Boards.ie Politics forum is a poor man's Politics.ie

Fo Real

I rarely visit this forum anymore as I find that far superior and more informed debate can be had on Politics.ie. because of the following reasons:

P.ie has established itself as a news source to be reckoned with. It broke most of last week's minister's press conferences even before RTÉ and provided us with live coverage of what was being announced. I found out about the resignations from there first. RTÉ's civil servant-run website doesn't appear to be updated after 9pm or at weekends.

There is no "thanks" system on P.ie, so the cliques and circle jerk clubs have not formed over there as they have here. Which leads me on nicely to my next point...

P.ie doesn't suffer from the block of Sinn Féin/IRA members that dominate every second thread in here, making civilised discussion impossible as they shout down everybody else using their sheer numbers. They proclaim that it's ok to murder to achieve a political goal - how can you argue with that? Some of these people are obviously mentally ill, as evidenced by some of the disgusting comments on the "Jean McConville's daughter" thread, which was thankfully locked. The fact that Sinn Féin comprises only 3% of the Dáil yet accounts for half the posters here suggest that there are plants among us. I have my suspicions but I won't mention names or specific posts without a mod's permission.

Overall, I find the posters on P.ie to be more informed. Probably because it is a dedicated politics site and so would only attract those who have a genuine interest. Whereas any goon from After Hours can wander over to the boards.ie politics forum and start yet another thread calling for a protest (without aims, goals or solutions).

Just two cents. For the record, I find the mods of this forum to be very fair and balanced. It's the posters that drag the standard down.

GuanYin

Please see the many posts in this thread for the other side of the story, particularly post 387 and 393.

The SF posters feel censored and victimized, the non-SF posters feel the SF posters are allowed to run wild.

I think that puts us firmly in the center, which imo is a good place for us to be.

Regarding the standard of the posters, there is only so much we can do. The political spectrum, from a voting perspective, is comprised of not just the politically-minded elite, but also the "AH crowd" and their vote and their voice is, in political currency terms, worthy every bit as much as anyone else's.

Maybe the "everyman" opinion can be seen as a strength rather than a weakness?

Either way, we can't tell someone how to think, we can merely insist they express themselves in an adult and civil manner. We are currently reviewing how to deal with threadspoiling in some of the more partisan topics.

As you point out, we are a small, but busy section of a much larger site, we cater for all tastes and I am sorry that it is not to your taste.

later12

Fo Real wrote: »

P.ie doesn't suffer from the block of Sinn Féin/IRA members that dominate every second thread in here, making civilised discussion impossible as they shout down everybody else using their sheer numbers. They proclaim that it's ok to murder to achieve a political goal - how can you argue with that?

The last time I used a political message board was about 2006, 2007, and I was registered on politics.ie. At that time, I gave up posting on there because of the amount of republican nonsense that was posted at the time. That has now changed. I don't know (a) if boards was always so republican or (b) if they migrated from politics.ie but perhaps it wouldn't hurt to look at why there is so much of this diehard form of republicanism on boards.ie and not on politics.ie

For the record, I prefer this site overall because of the breadth of forums it can provide and I think the ''thanks'' system is great, it means you don't have to block up a flowing discussion to mention how much you agree with a poster who has managed to portray a point more clearly than you might have done yourself. I think this is a great forum but there is an awful lot of focus on republicans and kneecappings and the like.

invinciblePRSTV

Fo Real wrote: »

There is no "thanks" system on P.ie, so the cliques and circle jerk clubs have not formed over there as they have here. Which leads me on nicely to my next point...

P.ie had a thanks system which imploded a few years ago with hilarious results.

As for the rest of your criticisms, i can't really add or take away from them, but as you say this forum is a sub forum of a much larger site, P.ie is specialist and well established at this stage as the premier site for Irish political discussion. There's machine nation as well which is alright and lots and lots of great blogs.

GuanYin

Fo Real wrote: »

They proclaim that it's ok to murder to achieve a political goal - how can you argue with that?

You don't argue, you report the post and we ban the poster.

