What is wrong with the site? (Please read updated post #1)

Timberrrrrrrr

[Deleted User] wrote: »

David! :pac:

Feckin autocorrect:pac:

gandalf

WheatenBriar wrote: »

As a former mod of the main politics board,I did find the politics cafe bizarre
Some of the threads there contained the same 5 or 6 posters cribbing at one another and no one else in the threads unaware it seems how unimportant in the real world their petty squabbling was

Often,given modding spidey senses never leave you,you'd cop banned posters re appearing posting the same cribbing
Then theres the cardinal sin of debate,posters ignoring being debunked and going on a few posts or a few days later as if they weren't debunked looking to rise their usual nemesis's

The normal politics forum always worked well with rules that simply stopped the place from being stupid
I wonder what Bonkey would think

Yep at the time I disagreed with the Politics Cafe and lo and behold it has more or less turned the main Politics forum into a ghost town.

The main driver for PCs creation was the level of politics threads appearing in AH and fact that the vast majority couldn't be transferred to Politics as they were not up to the standards of that forum.

My opinion would be that as an exercise the PC concept has obviously failed and in its failure it has drastically effected what was a very good forum in the guise of the Politics forum. I think the PC forum should be shut down and the resources given to the Politics forum to try and resurrect it and to ensure the quality level is increased. That will give boards a differentiator on the other forums out there because if it stays along the existing lines all the PC forum will be is another place on the Internet where a lot of vacuous noise is created and lets be honest there are other more successful sites that do that.

That's my 2 cents anyway.

Skylinehead

K-9 wrote: »

Think we've a 5 point plan now.

Collectivisation, gulags?

K-9

Skylinehead wrote: »

Collectivisation, gulags?

Tough on crime and the causes of crime.
Refunds for everybody.
Oath of allegiance to the mod team.
New cafe laws.
[insert something else populist]

Timberrrrrrrr

K-9 wrote: »

Tough on crime and the causes of crime.
Refunds for everybody.
Oath of allegiance to the mod team.
New cafe laws.
[insert something else populist]

Hooke and blow for the average Joe?

The_Conductor

K-9 wrote: »

[insert something else populist]

Free beers for everyone.......

Stheno

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Hooke and blow for the average Joe?

Ah now don't take it that far!

Timberrrrrrrr

Stheno wrote: »

Ah now don't take it that far!

Booooooo










Urns.

The_Conductor

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Hooke and blow for the average Joe?

Put it to the numb/encore track.........

Encore...... do you want more?........ Hooke and blow for the average Joe.......

Ok...... think I'd better not give up my day job.........

blackwhite

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

I disagree... as someone who has no time for the pissing contests you describe, the issue with Politics (General) was the what I'd call self-important attitude the forum has of itself and this is reflected in the moderation style as a whole rather than any particular mod.

Not everyone has the in-depth knowledge or time to be posting libraries of links as demanded by the more "serious" forum, but more than that politics SHOULD be accessible to the everyman, and it's that purpose that the Cafe serves IMO

The issues there are a handful of entrenched posters who are carrying spats between threads (how every other topic derails into SF bashing for example) but that can be addressed by just clamping down a bit harder on some of the muppetry I think.

TBH - I can't think of a whole lot of current threads in the "main" forum that are like that anymore - a couple of years ago I'd have agreed with you, but now (IMO at least!) the main forum feels a lot more "welcoming", so long as posters are willing to debate in a reasoned and mature way.

Fully agree with the problem outlined in your last paragraph - but it's wider than that.
Pro-SF posts bring out the SF-bashers who generally resort to comments about the IRA or similar (relevent in the odd thread i.e. about justice/policing; but very irrelevent in pretty much any other context).
Anti-SF posts bring out the SF acolytes, who generally will start throwing personal abuse at anyone who doesn't 100% follow the SF party line.
Pro-IW posts (or anything that isn't 100% critical of the Govt/FG) bring out a cabal of posters who accuse everyone else of being a FG/FF/DOB shill.
Anti-IW posts (or anything anti-Gov) will result in accusations of being a member of SF/AAA/Communist party, as well as probably accusations of being on the dole and/or not wanting to pay for anything.

