The Standard of Posting

Ave Sodalis

This is something I've noticed becoming more prevalent in recent times. It seems After Hours style of posting is starting to seep into other forums were it isn't appropriate, and there's very little being done about it. Forums shouldn't be limited to those who are already knowledgable about the topic, but it seems to me that that is what some people are trying to do. Maybe I just happen to be reading the wrong threads, but it seems those who post in certain forums who don't know the general standard of knowledge, get ridiculed and have snide comments thrown at them instead of useful and helpful comments. This isn't always by every poster but it seems nothing is being done about the posters who do.

It makes posting in some forums intimidating, and there's a few forums I know that I definitely won't go to to ask for advice because I've read a few posts from them that pop up on the home page. There's the risk of asking the 'wrong question', when the point of these forums are to get help on something you don't know much about.

Maybe it's just me, I don't know but I think it's becoming more widespread across the site and I'm getting tired of seeing it. Interesting questions that I would have been interested in knowing the answer to as well have been met with condescending, sneery remarks that laugh at the ignorance of the OP. I would hate for Boards to become a difficult place to post. These replies have a place (to a certain extent) in AH, not in other forums.

Shield

Do you have any examples?

Into The Blue

Shield wrote: »

Do you have any examples?

I hoped one of the posters in the cycling forum worked with a cyclist who caused €800 worth of damage to my car..

What i got, was ah answers

http://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057502740/1/#post97242164

In the end, after reporting the crap posts, and nothing happening, i just asked that the thread be deleted or closed

Penn

Into The Blue wrote: »

I hoped one of the posters in the cycling forum worked with a cyclist who caused €800 worth of damage to my car..

What i got, was ah answers

http://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057502740/1/#post97242164

In the end, after reporting the crap posts, and nothing happening, i just asked that the thread be deleted or closed

Without trying to be unfair, I would have thought your post was a parody and not a serious one. You were asking people who cycle if they knew a cyclist who, on that occasion was wearing a light blue jacket and was at that specific place at that specific time. The odds of any of them knowing him are practically zero.

It's like asking a bunch of Peugeot owners if they know a Peugeot driver who scraped your car door at 15.22 on some random street in Galway.

Into The Blue

Penn wrote: »

Without trying to be unfair, I would have thought your post was a parody and not a serious one. You were asking people who cycle if they knew a cyclist who, on that occasion was wearing a light blue jacket and was at that specific place at that specific time. The odds of any of them knowing him are practically zero.

It's like asking a bunch of Peugeot owners if they know a Peugeot driver who scraped your car door at 15.22 on some random street in Galway.

It was a specific time/place. I wasnt asking cyclists in general if they knew him, but if any posters were at the junction at the time and worked with him as it was rush hour going home time. No one asked for clarification.

It was actually the guards idea.. Long shot i know, but if they weren't at the junction at the time, don't post.

Beasty

Into The Blue wrote: »

It was a specific time/place. I wasnt asking cyclists in general if they knew him, but if any posters were at the junction at the time and worked with him as it was rush hour going home time. No one asked for clarification.

It was actually the guards idea.. Long shot i know, but if they weren't at the junction at the time, don't post.

I have no doubt your post was serious and do not think anyone responding to it considered it a parody even if thy chose to respond in whet they considered a jestful manner. What other response did you expect? You had not actually opened up a discussion, simply requested anyone who may have witnessed the incident to "get in touch" (which they could do via PM rather than posting in-thread). In fact the responses you did get served the purpose of bumping your notice several times

We have perhaps 100+ "regulars" in the forum. There are going to be many tens of thousands of people who regularly cycle in Dublin. The sort of response you got was certainly nothing new within the forum - people were perhaps highlighting for your own benefit the chance of someone seeing that post who may have witnessed your own incident was, to say the least, remote.

Nodin

sup_dude wrote: »

This is something I've noticed becoming more prevalent in recent times. It seems After Hours style of posting is starting to seep into other forums were it isn't appropriate, and there's very little being done about it. Forums shouldn't be limited to those who are already knowledgable about the topic, but it seems to me that that is what some people are trying to do. Maybe I just happen to be reading the wrong threads, but it seems those who post in certain forums who don't know the general standard of knowledge, get ridiculed and have snide comments thrown at them instead of useful and helpful comments. This isn't always by every poster but it seems nothing is being done about the posters who do.

It makes posting in some forums intimidating, and there's a few forums I know that I definitely won't go to to ask for advice because I've read a few posts from them that pop up on the home page. There's the risk of asking the 'wrong question', when the point of these forums are to get help on something you don't know much about.

Maybe it's just me, I don't know but I think it's becoming more widespread across the site and I'm getting tired of seeing it. Interesting questions that I would have been interested in knowing the answer to as well have been met with condescending, sneery remarks that laugh at the ignorance of the OP. I would hate for Boards to become a difficult place to post. These replies have a place (to a certain extent) in AH, not in other forums.

