Is Boards aware of the reputation it has across the web?

Maguined

KomradeBishop wrote: »

One thing I don't get there, is why mods with an obvious political/economic leaning/bias get chosen - is it to achieve some kind of 'balance' ala the balance fallacy? If so, that's a really terrible way to choose mods.

Things like conflicts of interest and bias should be considered when selecting mods, so that the more egregious examples (including e.g. think-tank/party/business-lobby members) get excluded from moderation, due to the potential for bias affecting mod decisions.

The current mods seem to just pick new mods so they tend to pick posters they agree with resulting in groupthink.

actuallylike

That politics cafe closure is disgraceful. An extremely active forum. Had arguably one of the most active threads (Irish Water) and now it's gone, no real reason, a vague 'few days' time frame with no promises of anything and a warning not to discuss it. What a joke.

KomradeBishop

Yea the 'no discussion' - i.e. leaving posters in the dark about it - is kind of odd; I assume there's a good reason for that, but it's impossible to know.

Into The Blue

dudara wrote: »

There is an announcement at the top of the forum - the Politics Café is being temporarily closed for posting, and will reopen shortly. Keep an eye on the Announcements thread for more information.

No overzealous, cowardly modding applied to you I'm afraid. Sorry to disappoint.

dudara wrote: »

For the record, I banned the OP as he was a serial re-reg. Nothing to do with this thread, ironically.

dudara wrote: »

If you want us to look into that, you can PM myself of one of the other PI mods.

If you keep being this helpful, they'll have nothing to moan/be paranoid about!

biko

dudara wrote: »

For the record, I banned the OP as he was a serial re-reg.

I wonder if the other sites have the same problem?
Boards is so hated people that get banned try to get back in again..

Red_Wake

With Politics Cafe closed, do we just take our discussion to regular Politics?

Dun dun dunnnnn

The plot thickens

_Tombstone_

biko wrote: »

I wonder if the other sites have the same problem?
Boards is so hated people that get banned try to get back in again..

What other sites do you keep going on about???

Going Forward

Red_Wake wrote: »

With Politics Cafe closed, do we just take our discussion to regular Politics?

I'd say so.

But just to be on the safe side, post generic, pro establishment, politically-correct stuff so as to not upset anyone.

And don't mention Irish Water anywhere.

dudara

Red_Wake wrote: »

With Politics Cafe closed, do we just take our discussion to regular Politics?

As long as you follow the rules of the Politics forum, your posts should be OK there.

Timberrrrrrrr

dudara wrote: »

As long as you follow the rules of the Politics forum, your posts should be OK there.

Strange to close a whole forum for review though

StewartGriffin

actuallylike wrote: »

That politics cafe closure is disgraceful. An extremely active forum. Had arguably one of the most active threads (Irish Water) and now it's gone, no real reason, a vague 'few days' time frame with no promises of anything and a warning not to discuss it. What a joke.

Well of the most active threads, one was the eternal spiral of Irish Water charges gurgling round and round a plughole, another was the the neverending zombie waltz of forming a new govt, and the third was something irrelevant about Sinn Fein (cough! cough!)

If you see a lad walking the streets who look as though he hasn't seen sunlight for 6 months tell Jack I said hello.

the evasion_kid

actuallylike wrote: »

That politics cafe closure is disgraceful. An extremely active forum. Had arguably one of the most active threads (Irish Water) and now it's gone, no real reason, a vague 'few days' time frame with no promises of anything and a warning not to discuss it. What a joke.

Probably waiting on all the hullabaloo on Irish water to die down...

Stoner

From my point of view I like boards as a place to go on the Internet.
The journal is fine, great in fact but the comments section is full of multiple accounts and trolls. There are links between the two sites I'm sure. I've seen Tom Murphy post about it on the journal, but they are different places to go with different experiences, kind of like buying on ebay from a user with good feedback they want to protect or rolling a dice on done deal with a seller using a throw away phone.
At one stage I saw some one post about Irish water on a piece about someone with a sick dog, if that was boards that poster would not last spamming every thread and turning every story around to Irish water or politics. On top of that some political parties are arganised to do just that.

