Raison D'etre for Boards.

mike65

5starpool wrote: »

What about:

Boards.ie: It is what it is, so take it or leave it.

Quite, the charter idea is all rather pompous fannying about to my frail mind.

Boards is for passing time, imparting or absorbing the odd nugget of knowledge and just every now and again a way of alerting those who run our lives to a 'bustle in the hedgerow' that they might want to look at.

Earthhorse

DeVore wrote: »

I've been working on a basic, short declaration of the long term purpose, raison d'etre, mission statement, call it what you will.

Here's what I have come up with so far:

---

Boards.ie exists to provide a platform for the mature and reasonable discussion of topics of interest to its members. To entertain, educate and inform both its members and its readers and to provide a neutral place to interact.

Its holds these tenets at its core.

1. That true, meaningful discourse is civil.
2. That its members have a right to hold and civilly express reasonable opinions.
3. The membership is a privilege which can be revoked.

---

Thoughts?

DeV.

boards.ie is a community of people sharing their ideas and experiences. We believe that how you behave is more important than who you are and that what you know more important than who. We believe that everybody should be allowed to take part in our community so long as they do not disrupt other's ability to do the same.

---

Okay, so I know you didn't ask for a rewrite but that is more along the lines of what I would go for if you had.

It places the focus on community rather than platform; platforms are two a penny and what distinguishes boards, in part, is the community.

By removing some of the adjectives such as "true", "meaningful", "civil", you also remove the pedantry that can result. The phrase "how you behave" implies civility without mentioning it. It suggests that there are acceptable and unacceptable ways of behaving without getting caught up in what they are.

Finally, we touch on the concept of participation essentially being a privilege without outwardly threatening revocation, which may not be as black and white as the statement you make but I think it would be pretty hard to argue it isn't clear what's meant.

AckwelFoley

mike65 wrote: »

Quite, the charter idea is all rather pompous fannying about to my frail mind.

Boards is for passing time, imparting or absorbing the odd nugget of knowledge and just every now and again a way of alerting those who run our lives to a 'bustle in the hedgerow' that they might want to look at.

Fully agree with this, i was thinking it, you said it, mind you at nearly 50,000 posts you sure have passed some time Mike!

Look, internet to me is exactly as mike said, however, i cant expect all members to feel the same and many members take the business of boards.ie very serious, somewhat akin they would the football team they support and want to feel they are heard when decisions are made. So in essance Dev is trying to please everyone.

The only thing you are letting yourself in for is when there is an arguement about a banning the rasion d'etre is going to be referred to and argued

metrovelvet

Yeah but youd have to get rid of After Hours.

TBH it makes it sounds like a golf club.

Why does it have to be meaningfull? Is anything in life meaningfull?

Define "reasonable"

And the worst has to be civilly and "privilege". There's a recession on. No one wants to hear that word.

dr.bollocko

Punch it up to a higher level than this. You're alienating a lot of disparate communities. My favourite communities. AH, Tdome and R&R.

Overheal

Honestly I think you need to look back, and try and find some of the older posts of this nature. Things like Amp's take on it. Theres at least a dozen such proclaimatory postings floating around in the archives like this - some more readible than others. But in it you find what people view the site as to them. Thats really going to be your best springboard for "What is Boards?" "Why is it here?" "Where is it going?"

iWillBeReborn

Consider this thread
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055724541

Consider how little of the users/members of the site care beyond getting the information/help they like versus the site being a good spot on de internets to get help


There are like 30 of you posting abut this stuff.

Take a step back.

While you are doing that look at these communities....
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=463
No issues.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=19
No issues.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=607
No issues.

There are many, many boards and members that have no issues.

Noise ratio?

Nevyn

This is not about how things are but how to make sure that the core of what boards.ie is remains intact as it grows and moves forward.

iWillBeReborn

Thaedydal wrote: »

This is not about how things are but how to make sure that the core of what boards.ie is remains intact as it grows and moves forward.

No.

It is about moving forward.

What" core" do you mean?

Have your read the thread and got over being one of the oldskool members?

Embrace change.

Overheal

iWillBeReborn wrote: »

Thaedydal wrote: »

This is not about how things are but how to make sure that the core of what boards.ie is remains intact as it grows and moves forward.

No.

It is about moving forward.

What" core" do you mean?

Have your read the thread and got over being one of the oldskool members?

Embrace change.

Oh God.


Boards just got its first Republican and Democrat.

dr.bollocko

Overheal wrote: »

Oh God.


Boards just got its first Republican and Democrat.

I'm voting for Nader.

Nevyn

iWillBeReborn wrote: »

It is about moving forward.

As more and more people get online boards is going to keep growing, this is invetible it's happening and it can't be stopped.

Well the admins could stop it they could just not let any more account be created but they don't want to do that, so it's gonna happen.

