putting the existing situation down on paper and then looking at it to see what needs fixing.

Karl Hungus wrote: »

Am I the only one here thinking that boards.ie is in danger of becoming a parody of itself? It's a message board, and there are other message boards on the internet far, far more vast and popular than boards, yet none of them even seem to flirt with this 'nation state' ambitions.

I've yet to encounter a forum-site that's structured in the way that boards is. Boards.ie seems to be the only messageboard with a "conscience" for want of a better word. People who are banned get a chance to actually appeal their case. Any other site I've seen simply says, "GTFO" and gives no avenue to appeal.
Or other sites simply structure themselves differently. Gaia Online is the largest in the world. It has nearly 2 billion posts, about manga and anime of all things. Yet they have only 119 moderators. Boards.ie would turn to mush with only 119 moderators, which tells me that the two sites have to be structured entirely differently.

This freedom ironically actually creates the situation where people complain about over-moderation on boards, because they have the freedom to do so. Few other sites allow the community to decide it's own direction, in fact few other sites have such a concept of community, instead the visitors are simply contributors and if someone gets bored or banned, the attitude is that there are plenty of other people to fill their place, so why cry about it.

Hungover ramblings...
Yes the "nation state" seems to be overthinking it a bit. But in an Irish context, boards is occupying something of a void which exists in other countries but for someone reason isn't seem on the same scale elsewhere.
SomethingAwful isn't a household name in the states. "Boards" is fast becoming a word in Irish society which means, "I read it on the internet". I hear people who don't even have an account on the site, talk about the site, or talk about something they saw on the site.

tbh

personally, I think you are over-complicating things, like Karl said.

My interpretation is that you are trying to attract a lot more users to the site, to grow traffic and therefore revenue. In order to do that, you're trying to set down guidelines to make boards accountable to the very people that don't get boards.

Feedback and helpdesk are always filled with the 1% of posters that don't get boards, it's as simple as that. No matter what measures you put in place, there are always going to be people who've been reprimanded at one stage and take it personally.

What you're trying to do, imo, is please all the people, all the time. All you are going to do, imo, is alienate the people who already "get" boards.

The people who don't respect the current setup aren't going to respect a new setup.

the people who do respect the current setup are going to be "punished" for the actions of the muppets, and the problem is that this is the group of users that contribute 99% of the value of boards.

If you force moderators to justify every action they take against someone who's out to spoil boards, then they'll just quit. You'll be left with the spoilers.

DeVore

tbh.... thats one of the very things I want to avoid. We'll discuss this further in the future, but no, I dont want to have moderators having to bend over for the muppets. Thats not what I'm aiming for at all and not what I'm talking about here.

I'm talking about how we replace moderators, admins and how we can look ahead and see what problems we will face or which will stop us reaching our desired goal (as set out).

DeV.

tbh

ok, well -what is the problem you're trying to fix? Is a problem right now, or something you see arising in the future?

DeVore

Well I have to really think about it heheheh... I did mention that at the start!

But its something in the future, the site is running ok at the moment. How will it fare at 3 times the size? Where will the stresses be and how do we see them before they blow us up.

DeV.

tbh

DeVore wrote: »

Well I have to really think about it heheheh... I did mention that at the start!

But its something in the future, the site is running ok at the moment. How will it fare at 3 times the size? Where will the stresses be and how do we see them before they blow us up.

DeV.

true, sorry

I'll try to summarise what's important to me.

Say five or ten years ago, when net access was way more restricted, boards was like college. It was a collection of people who were collected because they shared at least some common interest.

They knew about, and had access to the net.
They were aware about online communities when most people in society would have considered places like boards "for nerds".
They had an interest in seeing the the community develop.

As the community was smaller, the personal stake that everybody felt they held was probably greater. The impact of both positive and negative contributions was greater as well. If you posted positively, you'd get a good name very quickly, and vice-versa. This contributed to a positive signal to noise ratio, for the most part.

Ok, so now, boards is a lot more like school. There are a lot more people here who don't have any "connection" with boards, as anything other than an information resource. They don't really care if boards succeeds or fails. They haven't made the effort to get here, they just, for example, heard about a particular thread on the TV or radio and googled it.