It's different strokes for different folks but of I'm talking about DIY or sport I don't want an environment where anyone can just rock up and turn the topic onto their pet concern in an attempt to being their issue to the front of every agenda.
These other places exist and that's the way it should be imo, but it's no harm to have other environments on line where people who like things a certain way can visit.

There is some serious theory behind this you will always get posters who exist to disrupt, you need to cater for them in computer games and online, but socialisers represent a huge part of the online public, they generally leave sites and games where trolls and disrupters have too much pull, like the way I don't post much on the journal anymore, but I read it.

I guess just like the BBC and RTE were hit by the large amounts of new TV stations competation within the communal sites will grow until the whole thing is superseded.

sheep?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057589993

Just a wee update on the OP. I think his appeal may have failed.

Flatzie_poo

sheep? wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057589993

Just a wee update on the OP. I think his appeal may have failed.

That's really embarrassing...

Samaris

Noticed how it's usually us After Hours people that get bans and cards? There's a couple of other regular sections that pop up (cycling, motors, soccer and the odd hotspot of gardeners upsetting each other).

Kinda surprised the gaming section doesn't get more trouble. Being a gamer myself, I know very well what we can be like!

Edit: Oh, and the politics cafe, ofc.

Padraig1888

actuallylike wrote: »

That politics cafe closure is disgraceful. An extremely active forum. Had arguably one of the most active threads (Irish Water) and now it's gone, no real reason, a vague 'few days' time frame with no promises of anything and a warning not to discuss it. What a joke.

Think once things get tasty it gets pulled, think they are afraid of affecting commercial investors.

The Moldy Gowl

sheep? wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057589993

Just a wee update on the OP. I think his appeal may have failed.

Most of those re regs just like the attention.

It's surprisingly easy to evade capture of being a re reg. just cop on and don't do what got you banned in the first place and play nice.

There is no automated system that flags re regs.

smash

the evasion_kid wrote: »

Probably waiting on all the hullabaloo on Irish water to die down...

You can post again :pac:

biko

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

What other sites do you keep going on about???

"across the web" dontchaknow???????

smash

biko wrote: »

"across the web" dontchaknow???????

And the deep web hate us. 90% of the dark net is boards bashing!!!!

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000

The OP got banned... :rolleyes:

red sean

dudara wrote: »

For the record, I banned the OP as he was a serial re-reg. Nothing to do with this thread, ironically.

Damn, you just ruined a good story about banning

MRnotlob606

Going Forward wrote: »

I'd say say.

But just to be on the safe side, post generic, pro establishment, politically-correct stuff so as to not upset anyone.

And don't mention Irish Water anywhere.

Or Sinn Féin, God do those people hate Sinn Féin

Billy86

Flatzie_poo wrote: »

That's really embarrassing...

You'll tend to find it's a pretty consistently recurring theme among a lot of the "mods are oppressing my life, I'm such a victim here!" crowd to be honest. Makes you wonder if there's just a few of them, each with multiple accounts to pat themselves on the back with!

Which sounds ridiculously sad, but actually was going on in another part of the website I frequent a few months back!

flutered

StewartGriffin wrote: »

Well of the most active threads, one was the eternal spiral of Irish Water charges gurgling round and round a plughole, another was the the neverending zombie waltz of forming a new govt, and the third was something irrelevant about Sinn Fein (cough! cough!)

If you see a lad walking the streets who look as though he hasn't seen sunlight for 6 months tell Jack I said hello.

he is not alone

Billy86

Into The Blue wrote: »

If you keep being this helpful, they'll have nothing to moan/be paranoid about!

To be fair, have you ever done moderating for a forum with this kind of traffic? I did once years and years ago... for about three months. For something that is unpaid, and essentially just paying back into a free service you have enjoyed enough to want to do so, it's incredibly time consuming. For the mods to be as actively involved and to explain absolutely everything to the extent that so many wish/demand, it's not an exaggeration to say it would be a full time job, if not a full time job with considerable extra hours involved.

And the one I was on was only a football subforum with an 'off topic' subforum within it, when politics, race, religion, etc all become heavily involved, it could only be a lot more time consuming.

gandalf

LOL the OP got banned. TBH from my moderating days it was normally quite easy to spot a re-reg.

