****Change to Charter-Please Read****

hatrickpatrick

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

90% of the threads are clearly about politics, so are clear cut. Of course there are the grey areas. We will have to take those on a case by case basis. As I said earlier if anyone one is unsure, ask and we will figure something out.



This isnt something we decided over a short time. We looked at the forum over the last few years and felt it was something that was turning AH into something it was never meant to be. We left this thread open so people could question the change. It's new terrority for us all.

Why do you disagree with the change?

The bolded part is why, for me. What exactly is AH "intended" to be? Shouldn't that be defined by how people use it? It's unlike other forums in that it doesn't have a defined topic, so shouldn't it primarily be up to its users to shape what it becomes rather than having ever more restrictions imposed on it by mods?
What exactly will be allowed once this is all over? AH has been getting gradually more restrictive over the last number of years and is no longer the fun, relaxed place it once was. I won't name any names, but as an avid user of both Politics and AH, I'd actually say that mods on AH are now more uptight than Politics mods. This isn't how AH once was and in my view, that goes more against what this forum is meant to be than any trend with regard to what people are posting in it.

To put it another way, how are you defining political threads as some kind of "problem"? Are they being consistently marked for moderation? If the user base doesn't have any problem with it, then how exactly is it a problem?

To give you an analogy, most forums on Boards are like gates communities, while AH has always been more like a town square. Do we really want to turn it into the kind of town square where hardly anyone is allowed to do anything?

Legs.Eleven

I think you're going to have a difficult time deciding what falls under "political".

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

forgotten password

tldr;

forgotten password

Chucken wrote: »

Nobody visits The Cuckoos Nest

We can be zany and hilarious too.

ya bring back the count to a million thread , we were on 200 and something thousand

Nodin

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Really? I only recall one thread that was started with a "pro" Sinn Fein OP recently.

Nor were you forced to read or participate in any of them.

Peregrine

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

I think you're going to have a difficult time deciding what falls under "political".

Same. The way I see it, most social issues that gets discussed in AH are very much intertwined with politics and often turns into a political debate.

Lone Stone

By the same train of thought, you should move lets all laugh at people with depression thread to personal issues or the long term health forum. Along with a million other topics that are going to pop up most likely.

hatrickpatrick

Lone Stone wrote: »

By the same train of thought, you should move lets all laugh at people with depression thread to personal issues or the long term health forum. Along with a million other topics that are going to pop up most likely.

Underlining a thread title when it's not actually a link?
Some men... Just want to watch the world burn.

Neyite

Lone Stone wrote: »

By the same train of thought, you should move lets all laugh at people with depression thread to personal issues or the long term health forum. Along with a million other topics that are going to pop up most likely.

Personal Issues is not a discussion forum so it would probably better suited to LTI perhaps?

Neyite

Neyite wrote: »

Personal Issues is not a discussion forum so it would probably better suited to LTI perhaps?

There's already a similar thread in LTI.

Davarus Walrus

I think this is a really good idea. AH really has gone to hell recently. Most of the threads invariably end up with Shinnerbot 15, a libertarian who more than likely lives with his parents, Common Sense Liberal Stereotype, and a couple of student socialists arguing about semantics and 'whataboutery'. And I'd rather pop my eyes out with a teaspoon than have to see a first page filled with those type of threads.

MadsL

Davarus Walrus wrote: »

. AH really has gone to hell recently.

If I had a dollar for every time I have heard this in the past 11 years.
I'm sure it has gone to hell since Jan 2014...mind, it was fantastic in Dec 2013!

Not a big fan of this move to be honest, there is a very different style of debate in Politics. Politics Cafe is a bit of a tumbleweed forum (four threads with replies today) and I really don't see it getting the traffic.

Plus I think you run into the usual arbitrary nature of deciding what is a political thread. I have had spirited debate on turfcutters and gun control in the US, they are both 'political' issues. I don't see the need to move those threads either to Politics Cafe or Farming and Shooting for that matter.

Beefy78

Can someone just confirm where this year's Poppy thread will go please?

Thanks.

Overheal

MadsL wrote: »

If I had a dollar for every time I have heard this in the past 11 years.
I'm sure it has gone to hell since Jan 2014...mind, it was fantastic in Dec 2013!

It's always new users who say it too :pac:

you all have it easy. long gone are the days of rampant cronyism, cliques, bigotry, and most of all drunk mods banning people in the middle of the night threads for the lols. Not in any particular order. Speaking of which you aren't subjected to partial nudity either.

some or all of the above statement may be true.

evolving_doors

Davarus Walrus wrote: »

I think this is a really good idea. AH really has gone to hell recently. Most of the threads invariably end up with Shinnerbot 15, a libertarian who more than likely lives with his parents, Common Sense Liberal Stereotype, and a couple of student socialists arguing about semantics and 'whataboutery'. And I'd rather pop my eyes out with a teaspoon than have to see a first page filled with those type of threads.

