Why is Boards.ie like the Ministry of Truth...

Wibbs

Some Boards users need to grow a thicker skin and by doing so avoid proving McSavages(and others) point. IMHO if you feel aggrieved by an insult some part of you believes in it's truth, or that's how it looks.

Wolfe Tone wrote:

I want boards to be known as a place where people can have their say.

Great in theory boss, but how many times do people have to explain this stuff? This is not America, this country does not have "the right to free speech" to the degree some eejits seem to think(FFS we even have a blasphemy law) and this site as an Irish site is open to legal attacks because of all of that. Shít even on the blasphemy law there's more than one post about the place that likely breaks it and all you need is some crawthumping god/allah/vishnubotherer with too much time on their hands and this site could suffer. I agree opinion is fine, but it is or can be a bloody grey area. Boards and their wallets are in the firing line. And they have proved more than once they'll go to bat for users. We should be grateful for that.

It's been my take that Darragh(and Dav) have been doing sterling work for this site. People have to get used to change and that includes admins, mods as well. It's not servers under the bed anymore. It's not facetube or whatever. It needs to pay its way and it needs to be more than it was to do so. That means advertising and that means halfway decent content coming from and as well as the communities. This place is so adverts light I'm amazed it can pay its way tbh. We should be grateful for that too.

IMHO slating Darragh for a single comment out of a long enough interview that he went to the trouble of setting up is actually taking the piss. And this interview was with a guy who has been the butt of pretty relentless slagging time and time again on this site that went unhindered. Some low level "celeb" says one little thing and the nerds are up in arms and crying in their liga? Let's face it that's how it looked.

Aidric wrote:

I'm genuinely surprised that anyone who watched that McSavage interview came to the conclusion that his comments were made in spite or further an attack on the boards community. They were clearly made in jest as was obvious from the tone in which they were delivered.

This. Even if he was in earnest, so bloody what? Jesus. Serious insecurity flying around.

Darragh

Nodin wrote: »

You seemed to be perfectly content to have abuse come from the interviewee.

It's unfortunately getting lost in posts but I've already addressed this.

That abuse was in response to the abuse he'd already gotten from Boards.ie members. As I've said, I don't think that AH thread should have been deleted - I didn't ask for it to be - but I also am interested in how we work to dispel the reputation that Boards.ie has as a place that condones or encourages abuse.

Wibbs

Darragh wrote: »

Should I have put up the video as is? No.

I disagree 100%. I think you were correct to put it up as is D. Otherwise where does that editing stop? You shouldnt have to second guess an audience some of whom might be precious enough to take offence.

Was a thread full of insults and abuse for McSavage warranted? Actually in one sense, yes, members could have used that thread to give feedback, no matter how abusive to that interview. However, it's the precedent that set, as well as the abuse of other people in that thread that became the problem, not the thread itself.

I'm 50/50 there. The initial thread was fine, the follow up sticky calling for open season on some celeb wasn't. That's when "ah here lads " went the way of pathetic IMHO.

Wolfe Tone

Its the principal of the matter Wibbs.

K-9

I hate venting posts and posters who just use the site to post vile.

Still, the odd one can be funny and make a point. Sometimes, things just need to be said.

Meh if this goes on! It'll end up watching the TV will be better entertainment and less censored.

AlmightyCushion

Darragh wrote: »

I don't think that AH thread should have been deleted

If the thread contained posts that were defamatory then why would you think it shouldn't be deleted? Leaving defamatory posts go undeleted would cause the site legal problems. I'll be honest I don't think this has any to do with it causing legal problems, if it was then why wasn't it deleted on sight seeing as that's the standard way of dealing with this type of thing and why do you still think that it shouldn't have been deleted? In fact, a locked thread containing defamatory posts would actually be worse for the site from a legal perspective. A locked thread would show that we knew about the thread and didn't remove the defamatory posts. Also, like I've said before, after hours is the only forum that has this celeb abuse rule in place, that wouldn't be the case if it was a legal issue.