It's specifically against our rules for someone to proclaim such things and that was precisely the outcome of that proclamation in the thread you mentioned.

GuanYin

I'm going to copy these issues to the feedback forum. I think this is overall feedback that goes above my paygrade and I don't want to be moderating input on how people perceive we are doing.

I'll leave this copied here in politics for politics posters who don't want to venture into the scary waters of feedback.

Admins, over to you.

Wolfe Tone

I disagree with the OP, there are very few republicans on here tbh, myself and 5/6 others at max.


I lurk a lot on politics.ie there are a lot of republicans there tbh.


I also find the labeling of posters "mentally ill" as a clear insult and unacceptable. No doubt that was aimed at myself, seen as I was banned for that thread.


Its also silly that one is not allowed to argue about justifications for events that happened during the troubles, that is the main defense of them tbh. It seems one must tread a very fine line and basically hide behind wordplay.

AckwelFoley

There is some merit to parts of what you say OP -

I avoid the politics forum for similar reasons, although i am a avid follower of political life and enjoy a discussion - i tend to find that it tends to get too heated too quickly and grow tired of the "cronies" "corruption" "bankers" rabble, rather than real political debate on how the govenment may have ****ed things up.

All FF members and supporters are either morons, ejits, corrupt, culchies or stupid.

Yea :rolleyes:

RDM_83 again

Fo Real wrote: »

The fact that Sinn Féin comprises only 3% of the Dáil yet accounts for half the posters here suggest that there are plants among us. I have my suspicions but I won't mention names or specific posts without a mod's permission.

Whats the current support figures like? we don't see 45% posts supporting FF either.



Politics.ie is a lot more quick off the mark but sometimes just seems to be a platform of its founder. And IMO I think Politics.ie is going to get by a libel suit at some stage an example is the fact that the O'Snodaigh "story" stayed up for quite a period without any caveat after his rejection of those papers versions of events

Nodin

Fo Real wrote: »

........ so the cliques and circle jerk clubs have not formed over there as they have here. ... .

Ahahahaha. Yes. Quite.

I would posit that your preference for that site over this has nothing whatsoever to do with the supposed lack of SF members/Republicans and P.ie's 'breaking news'.

Overheal

If Boards.ie is the poor man's P.ie does that mean P.ie is for the Rich Elitists? Is there a subscription fee?

Scofflaw

later10 wrote: »

The last time I used a political message board was about 2006, 2007, and I was registered on politics.ie. At that time, I gave up posting on there because of the amount of republican nonsense that was posted at the time. That has now changed. I don't know (a) if boards was always so republican or (b) if they migrated from politics.ie but perhaps it wouldn't hurt to look at why there is so much of this diehard form of republicanism on boards.ie and not on politics.ie

For the record, I prefer this site overall because of the breadth of forums it can provide and I think the ''thanks'' system is great, it means you don't have to block up a flowing discussion to mention how much you agree with a poster who has managed to portray a point more clearly than you might have done yourself. I think this is a great forum but there is an awful lot of focus on republicans and kneecappings and the like.

There's a politics.ie thread on the fact that they removed their NI forum from their front page:

Dave Cochrane wrote:

In short the NI forum is mad, there is little to zero discussion of Northern Ireland politics, and a MASSIVE amount of off-topic attacks and trolling. Too much time is being taken by by Politics.ie mods to take up the role of quasi mental health nurses - it's not our job, and it's not the job of mods to have to deal with the horrendous anti-constructive debate which takes place there.

Sounds familiar...and, as far as I can see, their NI forum is still not back on their front page. Still, that's something of a nuclear option.

amused,
Scofflaw

mike65

P.ie doesn't suffer from the block of Sinn Féin/IRA members that dominate every second thread in here

But P.ie does have the delightfull member known as Cael, he is Kev_ps3 x 100 or a 1000 of dlofnep! A bonkers bigot and quite a few of them in there if you find the right topics to browse.

tbh

the problem with politics [on boards] is that it isn't a discussion forum, it's a forum where the objective seems to be to win the argument. The way to win the argument, it seems, is to get the other guy to stop posting, by whatever means available.

whats ironic is that both sides accuse the other of not being objective, those of us who are genuinely neutral - or at least open to persuasion - can see that both sides are as bad as each other.