Have you tried blasting it with pi**...

But seriously though... I think AH hasn't gone to hell enough lately..

I think we should leave things as is though.. The mods will be bumping into each other asking "Is this political or not?" then you will have posters asking "where's the thread gone?".

Ya sure... try it out for a while but my bets are that it'll be back.

Nobody really knows what AH is.. but that's its main attraction. If you say AH is definitely NOT politics or anything politically related then yissr on a hiding to nothing...

Black Swan

Armelodie wrote: »

The mods will be bumping into each other asking "Is this political or not?"

The AH mods have done a grand job so far methinks. They are really easy to work with too. Very helpful, and more importantly, they care.

Armelodie wrote: »

then you will have posters asking "where's the thread gone?".

Move Thread and Leave Expiring Redirect: 1-week. Problem solved.

evolving_doors

Black Swan wrote: »

The AH mods have done a grand job so far methinks. They are really easy to work with too. Very helpful, and more importantly, they care.

Ya sure they do indeed do a good job in an 'eclectic' forum such as AH and I don't envy their job. But wouldn;t they be throwing the baby out with the bathwater by chucking all the 'political' content out.

Have a look at the last 14 posts I just captured.. eight of which could be easily classed as 'Political' in some way.

So that would be over 50% of the AH traffic gone! Is that what folk want...
After Hours - boards.ie-1.jpg

Black Swan

Armelodie wrote: »

Have a look at the last 14 posts I just captured.. eight of which could be easily classed as 'Political' in some way.

The AH and Politics mods, with Dav's guidance and help, have had many discussions about this issue. We are working very well together. Some OPs are clearly political, some are clearly not, while some fall into the grey area in between. Good mods know how to exercise their discretion when making decisions. The AH mods are smart. Thus far the moves they have made to Politics Café appear good. Sure, someday they may move a grey area thread or two, but it won't break AH, the lead forum on boards with almost 5 million posts (4,891,118).

Nodin

Black Swan wrote: »

The AH and Politics mods, with Dav's guidance and help, have had many discussions about this issue. We are working very well together. Some OPs are clearly political, some are clearly not, while some fall into the grey area in between. Good mods know how to exercise their discretion when making decisions. The AH mods are smart. Thus far the moves they have made to Politics Café appear good. Sure, someday they may move a grey area thread or two, but it won't break AH, the lead forum on boards with almost 5 million posts (4,891,118).

....so was it a Fuhrer decree? Rather explains the "we've done this, lets chat pointlessly about it" thread.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Hitchens

another problem is that AH has been modded to death, and yet there are a certain few 'pet' knob-heads who are allowed to say anything they like

is it ok to give a donation, btw?

Nodin

Hitchens wrote: »

another problem is that AH has been modded to death, and yet there are a certain few 'pet' knob-heads who are allowed to say anything they like

is it ok to give a donation, btw?

See, that's the kind of vague waffle that causes any sort of feedback thread to descend into chaos.

1 - Name the "certain few 'pet' knob-heads.

2 - Give links and quotes to/of examples of what you claim.

Micky Dolenz

Nodin wrote: »

....so was it a Fuhrer decree? Rather explains the "we've done this, lets chat pointlessly about it" thread.

You may just have to face the fact that most people are in favour of change. This thread alone would indicate that. It's been open a week and only a handful of people are not in favour.

We can't make everyone happy and we will never try.

hatrickpatrick

The ice cream thread is exactly the kind of "political" thread which shouldn't have been moved IMO. It's only vaguely political and is far more social / ripping the piss, which is what AH used to be all about before mods decided to try and change it into something it never was.

Nodin

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

You may just have to face the fact that most people are in favour of change. This thread alone would indicate that. It's been open a week and only a handful of people are not in favour.

We can't make everyone happy and we will never try.

Seeing as the decision has been made beforehand behind closed doors, many would wonder why bother arguing a fait accompli.

Maphisto

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

You may just have to face the fact that most people are in favour of change. This thread alone would indicate that. It's been open a week and only a handful of people are not in favour.

Mick there have 77 replies, I'd imagine the rest haven't seen it, haven't thought about it, or couldn't be bothered.

We can't make everyone happy and we will never try.

You'll be in trouble with O'Leary if you start stealing their motto.