I don't mind getting flack over this but I'd appreciate it if the people doing it were at least straight about it.

southsiderosie

If the issue here is abuse, and how the site deals with it, can someone explain to me why abusing entertainment celebrities is somehow different from abuse of elected officials? I spend most of my time in the Politics forum, and any mention of Fianna Fail, Bertie Ahern, or Gerry Adams is guaranteed to send a certain percentage of users into fits of apocalyptic rage. The general rule seems to be, critique people on what they have actually said and done (or failed to do), but politics, like humor, is pretty subjective. What is the difference between saying McSavage is a talentless, unfunny hack who got his job through family connections vs. Brian Lenihan is a talentless, economically illiterate hack who got his job through family connections? Is the only difference here that Lenihan won't threaten to sue the website?

AckwelFoley

Boards.ie will not become a generic forum for news and discussion, the reason i know that is because regardless of what anyone feels - i believe its more the members that decide that than the administration do.

Yes the admin can make whatever changes they want, but it would kill the site and they know that, so in effect what the role of admin is to steer the site in a certain direction, put up some barriers and rules, but the forums are the people and the content is that created by the members.

I dont want boards or AH to be 4chan or even worse Youtube, i dont think anyone does, and i think that the adminwant to while legally protecting the site do want to allow people to say what they want, within reason - A threadfull of "dave mac savage is a bignose cnut" or "dave mcsavage is a wanker" might be closer to the truth, but its not the content that will sustain the future of boards.ie - its fine for other forums or communities, but not for one as prominent and in the public eye as this community

I see a tone in this thread that people are very uncomfortable with perceived change. I think people are reading toomuch into statments made. I bet if you read threads from 5 years ago there were the same fears around that never materalised albeit for a single rule or mood change

pickarooney

Darragh wrote: »

I want Boards.ie to be the same. Useful for its members, with otherwise inaccessible people invited to come along and answer questions put to them. I want the people who use Boards.ie to find interesting information and to have what they care about discussed - and surely we can do that without profanity and abuse? Surely we don't have to offend people to make a point?

Are we going to risk jail time for not paying our subscriptions

Seriously, I don't think the imposition of any structure above and beyond the basic marshalling and firefighting of the moderators is either a positive or workable idea. The best parts of boards develop organically out of the chaos and with tens (hundreds?) of thousands of members I think it's futile to try and corral the whole site under some umbrella initiative of change for change's sake.

My name is URL

I'd probably be completely unaware of McSavage and his work if it weren't for the threads designed to attack him. The same goes for a host of other unimportant celebrities. Criticising them is fair enough but the vitriol which people tend to display on those threads is not nice to see. Groupthink at its finest imo. Those Alison O'Riordan threads were ruined by people making it overly personal.

Tbh I didn't even watch the full McSavage interview as it would have served little purpose for me to do so. I'm not a fan of his and would expect him to aim for controversy in such an interview. Who cares what he says about the site as a whole anyway? How can his opinion carry so much weight when he as a person is seemingly looked down on so much? And if he's despised to the extent which people let on then why expend so much energy in giving a toss and reacting to what he has to say?

caseyann

Who the hell is Mc savage?
I saw the interview posted of him but couldnt get past the first few minutes he is so boring.
Who is he that anyone cares where he is or what he has to say or does?

Nodin

...it's the general principle it raises, rather than Savage specifically.....

oscarBravo

Nodin wrote: »

...it's the general principle it raises, rather than Savage specifically.....

On general principle (in my opinion), the site-wide rule that forbids abuse towards another poster should be extended to forbid abuse towards third parties. And, in reply to the earlier question about the Politics forum, yes: I believe that should extend to politicians as well.

LoLth

Nodin, what general principal are you objecting to? (a legitimate question, I just want to be sure what we are discussing so as to avoid off-topic creep)

that a thread can be removed if the admins/cmods/mods deem it to be damaging to boards.ie

that the admins are considering making a policy that is currently limited to AH sitewide (ie: keep the expression of your opinions on the nicer side of the abuse fence). In fact the only reason its in AH first is because thats where the issue cropped up most notably first. Its been happening on other forums long before AH even existed but eventually the climate changes and what was acceptable once now stands out as being slightly unsavoury.