Far worse places on boards than AH.

Gatling

Nodin wrote: »

Far worse places on boards than AH.

PC comes to mind

Taltos

Gatling wrote: »

PC comes to mind

Have to disagree with that.

The local mods and cmods have taken a recent step of Category banning some troublesome posters who seemed intent on causing grief. Hopefully either when the bans expire we'll see a return to positive posting or those trolls (for want of a better word) will stay away and let everyone else get on with enjoying the forums.

Ave Sodalis

Shield wrote: »

Do you have any examples?

Most of them are scattered incidents which I couldn't pin point. A few are making an attempt to be cleaned up, as above and as in A&PI (although I would still be hesitant posting in A&PI). Then there's the first page of the current "what does it feel like to give birth" post. I've posted myself in planning and construction and although a lot of the posts were helpful, some of them were not so much. I didn't report them because there was a mod on thread but nothing was done.

These are just examples but there are more. It's not necessarily a widespread problem yet, but it just seems it's becoming more common.

Neyite

sup_dude wrote: »

. Then there's the first page of the current "what does it feel like to give birth" post. I've posted myself in planning and construction and although a lot of the posts were helpful, some of them were not so much. I didn't report them because there was a mod on thread but nothing was done.

These are just examples but there are more. It's not necessarily a widespread problem yet, but it just seems it's becoming more common.

That thread was originally entitled "****ing a watermelon through a garden hose" or something very similar, and posted in the Pregnant forum. I asked if they had a personal interest - if they were themselves expecting or their partner was. Nope. At worst it was trolling, and at best, it was just inappropriate curiosity.

Usually in other forums, the OP is asked not to news-dump or ask questions without sharing something themselves to get the discussion going, and that's the same view I'd take in Parenting. And especially when asking pregnant women a question like that. I asked him why he was asking, he said it was just curiosity, and I renamed the thread, moved to to a more appropriate forum and told him that if anyone wanted to share their birth stories, it was up to them. I thought that was more than fair.

The OP of that thread is an 18 year old who's previous posts mostly consist of airsoft and porn apparently. The responders saw that, so why should they share their most intimate moments so he can get his idle curiosity sated? He wasn't interested in discussion because after he initially replied to me, he didn't participate in the discussion at all.

Ave Sodalis

Neyite wrote: »

That thread was originally entitled "****ing a watermelon through a garden hose" or something very similar, and posted in the Pregnant forum. I asked if they had a personal interest - if they were themselves expecting or their partner was. Nope. At worst it was trolling, and at best, it was just inappropriate curiosity.

Usually in other forums, the OP is asked not to news-dump or ask questions without sharing something themselves to get the discussion going, and that's the same view I'd take in Parenting. And especially when asking pregnant women a question like that. I asked him why he was asking, he said it was just curiosity, and I renamed the thread, moved to to a more appropriate forum and told him that if anyone wanted to share their birth stories, it was up to them. I thought that was more than fair.

The OP of that thread is an 18 year old who's previous posts mostly consist of airsoft and porn apparently. The responders saw that, so why should they share their most intimate moments so he can get his idle curiosity sated? He wasn't interested in discussion because after he initially replied to me, he didn't participate in the discussion at all.

The title was then amended and the crappy comments were allowed to continue. Not by you in particular but other comments.

Does it matter what his previous posts were? Unless it's a completely new poster with an obvious agenda, I don't see how they're relevant. I've also had threads were I've posted in held against me (not even the posts in them). It's idiotic and serves absolutely no purpose.

In fairness, I wouldn't have replied if I was the OP either. I didn't join the thread until after the posts actually started answering the OP but if I seen the first few replies only, I wouldn't have bothered coming back. I mean, what it feels like to give birth is an interesting topic and something I would imagine many people who haven't experienced it wonder about. It's not a dumb or stupid question, as a poster on the thread pointed out.

Neyite

It's not a stupid question at all, and one that's been answered time and time again on the parenting forum.

But you don't ask how painful it is in a forum full of pregnant women! Many of whom might be nervous about impending birth, or be told that may have a complicated delivery. A thread like that is inviting the horror stories of what can go wrong.

Would you go into Bereavement and ask what its like to have a parent die, out of curiosity? Or into A&P and ask what its like to put a pet to sleep? Birthing is intensely personal and while women on that forum happily support and share personal stories to benefit others, satisfying some young fella's curiosity might not push them to share their stories with him.

That poster subsequently was proven to be trolling elsewhere at the same time so it stands to reason that this thread was also part of his spree. I have no doubt now that he started the thread to cause trouble, but I did give him the benefit of the doubt at the time to facilitate discussion if he wanted it.

