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

big b

I'll start by describing myself as a constant reader but only occassional poster in politics. The former because I'm interested, the latter because, in a "serious" forum, I felt a little out of my depth. That's no reflection on how my posts were viewed- I always found the forum welcoming enough- I just felt that I didn't have the depth of knowledge required to make a useful contribution. ( the price I've paid for a lifetime of working abroad, perhaps)

In any case, I find many of my questions answered without even having to ask them,just by looking, in particular on financial issues. There's a great wealth of knowledge in the forum, a worthy pre-requisite of having to back up your posts with sources and some excellent moderators who, as their time permits, run a pretty tight ship and keep the forum in line without being overly heavy-handed or self-aggrandising.
Clearly, the increased traffic of late has let a degree of after-hours type posts through the net, but in general most threads are more broadsheet than tabloid.

More recently, I've refrained from posting there altogether. One reason for this is relevant to this discussion.
The politics Mods have done a fine and fair job of weeding out some posters who clearly had an agenda and disrupted every thread within their remit with what are now well-known tactics and some quite disgraceful comments and personal attacks. However, of late, some of those who seemed more open to normal discussion have let their veneer slip and are now every bit as disruptive as those who had gone before.

I find some of their input, and their posting "style" so stomach-turning and unpalatable that I prefer to stay away. Decent discussion becomes impossible with disruptive elements constantly dragging threads where the vast majority do not wish them to go.

How to deal with the problem? The ban stick is an obvious solution, with some issues.
1 - those banned seem to simply migrate to After Hours for the term of their ban, posting the same vitriol there. To those of us in Politics, it's someone elses' problem, for Boards as a whole, it's just shifting it to another place.
2. Scofflaws suggestion, with fairness in mind, that a warning of heavy moderation be issued in a specific thread, would be ultimately doomed to failure unless the same warning was issued early in every thread which could possibly be subject to disruption. Which, as many of us know, is almost any thread in politics.

My preference would be for a period of zero tolerance for thread spoiling, with a fresh sticky advising of such and possibly guidelines as to what is and isn't acceptable. I'd take this one step further by invoking TBH's suggestion of banning now, those already identified as disruptive. Despite many warnings, the same old posters have continued in the same vein and display a victim mentality when advised their conduct is unacceptable.The people of Ireland spoke clearly enough- we don't want what you guys are selling. These leopards refuse to change their spots and are only detracting from the enjoyment of the majority.

Just my 2c

Scofflaw

2. Scofflaws suggestion, with fairness in mind, that a warning of heavy moderation be issued in a specific thread, would be ultimately doomed to failure unless the same warning was issued early in every thread which could possibly be subject to disruption. Which, as many of us know, is almost any thread in politics.

Actually, I was rather unclear - picking a particular thread is just a way of identifying the relevant offenders rather than being the full field of application of zero tolerance. Mind you, I quite like Darragh's Crimeline approach - I've occasionally been tempted to run a version of the old Athenian ostracism vote, but I don't have any mechanism to prevent it becoming publicly unpleasant.

I'd be interested to see who is considered disruptive by a majority of posters in Politics, but I'd also be concerned that a poster could easily be victimised by a particular clique.

cordially,
Scofflaw

ISAW

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Banning people whom you think have opinions which ruin it for others?
Whatever next? Ban them because they have a particular religious view or sexual orientation or skin colour?
the strength of a democracy is in how we tolerate others not how we punish them.

People should be banned for breaking rules they understand they are breaking. they should not be banned because other people don't like them. If that was the case the "I hate FF" lobby would have all FF supporters banned forever. We just shouldn't do things like this whether they are FF FG SF or whatever.

Scofflaw

ISAW wrote: »

Banning people whom you think have opinions which ruin it for others?
Whatever next? Ban them because they have a particular religious view or sexual orientation or skin colour?
the strength of a democracy is in how we tolerate others not how we punish them.

People should be banned for breaking rules they understand they are breaking. they should not be banned because other people don't like them. If that was the case the "I hate FF" lobby would have all FF supporters banned forever. We just shouldn't do things like this whether they are FF FG SF or whatever.

That's true, but that wasn't what was suggested. There's a difference between having an opinion and spoiling any relevant thread with the same set of stock responses, and the one thing that we would be concerned about in respect of dealing with such posters is to ensure that we don't wind up suppressing any camp of opinion.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Sparks

ISAW wrote: »

the strength of a democracy

Did I miss a memo?