Boards had a reputation because it opened users to their ideas being questioned and forcing them to respond in way that wasn't telling the questioner to copulate away. A small number of noisy twats couldn't handle this and got banned. They turned up on other sites whining about how they were wronged on boards.

maudgonner

sheep? wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057589993

Just a wee update on the OP. I think his appeal may have failed.

If Boards need to make more money they could just make the Prison forum pay per view. It's the best entertainment going.

Wibbs

gandalf wrote: »

Boards had a reputation because it opened users to their ideas being questioned and forcing them to respond in way that wasn't telling the questioner to copulate away.

Yep. I don't particularly mind being called a wanker, cos lord knows I can be, but if that's all you have in your arsenal it's not much to work with. It's the schoolyard "you smell!" debating tactic. At least try to bring something more to the table. "you smell, because you trod in dog eggs and haven't washed your pits in a week", that I can work with.

K-9

KomradeBishop wrote: »

One thing I don't get there, is why mods with an obvious political/economic leaning/bias get chosen - is it to achieve some kind of 'balance' ala the balance fallacy? If so, that's a really terrible way to choose mods.

Things like conflicts of interest and bias should be considered when selecting mods, so that the more egregious examples (including e.g. think-tank/party/business-lobby members) get excluded from moderation, due to the potential for bias affecting mod decisions.

You left out the part of the post that said political leanings never come up in the mod forums.

Arrow in the Knee

I would like to become a Moderator but with none of the work involved☺

Boom_Bap

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

I would like to become a Moderator but with none of the work involved☺

You'll only get a really really really small percentage of the coke and probably not get even a sniff of the hookers.

Kimbot

Boom_Bap wrote: »

You'll only get a really really really small percentage of the coke and probably not get even a sniff of the hookers.

Mods get coke and hookers???? :eek:

Wheres mine?

Arrow in the Knee

Boom_Bap wrote: »

You'll only get a really really really small percentage of the coke and probably not get even a sniff of the hookers.

If I can't get the hookers I'll forget about it

Boom_Bap

jonnycivic wrote: »

Mods get coke and hookers???? :eek:

Wheres mine?

You need to level up in Destiny and enter the secret unlock code. :pac:

Kimbot

Boom_Bap wrote: »

You need to level up in Destiny and enter the secret unlock code. :pac:

I already done that, do I wait until its delivered to my postmaster? :pac:

Omackeral

Zyaire Tall Bellboy wrote: »

Your really quite stupid, I'm going to bed.

Every single time this happens, an angel gets its wings.

sheep?

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

I would like to become a Moderator but with none of the work involved☺

I'd look to get involved around here then if I were you, and just pray JJ Abrams doesn't get any notions in the future.

RDM_83 again

Samaris wrote: »

I dunno, a few times I've faded off Boards but it wasn't due to moderation. It was actually due to being sick of some of the nastier stuff that got posted. I stopped going to AH for a bit because I was so damned sick of the constant feminism-bashing and dole-bashing. When there's several threads in a row down the page that's basically the same **** over again it's a bit "nope, not even bothering".

Can I ask though, when did you not find After Hours like that? Like I'm not very politically correct at all and when I first opened an account I used to avoid it because it was a bit much.
The people who complain about AH changing to be much more safe and politically correct do have a really big point, its incomparable now to what it was.
Now I can understand the need for "nicer" spaces but the feeling is the entire site is turning into a very safe space, online (and media in general) is becoming more polarized by the current culture wars but the middle ground still exists, the significant numbers in the opposing fringes should be catered for but they shouldn't be allowed to shift the dynamic so much of already existing thriving forums, look at how the Politics Cafe is about the only new success on Boards, there is a lesson to be learned from that however if you take Dav's statement on the thread

We didn't suddenly start banning Right Wing opinion, Right Wing opinion has become dangerously extremist because the rest of the world has become a more tolerant place.

This thread

The lesson to be taken is that one side is to be cordoned off while the rest of the site is to become more PC/left liberal.
Incidentally on that thread I took the time to look into how threads on the refugee crisis were treated on AH and it was clear that those who's OP's were more positive to migrants/refugees stayed open and weren't moved while those that weren't were.