The Hill Billy

Gatling wrote: »

PC comes to mind

Just a reminder of the Feedback forum charter considering that you are currently serving a ban from PC...

Users currently serving a ban from a forum with a duration over 1 month are not allowed to post on feedback threads concerning that forum.

That'll also cover commenting on that forum in any Feedback thread.

tHB

Ave Sodalis

Neyite wrote:

That poster subsequently was proven to be trolling elsewhere at the same time so it stands to reason that this thread was also part of his spree. I have no doubt now that he started the thread to cause trouble, but I did give him the benefit of the doubt at the time to facilitate discussion if he wanted it.

I just felt that this was an example of where posters were allowed to make comments inappropriate for the forum. You gave the OP time to facilitate discussion, but there was no attempts to prevent the other posters from making silly comments which didn't add to the discussion at all. He was in the wrong forum. Surely he should have just been moved and that be done with? Isn't saying that you allowed discussion but then the post allowed to have comments such as endacl's on it a little bit contradictory? I still feel that comments such as the first few on that post have no place in forums outside of forums like AH.

Neyite

Why didn't you report the posts you thought were inappropriate?

Ave Sodalis

Neyite wrote:

Why didn't you report the posts you thought were inappropriate?

There was a mod on thread and I see it as more a site wide problem than the individual thread so I thought feedback would be more appropriate than reporting a load of individual posts. Again, the giving birth thread is just an example.

Zascar

OP I agree with you. There has definitely been a strong a decline in the standard of posting - people are more concerned with getting their post count up with puns, snarky comments and then just illogical rubbish than actually addressing the topic of the post and giving their actual opinion on the subject, and having some genuinely interesting discussion. It's happening all over the place, and the reason is because it all stems from After Hours.

I remember the day when After Hours used to be an interesting place with lots of discussion on a multitude of different topics - with a little bit of fun and banter thrown in. Now it's like the Thunderdome or Cuckoos Nest. All the time I see people starting really interesting thread around a topical issue, where they state their view and ask the opinion of the rest of boards, but usually within a few posts its gets totally derailed with a stupid irrelevant comment or a bad pun, followed by several follow up's and then basically RIP thread. Yes, I know this is After Hours, but does this mean there is actually No bottom standard for the main forum whatsoever? There seems to be absolutely no desire to try to clean it up - and it filters throughout the site. After Hours the single most popular forum on the countries most popular discussion website, and it's like listening a bunch of moronic teenagers. It's embarrassing, and such a shame... It could be so much better.

Like many, these days I spend more time on Reddit where this type of rubbish is downvoted and quickly hidden in the depths - while the quality interesting topics rise to the top. It's why Reddit is so popular. It's main forum "Ask Reddit" is an absolute treasure trove of interesting discussion, with lots of fun and quirky stuff thrown in - all without the garbage that we see on after hours.

I once suggested we do something similar and have an "Ask Boards" forum - but that was quickly shot down. We all know how resistant to change boards is. We could keep after hours and set up some new forums under the same line to take some of the main stuff like topical news stories & events, or a General Discussion forum to act like After Hours for adults - minus all the idiocy. I think it would be great. If only we could even just try it out and see... Sadly OP none of this is really ever going to change...

Overheal

We all know how resistant to change boards is.

Eh I'd disagree with that. The site doesn't run on much, and what it does run on is hamsters and a trail of tears. Getting the site off of vBulletin has been on the wishlist probably since before my time and its identified as one of the problems pushing the site down; regularly enough over the years we've seen great suggestions come into feedback etc. that even reference other versions of vBulletin (eg. filtering out the ability to resurrect 'zombie' threads, etc) but because the site runs on a cocktailed version of vBulletin currently, in order to be the way it is, its hard to implement new features. Probably a point more salient to the touch/beta thread but the fact remains, I think development wise the team behind boards would like to be more agile in implementing better ideas but the groundwork for doing that is a tall order.

The Hill Billy

Zascar wrote: »

It's happening all over the place, and the reason is because it all stems from After Hours.

I disagree. It stems from posters who think that they get away with stupid/uncivil/inappropriate posts in other forums.

If members see such posts - report them & let the mods deal with it. Don't allow it to drag the standard of the forum down by just hoping that a mod will see it & action it.

Likewise, if the stuff gets reported, it is up to the local mods to take care of it in line with the site guidelines & the forum charter.

Blaming poor posting standards across the site on AH is just wrong, not to mention very disrespectful to the AH Mod team.