ISAW

Scofflaw wrote: »

That's true, but that wasn't what was suggested. There's a difference between having an opinion and spoiling any relevant thread with the same set of stock responses, and the one thing that we would be concerned about in respect of dealing with such posters is to ensure that we don't wind up suppressing any camp of opinion.

cordially,
Scofflaw

I have had run ins with mods and other posters over my posting style on boards. If someone is making a claim they are not supporting my stock reply is "where is the evidence to support your claim" and I refer them to a definition of "shifting the burden"

I know from experience ( and yes I know what "argument from authority" is too) that people constantly commit logical errors. It isn't my fault they are making them even if I am curt in pointing them out.

i also don't tend to make claims but I enter into threads where the posters seem so assured they are right that they make the claims. In that sense my posts are mostly confrontational.

Why should i be banned for my stock responses or awkward posting style?

Due to my healthy sense of paranoia I assume that people referring to posters who ruin it for others is a reference to me. If mods discussing me in secret in the past and personal attacks and on me i mention them only as part of my "experience" . I left boards for several years because of them but they are in the past and i don't want to revisit them. Happily i was surprised to find the moderation system and culture had changed and I expected the same treatment but was wrong in my expectation.
Why do I mention that ? Because several posts in this thread have been about "nine or ten posters" who ruin it for others. I don't like anon accusations. If they are ruining things then name them. Even if in private. One admin offered to look into the names. I would have to say I don't like secret police either. Boards isn't a democracy however and has financial and legal considerations to address.

ISAW

Sparks wrote: »

Did I miss a memo?

the politics board should reflect the society at large and not an authoritarian subset of it! moderators like police in the real world are there to police a socisty according to rules. they don't own that society! it changes depending on the personal input of the people in it.
In that sense it is a democracy. It isn't a democracy in the sense of everyone voting and a majority getting their way. If everyone wanted things another way the owners of the site could still shut it down.

Sparks

ISAW wrote: »

the politics board should reflect the society at large and not an authoritarian subset of it! moderators like police in the real world are there to police a socisty according to rules. they don't own that society! it changes depending on the personal input of the people in it.
In that sense it is a democracy. It isn't a democracy in the sense of everyone voting and a majority getting their way. If everyone wanted things another way the owners of the site could still shut it down.

But this isn't a democracy. It's a privately owned website. It's fundamentally different from a democracy. So why should it model itself on one?

I think perhaps your basic assumption isn't fully considered.

Scofflaw

ISAW wrote: »

I have had run ins with mods and other posters over my posting style on boards. If someone is making a claim they are not supporting my stock reply is "where is the evidence to support your claim" and I refer them to a definition of "shifting the burden"

I know from experience ( and yes I know what "argument from authority" is too) that people constantly commit logical errors. It isn't my fault they are making them even if I am curt in pointing them out.

i also don't tend to make claims but I enter into threads where the posters seem so assured they are right that they make the claims. In that sense my posts are mostly confrontational.

Why should i be banned for my stock responses or awkward posting style?

You shouldn't be, and we have the DR thread to show that if you were, it would be reversed. We're not referring to 'stock responses' in that sense, or to any personal posting styles.

ISAW wrote: »

Due to my healthy sense of paranoia I assume that people referring to posters who ruin it for others is a reference to me. If mods discussing me in secret in the past and personal attacks and on me i mention them only as part of my "experience" . I left boards for several years because of them but they are in the past and i don't want to revisit them. Happily i was surprised to find the moderation system and culture had changed and I expected the same treatment but was wrong in my expectation.
Why do I mention that ? Because several posts in this thread have been about "nine or ten posters" who ruin it for others. I don't like anon accusations. If they are ruining things then name them. Even if in private. One admin offered to look into the names. I would have to say I don't like secret police either. Boards isn't a democracy however and has financial and legal considerations to address.

I would be very surprised to see you on the list, since we're talking here about posters who ruin threads by trench warfare with the people they perceive as their ideological adversaries, thread after thread, same people, same adversaries, same exchanges. Nobody has accused you of that.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Sparks

ISAW wrote: »

Why should i be banned for my stock responses or awkward posting style?

I can't speak as to the opinion of the politics moderators; but I can speak as to mine, and my opinion would be that a poster who never contributes to a community but constantly chooses to fight with posters in that community would be breaking the first rule of the site (ie. "Don't be a dick").

It's one thing to see a broken argument and to point out that it's broken; it's another to never do anything but that.

Wolfe Tone

I fail to see how people should be allowed to roll into a thread post some claim and posters, as tbh seems to be suggesting, should simply ignore it. If a poster lies, and provides no evidence to back something up, is that ok? Or is it only ok to make those type of claims about SF because you don't like them?