Now, that's all cool, but it means that there are, and will be a higher concentration of muppets who don't get boards, and never will.

If you want to widen the scope and reach of boards, you have to attract more users - make it easier to sign up. If you do that, you're going to attract more muppets.

Therefore, as far as I can see, you have to make a choice as to what boards should be. Should it go for quality, or quantity? Can you have both, or will you have to compromise on one. And which one?

....which I guess was the point of your OP...I've become aware I'm not really helping here

big b

DeVore wrote: »

I want to retire one day and have that retirement funded by Boards.ie. I have always said this. But along the way, its ALSO possible that we create a unique place online the like of which no other country has and in doing so create something SO powerful that it bends the will of politicians and companies alike to interact with it along the lines IT chooses.

DeV.

The part I've bolded really caught my eye.

In the days before the internet, a guy in the place where I worked (offshore oil rig) used to produce a "gossip sheet" called The Ramblings. Basically a wry view of the funny goings on of the week. Twas very well done, and before long even the temp staff, who wouldn't know most of the people mentioned, would eagerly await the next irreverent missive. It soon found it's way to management of course, and in fairness they viewed it in the spirit it was intended,even though the jokes were often at their expense.
And there the problem started. Once it was recognised that management were reading The Ramblings, the content was very much tailored to that end. Before you know it, there's guys losing promotions & stuff because of some loaded comments, personal issues were washed in public, vendettas started.

Soon, there's guys knocking their bosses door & distancing themselves from The Ramblings. It had become something different from it's origins & a lot of people wanted to say "it's not reflecting my feelings".
It had become a victim of it's own success, and ultimately died.

What's that got to do with boards? Maybe not much, but I see paralells.
What started as a fun way to comment on daily life grew into something that wanted to influence daily life.
One man slightly miffed by a posting became a flood of men distancing themselves from the Ramblings - the "workers musings" was claiming a position of "workers spokesman" which many felt it was not entitled to,or created for, and did not represent them.

I would be very concerned for Boards if it got above it's station -influencing politicians!!!- what % of boardsies must agree with an idea before it's put forward? What if 49% disagree strongly enough to leave?

You've got an enormously successful brand here. I think you should milk it's marketing value for all it's worth. Done well, that would pay for some nice slippers & a pipe for Dev:pac:. I don't think you should go down the road of alienating too many posters in an attempt to make boards more than what it is - a successful & busy internet message board.

tbh

big b wrote: »

You've got an enormously successful brand here. I think you should milk it's marketing value for all it's worth. Done well, that would pay for some nice slippers & a pipe for Dev:pac:. I don't think you should go down the road of alienating too many posters in an attempt to make boards more than what it is - a successful & busy internet message board.

exactly what I wanted to say!

FlutterinBantam

tbh wrote: »

true, sorry


Ok, so now, boards is a lot more like school. There are a lot more people here who don't have any "connection" with boards, as anything other than an information resource. They don't really care if boards succeeds or fails. They haven't made the effort to get here, they just, for example, heard about a particular thread on the TV or radio and googled it.

Now, that's all cool, but it means that there are, and will be a higher concentration of muppets who don't get boards, and never will.

If you want to widen the scope and reach of boards, you have to attract more users - make it easier to sign up. If you do that, you're going to attract more muppets.

Therefore, as far as I can see, you have to make a choice as to what boards should be. Should it go for quality, or quantity? Can you have both, or will you have to compromise on one. And which one?

....which I guess was the point of your OP...I've become aware I'm not really helping here

Teebs I normally agree with your views, but must dissent here.
Posters are the life blood of any forum and the fact that there are many posters here who are not interested in Boards.ie going forward doesn't make them muppets.Now I get your drift but I have seen fora die slowly when the coils of management and "direction" and in some cases lack of direction,squeezed the lifeblood out of the spontaneity and general discourse going on .

big b wrote: »

The part I've bolded really caught my eye.