And while we're at it - when mods post "Take it to AH" - they only serve to perpetuate the myth that any sort of muppetry is permitted in there, despite the efforts of the hard-working AH mods who strive to stamp this stuff out every day.

tHB

Overheal

And there's this

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057536726

So we have people complaining the standards are slack while others argue the standards are too strict. /shrug

Ave Sodalis

Overheal wrote:

So we have people complaining the standards are slack while others argue the standards are too strict. /shrug

Mine is with regard to other forums outside of AH

Overheal

well the two cant be unrelated, is the AH style posting bleed out of AH if AH style posting isnt allowed in AH? It could be people just walking out of AH for instance looking for the mick, but I'd say reporting the posts should have a reasonable effect, or talking to the mods in your favored forums.

Ave Sodalis

Overheal wrote:

well the two cant be unrelated, is the AH style posting bleed out of AH if AH style posting isnt allowed in AH? It could be people just walking out of AH for instance looking for the mick, but I'd say reporting the posts should have a reasonable effect, or talking to the mods in your favored forums.

It could be that, I genuinely have no idea why it's happening.

The problem with reporting the posts is that it only counters that post in that thread at that time. If it's a case I've seen several times where there's a mod already on thread reading the posts, is it likely there will be much of a change over all? I think it needs to be tackled on a widescale basis, rather than lots of individual posts.
Being honest, my two followed forums have yet to have example of this.

Wibbs

Zascar wrote: »

I remember the day when After Hours used to be an interesting place with lots of discussion on a multitude of different topics - with a little bit of fun and banter thrown in.

Utter nonsense, with a side order of rose tinted nostalgia for a time that never was. Go back through the pages in time and come back to me on that. The first thing you'll notice is how short thread titles tend to be and how rare interesting threads came up. It's a far more diverse forum these days. Common enough old fart/snobbish take on AH mind you. QV "moronic teenagers". Fair enough grandad. TBH then suggesting no desire to clean it up on the part of the mods? That's right prickish IMH.

Like many, these days I spend more time on Reddit where this type of rubbish is downvoted and quickly hidden in the depths - while the quality interesting topics rise to the top. It's why Reddit is so popular.

Reddit? Hahahah…. with a straight face too? Oh wait, you're being serious. Christ *facepalm*

nesf

Wibbs wrote: »

Reddit? Hahahah…. with a straight face too? Oh wait, you're being serious. Christ *facepalm*

Just like Boards varies massively between forums, Reddit varies massively between subreddits. And this reason the thread topic is problematic, there really is no one "standard of posting" across either site and you can only really talk about individual forums or subreddits.

Nodin

Zascar wrote: »

OP I agree with you. There has definitely been a strong a decline in the standard of posting - people are more concerned with getting their post count up with puns, snarky comments and then just illogical rubbish than actually addressing the topic of the post and giving their actual opinion on the subject, and having some genuinely interesting discussion. It's happening all over the place, and the reason is because it all stems from After Hours.

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

Rather a nonsense, I'm afraid. There are far worse fora on Boards than AH. I believe Hill Billys post represents the reality.

NI24

You brought up a couple of interesting points here Hill Billy, mainly these two:

The Hill Billy wrote: »

If members see such posts - report them & let the mods deal with it. Don't allow it to drag the standard of the forum down by just hoping that a mod will see it & action it.

Likewise, if the stuff gets reported, it is up to the local mods to take care of it in line with the site guidelines & the forum charter.

How are posters supposed to know that mods are dealing with it exactly, considering there's no transparency on reported posts? Or, to take it further, what if the mod is the author of the post? Are we to believe that a moderator would yellow card their own post? Especially if the other moderators of the forum, many of whom are in general agreement on issues, have thanked it.

KERSPLAT!

NI24 wrote: »

You brought up a couple of interesting points here Hill Billy, mainly these two:


How are posters supposed to know that mods are dealing with it exactly, considering there's no transparency on reported posts? Or, to take it further, what if the mod is the author of the post? Are we to believe that a moderator would yellow card their own post? Especially if the other moderators of the forum, many of whom are in general agreement on issues, have thanked it.

If you have an issue with a mod post and either aren't comfortable reporting the post or don't believe it will be actioned for whatever reason, PM a Cmod to look into it.

The Hill Billy

NI24 wrote: »

You brought up a couple of interesting points here Hill Billy, mainly these two:


How are posters supposed to know that mods are dealing with it exactly, considering there's no transparency on reported posts?

You need to trust the mods. This topic has been done to death in this forum & we're not doing it again in this thread.

NI24 wrote:

Or, to take it further, what if the mod is the author of the post? Are we to believe that a moderator would yellow card their own post? Especially if the other moderators of the forum, many of whom are in general agreement on issues, have thanked it.

What KERSPLAT! said.

NI24

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

If you have an issue with a mod post and either aren't comfortable reporting the post or don't believe it will be actioned for whatever reason, PM a Cmod to look into it.

I've thought about doing so but then I thought, well, isn't that considered an abuse of the Cmod's time? Even the regular moderators make it obvious that they consider reported posts an abuse of their time.