And as for the suggestion to "ban" a core set of posters who have not broken any rules, that is simply unfair in the extreme.


Sf threads seems to go like this:

Some post relating to SF, followed by a few on topic posts, then we have some comment about terrorists and murderers etc, quite rightly that is challenged, "what about xyz" and away we go down that road.

A solution would be to have some type of megathread for all that type of stuff and have stricter rules about keeping things on topic. So when things seem about to go down that road you can pop in and say "take it to the megathread" and move posts if thats needed.

ISAW

Sparks wrote: »

But this isn't a democracy.

What do you mean by that? I was quite clear in what a democracy can be taken to mean.
I referred to the greek literal origind meaning literally "from the people"

It's a privately owned website. It's fundamentally different from a democracy. So why should it model itself on one?

i find that question quite bizzare! It is modeled on input from people. why it is is a different issue!

I think perhaps your basic assumption isn't fully considered.

i think perhaps you think it isn't a democracy in the sense that someone owns it. the implication is the owner could ban all posting. that also is true. and if he did the input of other people would cease and there would be no posts at all. which is why I find the implication bizzare. so what if everyone can be banned? If the site is there to reflect opinion one does no credit to such aspirations by authoritarian appeals to control of freedom.

FlutterinBantam

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I fail to see how people should be allowed to roll into a thread post some claim and posters, as tbh seems to be suggesting, should simply ignore it. If a poster lies, and provides no evidence to back something up, is that ok? Or is it only ok to make those type of claims about SF because you don't like them?


And as for the suggestion to "ban" a core set of posters who have not broken any rules, that is simply unfair in the extreme.


Sf threads seems to go like this:

Some post relating to SF, followed by a few on topic posts, then we have some comment about terrorists and murderers etc, quite rightly that is challenged, "what about xyz" and away we go down that road.

A solution would be to have some type of megathread for all that type of stuff and have stricter rules about keeping things on topic. So when things seem about to go down that road you can pop in and say "take it to the megathread" and move posts if thats needed.

In my opinion posters have every right to associate past incidents and crimes to a party who whose members may now have embraced democracy,but in the past those same members were associated with crimes.

You can't just airbrush history ,much as you might like it.

ISAW

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I fail to see how people should be allowed to roll into a thread post some claim and posters, as tbh seems to be suggesting, should simply ignore it. If a poster lies, and provides no evidence to back something up, is that ok? Or is it only ok to make those type of claims about SF because you don't like them?


And as for the suggestion to "ban" a core set of posters who have not broken any rules, that is simply unfair in the extreme.


Sf threads seems to go like this:

Some post relating to SF, followed by a few on topic posts, then we have some comment about terrorists and murderers etc, quite rightly that is challenged, "what about xyz" and away we go down that road.

A solution would be to have some type of megathread for all that type of stuff and have stricter rules about keeping things on topic. So when things seem about to go down that road you can pop in and say "take it to the megathread" and move posts if thats needed.

there is a theory that society advances not by mainstream views but by outliers actions.
The mainstream seem to hate FF SF and republicanism. Fair enough. But that does not mean people have to be labeled because they don't despise what the mainstream despise. and it also means that outliers have to justify their own claims. Mainstream views may also be fickle and apt to change.

Wolfe Tone

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

In my opinion posters have every right to associate past incidents and crimes to a party who whose members may now have embraced democracy,but in the past those same members were associated with crimes.

You can't just airbrush history ,much as you might like it.

In every thread? Lets say we have one about Doherty who has said xyz, does popping into that thread and saying "murderer etc etc IRA rabble" actually add anything to the debate at all?


Ive never tried to "airbrush history" at all. But if posters are to be forbidden from responding to such posts then the fairest thing would be to ban those posts in the first place and chuck them all into a superthread, rather than have all the threads descend into the same thing.

ISAW

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

In my opinion posters have every right to associate past incidents and crimes to a party who whose members may now have embraced democracy,but in the past those same members were associated with crimes.

Are you referring perhaps to FG and the Free State governments who tortured and killed Republicans?

You can't just airbrush history ,much as you might like it.

Touché!

In fact one can airbrush history. it happens all the time. that is what history is. I think you may mean "one can't change the past". History is not the past.

Sparks

ISAW wrote: »

If the site is there to reflect opinion one does no credit to such aspirations by authoritarian appeals to control of freedom.

See, that's the reason that I think your assumption is ill-considered. This is a privately-owned website - you have no such freedoms in here in the first place for anyone to control.

