Opening of the Soccer Forum for the World Cup?

gandalf

Hi All, I decided to post here rather than the Helpdesk because I do think this is more of a general feedback.

I do believe that the opening of the soccer forum has been done with the best intentions but one day into the event it is obvious that you are going to have a troll-fest there. I suspect this may be happening from posters who have been banned from there in the past and who are signing up with new accounts just to troll the forum. Either way I fully expect the noise to signal ratio to shoot up there over the next couple of weeks.

There is a very good community of users who are regulars on the forum. With this action I believe you are putting the community at risk for short term gain (or less short term pain from complaints that people can't post there).

Unless boards is prepared to massively increase the moderator bandwidth in the forum over the next few weeks of the tournament I believe the opening of the forum should be revoked. It's unfair to the existing users who make the forum what it is for all the other weeks when there is no major tournament on and it is certainly unfair on the forum moderators (and I know what they have to go through during these times as well!).

Any thoughts on this Dav?

Kunkka

A return of SOS shouting on Uruguay would be fairly epic.

Snatchy

+1

seamus

gandalf wrote: »

Either way I fully expect the noise to signal ratio to shoot up there over the next couple of weeks.

Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy really though. More traffic will create more noise, that's kind of inevitable, quality as well as quantity needs to be measured.

One thing you're probably overlooking is the fact that most trolling comes from the partisan, "My foreign club that I have zero cultural attachment to is better than your foreign club" kind of stuff. Which doesn't really exist in a World Cup.

There is a very good community of users who are regulars on the forum. With this action I believe you are putting the community at risk for short term gain (or less short term pain from complaints that people can't post there).

It depends I guess on how much pain you think there's going to be.
Of course the intention here is that when someone asks, "Where can I discuss the World Cup online" and finds boards.ie, that they can actually do so rathr than being rejected by Soccer's access rules. But you would imagine the balance to be struck is between the benefit to the forum (and the site as a whole) in allowing that discussion to take place, or turning away potentially thousands of new users *and* having the soccer mods inundated with access requests from people who only want to use the forum for one month every four years.

Ultimately the vision I presume is that 99% of those who will come onto the forum, will do so to talk World Cup. And when it's over, they'll be gone again.

You could set up a separate forum for the duration of the World Cup, but what then? Ban all world cup discussion from the main forum? It seems to me like the most reasonable decision to just lift the turnstiles for a month, then close them again afterwards. This will result in the least amount of work for the mods and the most benefit to everyone because everyone gets to talk World Cup, while they're interested in it.

it is certainly unfair on the forum moderators (and I know what they have to go through during these times as well!).

You hardly think they just went and imposed this on the mods without looking for their opinions?

Lovely Bloke

seamus wrote: »

You hardly think they just went and imposed this on the mods without looking for their opinions?

No-one said that, but there was a Feedback thread in the SF recently, and it was not raised in there.

It's a content-generating stunt, nothing more, nothing less.

It's been pretty clear for years that the forum is a thorn in the side of the heirarchy (since 2004 when it was actually closed, you'll remember) and they'd rather it didn't exist, so this move by the office to open it up like this and shout about it is weird.

gandalf

seamus wrote: »

Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy really though. More traffic will create more noise, that's kind of inevitable, quality as well as quantity needs to be measured.

Well at the moment more crud seems to be appearing and not an awful lot more posts? Of course you guys are in a better position to check the stats.

One thing you're probably overlooking is the fact that most trolling comes from the partisan, "My foreign club that I have zero cultural attachment to is better than your foreign club" kind of stuff. Which doesn't really exist in a World Cup.

Not at all but opening to forum to all and sundry doesn't guarantee that they will only be posting about the World Cup. In fact it seems that they are heading straight into the team threads just as much if not more than the WC threads.

It depends I guess on how much pain you think there's going to be.
Of course the intention here is that when someone asks, "Where can I discuss the World Cup online" and finds boards.ie, that they can actually do so rathr than being rejected by Soccer's access rules. But you would imagine the balance to be struck is between the benefit to the forum (and the site as a whole) in allowing that discussion to take place, or turning away potentially thousands of new users *and* having the soccer mods inundated with access requests from people who only want to use the forum for one month every four years.

I see your point and I went through it as a soccer mod for several tournaments but you have to also consider the actual community in place who ARE the lifeblood of the forum for the other 47 months between World Cups

Ultimately the vision I presume is that 99% of those who will come onto the forum, will do so to talk World Cup. And when it's over, they'll be gone again.