In the days before the internet, a guy in the place where I worked (offshore oil rig) used to produce a "gossip sheet" called The Ramblings. Basically a wry view of the funny goings on of the week. Twas very well done, and before long even the temp staff, who wouldn't know most of the people mentioned, would eagerly await the next irreverent missive. It soon found it's way to management of course, and in fairness they viewed it in the spirit it was intended,even though the jokes were often at their expense.
And there the problem started. Once it was recognised that management were reading The Ramblings, the content was very much tailored to that end. Before you know it, there's guys losing promotions & stuff because of some loaded comments, personal issues were washed in public, vendettas started.

Soon, there's guys knocking their bosses door & distancing themselves from The Ramblings. It had become something different from it's origins & a lot of people wanted to say "it's not reflecting my feelings".
It had become a victim of it's own success, and ultimately died.

What's that got to do with boards? Maybe not much, but I see paralells.
What started as a fun way to comment on daily life grew into something that wanted to influence daily life.
One man slightly miffed by a posting became a flood of men distancing themselves from the Ramblings - the "workers musings" was claiming a position of "workers spokesman" which many felt it was not entitled to,or created for, and did not represent them.

I would be very concerned for Boards if it got above it's station -influencing politicians!!!- what % of boardsies must agree with an idea before it's put forward? What if 49% disagree strongly enough to leave?

You've got an enormously successful brand here. I think you should milk it's marketing value for all it's worth. Done well, that would pay for some nice slippers & a pipe for Dev:pac:. I don't think you should go down the road of alienating too many posters in an attempt to make boards more than what it is - a successful & busy internet message board.

A truly excellent observation if I may say so.

tbh

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Teebs I normally agree with your views, but must dissent here.
Posters are the life blood of any forum and the fact that there are many posters here who are not interested in Boards.ie going forward doesn't make them muppets.Now I get your drift but I have seen fora die slowly when the coils of management and "direction" and in some cases lack of direction,squeezed the lifeblood out of the spontaneity and general discourse going on .

yeah - you're right. What I meant really was, if you allow boards to grow as it is, you get maybe 1 muppet for 20 decent users (apathetic or not). If you try to force it, you risk getting more. Once that starts to happen, the decent posters drift off and the muppet/user ratio starts to tilt, possibly for good.

seamus

big b wrote: »

I would be very concerned for Boards if it got above it's station -influencing politicians!!!- what % of boardsies must agree with an idea before it's put forward? What if 49% disagree strongly enough to leave?

I'll declare at the start that I've talked with Tom plenty of times on various "future of boards" topics, so I somewhat have the inside track here.

The intention is not that boards.ie "the company" wishes to influence politicians by representing its members and applying pressure, but that boards.ie itself is seen as an essential means of communicating with the public, and by virtue of its very nature, the public are then directly given the power to influence those politicians. There are a large number topics that I can recall on Politics where I thought, "If only the politicians were reading this thread, they'd know exactly what the best course of action is".

This is not something that boards will need to chase. It simply needs to be prepared for it. The "Talk To" set of forums and the commercial interaction side which seems to get some people's backs up, isn't something which boards.ie chased. Nobody went out there cold-calling companies and asking them if they wanted a forum. The companies themselves were queuing up asking, "How can we talk to your community" and until Dav and Darragh were hired, boards just didn't have the resources to handle these requests properly.

It's only a matter of time before a politician or a political party comes to boards asking, "How can I talk to your community?", and boards.ie needs to be ready to catch them, pin them down and sit them in front of the community.

DeV is not talking here about leading the community into any grandiose ideas, or telling people that, "We are going to go in this direction and to hell with you!", but rather simply making sure that the site is adequately ready for the new dimensions which it will organically develop itself.

Nevyn

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Just be careful that boards.ie doesn't lose it's unique identity and become something that maybe that is too far removed from it's core activity,and hence tend to alienate the rump of people who at the end of the day are needed to keep the show on the road

+1 cos I can't thank it.

pickarooney

For what it's worth, I think boards.ie is a rare example of that mmost elusive of structures - a benevolent dictatorship. From the bottom up, I feel boards has thrived for so long due to the common-sense approach to pretty much everything.

Rather than setting things in stone, the introduction of a ruling introduces X interpretations of that rule and at the end of the day someone, somewhere will always have to make a call. I just think it's better that that be done straight off (with an allowable margin of error) than after a lengthy process.