I'm not arguing that the site shouldn't be moderated but perhaps AH isn't for everyone and shouldn't try to be, I know sub division can spell death but why not push those that want a Nice/PC space to a different forum on the site the same way the Nasty/Right wing has been pushed to the Politics Cafe instead of trying to push the middle of the road people into some PC utopia where they don't want to be.

Hans Bricks

On the topic of locking threads, would it make more sense to quote the examples of the problem posts in the closing comment by the mod locking the thread ?

RayM

Esel wrote: »

Now, wtf is a Social Justice Warrior?

A throwaway slur used by dreadful people to describe basically anyone who isn't a dreadful person.

Billy86

RDM_83 again wrote: »

The lesson to be taken is that one side is to be cordoned off while the rest of the site is to become more PC/left liberal.
Incidentally on that thread I took the time to look into how threads on the refugee crisis were treated on AH and it was clear that those who's OP's were more positive to migrants/refugees stayed open and weren't moved while those that weren't were.

I'm not arguing that the site shouldn't be moderated but perhaps AH isn't for everyone and shouldn't try to be, I know sub division can spell death but why not push those that want a Nice/PC space to a different forum on the site the same way the Nasty/Right wing has been pushed to the Politics Cafe instead of trying to push the middle of the road people into some PC utopia where they don't want to be.

There is one very important point though that I would reckon plays a large role too, though - there is an ad on the top of almost every page on the website. Those advertisements pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the site amongst other things, and those advertisers like (*scrolls up on all tabs*) Richard Killen & Associates, Ford and Chevrolet probably wouldn't be too happy having their product above comments like "nuke all those allah akhbars in the middle east to the ground, women and children too, they're all terrorist vermin" or "queers are an abomination that humanity needs to eradicate."

Boards is after all, first and foremost, a business.

suicide_circus

RayM wrote: »

A throwaway slur used by dreadful people to describe basically anyone who isn't a dreadful person.

Now that's a throwaway slur!

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000

maudgonner wrote: »

If Boards need to make more money they could just make the Prison forum pay per view. It's the best entertainment going.

The prison forum isn't funny at all, it used to be...but now some of the replies on it from mods make me cringe so hard.

RayM

suicide_circus wrote: »

Now that's a throwaway slur!

Nah, the term might have meant something once upon a time, but it's been reduced to "people who don't hate all [insert minority group of your choice here]"

RDM_83 again

Billy86 wrote: »

There is one very important point though that I would reckon plays a large role too, though - there is an ad on the top of almost every page on the website. Those advertisements pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the site amongst other things, and those advertisers like (*scrolls up on all tabs*) Richard Killen & Associates, Ford and Chevrolet probably wouldn't be too happy having their product above comments like "nuke all those allah akhbars in the middle east to the ground, women and children too, they're all terrorist vermin" or "queers are an abomination that humanity needs to eradicate."

Boards is after all, first and foremost, a business.

True but I'm not definitely not saying that the site should be Stormfront, the Daily Mail makes a good profit from its online Business, the Guardian Group looses money, thats not indicating which is better or what way the forum should go but rather indicating how having a (not extremist) right wing slant definitely doesn't turn off advertisers

RDM_83 again

RayM wrote: »

Nah, the term might have meant something once upon a time, but it's been reduced to "people who don't hate all [insert minority group of your choice here]"

I'm curious how do you describe the people that inhabit SRS on reddit, or people that want things like Blurred Lines Banned if not as Social Justice Warriors?

Drumpot

Billy86 wrote: »

There is one very important point though that I would reckon plays a large role too, though - there is an ad on the top of almost every page on the website. Those advertisements pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the site amongst other things, and those advertisers like (*scrolls up on all tabs*) Richard Killen & Associates, Ford and Chevrolet probably wouldn't be too happy having their product above comments like "nuke all those allah akhbars in the middle east to the ground, women and children too, they're all terrorist vermin" or "queers are an abomination that humanity needs to eradicate."

Boards is after all, first and foremost, a business.

I think Durex are missing a trick here. There are plenty of forums full of dickheads.