Presumption is just like assumptions Seamus and we all know where they can lead. I hope that is the case but my experiences in the past as a moderator on the soccer forum make me very skeptical of a return like that.

You could set up a separate forum for the duration of the World Cup, but what then? Ban all world cup discussion from the main forum?

From my perspective that would be the most elegant solution. You don't impact the existing community and I am sure that the majority of that community would have no issues posting in a WC subforum.

It seems to me like the most reasonable decision to just lift the turnstiles for a month, then close them again afterwards. This will result in the least amount of work for the mods and the most benefit to everyone because everyone gets to talk World Cup, while they're interested in it.

Again no one thought to poll the opinions of the people who make up the forum community for the 47 months when there isn't a World Cup. It will certainly impact on them the most.

You hardly think they just went and imposed this on the mods without looking for their opinions?

Well it seems from the outside that a lot of decisions are being made to maximise the advertising revenue without considerations on the impact of the members of the community. That may be wildly off the mark but it is a perception that is dangerous to the boards.ie brand.

Lovely Bloke

Subforums of Soccer?

Can. Of. Worms.

GavRedKing

The Mods and CMods were asked for our opinions by dav regarding opening the forum up.

Personally, I thought it would be a good idea to give people that dont really want access or to talk Soccer 24/7 a chance to come and discuss one of the biggest sporting events on the planet, if it means current users like it and we get fresh inut into the forum on the back of it, brilliant.

If it goes the other way and people act up, I've seen a few comments saying it would be hard to manage like the re-regs that appear in AH at times, then we'll do what they do, ban users.

Nobody will be allow to act the jackass and all those that didnt have access before the Soccer Forum going public, about 6:00pm yesterday, wont have access afterwards.

D

TBH, getting access to the Soccer forum is not that difficult.

I don't think that I have every posted there yet the last time the access discussion came up on feedback I decided that I would try and get access just to see what it was like.

It took all of five minutes.
You just read the T&Cs, give the codewords, and <insert idiom here> you have access.

Dades

You also need to have at least 50 posts, which can lead to someone posting 50 worthless posts just to reach that number quickly.

gandalf

Dades wrote: »

You also need to have at least 50 posts, which can lead to someone posting 50 worthless posts just to reach that number quickly.

And have to be a member of boards for a month. So if some one joins in the morning they wouldn't get access by posting 50 "worthless posts" that day.

Again wondering why the actual community that uses the board on a regular basis wasn't consulted about this change?

seamus

gandalf wrote: »

And have to be a member of boards for a month. So if some one joins in the morning they wouldn't get access by posting 50 "worthless posts" that day.

Again wondering why the actual community that uses the board on a regular basis wasn't consulted about this change?

Do you not think you've already answered your question with your statement?

"Hey Soccer regulars, we'd like to temporarily open up the soccer forum to lots of new users who only want to talk about the World Cup, probably aren't as well versed in Soccer as you are, and won't know any of the quirks and in-jokes of your forum. What do you think?"

"NO"

I actually think that not consulting with the forum regulars is the smarter move. Yes, they're the content generators, but the problem with communities is that they like being insular, keeping things on an even keel. The Soccer regulars don't have to consider things from a higher level, it doesn't affect them if the number of users in the forum ever changes. But these are things the admins and the owners need to consider.

A halfway house is consulting the moderators; they know the forum, how it works, the feelings of the regulars. But they can also appreciate the wider scope outside of the soccer forum bubble. If the soccer mods hadn't been consulted on this, I'd be right there with you asking WTF is going on. But I think consulting forum regulars on what is ultimately a site-level decision, is folly.

If it turns out to be a complete mess, you know it's very easy to close the gates and everyone can go, "Yep, well that was a dumb idea, let's not do that again".

Just My 2c, please remember I'm not an admin, and had no part in any of this

gandalf

Seamus I can totally understand the point of view of someone who doesn't participate with the community on a day to day basis.

I think you are being unfair to the community that exists there. A lot have been on boards a long time and remember the reasons why the forum was turned into a request access only forum. The last thing any of us wants is to allow the forum to return to a situation like that again.

If a selection of options was put forward to the members of the community I am sure it would have been discussed in a mature fashion. As I stated earlier I would have personally thought that a separate World Cup forum would be easier to manage and also easier to promote with minimum disruption to an already functioning forum. If the a subsection of the users of the World Cup forum wanted access to Soccer they could apply via the normal processes and get access there which from a previous post isn't as onerous a task as it is made out to be.