MrMicra

pickarooney wrote: »

I think boards.ie is a rare example of that mmost elusive of structures - a benevolent dictatorship. F

I agree that it is a benevolent dictatorship. The question is should it remain one or should it be structured in some other way.

Perhaps it would be useful to define the current structure of boards.ie (not the company structure the structure of the internet entity). When one understands what the current structure is one can look at what might be wrong with it now and what might become wrong with it in the future.

By the way devore I think you were a bit hard on flutteringbantam he was only reacting within the context created by his internet persona. He probably does care about the future of boards.ie.

As a corollary flutteringbantam if you go around trying to annoy people you shouldn't be surprised when they become annoyed.

AAAAAAH 10 past 2.

Eoin

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Just be careful that boards.ie doesn't lose it's unique identity and become something that maybe that is too far removed from it's core activity,and hence tend to alienate the rump of people who at the end of the day are needed to keep the show on the road, your average jaundiced, cynical, acerbic and misinformed poster.

But wasn't the core identity of this site not 99% gaming for a while? Now the site has evolved so it's just one part of a large community. As the site gets bigger and bigger, it's going to have more influence in off line matters, and I think that has to be taken into account.

big b wrote:

I would be very concerned for Boards if it got above it's station -influencing politicians!!!- what % of boardsies must agree with an idea before it's put forward? What if 49% disagree strongly enough to leave?

I think you've got it the wrong way around. Any influence this site will have in off line matters will be because of its station and membership size. As seamus has said, people and organisations are starting to react to what is said here.

Aidric

eoin wrote: »

I think you've got it the wrong way around. Any influence this site will have in off line matters will be because of its station and membership size. As seamus has said, people and organisations are starting to react to what is said here.

What organisations would they be now? If you're talking about Gerry Ryan, Michael O Doherty or some low rank Indo hack then they're nothing stories tbh. Budgets at most media outlets have fallen through the floor and the scope for investigative and original journalism has dried up to a large extent. Just because a story from boards is recycled doesn't mean it's pushing the agenda, simply that the lazy/cheap option is being persued by journalists.
The site shouldn't get ahead of itself prematurely, it fulfills its core function very well and not a lot of tinkering needs to be done. A constitution certainly seems fanciful.

The Recliner

Aidric wrote: »

What organisations would they be now? If you're talking about Gerry Ryan, Michael O Doherty or some low rank Indo hack then they're nothing stories tbh. Budgets at most media outlets have fallen through the floor and the scope for investigative and original journalism has dried up to a large extent. Just because a story from boards is recycled doesn't mean it's pushing the agenda, simply that the lazy/cheap option is being persued by journalists.
The site shouldn't get ahead of itself prematurely, it fulfills its core function very well and not a lot of tinkering needs to be done. A constitution certainly seems fanciful.

Maybe but I think the fact that Primetime is willing to come on here and ask for peoples input and are willing to do a Q&A session with the Boards community is a sign that people are starting to take notice and not an indication that they are being lazy (wholesale lifting of threads or posts by newspapers is a different story)

If we can get politicians to do the same and there were signs from the run up to the Lisbon Treaty where there was some involvment from political parties that we can then that gives people more access to our government and makes them more readily accountable which can only be a good thing

Why not aim high, encouraging other media outlets and people in power to interact with a large audience and a broad raneg of people is a worthy aim and for the most part people on Boards who don't want to be involved don't ahve too and it will have no impact on them or the majority of the site unless they want it too

Asiaprod

seamus wrote: »

DeV is not talking here about leading the community into any grandiose ideas, or telling people that, "We are going to go in this direction and to hell with you!", but rather simply making sure that the site is adequately ready for the new dimensions which it will organically develop itself.

(Admin hat off, speaking as a user) +1 to this.

DeVore

+2

Everyone should have a Seamus, they really are so handy.

DeV.

FlutterinBantam

MrMicra wrote: »

By the way devore I think you were a bit hard on flutteringbantam he was only reacting within the context created by his internet persona. He probably does care about the future of boards.ie.