GuanYin

tbh wrote: »

the problem with politics [on boards] is that it isn't a discussion forum, it's a forum where the objective seems to be to win the argument. The way to win the argument, it seems, is to get the other guy to stop posting, by whatever means available.

OK, agree strongly.

As a mod of the forum, blue in the face from pointing this out to posters and currently enthralled in discussion on how to combat this, I ask what you think a solution might be (sincerely, not snidely, I assume you know by now how much I respect your opinion).

tbh

GuanYin wrote: »

OK, agree strongly.

As a mod of the forum, blue in the face from pointing this out to posters and currently enthralled in discussion on how to combat this, I ask what you think a solution might be (sincerely, not snidely, I assume you know by now how much I respect your opinion).

honestly? there's probably nothing you can do.

In the politics forum, it's the tail wagging the dog - it's a small pocket of posters who are at the heart of the issue. They don't like each other and they'll post just to make sure the "other side" doesn't get the last word.

For example. Say I post that I'm not going to vote for sinn fein because of a certain bank robbery. That's me expressing my opinion, which I am perfectly entitled to do. But you and I both know that all I'm going to get is

"prove it prove it prove it prove it prove it prove it prove it prove it prove it prove it prove it prove it prove it prove it prove it prove it "

Now - you can't criticize whomever for pointing out the fact that I *can't* prove it, but of course pointing out that fact isn't going to change my mind, and so it becomes a crusade - an effort to shout me down. "don't mind what tbh is saying, he can't provide proof for his reasoning, he is an unreliable source, listen to me instead"

I'm just using that as an example by the way, I'm not saying that the pro-shinners are worse than the anti-shinners, they are both exactly the same.

what would be desirable would be if the supporters of a particular pov just stuck to outlining *why* they were supporters, rather than picking or pointing out holes in the arguments of people who weren't supporters. In tGC, for example, we get discussions where both sides of the argument are never going to see eye to eye.
The rule there is that you can express your own opinion, or respectfully discuss someones elses, but we don't allow anyone to pour scorn on a post. However that's only a handful of threads, but pretty much every post on politics, is, by definition, one of those threads.

If you were to put a gun to my head and say "Sort out politics for once and for all - make it a more attractive place for people to post" I'd say ok, I'd give you a list of about 5-10 people, and I'd tell you to ban them permanently. Unfair? Probably. Effective? probably.

however, we saw recent feedback threads talking about how some regular posters and ex-mods - who probably should be listened to before me - argue the contrary - and say that in fact the politics forum was *too* inclusive, and it was a *bad* thing to make it more attractive to post in.

So to be blunt, I think the only way politics will change is if enough people start to post there, and simply ignore anyone who tries to pick a fight with them. If a poster calls a particular politician a "murderer" - certain people who disagree should just ignore him.
If a poster calls that same politician a "hero", certain people should just ignore him.
Unfortunately, i dont think it's something the mods can actually enforce tho.

tbh

actually - to really solve the issue - make it a private forum.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

GuanYin

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Perhaps, but that call is not mine to make.

tbh

I thought about it a little over lunch, and a practical thing you could do would be to ban anyone who accuses anyone else of being a troll for three months with no exceptions.

Two reasons for this.

Calling someone a troll means that you don't believe they actually have the opinion they are claiming, you think they are just deliberately saying something controversial to provoke an argument. Nobody ever calls someone who agrees with them a troll. So if you call someone a troll, you're saying "Nobody could possibly believe what you are saying" - it's arrogant, it's incredibly dismissive and it forces the "troll" to defend themself for simply expressing their opinion

Second reason is that if the person actually *is* a troll, it's incredibly stupid to give them what they want.