KERSPLAT!

IW discussion was moved from AH to Politics Cafe due to the political nature of the discussions around it taking place. That was quite a while ago.

Just because PC is closed, for whatever reason, it doesn't mean IW and other political threads will be making their way back to AH.

While I understand that it is frustrating that PC is closed, AH isn't for political discussion. There's a whole political forum for that.

Iwasfrozen

I think an even harder line is needed, in the Irish water thread you had posters espressibg support for those who illegally brake water meters and even encouraging other posters to not pay, as well as admitting to not paying themselves. Such action shouldnt have been allowed.

Uncle Ben

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I think an even harder line is needed, in the Irish water thread you had posters espressibg support for those who illegally brake water meters and even encouraging other posters to not pay, as well as admitting to not paying themselves. Such action shouldnt have been allowed.

Why?

Dav

Because it's against the law for a start and against our terms and conditions to advocate anyone breaking the law.

Iwasfrozen

Uncle Ben wrote: »

Why?

Because it's impossible to have a civil conversation when either one or both sides are encouraging anti social and sometimes illegal behavior.

The alternative is to drop the rules and stop the pretence of high brow discussion.

K-9

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I think an even harder line is needed, in the Irish water thread you had posters espressibg support for those who illegally brake water meters and even encouraging other posters to not pay, as well as admitting to not paying themselves. Such action shouldnt have been allowed.

So people shouldn't be allowed to say they haven't paid, half the population or so.

My name is URL

Dav wrote: »

Because it's against the law for a start and against our terms and conditions to advocate anyone breaking the law.

posters espressibg support for those who illegally brake water meters and even encouraging other posters to not pay, as well as admitting to not paying themselves.

Which part of that is against the law?

Dav

encouraging other posters to not pay

Like it or not, paying for water is (currently) law - just like most other taxes.

Similarly if there are people encouraging others to break meters (not specifically said in the post we're talking about, but relevant regardless), that too is advocating criminal damage.

K-9

Criminal damage obviously is a no no.

Not paying is civil disobedience. I'm not sure if not paying IW is actually a criminal offence anyway.

Satriale

I thought Iw was a utility company.

For Reals

Damaging property or persons is illegal. Not paying a bill is up for debate, (Quality of service etc.) especially back when IW payment was a thing...

Redbishop

For Reals wrote: »

Damaging property or persons is illegal. Not paying a bill is up for debate, especially back when IW payment was a thing...

Ah some take it too seriously.
If you stop talk of illegal acts you stop talk of protest really.
I m not talking of inciting to violence or personal or property harm, but peaceful protest and discussion on views on laws and policies.
Paul Murphy, the jailed protesters supporters, so much Sinn Fein stuff, so much stuff we discussed in my time on here, there has to be leeway to allow people express their opinion even if it is talk of some illegal stuff and defiance of some laws, otherwise you are stopping free speech and that cant be good.

Alf Stewart.

Anyone know if Patrick Power are taking bets if the govt are going to be stupid enough to even attempt at introducing the charges after nine months?

Its worth it, watching Enda being returned, just to have them humiliated over this issue the great unwashed refused to cave on.

steamengine

Redbishop wrote: »

Ah some take it too seriously.
If you stop talk of illegal acts you stop talk of protest really.
I m not talking of inciting to violence or personal or property harm, but peaceful protest and discussion on views on laws and policies.
Paul Murphy, the jailed protesters supporters, so much Sinn Fein stuff, so much stuff we discussed in my time on here, there has to be leeway to allow people express their opinion even if it is talk of some illegal stuff and defiance of some laws, otherwise you are stopping free speech and that cant be good.