As a corollary flutteringbantam if you go around trying to annoy people you shouldn't be surprised when they become annoyed.

AAAAAAH 10 past 2.

:eek:Surprised, The Flutther was not in the least bit surprised.

I would have to say however ,I don't go around trying to annoy people.

I have a lot of fairly serious posts on my record.:cool:

Villain

Not sure if it fits under this project but I think Boards needs to look at doing more outside of here i.e. real life activities like live debates which can be streamed on boards.tv

Public meetings with public representatives on serious topical issues etc etc

DeVore

"Boards is and is going to be a neutral space for interaction between people who have a common interest in the topic of the forum in a civil manner."

A "constitution" might sound very fanciful but it would almost certainly have that as its core. I'm not talking about turning it on its head or anything... but as Seamus said, we cant stick our head in the ground and say "we;re fine now, therefore we will be fine in 12 months time" cos that doesnt necessaraily follow and certainly wouldnt have been true of the last 24 months.


DeV.

big b

eoin wrote: »

I think you've got it the wrong way around. Any influence this site will have in off line matters will be because of its station and membership size. As seamus has said, people and organisations are starting to react to what is said here.

With respect, Eoin, I don't think I've got it the wrong way round at all.

A charter....influence politicians....
Of course outside agencies will view the membership size as an opportunity to "speak to the masses". But what the masses here have in common is a use of boards.ie, not allegiance to one cause or another.

I think anyone trying to say "boards stands for x,y,z", whether as a result of a poll, multiple threads promoting a view, or just because someone thinks that what we should stand for is treading on very dangerous ground.

I see Seamus's point - boards shouldn't go into anything half-assed. But, y'know - there's nothing to stop anyone - politician, businessman, anyone - posting here to get a feel for what the cool young kids are thinking. They can do that now.
I just think that any attempt to generalise an opinion as being that of the users of boards.ie would be very unwelcome & ultimately to the detriment of boards as a business.

DeVore

Villain wrote: »

Not sure if it fits under this project but I think Boards needs to look at doing more outside of here i.e. real life activities like live debates which can be streamed on boards.tv

Public meetings with public representatives on serious topical issues etc etc

Oh boy are you gonna get a kick out of a few things shortly
I'll come back to this point on Monday


DeV.

DeVore

big b wrote: »

With respect, Eoin, I don't think I've got it the wrong way round at all.

A charter....influence politicians....
Of course outside agencies will view the membership size as an opportunity to "speak to the masses". But what the masses here have in common is a use of boards.ie, not allegiance to one cause or another.

I think anyone trying to say "boards stands for x,y,z", whether as a result of a poll, multiple threads promoting a view, or just because someone thinks that what we should stand for is treading on very dangerous ground.

I see Seamus's point - boards shouldn't go into anything half-assed. But, y'know - there's nothing to stop anyone - politician, businessman, anyone - posting here to get a feel for what the cool young kids are thinking. They can do that now.
I just think that any attempt to generalise an opinion as being that of the users of boards.ie would be very unwelcome & ultimately to the detriment of boards as a business.

I absolutely agree. We are neutral. We should be neutral. We are a platform. We want our platform to be used.

I dont think anyone is suggesting that "Boards.ie" as an entity should have an opinion on anything. We should provide the space, possibly lay down some of the grounds rules (like civility etc), possibly referee the interaction (ala Moderators) but we should not be expressing a unified opinion on issues.

I speak for no one. Sometimes not even me.

DeV.

AckwelFoley

The old saying of "If you are not moving forward you're moving backwards" applys here as it does with most business structures.

I do have to be amused at when Tom / Dev posts up his thinkings of a possible way forward for the community structure or any plans the Admiin have people can reply with "Meah, we dont really care >insert other retort here because i think you dont love me<"

However if he shuts his mouth and proceeds regardless the same people feel like they are betrayed.

Personally, i just one of those seagulls that will come flyin' in now and again to grab a fish - i like this boat - its big and the fish taste good. Im a seagull, i dont really care who the captain is or what type of boat it is as long as the fish are plentiful.
Of course if the boat owners dont keep abreast of the pressing matters keeping the boat successful - they wont be anymore fish

Brian