Or, to be more accurate, while you do indeed enjoy (in your day-to-day life away from the computer) the freedom of speech (with limits) as per Section 42 of the constitution, that does not extend to requiring this or any other privately-owned form of media to publish your statements.

Danger_dave1

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).

A way to prevent im right your wrong debate, Id suggest trialling Around the Horn for the Politics Forum ,


This has been used with great effect on the Wrestling forum, have look at the format, and you try and find an independent Mod/poster to Organise and score the system it allows for a much more balanced debate.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055286903&highlight=horn

ATH2 - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showt...p?t=2055187277
ATH3 - http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthrea...7#post54765837
ATH4 - http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055236240

Whether or not it will work is one thing, It will however stop the continous quoting of other peoples points and people going around in circles.

Just my 2 cents.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

NeedaNewName

Is this the same P.ie that stopped people registering because it was getting trolled to sh1t? is the owner the guy who worked for Declan ganley? The former communications director of Libertas?

Yeah banning people for their opinions is cool in the hood :rolleyes:

ISAW

Sparks wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

See that is where you are wrong. I have such freedoms. just as people are free to break the law. the difference is I don't have the authority to change the law on boards but I do have an input into changing the law of the land under which boards.ie operates.

And as I have pointed out - having the control of a social networking website is one thing but using such control in a way which is detrimental to social networking is a rather bizarre concept.

Or, to be more accurate, while you do indeed enjoy (in your day-to-day life away from the computer) the freedom of speech (with limits) as per Section 42 of the constitution,

In Ireland. elsewhere under other laws e.g. Hyde Park corner such limits don't apply.

that does not extend to requiring this or any other privately-owned form of media to publish your statements.

You entirely missed my point! I never claimed that whenever they want people can band together and legally demand boards to publish what they want.
(To a small degree they can, for example they were defamed they might get apologies published or if they had a legal right to something they might force boards to acknowledge this or even if they didnt demand boards might do it to avoid litigation for example by posting notices about buy ing concert tickets -but I digress)
the point I made was assume boards can ban and censor anyone they please. If you have a social network set up to encourage wide debate from all points of view what is the point of censoring the people posting and or banning all of them?

so given it is plainly stupid to set up boards and ban everyone who uses it it is a question of where you draw the line. If you are going to draw the line with "we don't have to care about what you think" then you are back to where boards was several years ago with moderators who had this "we are not a democracy I have the authority" and no different the issue of simply banning everyone. if you operate a nanny state people will graviotate away for you.

Permabear wrote: »

I haven't suggested banning people for their opinions. I don't have an issue per se with people being pro–Sinn Féin, pro-Palestine, or whatever.

Butt some posters become instantly obstreperous, truculent, and hostile whenever anyone dares to disagree with them.

then they should be warned infarcted and ultimately banned. I have already stated what I think about "some posters" arguments. What posters? Can you give examples. and if you do it is probably an example of moderation not working.

They respond by harassing, haranguing, and mocking their critics, turning thread after thread into train wrecks.

unprovoked Ad hominem is a bannable offence on every charter as far as I am aware.

That is an issue—unless of course you believe that the only purpose of having a Politics forum is to facilitate endless mud-slinging amongst polarized opponents.

Don't blame me if you don't operate your own rules wisely.

I have no issue with anyone expressing or defending their opinions, as long as they can do so in a measured, rational way that is conducive to debate.

Nor do I. So who are these "some people"? Am I one of them?

Wolfe Tone

I would imagine through PM correspondence and a previous feedback thread that I am one of the aforementioned posters.

ISAW

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I would imagine through PM correspondence and a previous feedback thread that I am one of the aforementioned posters.

and i would imagine i am also one. but I in no way set out to "ruin debate". Nor do I enter into threads and personally attack people. i have constantly been accused of strawmen arguments but I usually poiint out why my particular examples are not straw men.

for example say someone said legalising cannabis was reasonable because amsterdam operates that way

i then say amsterdam has prostitution and abortion show we also have them in Ireland
The reply is "this isn't about abortion" and a complaint sent that I am dragging the issue off into the abortion debate.

Clearly the claim is that if some state in Europe does something like legal cannabis then we should do it here. Pointing out that legal child rape or abortion is something people do in Europe and they following their reasoning it should be legal here is not a straw man. But some people see the word "abortion" or "Republican" or IRA as have a blinkered view.

I can't see how there is an issue about all this! If someone is off topic or personally attacking others there are rules.

I would however have a problem with bullying people or ganging up on them. thismay be hard to prove.