+1.........Boards, like water itself, really has to make its mind up whether it wants to Still or Sparkling. I know it has clearly no shortage of posters but with Reddit and others chomping at its heels, and its apparent new found timidity, that may not always be the case.

K-9

Redbishop wrote: »

Ah some take it too seriously.
If you stop talk of illegal acts you stop talk of protest really.
I m not talking of inciting to violence or personal or property harm, but peaceful protest and discussion on views on laws and policies.
Paul Murphy, the jailed protesters supporters, so much Sinn Fein stuff, so much stuff we discussed in my time on here, there has to be leeway to allow people express their opinion even if it is talk of some illegal stuff and defiance of some laws, otherwise you are stopping free speech and that cant be good.

Indeed, personal opinion is one thing. As a mod we'd have a very quiet forum with little or no IW debate.

Wait a minute, why am I arguing against this!

Going Forward

steamengine wrote: »

Perhaps someone in Boards would kindly explain why all the Irish water threads are being locked in After Hours. I'm probably not alone in concluding this is the reason why the Politics Cafe is shut for review.

There are several threads over on Reddit Ireland discussing these topics atm, for anyone whose interested - no problem over there, so why here ?

Going Forward wrote: »

Any mention of Irish Water, rather, any criticism of it, is frowned upon.

K-9 wrote: »

So that would be why there's how many superthreads on it, 8/9 must be close to 100,000 posts on it in the cafe.

So why the bias towards Irish Water?

Look at your timing of the "review" and the threads you've locked.

The "refunds" thread should have re opened now of all times, it's not even in the Cafe.

If you want to stifle debate you're going the right way about it.


It's OTT.

Going Forward

K-9 wrote: »

Criminal damage obviously is a no no.

Not paying is civil disobedience. I'm not sure if not paying IW is actually a criminal offence anyway.

We used to have good debates on those matters on boards, once upon a time:D

My name is URL

Going Forward wrote: »

The "refunds" thread should have re opened now of all times.

There's a Talk To forum for IW.. you're already paying them to deal with problems. Go get your quid's worth

How rabid are people gonna get about refunds, I wonder...

I know two lads who use dodgy Sky boxes.

Guess I'm entitled to a refund on my Sky too... for being stupid enough to pay for a service I signed up to?

:pac:

J.pilkington

In my work when we have a major upgrade of a system we have various stages of test (crps), the early crps are limited to key testers with a specific test plan and issues are clearly logged and assigned to be worked on which ensures prioritisation prevents staff burn out etc, and only at the later stages when the system is functional do we open to a wider range of users and deal with the fine tuning before go-live as it's important from an end user experience that first impressions are positive.

To me it sounds like boards upgrade was released too early, there are now 10s to 100s of logged faults and staff seem overwhelmed(key contributor to staff turnover) and users are p!ssed off as it seems so chaotic. I've raised an issue and I've no idea if it's even been acknowledged so I'm back to the old site. Most of these faults are so obvious and should have been picked up during an early phase of testing which should have been limited to a handful of users.

Esel

J.pilkington wrote: »

In my work when we have a major upgrade of a system we have various stages of test (crps), the early crps are limited to key testers with a specific test plan and issues are clearly logged and assigned to be worked on which ensures prioritisation prevents staff burn out etc, and only at the later stages when the system is functional do we open to a wider range of users and deal with the fine tuning before go-live as it's important from an end user experience that first impressions are positive.

To me it sounds like boards upgrade was released too early, there are now 10s to 100s of logged faults and staff seem overwhelmed(key contributor to staff turnover) and users are p!ssed off as it seems so chaotic. I've raised an issue and I've no idea if it's even been acknowledged so I'm back to the old site. Most of these faults are so obvious and should have been picked up during an early phase of testing which should have been limited to a handful of users.

Yeah. And, that handful of users should be real-world users - not people sitting next to you.