Nehaxak

It's perfectly fine for boards in general to exclaim that if you're going to make allegations of wrong doing against a person, people, party or otherwise that you should have proof to back up same - which is exactly as it should be - however it's my perception that it's also perfectly acceptable to just level unfounded accusations and untruths against SF voters/supporters without feeling any need to backup same ?

I'm not a member of the IRA, nor SF for that matter. I don't support the IRA, I never have supported the IRA, I never will support the IRA. I am a peaceful person intent only on peaceful politics. I am a SF supporter and a SF voter.
I take great offence at being labelled out of hand with wide sweeping generalisations.

I don't envy the job of the moderators on politics, it's a mentally hard and thankless task to continually do and try to keep everyone happy.
I had my own reservations, I asked questions directly and to the credit of the moderators I got honest replies which I fully accept and understand both their points and where they are or must come from in regards their moderation.
I am content that there is no bias. I do understand and accept there are misconceptions being banded about all the time in every single thread in relation to SF. Most of which relate to either naivety or intentional political point scoring but as I've said before, if the only comeback to a debate/discussion at hand relating in any way to SF is to bring up old, tired, dismissive responses in regards atrocities carried out by the IRA and linking same to SF, as if to somehow suggest SF voter/supporters are also linked with same - for use as a means to shout down and stop further debate/discussion - then the only loss is to the debate and discussion itself, as well as to boards.

Politics.ie is fairly daunting and somewhat scary compared to boards.ie - while there seems to be the ability to express your opinion in an open manner, the personal insults, bad language and general decorum of the forums can be very off putting (I've only ever made one post on there if I remember correctly myself as I read more than write on there).

A suggestion I would make that I could see being helpful, albeit with a lot of work required on the mods' part - is to consider separate forums for each party and discussions relating to each party be made/moved to those sub-forums where discussions relating to relevant party policies/politics could be carried out in a more somewhat managed environment without being swallowed up in the general politics forums.

Would also be helpful if within each forum a rule was made clear that if a topic is in relation to "<insert party name here> has a finance policy which is total pants" then the topic at hand to be discussed is in relation to that parties finance policy.
If a discussion is wanted in relation to "<insert party name here> killed a baby seal" then a separate topic should be made or the poster would go to the topic already made in relation to the killing of baby seals.
Posters who continually break the rules in each party forum, can as always be infracted for same but also, if deemed necessary and their continued interruption/derailment of threads is nuts - they can be temp banned from posting in that particular party forum - so as not to continually disrupt the rest of people who both abide by and want to continue discussions without incessant interruptions/derailments.

FlutterinBantam

As someone who has enjoyed the Politics forum and who has great respect for the mods there ,I would strongly reccomend TBhs theory that it should be made private.

This would have the effect of removing the oxygen of 'publicity' from the small coterie who immediately arrive like jackals to a fresh kill, to feast on the entrails,once someone has the temerity to take a contrary view to that held by them.

Then the endless Gaza/Israel/anti-US/NI threads which arrive with repetitive regularity, instigated usually from the same quarter, can be contained in an area of specific interest and avoid the coat-tail dragging and kerb-painting attitude coupled by questionable signatures designed to stimulate conflict.

By doing this, those posters who like get involved in these circular arguments and drilling things down to head-of pin discussions can batther away to their heart's content and only those who really want to discuss these areas need bother subscribing to these threads.

Would leave the main Politic's thread more attractive to the less 'driven' and less single issue contributor.

tbh

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

This would have the effect of removing the oxygen of 'publicity' from the small coterie who immediately arrive like jackals to a fresh kill, to feast on the entrails,once someone has the temerity to take a contrary view to that held by them.
.

you're telling me that a know-all trinners student from dalkey praising a Palestinian hunger striker isn't like a red rag to a bull to you?

FlutterinBantam

tbh wrote: »

you're telling me that a know-all trinners student from dalkey praising a Palestinian hunger striker isn't like a red rag to a bull to you?