That the censorship that has always been present on boards.ie as a necessary evil is intended to be refined and applied more evenly

that, while everyone can agree that a celeb insulting boards.ie is not on , we would prefer users to limit their expression of rage and that there has to be a lower limit to what is acceptable on the public forums ? Is this a dual standard? I dont see it that way. If a celeb, or anyone outside of boards.ie for that matter, wants to be abusive and insulting then thats their concern and their public image. If boards.ie users want to express their anger or disgust or rage in a way that is detrimental to boards.ie then I see no problem with that, just make sure its done somewhere where it isnt against the rules (thats preferably not on boards). if boards users want to register their anger, disagreement, opinion on boards then they should do so in a constructive manner that is not abusive or defamatory or slanderous.

we infract/ban boards.ie users for abusing boards.ie users. We infract/ban boards.ie users for abusing boards.ie users that abuse them. At no point along the line is abuse allowed on boards.ie.

has there been abuse in the past? Absolutely there has. some of it from mods and admins and staff and aimed at non-boardsies (I used to have a good rant at taxi drivers in the good ol' days) does that mean we have to accept abuse in the future? ehhh, no. We dont have to. I know I dont particularly want to either.

I think, however, there needs to be some sense of scale brought to this discussion.

No-one, I hope, is suggesting that we replace all of the posters with the denizens of Stepford. I would hate to see a forum where no-one ever complains or disagrees. To me, thats a fan club and its just creepy and unnatural (a bit like those tweens and teens interviewed on TV3 news as they stalked justin Bieber.... soon, they could be boardsies! I think I just gave myself the runs with that thought.....). Disagreement and difference of opinion lead to discussion which leads to learning and evolution of thought and ideals. A high brow way of saying, arguing helps you understand your own and others' opinions. To me, thats what boards.ie is. if I search for a topic, say an upcoming concert and I see a boards.ie link, I like to see the different sides of the discussion so I can get a clearer understanding of how the concert went.

I think Darragh's reference to RTE and the irish times was more to do with quality of content rather than the actual content itself. taking the concert example above:

irish Times:
user 1: I thought the concert was ok, the lighting was a bit strong for my liking and the lead singer was hard to hear sometimes.
user 2: my favourite band ever but I agree there were some issues with sound
user 3: I'm a sound engineer and I was working that night at the concert, yeah, we had major difficulties before the start with two of our feeds but we got it sorted as well as we could. Where were you sitting that you had trouble hearing?
User 4: never mind them. the concert was great. there were no problems with the sound that I could hear.


Tabloid version:
user 1: ****ing great concert. eyes still hurt from the lights and lead singer had some trouble with sound but deadly all the same.
user 2: **** yeah. whoever did the sound was a prick and should be raped repeatedly, i hope they ****ing die in agony for ruining the best band in the world.
user 3: **** you user 2. lets see you do any better. you didnt like it, then **** off and dont bother coming back. you dont know **** about sound engineering so keep your mouth shut moron.
user 4: @1 and 2: STFU whinging pricks. @3 never mind them they're just being whining *****. I thought the concert was great and had no problems with it.
user 2: **** you user 3.
user 3: yore ma!
user 2: eat lolcat!



legal issues:
user 1: went to the concert last night and the sound was ****. those (organisers name) are a rip off. best band in the world deliberately sabotaged by a shower of greedy ****ers too concerned with their own profit margin to hire a sound engineer that knows wtf they're doing.

user 2: yeah, i heard they didnt book the band's usual crew 'cause they didnt want to cover the travel expenses. They always do this, <CEO name> has run that company into the ground since he took over. I reckon he's siphoning the money to an offshore account before he legs it with the lot.

user 3: I did the sound on that show. yeah <CEO> is a tool. He's a real ****er that just annoys the piss out of everyone. when he's not harrassign the secretaries he's too busy trying to get into the lead singer's underage daughter to bother checking the budgets properly. The sound problem was only in certain areas of the arena though, its always in thsoe areas, <organiser> has been told loads of times but they dont want to spend the money to fix it. they're happy to rip punters off.

user 4: we should send letters telling him how much we hate him <CEO personal details>.

user 5: screw that, lets start a DDOS attack on the comapny ticketing server <IP address, details etc> or we could wreck <CEO>'s car. that'll teach him.


ok, very manufactured but I didnt want to use real posts in case I insulted someone

example 1: informative but possibly a little (lot?) stale.
example 2: more entertaining but offputting to read and while funny, wouldnt do much to recommend that I join the forum.
example 3: less said the better.

I would like to see boards at somewhere wavering between a point more laid back that 1 and more polite / less combative than example 2. to me, thats what a discussion forum should be.

just saw that OB replied while I was posting... sorry nodin, dont want you to think we're ganging up or anything.

southsiderosie

oscarBravo wrote: »

On general principle (in my opinion), the site-wide rule that forbids abuse towards another poster should be extended to forbid abuse towards third parties. And, in reply to the earlier question about the Politics forum, yes: I believe that should extend to politicians as well.

