Why are people closing/deleting their accounts?

Wibbs

OutlawPete wrote: »

I don't think that even touched the reasons why people are leaving.

I'd still reckon its the bones of it OLP. Tide goes in tide goes out kinda thing, people leave, others stay, others join.

Yea it could well be a personal frustration but born of many mothers. Not liking how the site has changed for someone over the years would be one I'm sure. It's a different site in a couple of areas since I joined in the mid noughties. In both good and not so good ways too(personally speaking). Or things that irked a little before reach a point where someone goes feck it. Or simple boredom too. Or just moving on. There are a couple of forums I used to read and post in the odd time, that I'd very very rarely post in now. For me they've changed and for me not in a good way*. Cool beans. I just go elsewhere on Boards or other sites that suit me. Other forums have much improved on the other side of the coin. People may not even leave entirely but retreat to personal forums and the communities within. Probably a side effect of it getting bigger. Or closing one account with baggage/history and starting afresh(that I can imagine happening more) There could be all sorts of reasons for the decision. Which is cool too. The only time I would be personally concerned is if there was a numerous, global and singular reason behind those leaving and that part I'm not seeing. I could well be missing it mind.

Although, I get the feeling if people did start discussing why users have left recently, they would soon be silenced.

I dunno O. While I've had my issues with some aspects of how things were done around here, both privately and publicly, one thing I'll give this site is I was never silenced for having those opinions. Blackballed and/or quietly mumbled about maybe, silenced no. So long as it's not dragged down into dogged stalemate or down to the personal I'd be very surprised if any silencing went on.






* for me a big change has been the increase in a couple of places of more opinion masquerading as fact and unchallenged as such. Once was the time when anything odd or out there was immediately responded to with "Links or GTFO". It was more informative because of it IMHO. More generally uninformed demographic? I've no idea.

later12

Wibbs wrote: »

I agree L, but by inputting/displaying/publishing their musings online on a public forum, any public forum anywhere, they have to understand that "owning their words" is a very grey area indeed.

IANAL, but I'm not convinced that it is a grey area. If you publish a book, or publish a blog, then you very much do own your words, and your work is your intellectual property. This is why college students have to sign waivers to allow their examinations essays to be used for demonstrative purposes, for example.

IIRC Darragh, Dav and the office had this discussion re the Photography and create writing forums and like the T&C states the stuff can't be used by Boards except for the purposes of well... being Boards. The user still retains ownership, copyright I guess?

But it would appear that the license that a user grants to boards.ie to sublicense the material is possibly contradicting that. The sublicense aspect is perhaps the most curious aspect, because I'm not sure why it is necessary.

A user who uploads his or her personal work ought to also bear in mind that boards.ie 'reserves the right to change the terms of use at any time', although I'm unsure how successful that could be.

Again, this is not something that bothers me personally. I'm just speaking specifically in relation to the ownership and the sublicensing of specific and original work which users may want to share on a iimited basis, but who may not be aware of threads like this with one admin suggesting that boards owns our words, and the T&Cs saying something else, but not very clearly...

Wibbs

later10 wrote: »

IANAL, but I'm not convinced that it is a grey area.

It's not to a point. What I'm really suggesting I suppose is that on the internet it's very much a grey area in a practical sense. Like I said I'd not publish stuff online I was too attached to or worried someone else may steal it and claim it as their own.

CDfm

Wibbs wrote: »

It's not to a point. What I'm really suggesting I suppose is that on the internet it's very much a grey area in a practical sense. Like I said I'd not publish stuff online I was too attached to or worried someone else may steal it and claim it as their own.

copyright law is ancient and Irish

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Copyright, which set the universal precedent, can be traced to 6th Century Celtic Ireland. It is contained in a judgement of Diarmaid, High King of Ireland – the legal equivalent of today’s Supreme Court – in his finding against the Christian missionary Columba, founder of monastic rule, later canonised as Saint Columcille, who had become and incorrigible plagiarist.(The very same St.Columba that settled in Iona in Scotland).[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Columcille had taken to visiting monasteries, borrowing books from their libraries and having his own monks copy them for him to distribute. At one stage, a certain Abbot, on hearing that Columcille was on his way to visit, buried his complete library in the Orchard, provoking the frustrated Columcille to put a curse on the monastery![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]It should be remembered that it was the Christian missionaries who had brought the written word to Ireland. Writing was seen by the people of the time as a very powerful new technology, the equivalent of the computer now. Columcille’s activities could be seen in modern times as the equivalent of his distributing pirated copies of MS-DOS or Windows for free.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Finally, St Finian of Clonard objected to Columcille – a former pupil – plagiarizing his prized Latin Psalter, and pleaded for a definitive judgement on the problem from the High King.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Ireland was then, as now, an agricultural society and one of the native Brehon Laws of the time related to the ownership of animals found wan[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]“ As to every Cow its Calf, so to every Book its Copy”.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]dering. The very reasonable rule of law was that a calf, wherever it might be found, belonged to its mother, wherever that cow was kept.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The High King took that well-founded legal precedent and extended it in his famous judgement against Columcille thus:[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]“ As to every Cow its Calf, so to every Book its Copy”.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]It must also be remembered that at the time, paper and printing had yet to be invented, so that books had to be laboriously hand-copied onto Vellum; it was common knowledge that vellum was manufactured from treated calf-hide, rendering the High King’s judgement doubly apposite in his choice of illustration.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]That elegantly simple judgement is the earliest known record in history of the legal enunciation of the concept of Copyright and all Laws of Copyright ever since, throughout the world, differ only in detail from the Irish Original. That judgement gave us the inspiration for our logo which is the horns of a cow and calf in a celtic style.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]http://www.copyrightprotection.com/history.htm
[/FONT]

A very simple concept

later10 wrote: »

Again, this is not something that bothers me personally. I'm just speaking specifically in relation to the ownership and the sublicensing of specific and original work which users may want to share on a iimited basis, but who may not be aware of threads like this with one admin suggesting that boards owns our words, and the T&Cs saying something else, but not very clearly...