No, but ten posts of similar vein from the same 'student' and his mates might have that effect:o:o

meditraitor

The idea of making it a private forum is laughable, the sheer arrogance of thinking that anyone with less than a fanatical interest in politics can have a valid opinion is why the many people don't bother.
Its the fresh air of new topics and posters coming in for them that keeps the place going not the old fungal mickey measuring regular's that believe its their stomping ground and their rules are the only rules that has it the way it is, but for a couple of really decent mods the place would die.

As for the shinners I really dont see a problem, the % of posters with republican view mirrors real life, there are other dangerous political ideologies in the politics forums who for some reason or another have been able to hide their true nature with rhetoric and slight of hand.

GuanYin

So effectively, the issue is thread spoiling. If we can stop threads degenerating into either pissing contests or strawman arguments then the forum would fare better? (assuming the culprit posters alluded to either change to the rules involved or get banned).

Assuming my assessment of input so far is correct, to change quickly, would require 1) heavy moderation style and 2) more mods. Can these be avoided to achieve the desired result?

Also, should the rules be simplified? If we made the rules into an easily digestible post of say, 5 points, less specifics and more leeway for mod judgement, assuming the mods were even, consistent and thorough, do you think it would improve things?

I'm asking this as open discussion, not purely as a politics mod.

Scofflaw

GuanYin wrote: »

So effectively, the issue is thread spoiling. If we can stop threads degenerating into either pissing contests or strawman arguments then the forum would fare better? (assuming the culprit posters alluded to either change to the rules involved or get banned).

Assuming my assessment of input so far is correct, to change quickly, would require 1) heavy moderation style and 2) more mods. Can these be avoided to achieve the desired result?

Also, should the rules be simplified? If we made the rules into an easily digestible post of say, 5 points, less specifics and more leeway for mod judgement, assuming the mods were even, consistent and thorough, do you think it would improve things?

I'm asking this as open discussion, not purely as a politics mod.

I don't have any personal objection to waiting for the next thread that degenerates into a pissing contest, and going through it with the banhammer. I agree that some sort of warning that that's what will happen might be kind, though.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Darragh

OP, I have thanked your post because I appreciate you taking the time to put your thoughts down in such a coherent manner.

I agree with you that Politics.ie is doing a great job this election. David Cochrane, a good friend of mine, knows his audience, has a clear vision for the site and has his own resource to make the site as interesting as it is. We don't. Politics.ie is a specifically political oriented site - Boards.ie, in the last 7 days alone, has had over 29,000 people logged in contributing over 130,600 posts in a total of 604 forums.

Politics isn't the main focus of Boards.ie - a quick glance at the homepage and what people are talking about right now will show that. Saying that, the Politics forum is important to us and it is something that we are willing to put the effort in to - if people are interested. If the majority of members are not interested though, it's actually not worth us doing. That's the simple business case of it.

I'm really interested in all feedback on Boards.ie, especially when put forward like this, but for changes that we make to be effective, it needs as many of those affected to have their say as we can get.

If you were to put a gun to my head and say "Sort out politics for once and for all - make it a more attractive place for people to post" I'd say ok, I'd give you a list of about 5-10 people, and I'd tell you to ban them permanently. Unfair? Probably. Effective? probably.

Can you actually do that for me please? PM me the list and reasons? It will be kept strictly confidential. However, it will be up to the moderators of the forum - they're in charge - to help us effect that.

however, we saw recent feedback threads talking about how some regular posters and ex-mods - who probably should be listened to before me - argue the contrary - and say that in fact the politics forum was *too* inclusive, and it was a *bad* thing to make it more attractive to post in.

So to be blunt, I think the only way politics will change is if enough people start to post there, and simply ignore anyone who tries to pick a fight with them. If a poster calls a particular politician a "murderer" - certain people who disagree should just ignore him.
If a poster calls that same politician a "hero", certain people should just ignore him.
Unfortunately, i dont think it's something the mods can actually enforce tho.

We also have the legal / defamation obligations to look at. We can't condone the site used simply to get at someone or have bad stuff on Google about them (and it happens, believe me). It's a delicate balance.

Interesting conversation folks, one we're keeping an eye on.