OK, but then what constitutes abuse? Because, again, it seems pretty subjective. To go back to the Lenihan example, if I said "Brian Lenihan is a liar and an idiot, and he and his party should be drummed out of office forever", does that constitute abuse? What if I made that statement, and linked to articles where he said the IMF wasn't coming in (when they were checking into their hotels in Dublin) and that the budget was fine (when the figures were obviously fiction)? Then the latter part of that sentence would be an opinion based on an interpretation of actual facts.

Is the difference between abuse and non-abuse hyperlinking? If it is, then we start to get into a world where the fights are over the veracity of information, not people's interpretations of it.

TBH, this whole debate seems like the famous judicial quote about pornography in the US: "I know it when I see it". While boards users may need to have some cop-on, I think I'd rather see on-thread moderation calling for people to tone it down, rather than blanket rules meant to govern civility, especially as the standards of civility vary widely between forums.

AlmightyCushion

LoLth wrote: »

example 1: informative but possibly a little (lot?) stale.
example 2: more entertaining but offputting to read and while funny, wouldnt do much to recommend that I join the forum.
example 3: less said the better.

I would like to see boards at somewhere wavering between a point more laid back that 1 and more polite / less combative than example 2. to me, thats what a discussion forum should be.

What concert was example 3 about again? :pac:

If those three threads were posted in after hours assuming we decided not to move them the mod action would probably be:

In example 3 thread would be deleted or at least those posts would be deleted if there was more non defamatory stuff in the thread. If the thread wasn't deleted, user 4's post would be fine but the personal details would be edited out.
In example 2, user2, user 3 and 4 would get banned for abuse.

Do you think that a thread like example 2 would really sit in after hours with no moderator action taken? Saying that, this would have been the action taken long before the celeb abuse rule would have come into place so I'm struggling to see what it really has to do with the thread.

LoLth

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

What concert was example 3 about again? :pac:

If those three threads were posted in after hours assuming we decided not to move them the mod action would probably be:

In example 3 thread would be deleted or at least those posts would be deleted if there was more non defamatory stuff in the thread. If the thread wasn't deleted, user 4's post would be fine but the personal details would be edited out.
In example 2, user2, user 3 and 4 would get banned for abuse.

Do you think that a thread like example 2 would really sit in after hours with no moderator action taken? Saying that, this would have been the action taken long before the celeb abuse rule would have come into place so I'm struggling to see what it really has to do with the thread.

the examples in that post werent' relatign to After hours. They were just being used to give a more tangible (can that be used for words?) example of the what would be involved in determining what would be abusive, what the tone of a forum would be like under the aim of being "like RTE or the Irish times" as opposed to a tabloid and example three would be my idea of a legally thorny version of the same conversation.

I wasnt saying that AH is any of these three (in fact, the only mention I made of After Hours was that the no celeb abuse rule was first instituted there and even then it was said while clarifying the statement so that users didnt get the impression that I was demeanign AH in some way).

However, your examples of what the mod reactions to those samples would be goes to show that the proposed standard that Darragh mentioned is actually not that far beyond where we are. in fact, I would say that the vast majority of boards.ie users surpass that standard. Its a vocal minority that fall short and unfortunately outsiders looking in are more likely to notice these than they are to notice the majority of helpful, expressive and well considered posts.

This vocal minority is already noticed/acted upon by the mods. if anything, it becoming boards policy would only help the mods perform the actions they already undertake without having to defend the forum charter each time. Instead its a commonly known boards policy that everyone is subject to and not jsut those that post in one forum or another. (with the exception of ranting and Raving, though thats still a bit iffy imho, especially the legal aspect.).

southsiderosie

LoLth wrote: »

However, your examples of what the mod reactions to those samples would be goes to show that the proposed standard that Darragh mentioned is actually not that far beyond where we are. in fact, I would say that the vast majority of boards.ie users surpass that standard. Its a vocal minority that fall short and unfortunately outsiders looking in are more likely to notice these than they are to notice the majority of helpful, expressive and well considered posts.

This vocal minority is already noticed/acted upon by the mods. if anything, it becoming boards policy would only help the mods perform the actions they already undertake without having to defend the forum charter each time. Instead its a commonly known boards policy that everyone is subject to and not jsut those that post in one forum or another. (with the exception of ranting and Raving, though thats still a bit iffy imho, especially the legal aspect.).