So these sort of discussions have to happen to that the communities we have aren't damaged and keep growing and ticking along with out intervention.

iWillBeReborn wrote: »

What" core" do you mean?

The ideology and philosophy of boards.ie, this is about enshrinement so that those and the values which stem form them are not lost along the way and people then leave the site and communities then falter and fail.

iWillBeReborn wrote: »

Have your read the thread and got over being one of the oldskool members?

I have been reading the thread, I have been reading all the thread for the last 11 months around here watching boards grow and shift and evolve.

And I am not an oldskool member, those would be those who have a Feb 98 sign up date.

iWillBeReborn wrote: »

Embrace change.

This is part of that, a lot of things will change, the site had to grown and evolve and it has to be let do that and a lot of it will happen driven by members making it their own talking about the things they want to talk about and using the site to make wonderful things happen in their life.

But if the site get swamped and it's essense/culture gets so diluted and it's idealogies lost, then what makes this place different and what draws people in will be lost and the site will end up going into decline.

To prevent this from happens and to be able to foster and support the organic growth of the site there has to be things written down.

At this whole place was an idea DeV had which someone told him couldn't be done and here we all are a decade later, I would like to think that this place or a reincarnation of this place will be still around in 20s years time but to make sure that happens the ideologies and philosophies of the site have to be played forward and that mean having them defined and written down.

And as this was all DeV's brain child the poor bastard has to try and attempt that I would not like to do it as it is in some ways ethereal and means many things to many people who have often no more in common with each other then their passion for this place and what it has brought into their lives.

While we can to a point document how things work around here, why it works is imho a bit of mystery.

Thoie

DeVore wrote: »

Boards.ie exists to provide a platform for the mature and reasonable discussion of topics of interest to its members.

Bring it back to basics. Who is being provided with this platform - Irish people, Irish residents, ex-pats, random others? What do you mean by platform? What is this platform - is it just an internet site, or is there more to it than that?

DeVore wrote: »

To entertain, educate and inform both its members and its readers and to provide a neutral place to interact.

How is Boards itself entertaining, educating and informing? What are the benefits of being a member rather than a reader? What gap is being filled by being a neutral place?

DeVore wrote: »

1. That true, meaningful discourse is civil.

Can we say that any other way? Are we saying that incivility is not acceptable, or are we saying that if you're not civil you have no meaningful arguments?

DeVore wrote: »

2. That its members have a right to hold and civilly express reasonable opinions.

How do you define a reasonable opinion? In the situation where, say, Boards is under legal threat from an outside entity, do the members still have the right to express reasonable opinions?

DeVore wrote: »

3. The membership is a privilege which can be revoked.

You could probably just leave it at "Membership is a privilege."

I think that it should be made clear to everyone that Boards is a privately owned company, and members do not necessarily have a right to free speech or blah blah. At the end of the day, Boards is a company that allows me to use its facilities, in many cases for free. My local gym might offer me a free pass for a day, but it doesn't mean I can then do my laundry in the swimming pool. Spell out what the privilege means somewhere.

metrovelvet

Thaedydal wrote: »

The ideology and philosophy of boards.ie, this is about enshrinement so that those and the values which stem form them are not lost along the way and people then leave the site and communities then falter and fail.


.

When I start seeing language like ideology and enshrinement, I start to get a bit nauseous.

You people cant be serious?

It was bad enought ripping off the American Express slogan "membership is a privlige" but adopting theological frameworks is just bizarre on top of it.

And what are the privieges? The sex forum. Big wow.

DeVore

Metro, please dont turn this thread into a rant against the Establishment or whatever.



DeV.

metrovelvet

DeVore wrote: »

Metro, please dont turn this thread into a rant against the Establishment or whatever.



DeV.

Not at all. Im critisizing the language that you and others are using. If you take that as ranting aganist the establishment, then Im getting some idea of what you mean as reasonable

I wouldnt consider boards to be part of any establishment so no need to rant against it, but it does come across a bit like you are trying to become a type of establishement, a type of insitution when you talk about mission statements, privilege,enshrinement, core values etc. It just seems weird for a website to want to start growing ivy up its virtual walls.

Nevyn

I have no idea who or what american express is or what thier philosophies are.

Posting to the site is a privilege, being able to use any of the site functions is privilege.

When people abuse the site and break the terms and conditions agreed to they find those privileges taken away, be it the posting privilege in a forum (ie a forum ban) or the posting privilege to all the forums and removal of access to thier pm box and the rest of the functions on the site (site ban).

metrovelvet

Thaedydal wrote: »

I have no idea who or what american express is or what thier philosophies are.

Posting to the site is a privilege, being able to use any of the site functions is privilege.