Micky Dolenz

Nodin wrote: »

Seeing as the decision has been made beforehand behind closed doors, many would wonder why bother arguing a fait accompli.

This thread isn't a group discussion on if we should make a change.
We made the decision based on many feedback threads and other information. The change was going to happen, this thread was to answer the why and when and maybe work through the more grey issues.

Nodin

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

This thread isn't a group discussion on if we should make a change. .

Yeah. Which again begs the question why a thread at all. If you want to give the appearance of consultation, its always best to start the thread before going ahead with something.

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

We made the decision based on many feedback threads and other information. The change was going to happen, this thread was to answer the why and when and maybe work through the more grey issues.

Which translates to what I said earlier "the decision has been made beforehand behind closed doors". As a result, nobody outside of those doors has any notion of why the decision was taken, and no statement made about it out here is provable.

Wibbs

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

The bolded part is why, for me. What exactly is AH "intended" to be? Shouldn't that be defined by how people use it?

That ship has sailed on a number of forums, particularly those with decent traffic. Where once the community had more say, or things were at least more organic, more freewheeling, now it's much more top down, "safe", more "middle management" thinking and action and detachment(and that even includes the middle management speak). A feeling of we're not really sure what some forums are for.

Boards has long been accused of being moderator heavy and in the past I nearly always disagreed with that viewpoint and IMHO I think I was right. Today I'm not nearly so sure, or at least in some areas. We're being corralled more and more and we've become more isolated within the groups and titles. Not just users, that goes for the mods and admins too. It's become internally cultural as a way of thinking and doing. Which is kinda weird given all of us, save literally a handful of people, are volunteers here of our own desire as users, mods, cmods, admins.

This change IMH? Translation: Boards is losing the numbers game in the last 18 months. Traffic is down. Not by that much, but the wave has crested. After Hours is the gateway forum, the most popular and populous forum of all. Let's try and spread that popularity into other forums and hope it takes root elsewhere.

This community and all the communities on Boards grew into the great communities they are organically with the odd measured move at the tiller. Forcing that tiller against the flow will work for a while, or appear to work, but there will come a point where it'll stop working. Too many forums will dilute the userbase further(and there are too many forums, a huge amount of which are driven by less than three people). People will simply start to look elsewhere.

How you will see that coming is not from any protest. What is often missed is that protest shows folks actually care. Care enough about what they want to see in a community sense. When people mumble, but pretty much ignore changes, because they come to expect such changes from the top down, or go with the flow, when people stop bitching, then that's when you start to really lose them and their attachments and that's when a community is strapping on the water skis and preparing to jump the shark.

Plus where does this end? A large chunk of the threads in AH would comfortably sit in the humanities forum(as we speak that forum is looking to revamp in a effort to gather more users, so...). Others would sit in Celebrities/Film/TV/Sport/Spirituality/Humour/Animals & pets/Gentlemans club/Ladies lounge/etc[Apply or delete as applicable]. Then what have you got left in AH? Blasting with piss and your ma stylee is out anyway(thankfully).

I'll gaze into my crystal ball and bet that the majority of threads moved will die a death, or fade away as a discussion between two people who were invested enough to follow the redirect. Little interest will be generated elsewhere and those who wanted to post on such topics in AH will after a while learn to not bother. Everyone and everywhere loses. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong. Let's see.


Me? For my sins, I still hold quite the loyalty to Boards.ie and the After Hours forum would be a goodly chunk of that and I do hope it works out and I'll still keep posting my flavour of bullshíte for ye all to laugh at.




PS Over the years I've noted a snooty attitude among some towards After Hours. It wasn't "high brow" enough for the same some. Well the After Hours of today is so much more intelligent, involved, informative and more engaging thanks to the community and mods here and now it seems this needs to be diluted to try and spread that elsewhere?

strobe

Could Distilled not just buy out politics.ie, no?

Nodin

strobe wrote: »

Could Distilled not just buy out politics.ie, no?

?

evolving_doors

strobe wrote: »

Could Distilled not just buy out politics.ie, no?

Agree with all wibbs said, although i'd still be open enough to give it a go... But if it fails could we move the politics forum under AH !!

LuckyLloyd

Nodin wrote: »

Seeing as the decision has been made beforehand behind closed doors, many would wonder why bother arguing a fait accompli.

That's where I am anyway. Just note that it's a poor decision and move on because arguing won't change the decision. I also can't express my thoughts in as eloquent fashion as Wibbs unfortunately so I'd be wasting my time to some extent anyway.

Hande hoche!

Would have liked to see the AH perspective on developments in Iraq.