Overheal

Do you remember the opposite happening gandalf, when the forum was closed and during the cup some controversial own-goal happened and because soccer was restricted trolls just rained like blood from the sky in after hours and feedback? Is that fair to the AH community?

gandalf

Overheal wrote: »

Do you remember the opposite happening gandalf, when the forum was closed and during the cup some controversial own-goal happened and because soccer was restricted trolls just rained like blood from the sky in after hours and feedback? Is that fair to the AH community?

It wasn't then but now you have a World Cup thread to catch anything like that don't you. There are multiple forums on boards that have OT threads that can handle this. Horse Racing have just re-allowed WC posts in their OT thread after complaints by their community being forced to go to the soccer forum btw.

If someone really cares about soccer that much then let them get access to the forum like normal.

Darkglasses

For anyone's curiosity, my view is that I'm reserving judgement until after the tournament. If it all goes wrong, we can roll it back. I think there's enough possible benefits for it to be worth a trial at least. First day (yesterday) went fine.

dfx-

My personal opinion is that I'm in favour of the SF charter as it was and to retain the access mechanism.

However if there is any time to try something else, it is when there is a greater general interest and perhaps less club tribalism, which is an international tournament over the Summer. It may substantially increase the mod workload especially in terms of re-reg accounts and previous SF charter standards being unknown to new posters, but we can try to keep that as far from hindering regular posters' enjoyment of the forum as possible.

Dav

Hello all.

I wanted to talk a little bit about why we've done this and why we think it's useful.

First of all, as of about 10 minutes ago, you may see a new addition on top of the soccer forum. It's what we had originally planned to do for the European and Local elections (but so few of the players involved showed any interest it wasn't worth rolling out). This notice board style widget is something I've been thinking would be an interesting addition to several forums for a while. Right now, it's all about the world cup. When something else that's popular to a particular subject crops up, this can be plugged in and serves as a more clear index of related threads. So for the people who have, up until now only ever been readers of soccer (the poster to reader ratio in Soccer is higher than most other forums on the site due to the restrictions in posting), they can get to the World Cup related threads straight away.

So why open it up in the first place? Well I'm sure some of you will remember many years ago when DeVore was actively involved in the site, occasionally joking about how Seamus was living in his head and reading his thoughts. That much is still true except he's moved on to me I really couldn't write up a better response than what he's written. I've already said to the mods and I'll say it to everyone - if it doesn't work, we'll roll it back. I see no harm (and the mods agreed) in at least trying it out. The biggest soccer tournament in the world is happening, we're offering an opportunity to everyone to join in the discussion, why not invite everyone may not have a team to shout along with but who'd like to follow an international tournament in to join? Maybe they'll stay, maybe they won't. If they cause trouble, out on their ear they'll go as with any other forum. It's only for the duration of the World Cup, we don't propose this be a new norm for the Soccer forum after things wrap up in Brazil.

LuckyLloyd

Why wasn't this raised during the recent forum feedback thread? It was surely in play as an idea at that point. The views of the forum regulars could have been expressed. Bad form to not at least pretend that they have some input and ownership of their own community.

seamus

gandalf wrote: »

Seamus I can totally understand the point of view of someone who doesn't participate with the community on a day to day basis.

I think you are being unfair to the community that exists there. A lot have been on boards a long time and remember the reasons why the forum was turned into a request access only forum. The last thing any of us wants is to allow the forum to return to a situation like that again.

I absolutely understand that, and I agree if this was to be a permanent change then it would be the height of disrespect to foist it upon the regulars, who themselves have worked hard to develop a community who while not always on the best of terms individually, at least create an enjoyable experience for all.

But as a temporary change to accommodate a short-term environment shift I think it would be overkill to turn it into a referendum or a huge talking point. If the Soccer forum struggles, it can be and will be rolled back, and this can be done quickly.
To a certain extent one could look at protests about this as, "I want to talk about the World Cup, but I don't want to talk about it with anyone else", but I do understand the concerns of a flood of trolls. But like I say, that's easily rolled back, and boards have never been slow to put their hands up and admit when they've fncked up.

gandalf

Thanks for your reply Dav but it doesn't address a few of the fundamental queries.

Why did you not confer with the community in place?

Did you propose having a separate sub-forum for access or was opening the forum the only option proposed?

and finally

Can that god awful notice board widget be set to optional or are we stuck with it for the duration of the WC as well?