IITYWYBMAD

Sparks wrote: »

Did I miss a memo?

It's flame baiting "two-bit" crap like this, that turns a (for once) decent discussion into a "multi-quote" he said/she said disaster. You should know better.

P. Breathnach

IITYWYBMAD wrote: »

It's flame baiting "two-bit" crap like this, that turns a (for once) decent discussion into a "multi-quote" he said/she said disaster. You should know better.

I disagree.

There are problems in the politics forums, but I don't think that attempting to jest is much of a wrong-doing.

One of the things that I think more wrong is that people react intemperately to all sorts of stimuli. When I see certain posters' names, I expect to read diatribe rather than discussion: that's not good. I understand that many are angry or scared, but I still think intemperate behaviour in a discussion form is not the right way to deal with such emotions. I do not come to the politics forums in order to participate in group therapy.

I very much dislike the making of abusive comments about politicians or other people in public life. It is a substitute for discussion of the issues rather than a contribution to it. For example, calling the Minister for Finance "Lie-nehan" is not particularly clever, and is a distraction from considering the policies he has advanced.

Some posters obsess about particular things, and often shoehorn their pet peeve into threads where they are not of great relevance.

What to do? It's a messy set of problems. I think the first thing is to raise the threshold. Some measures:
1. If a post is primarily an abusive rant, then it should merit an infraction (20% relevance plus 80% ranting is not, on balance, a good formula).
2. Derailing a thread should merit an infraction.
3. The rule on soapboxing should be dusted off and applied more firmly.

Eliot Rosewater

ISAW wrote: »

And as I have pointed out - having the control of a social networking website is one thing but using such control in a way which is detrimental to social networking is a rather bizarre concept.

I don't think harsh rules are detrimental to a forum like Politics. If the politics moderators stopped moderating for a week the place would collapse in terms of productive output. To keep a thread productive it is often necessary for mod to say "you're being off-topic; get off the tangent". That's exercising control, and limiting posters' liberty, for sure - but I think it's the exact opposite of detrimental. It keeps interaction productive.

Nodin

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

I don't think harsh rules are detrimental to a forum like Politics. If the politics moderators stopped moderating for a week the place would collapse in terms of productive output. To keep a thread productive it is often necessary for mod to say "you're being off-topic; get off the tangent". That's exercising control, and limiting posters' liberty, for sure - but I think it's the exact opposite of detrimental. It keeps interaction productive.

Indeed. Though I'd probably be more liberal in some ways, at the end of the day, if you entirely remove the moderation on a widely used board on serious issues, it goes to shite, to be blunt.

There'd also be an awful lot of questions about how to use the "ignore" feature.

Yitzhak Rabin

I think a private politics sub forum is the way to go to be honest.

The main forum can continue to function as it is now, and once a poster has demonstrated that they can post civilly, refrain from point-scoring, and put forward well thought out and logical posts they get access to the private forum.

The private forum doesn't need to be some sort of exclusive elite club either. Its just a place where drive-by posters don't just wander in and start "Lets have a revolution!!11!!!" threads and known trouble-makers who just engage in point-scoring and thread spoiling are not granted posting access.

People should still be able to view the forum, just not post, until they have a decent record in the main forum.

P. Breathnach

yekahs wrote: »

I think a private politics sub forum is the way to go to be honest.

The main forum can continue to function as it is now, and once a poster has demonstrated that they can post civilly, refrain from point-scoring, and put forward well thought out and logical posts they get access to the private forum.

The private forum doesn't need to be some sort of exclusive elite club either. Its just a place where drive-by posters don't just wander in and start "Lets have a revolution!!11!!!" threads and known trouble-makers who just engage in point-scoring and thread spoiling are not granted posting access.

People should still be able to view the forum, just not post, until they have a decent record in the main forum.

I could (but I won't) name several active posters in the politics forums who I would not want to see in such a private forum, but who would probably believe that they are perfectly qualified for inclusion.

So we would have another conflict point, and people coming here to complain that they have been refused admission to the private forum. Either that, or they get in, and we simply replicate the problems.

gandalf

To be honest thinking about it I would disagree with a private forum as well, partially because of what P. Breathnach says (hell I could be one of the people he is talking about) and also because who decides who gets in and who stays out. I do feel still that there needs to be a clamp down on people who are starting or posting borderline trolling threads.

I am also not going to get into a slagging match between boards and politics.ie. They both are excellent sites and operate in different ways. I read Politics.ie a every now and then but do not feel the impulse to post there because of the more lax moderation they have in place.