In Marketing and Sales,if you have a simple offer in plain english then the courts look at the plain english version.

Wibbs wrote: »

There are a couple of forums I used to read and post in the odd time, that I'd very very rarely post in now. For me they've changed and for me not in a good way*. Cool beans. I just go elsewhere on Boards or other sites that suit me. Other forums have much improved on the other side of the coin. People may not even leave entirely but retreat to personal forums and the communities within. Probably a side effect of it getting bigger. Or closing one account with baggage/history and starting afresh(that I can imagine happening more) There could be all sorts of reasons for the decision. Which is cool too. The only time I would be personally concerned is if there was a numerous, global and singular reason behind those leaving and that part I'm not seeing. I could well be missing it mind.

Very analytical Wibbs ; "on-line" is a very mixed bag and boards is not immune.

Some on-line communities have professional admins & mods nowadays but that is not the boards model. And for all the reasons you mentioned an on-line community is not a constant. But boards.ie is also part of the daft.ie business that is profit driven and sells advertising and that is a hugely competitive business.

So I see boards a bit differently to long term boards.ie's

I am just watching some Vintage WCW wrestling on the telly Flyin Brian and the sheer panto fun of it. Thats gotta hurt & but its entertainment.

And community boards are a bit the same.

AckwelFoley

The way i look at it is simple.

Boards.ie is the publisher.

If i write a book and its published, i cant unpublish it once its on the shelves.


If i make sordid statements in my book i along with the publisher are responsible.

In relation to boards, if i make comments about a personality, boards tends to get in bother, if i make comments that shame myself only or are likely to do, its i who is responsible for that

Simples

CDfm

Insect Overlord wrote: »

Frank Kelly.

I heard Father Jack was based on Wibbs

Pics or DFAG

Wibbs

snyper wrote: »

The way i look at it is simple.

Boards.ie is the publisher.

If i write a book and its published, i cant unpublish it once its on the shelves.

Not quite S. Paper based books have been withdrawn from bookshelves after they were printed and shipped. A bit after the horse has bolted mind, but it has happened. The digital world is somewhat different, in that it's easier to "unpublish" after the fact. Remember Amazon removing books already bought from peoples kindles? It is "easy" to remove a posters content. Easy being a relative term of course as it would ruin the flow and be a pain in the arse. It will exist in google caches, backups and the like. But it can be unpublished on this site.

If i make sordid statements in my book i along with the publisher are responsible.

In relation to boards, if i make comments about a personality, boards tends to get in bother, if i make comments that shame myself only or are likely to do, its i who is responsible for that

True boards is the one in the firing line with that.

old_aussie

When one closes their account, do all their posts disappear?

Wolfe Tone

old_aussie wrote: »

When one closes their account, do all their posts disappear?

No. Just says "closed account" under your username.

iPlop

I'm closing my account when my subscription runs out at the end of the year, or maybe before then. We'll see how it goes.


I'm not closing it because of anything negative on boards, I just think it's time:) I might come back, and probably will but with a clean slate, don't get me wrong I don't have a huge list of bans or infractions, I've just grown tired of the account I have.

metrovelvet

I think it has something to do with 'closure', that annoying 1990s expectation everyone has for everything in their life now..so they can 'move on.'

Tidy minds and all that.

CDfm

Wibbs wrote: »

True boards is the one in the firing line with that.

So boards has a joint interest in the same way a newspaper publisher would with a columnist and an " editors" responsibility as the mediums owner diseminating the posts.

Can we roll back a bit - boards often mod posts and threads more like "community boards" ie just say for example we take tLL ,as a group that may have a style that is not to disimilar to what Womens Aid would have if they operated a " Hosted Community" Forum on boards. ( I am only using tLL as we both are familiar with it - I could have said Vegetarian's and Vegans ).

So while we have you on a roll -it would be great to hear how forum styles are arrived at. TGC isn't the polar opposite of TLL -though some users often hoped it would be.

(When I posted on boards first - I couldn't see the difference -but there are lots of reasons why given that it is an Irish site that you would not have the same offering that you would get in a much larger market like the USA or even Austrailia and how it is a bit of a hybrid)

So I can see how an original boardsie might see it when boards was small and how it may have evolved and as newish users we might see what is resistance to change by boards ( read admins and mods).

AckwelFoley

Wibbs wrote: »

Not quite S. Paper based books have been withdrawn from bookshelves after they were printed and shipped. A bit after the horse has bolted mind, but it has happened. The digital world is somewhat different, in that it's easier to "unpublish" after the fact. Remember Amazon removing books already bought from peoples kindles? It is "easy" to remove a posters content. Easy being a relative term of course as it would ruin the flow and be a pain in the arse. It will exist in google caches, backups and the like. But it can be unpublished on this site.

True boards is the one in the firing line with that.

Ah, yea i know the actual differences, i was just merely comparing the 2 as a way of where and how to draw a line in the sand.