Nodin

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

That's where I am anyway. Just note that it's a poor decision and move on because arguing won't change the decision. I also can't express my thoughts in as eloquent fashion as Wibbs unfortunately so I'd be wasting my time to some extent anyway.

A bad idea, badly carried out.

Maphisto

AH is light hearted, not too serious, with the odd flare up of tempers (me included) on sensitive or emotive issues, a bit like in a busy pub where we all knew each other.

Occassionally the publican, a big strong ugly looking man, has to step in and stop serving some people that have had a little too much. Sometimes when they start wrecking the place he kicks them out.

But all of this is great banter and kind of why we come to this pub. Now if we can't discuss sport (not that I want to - I admire those who do); can't discuss politics (I don't always want to but its nice to have the choice); can't have our Olympic RCC bashing events - doesn't AH reduce itself to "Are your farts worse than anyone else's" threads. No doubt fun in their place but is that the intention?

Nodin

Maphisto wrote: »

AH is light hearted, not too serious, with the odd flare up of tempers (me included) on sensitive or emotive issues, a bit like in a busy pub where we all knew each other.

Occassionally the publican, a big strong ugly looking man, has to step in and stop serving some people that have had a little too much. Sometimes when they start wrecking the place he kicks them out.

But all of this is great banter and kind of why we come to this pub. Now if we can't discuss sport (not that I want to - I admire those who do); can't discuss politics (I don't always want to but its nice to have the choice); can't have our Olympic RCC bashing events - doesn't AH reduce itself to "Are your farts worse than anyone else's" threads. No doubt fun in their place but is that the intention?

It's certainly going to be the cumulative affect.

Lone Stone

yep already a big chunk of stuff i use to read on here down the drain, feck all to read on after hours now and no i shant be going to the cafe i cant be arsed its basically dead over there. Really a bad move, way to kill the conversation.

Overheal

Lone Stone wrote: »

yep already a big chunk of stuff i use to read on here down the drain, feck all to read on after hours now and no i shant be going to the cafe i cant be arsed its basically dead over there. Really a bad move, way to kill the conversation.

Frankly does it matter where the conversation is?

I get that After Hours is convenient, being the first link under rec and all, but forum subscription makes that a non-issue. I subscribe to 8 different tech forums, so it really doesn't matter which of those someone wants to start a thread, it will get read. Similarly I have 3 politics forum subscribed.

Nodin

Overheal wrote: »

Frankly does it matter where the conversation is?

............

Given the current traffic in the café/politics v what it would be in AH, it would seem to, to a lot a lot of people.

Overheal

Nodin wrote: »

Given the current traffic in the café/politics v what it would be in AH, it would seem to, to a lot a lot of people.

Thats kind of irrelevant isnt it? There is so much signal to noise in AH that I never read a fraction of it anyway. Interesting threads that become sadly predictable: 1 opening page of sweeping statements and thanks whoring, a couple pages of late-comers with their "wow chop their testicles off" commentary and by the time the thread has aged 6-12 hours its become the same 3-4 posters sniping at each other over the most inane bs you'd ever heard. Or, similarly, an otherwise "pleasant" thread will escalate to abortions and hitler by the end of the business day.

How many people honestly sat there, saw a thread about how it's 17 degrees outside and say well sh*t I better get a cuppa tea and read all 200 of these posts?

I don't see how the traffic in AH is seen as a bonus, it makes it impossible to read the content. There are over 60 threads that are both active and been posted in within the last 24 hours. I'm sure a Mod of the forum can actually humor me with the actual postcount metrics. Thats multiple pages of threads to sift through, and it seems like to better serve the people reading and contributing that you would filter a lot of that out into proper channels no?

Maphisto

Overheal wrote: »

I don't see how the traffic in AH is seen as a bonus, it makes it impossible to read the content. There are over 60 threads that are both active and been posted in within the last 24 hours. I'm sure a Mod of the forum can actually humor me with the actual postcount metrics. Thats multiple pages of threads to sift through, and it seems like to better serve the people reading and contributing that you would filter a lot of that out into proper channels no?

You do know that this is only an internet forum? We're not doing anything other than chewing the cud. Dev hasn't just reorganised the cabinet.

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

We can't make everyone happy and we will never try.

I'll say no more.

Nodin

Overheal wrote: »

Thats kind of irrelevant isnt it? There is so much signal to noise in AH that I never read a fraction of it anyway. Interesting threads that become sadly predictable: 1 opening page of sweeping statements and thanks whoring, a couple pages of late-comers with their "wow chop their testicles off" commentary and by the time the thread has aged 6-12 hours its become the same 3-4 posters sniping at each other over the most inane bs you'd ever heard. Or, similarly, an otherwise "pleasant" thread will escalate to abortions and hitler by the end of the business day.