Sparks

Haven't been there in a while myself. This time last year, boards.ie bashing was still the main sport for some of the posters and that wasn't stopped by their mods (and there didn't seem to be any plans to do so either, the boards.ie style of actively moderating a discussion to enforce the forum charters didn't exist and wasn't seen as desirable). Before that, I (for obvious reasons) posted a bit on a few firearms-related threads and a bit on some to do with academia and startups as I was working in TCD at the time (lecturing and working on a startup).

In each case, despite knowing the subject matter fairly well because of personal experience, and regardless of citations or references, the discussion came down to people throwing out some position and then yelling as loudly as they could to defend it, regardless of its merits. Ad hominem posts were the order of the day. In the end, I just got tired of that kind of carp and walked away from it because it was, ironically, too much like listening to a Dail debate - all point-scoring and waffle, and not very much actual content.

I'm not saying they haven't improved in the last year, or that the politics forum here has been a model to base all future dialogue on (though at least we no longer see multiple threads debating whether or not we should have jet fighters in the Aer Corps to defend us from suicide bombers on airliners ); but to be frank, the site owner's truly impressive efforts and initiative aside (and it's a lot to put to one side) the rest of the posters on the site... they just weren't all that.

Scofflaw

Sparks wrote: »

Haven't been there in a while myself. This time last year, boards.ie bashing was still the main sport for some of the posters and that wasn't stopped by their mods (and there didn't seem to be any plans to do so either, the boards.ie style of actively moderating a discussion to enforce the forum charters didn't exist and wasn't seen as desirable). Before that, I (for obvious reasons) posted a bit on a few firearms-related threads and a bit on some to do with academia and startups as I was working in TCD at the time (lecturing and working on a startup).

In each case, despite knowing the subject matter fairly well because of personal experience, and regardless of citations or references, the discussion came down to people throwing out some position and then yelling as loudly as they could to defend it, regardless of its merits. Ad hominem posts were the order of the day. In the end, I just got tired of that kind of carp and walked away from it because it was, ironically, too much like listening to a Dail debate - all point-scoring and waffle, and not very much actual content.

I'm not saying they haven't improved in the last year, or that the politics forum here has been a model to base all future dialogue on (though at least we no longer see multiple threads debating whether or not we should have jet fighters in the Aer Corps to defend us from suicide bombers on airliners ); but to be frank, the site owner's truly impressive efforts and initiative aside (and it's a lot to put to one side) the rest of the posters on the site... they just weren't all that.

It is often a silly place, and one that suffers from the syndrome described on our NI threads, except that it suffers from it on a whole range of subjects.

There's been an undeniable improvement recently over there, but a lot of that is because in media and political terms politics.ie is undoubtedly much more visible than the Boards Politics forum, and the run-up to the election has brought back a lot of heavyweight posters actually engaged in politics on behalf of their parties. As a result, the noise to signal ratio has improved dramatically.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Nodin

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

As someone who has enjoyed the Politics forum and who has great respect for the mods there ,.....

.......such respect that you earned a permaban for disrupting threads on everything from the Corrib Gas Line to West Papua....

Scofflaw wrote:

There's a politics.ie thread on the fact that they removed their NI forum from their front page:,.....

There seemed to be a handout that read 'Register here - adopt obvious Fanatic Position - Post Wind Ups' that was widely circulated in some secondary school somewhere. Suffice to say having it hijacked by a dissident minority from any community would have greatly improved the tone. It is, as one can imagine, not a situation that rose here.

As for the OP

Fo Real wrote:

P.ie doesn't suffer from the block of Sinn Féin/IRA members that dominate every second thread in here, making civilised discussion impossible as they shout down everybody else using their sheer numbers:,.....

This isn't true. There are currently two active threads on page one of the Politics forum involving a few Republicans/SF supporters that are by their subject matter - suprise suprise - related to SF. Not only that but they're vastly outnumbered.

Darragh wrote:

OP, I have thanked your post because I appreciate you taking the time to put your thoughts down in such a coherent manner...

...inacurrate and subjective though they may be.