RasTa

How do I get rid of that horrible ad on the soccer forum for adverts?

Dades

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Why wasn't this raised during the recent forum feedback thread? It was surely in play as an idea at that point. The views of the forum regulars could have been expressed. Bad form to not at least pretend that they have some input and ownership of their own community.

I don't know the answer to that question, but you'd have to wonder what would happen if the 'community' didn't like the idea of opening to the doors to everyone. In that scenario if Boards still wants to push ahead it with it then there'd be all manner of teeth gnashing that asking for feedback was purely lip service. Maybe it's better this way.

EDIT: For the Devs: the widget doesn't display right in the dark theme.

LuckyLloyd

Dades wrote: »

I don't know the answer to that question, but you'd have to wonder what would happen if the 'community' didn't like the idea of opening to the doors to everyone. In that scenario if Boards still wants to push ahead it with it then there'd be all manner of teeth gnashing that asking for feedback was purely lip service. Maybe it's better this way.

EDIT: For the Devs: the widget doesn't display right in the dark theme.

So don't ask a question if you can't be sure you'll get an answer you like? That's no way to run a community imo. If it was happening anyway the regular users may still have had valuable input and opinions on the type of charter / card system / etc in place to facilitate the change.

Mickeroo

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Why wasn't this raised during the recent forum feedback thread? It was surely in play as an idea at that point. The views of the forum regulars could have been expressed. Bad form to not at least pretend that they have some input and ownership of their own community.

Simple answer is it wasn't on the table while the feedback thread was active.

At the moment it's purely temporary and like dfx said if ever there is a time to try something different with the forum then this is it.

Overheal

Dades wrote: »

EDIT: For the Devs: the widget doesn't display right in the dark theme.

so true, I can't even comprehend what the widget functionally does aside from provide a few links. It's the mother of all Stickies? There is also a lot of blank space this generates on the L and R of the Notices panel at normal desktop resolutions, would anything like this be possible to plug in match information, the game schedule, Score feed, etc?

gandalf

Dades wrote: »

I don't know the answer to that question, but you'd have to wonder what would happen if the 'community' didn't like the idea of opening to the doors to everyone. In that scenario if Boards still wants to push ahead it with it then there'd be all manner of teeth gnashing that asking for feedback was purely lip service. Maybe it's better this way.

As someone who modded soccer in the past and was involved directly in trying to sort out the mess that lead to the whole soccer request access system to come into being I would prefer that an experiment is not carried out on a community that I believe is functioning well together.

I would have been in favour of having a separate World Cup sub forum open to all and having all discussions about the tournament based there. If it is a success then you could start a dialogue with the community about opening up soccer on a phased basis.

What you are proposing is saying to a vibrant community on boards "This is how it is, like it or lump it" with Dav saying one of the primary reasons for the change was to allow the "team" test out their new notice board widget on us as well. I find that quite unacceptable.

Soups123

I think its completely fair game that the Mods have decided to open it up, try it and if it doesnt work roll it back you can't get much fairer than that. Asking users opinion before hand doesnt add much benefit a lot of people dont like change.

There probably will be a heightened flow of traffic over the next few weeks and there may be a few new trolls but if the soccer forum picks up another 20/30 decent posters it will add to the discussion and banter for the season ahead

Overheal

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

So don't ask a question if you can't be sure you'll get an answer you like? That's no way to run a community imo. If it was happening anyway the regular users may still have had valuable input and opinions on the type of charter / card system / etc in place to facilitate the change.

I don't see what would stop that input from happening here anyway? Because if the decision can always be rolled back, it can always be amended mid-way too. If you have input on how you think cards/rules could work better for the month they are probably welcome suggestions

hullaballoo

I like the idea behind the big box yoke with relevant threads etc but it isn't ready.

The SF is not just about the WC this month. Most regulars will still be posting away in club threads as usual. The banner is just getting in the way and shoving content in my face that I might not want to see.

It should be dismissable or at the very least, collapsible.

The idea of opening the forum up for the world cup is a good one, although I think it should be clearer that the regular charter still applies. I've seen a few people try to take advantage of the "suspension" of the forum rules already. The ambiguity will just lead to more rules lawyering in DRP.

There's no doubt that it's going to bee hard work for the moderators but they're seemingly willing and more than able.

gandalf

Well that was quick, they added a close button on the widget. Thanks for sorting that out.