How many people honestly sat there, saw a thread about how it's 17 degrees outside and say well sh*t I better get a cuppa tea and read all 200 of these posts? ?

Doesn't bother me that much. Theres a reporting system for what strays outside the line. Plus I go where the thread is, which isn't the case for a lot of people.

Overheal wrote: »

I don't see how the traffic in AH is seen as a bonus, it makes it impossible to read the content. There are over 60 threads that are both active and been posted in within the last 24 hours. I'm sure a Mod of the forum can actually humor me with the actual postcount metrics. Thats multiple pages of threads to sift through, and it seems like to better serve the people reading and contributing that you would filter a lot of that out into proper channels no?

Well they fund this site through advertising and that requires traffic......less traffic, less revenue. At some stage things become terminal and that's the end of that.

Secondly there's the whole notion of 'if its not broke, why make a balls of it'

El Guapo!

Overheal wrote: »

...I'm sure a Mod of the forum can actually humor me with the actual postcount metrics.....

Over 1300 posts in the last 24hrs.
Pretty quiet compared to usual. :pac:

Lone Stone

Overheal wrote: »

Frankly does it matter where the conversation is?

Yes

Overheal

Lone Stone wrote: »

Yes

why

kneemos

Overheal wrote: »

why

Apparently people ain't that interested in politics.Maybe it's more about the conversation than the subject.

Overheal

kneemos wrote: »

Apparently people ain't that interested in politics.Maybe it's more about the conversation than the subject.

In that case no need to get bent out of shape if any discussion will do. Carry on with bemoaning the sub 20C weather

Wibbs

Overheal wrote: »

Frankly does it matter where the conversation is?

It depends OH. If you look to subdivide and categorise conversation not so much and that's cool, it's the nature of a website/forum like Boards. It starts off with a few forums and then conversations get categorised and forums are formed and all that. Again that's great. It means folks can have a choice of where to talk about a particular subject.

However I'd also look at how the conversation, or some conversations form in the first place. In a way After Hours is, more, has become a victim of its own success. In the good/bad[delete as applicable] old days AH was the "joke forum", the relaxed, who cares forum. The forum looked upon sniffily by many. Over the years that has been tackled by the community and the mods. Piss blasting your ma went out, as did overt sexism, as did all sorts of other guff common in the earlier days. That has been a major improvement and the externally sniffy got a little less sniffy, but in a way this has come back to bite a little.

Now the forum is general and a little jokey and much more relevant and has the biggest audience on Boards.ie and that snuck up on some and some are wondering how to translate that into now dead, or dying forums like Humanities, the Politics cafe and no doubt others. There are a fair few very popular and generalistic enough forums hereabouts that have maybe 30-40 at most people actually driving the forum(and more than a few with significantly fewer than that). If they left the forums would die. In After Hours that figure would be more like a couple of hundred and it's more a rolling figure.

Like I said the real improvements that have happened to After Hours have made it a victim of its own success.

I get that After Hours is convenient, being the first link under rec and all, but forum subscription makes that a non-issue. I subscribe to 8 different tech forums, so it really doesn't matter which of those someone wants to start a thread, it will get read. Similarly I have 3 politics forum subscribed.

I do similar, however I don't assume others do. I would suspect that more just dive in at random, or have maybe two or three forums subscribed. Indeed I'd bet the farm a fair number reading this even are wondering how to subscribe.

Overheal wrote: »

Thats kind of irrelevant isnt it? There is so much signal to noise in AH that I never read a fraction of it anyway. Interesting threads that become sadly predictable:

TBH O, you could say that of many the forum, or at least certain touchstone subjects within same. IMH and IME the main difference with AH is in volume, the tune is pretty simlar.

I don't see how the traffic in AH is seen as a bonus, it makes it impossible to read the content. There are over 60 threads that are both active and been posted in within the last 24 hours. I'm sure a Mod of the forum can actually humor me with the actual postcount metrics. Thats multiple pages of threads to sift through, and it seems like to better serve the people reading and contributing that you would filter a lot of that out into proper channels no?

True. And there are forums you can do that in, where the traffic volume and posting speed is lesser. I suppose it's a personal thing too O. EG I much prefer more voices in the room, I prefer more volume and opinions flying all over the shop, so AH type threads appeal more to my personality, Then again I'm all stream of consciousness/bullshíte at high speed looking for the diamond in the rough that makes me go either "WTF, GTFO, or No way, didn't know that, cool. Put it another way I rattled this guff out in under 6 minutes. No brains got in the way.