When people abuse the site and break the terms and conditions agreed to they find those privileges taken away, be it the posting privilege in a forum (ie a forum ban) or the posting privilege to all the forums and removal of access to thier pm box and the rest of the functions on the site (site ban).

But without people contributing you wouldn't have a site. You need people to post, you need it for the survival of the website and for whatever advertising revenue you are getting.

When you use the word privilege, and words like enshrinement and ideology, it raises red flags.

I wouldn't call what you are describing above as privilege, but more that if abused then some of the features of your participation are removed, either temporarily or permanently.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by enshrinement and ideology?

American Express is a credit card which uses the slogan "membership has its privileges." I would suggest you guys check out copywrite infringements.

DeVore

Ok, I get your point now... I guess I wanted to use that kind of language because I want it to invoke a certain style and something a little more high minded. this isnt going to be "yo, dont be a dick and it'll all be cool".
It deserves language that promotes its own message. That we take ourselves and our site more seriously then that. I know people mock that idea, but people have mocked my ideas most of my life...

We are by far the biggest single public site in Ireland, its not even close. We already ARE the establishment in a sense. What I want to do is enshrine what is culturally unique about us so we dont forget that in the coming years. So that this island in the sun will exist and still have its basic tenets at its heart even if I'm dead.

DeV.

nesf

Thoie wrote: »

Bring it back to basics. Who is being provided with this platform - Irish people, Irish residents, ex-pats, random others? What do you mean by platform? What is this platform - is it just an internet site, or is there more to it than that?


How is Boards itself entertaining, educating and informing? What are the benefits of being a member rather than a reader? What gap is being filled by being a neutral place?

Can we say that any other way? Are we saying that incivility is not acceptable, or are we saying that if you're not civil you have no meaningful arguments?


How do you define a reasonable opinion? In the situation where, say, Boards is under legal threat from an outside entity, do the members still have the right to express reasonable opinions?

You could probably just leave it at "Membership is a privilege."

I think that it should be made clear to everyone that Boards is a privately owned company, and members do not necessarily have a right to free speech or blah blah. At the end of the day, Boards is a company that allows me to use its facilities, in many cases for free. My local gym might offer me a free pass for a day, but it doesn't mean I can then do my laundry in the swimming pool. Spell out what the privilege means somewhere.

I so agree with the above.

It's a privilege, we're guests here mods included. These are the rules of the house party, so long as you keep them you can stay. Invoking rights invites a whole load of crap from people thinking that they actually have a right to say whatever they think is reasonable when it blatantly isn't but good luck explaining that to them.

Oh and drop the meaningful, it makes it seem like we look down on AH etc.

Lafortezza

DeVore wrote: »

"yo, dont be a dick and it'll all be cool".

This gets my vote, although I don't take boards too seriously any more. I read the bits that interest/entertain me and not much else.

If this discussion about defining the raison d'etre of boards is for all the members and future members, you do realise that a massive % of them don't care and will never read it. As long as the can continue posting the way they have done they'll be happy.

I appreciate that the admins and senior mod ppl think this issue is important, but most users really dont imo, shown by the same users (mostly mods and older users) popping up these types of threads.

The Sweeper

lafortezza wrote: »

I read the bits that interest/entertain me and not much else.

I love it when someone hits the nail on the head, just in passing.

This is the crux of boards.ie 2009/10. This site is too large now for anyone, at all, to read all of boards. The only thing we all read, any of us, is the bits that interest and entertain us.

For most of us, that's a miniscule fraction of the whole site. I can't remember how many forums there are any more. How many do most people read regularly? Five? Six? What is that, one percent? Two at most?

So you want an ethos for the entire site, but the site's like China - most of boards.ie don't know the truth about what the rest of the site is really doing.

This is boards.ie. It is a place for people to talk about things with other people who they would never normally have access to in the course of their daily lives. It has limits. You cannot be taught them. You have to live them to learn them. Then learn to push them gently. If you fail that lesson, learn how to sit out your ban, come back and try again.

This is boards. This would be Sparta, except it isn't.

Mr. Presentable

lafortezza wrote: »

This gets my vote, although I don't take boards too seriously any more. I read the bits that interest/entertain me and not much else.

If this discussion about defining the raison d'etre of boards is for all the members and future members, you do realise that a massive % of them don't care and will never read it. As long as the can continue posting the way they have done they'll be happy.

I appreciate that the admins and senior mod ppl think this issue is important, but most users really dont imo, shown by the same users (mostly mods and older users) popping up these types of threads.

Yeah, post as though your mother is watching! Only a small proportion of posters are interested in how the site works - I bet any of us could list the 50 or so who do, from memory.

LoLth

My take on this would be along the lines of a company's mission statement , which, while I personally always thought of as advertising waffle, I have seen used to good effect.