Ok, but I still don't understand why the AH policy needs to become the site-wide policy. From what I can tell, standards of decorum in AH are being pulled in the direction of the rest of the site, not vice-versa, so why institute a blanket policy? It is not uncommon to see mods checking users in other forums by saying "this isn't AH", the implication being that standards of civility and discourse are different (i.e. higher, but to be fair to AH, the looser moderation also means that posts are often funnier than in other forums).

As for outsiders looking in, are those outsiders focusing on a specific type of threads? Because I have generally found boards to be FAR more civil and carefully moderated than most other internet chat forums. At the end of the day this is a chat site, not a uni debating society (although one might wonder sometimes in the politics forum...:p).

oscarBravo

southsiderosie wrote: »

OK, but then what constitutes abuse? Because, again, it seems pretty subjective. To go back to the Lenihan example, if I said "Brian Lenihan is a liar and an idiot, and he and his party should be drummed out of office forever", does that constitute abuse? What if I made that statement, and linked to articles where he said the IMF wasn't coming in (when they were checking into their hotels in Dublin) and that the budget was fine (when the figures were obviously fiction)? Then the latter part of that sentence would be an opinion based on an interpretation of actual facts.

There's already a rule in the Politics forum that you're not allowed to accuse someone of lying unless you can demonstrate they knew what they were saying was untrue.

Also, saying that he and his party should be drummed out of office forever is an expression of opinion - it's a firmly-held view, but one expressed in a civil fashion.

Describing him as an idiot is the only part of your example that could be considered abusive, and it's at the tipping point between opinion and abuse.

While boards users may need to have some cop-on, I think I'd rather see on-thread moderation calling for people to tone it down, rather than blanket rules meant to govern civility, especially as the standards of civility vary widely between forums.

That's the question: should we have a baseline standard of civility?

I'm the wrong person to answer the question (although I have my opinions on the subject), because I'm genuinely bewildered that people feel the need to demand the right to offend people in a vitriolic and hateful manner. For me it's a bit like demanding the right to litter.

Wolfe Tone

oscarBravo wrote: »

There's already a rule in the Politics forum that you're not allowed to accuse someone of lying unless you can demonstrate they knew what they were saying was untrue.

Also, saying that he and his party should be drummed out of office forever is an expression of opinion - it's a firmly-held view, but one expressed in a civil fashion.

Describing him as an idiot is the only part of your example that could be considered abusive, and it's at the tipping point between opinion and abuse. That's the question: should we have a baseline standard of civility?

I'm the wrong person to answer the question (although I have my opinions on the subject), because I'm genuinely bewildered that people feel the need to demand the right to offend people in a vitriolic and hateful manner. For me it's a bit like demanding the right to litter.

oscarbravo I have often seen posts labeling not only individual politicians idiots but entire groups idiots in politics. They have never been punished. Do you think they should be? Or is that too far?

oscarBravo

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

oscarbravo I have often seen posts labeling not only individual politicians idiots but entire groups idiots in politics. They have never been punished. Do you think they should be? Or is that too far?

Two things: first, I'm expressing my opinion about the quality of discourse I personally would like to see on this site. I think that, as long as the population of the site feel that they have a gods-given right to be vile and abusive towards other people, it's an exercise in futility punishing posters for describing people as idiots.

Secondly, there's a difference between using a derogatory term to describe a group of people, and singling individuals out for hateful bile.

If "idiot" was the most pejorative term ever used on this site, I don't think we'd be having this conversation.

Wolfe Tone

oscarBravo wrote: »

Two things: first, I'm expressing my opinion about the quality of discourse I personally would like to see on this site. I think that, as long as the population of the site feel that they have a gods-given right to be vile and abusive towards other people, it's an exercise in futility punishing posters for describing people as idiots.

Secondly, there's a difference between using a derogatory term to describe a group of people, and singling individuals out for hateful bile.

If "idiot" was the most pejorative term ever used on this site, I don't think we'd be having this conversation.

You said "idiot" could be considered abuse though. I think it would be too far tbh, and with enforcing civility you run the risk of being too heavy-handed in censoring people.