X company stands for Y

a decision needs to be made, first question is "does this contravene our mission statement?", if yes, then out the window with it (the item being considered, not the mission statement).

As such, those 3 points get my thumbs up. Its short, its straighforward and clear without being too specific (which can create artificial restrictions). I , for one, have always been an advocate of civility when posting and think that setting that as one of the core tenets can only help reduce the ranty 10% further and discourage that 9:1 ratio from holding as membership grows.

Wibbs

The Sweeper wrote: »

It has limits. You cannot be taught them. You have to live them to learn them. Then learn to push them gently. If you fail that lesson, learn how to sit out your ban, come back and try again.

+1

Lafortezza

LoLth wrote: »

My take on this would be along the lines of a company's mission statement , which, while I personally always thought of as advertising waffle, I have seen used to good effect.

X company stands for Y

a decision needs to be made, first question is "does this contravene our mission statement?", if yes, then out the window with it (the item being considered, not the mission statement).

Id prefer if the mods/admins would ask the question "does this contravene common sense in this particular boards community/the wider website", before referring to an intentionally vague but well meaning mission statement.

With boards becoming bigger and more of a corporate entity rather than "mates waffling on the net about stuff", mission statements and establishment of core ideologies are probably a requirement and a safeguard in terms of the website being seen as more legit to a wider ireland (ie not the current members and posters).
It's something to show (to shareholders, advertisers and other media maybe?) that boards.ie is srs biz, not just a website.
You show it to a user picked at random, he/she will just say "Ok, well done, I'm going back now to post about Rafa on the Soccer forum, or posts pics in TLL."

I trust DeV and the admins to deal with this stuff btw, just don't think it requires any input from the 95% of the userbase who don't care.

Oryx

lafortezza wrote: »

I trust DeV and the admins to deal with this stuff btw, just don't think it requires any input from the 95% of the userbase who don't care.

But in the interests of transparency (and to avoid shouts of dictatorships and powah!) its important to let that user base know that this is happening and to give them the option to care, or not.

No, it doesnt matter to the 99% of people here who dont know who Dev is or care who runs the show. But it is important that the people who do run this place have a framework or plan to use moving onwards to bigger things. A car that steers itself generally crashes.

crocro

DeVore wrote: »

Boards.ie exists to provide a platform for the mature and reasonable discussion of topics of interest to its members. To entertain, educate and inform both its members and its readers and to provide a neutral place to interact.

Its holds these tenets at its core.

1. That true, meaningful discourse is civil.
2. That its members have a right to hold and civilly express reasonable opinions.
3. The membership is a privilege which can be revoked.

The stuff you've written is fine if a bit wordy.

To summarise the above:You want to encourage civil discussion from a diversity of viewpoints to entertain, educate and inform. Everyone is free to contribute so long as they keep the rules.

Mission statements usually explain what the organisation wants to be, where it's heading. The mission statement above could be fulfilled even if boards lost 99% of its members. There is nothing in the mission statement saying you want to remain the most popular irish internet forum. I imagine you want the site to stay popular unless you are planning on living off tinned food when you retire.

Users sometimes complain about something and then are told that the site is a dictatorship when they had assumed it was a democracy. I still don't know what it is so why not explain?

Do the owners want the site to be a fair place? Or is upholding fairness not worth the effort? If you want to be fair then include that word.

Also some brief reference to the limits of free speech would be useful as users are often confused about how far they can go (I think the simple answer is to stay within Irish law).

No mention of Ireland when this is the most important binding features of the site. Community means people sharing an environment and the only one we all share is Ireland and its culture. It's a mistake to count virtual environment as anywhere near as important.

There's no mention of the social contract of this site which is that users and moderators voluntarily contribute to the site for their mutual benefit, the owners provides the systems and people to run the site and try to make money from the user content by means such as advertising.

Is political and corporate independence not a core tenet?

Dudess

I echo the "It's a huge website with lots of enjoyable forums and discussions for people to pick and choose what they want to read/get involved in and just leave it at that" sentiment.

crocro

I'm going to summarise what i've just written above:

---

Boards.ie aims to be the most popular Irish Internet forum. Discussions cover a wide array of topics from a diversity of viewpoints to entertain, educate and inform. All are free to contribute so long as they are civil and keep to the rules. The site is moderated by volunteer users picked by the administrators.

Boards.ie recognises that the political and corporate independence of its moderation is vital to the value of its content.

Users, moderators and administrators voluntarily edit and contribute to the site for their mutual benefit, the owners provide the systems and staff to run the site and aim to profit from the user content by means such as advertising.

Free speech on the site is not absolute: users must not post content that would expose the site to legal liability or damage its reputation.

Boards.ie aims to operate fairly and listen to its users but it is not a democracy - rather it is a hierarchy of owners, administrators, moderators and user contributors.