TheZohanS

So if someone hurls abuse at DMcS they might be leaving the site open to legal action however a group of people cannot take legal action for defamation as was pointed out earlier in the thread...interesting. In that case" all the David McSavages I have ever heard of are idiots" would be acceptable as it's referring to a group of people and Darragh has said the main reason he's worried about abuse is due to legal action.

RDM_83 again

If boards.ie is going to move down this route I feel it would be better that all abuse should not be tolerated rather than simply to those that have the financial means to seek legal action. This is case in point and there is abuse even in the thread title to an individual (and the mods don't seem to have a problem with it). Also consider the way the word knacker is thrown around in certain forums.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056054266&highlight=scumbag

Darragh

And so it continues.

Okay, so what is abuse? Well, I don't think that it's necessary to call someone - anyone - a c*nt. I don't think it's necessary to refer to someone, as in Snyper's examples earlier, saying "so and so is a bignose cnut" or "so and so is a wanker" when you're discussing them or work they did. I suppose in some ways it depends on the forum culture and the tone of the thread, but overall I don't think it adds anything to the conversation, or is necessary and/or more to the point, is something that someone would say to the person face to face.

It's like commenting on the post, not the poster as per our site guidelines.

Legal is a concern, yes, but not solely the primary one. Reputation is as big as abuse. Once again it comes down to what people want the site to be known for, what people want their membership to reflect and what people think of Boards.ie when they hear it. "That site where everyone just abuses everyone" is not particularly the reputation I want, but is, unfortunately, one of the reputations we have.

I realise this is a big change for the site in some respects, but it's one that needs to happen. That's why we're having this debate in public. I realise too I can be shown a few thousand examples of where abuse has gone unchecked but that really does have to stop.

Is there any case someone can make where we SHOULD allow abuse?

TheZohanS

I realise this is a big change for the site in some respects, but it's one that needs to happen. That's why we're having this debate in public. I realise too I can be shown a few thousand examples of where abuse has gone unchecked but that really does have to stop.

Is there any case someone can make where we SHOULD allow abuse?

A change that needs to happen? Says who?

Look at the Feed Forward forum, a lot of it is change for the sake of change bull crap.

The site is what it is and is growing, you don't need to meddle with this.

I can recall a thread being deleted by you Darragh because a competitor of the company mentioned was in negotiations re: advertising.

That's not to run the site, it's a bloody disgrace that the likes of this is going on behind the backs of users.

Wolfe Tone

Darragh wrote: »

And so it continues.

Okay, so what is abuse? Well, I don't think that it's necessary to call someone - anyone - a c*nt. I don't think it's necessary to refer to someone, as in Snyper's examples earlier, saying "so and so is a bignose cnut" or "so and so is a wanker" when you're discussing them or work they did. I suppose in some ways it depends on the forum culture and the tone of the thread, but overall I don't think it adds anything to the conversation, or is necessary and/or more to the point, is something that someone would say to the person face to face.

It's like commenting on the post, not the poster as per our site guidelines.

Legal is a concern, yes, but not solely the primary one. Reputation is as big as abuse. Once again it comes down to what people want the site to be known for, what people want their membership to reflect and what people think of Boards.ie when they hear it. "That site where everyone just abuses everyone" is not particularly the reputation I want, but is, unfortunately, one of the reputations we have.

I realise this is a big change for the site in some respects, but it's one that needs to happen. That's why we're having this debate in public. I realise too I can be shown a few thousand examples of where abuse has gone unchecked but that really does have to stop.

Is there any case someone can make where we SHOULD allow abuse?

Darragh just be honest and say it is about the advertising.

oscarBravo

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Darragh just be honest and say it is about the advertising.

If that's the level this discussion's going to be at, count me out.

Wolfe Tone

oscarBravo wrote: »

If that's the level this discussion's going to be at, count me out.

Thats the distinct impression I am getting, thats my opinion and I am stating it.

copacetic

TheZohan wrote: »

A change that needs to happen? Says who?

Look at the Feed Forward forum, a lot of it is change for the sake of change bull crap.

The site is what it is and is growing, you don't need to meddle with this.

I can recall a thread being deleted by you Darragh because a competitor of the company mentioned was in negotiations re: advertising.

That's not to run the site, it's a bloody disgrace that the likes of this is going on behind the backs of users.

What is a disgrace is when someone takes time to explain in detail where they are coming from and all they get back is a concerted personal attack that appears to have nothing to do with the important topic being discussed.