Boards is becoming a Ghost Town

Bongalongherb

The Hunky Monster wrote: »

I'd hazard a guess that moderation is the real reason people are leaving in droves. It's becoming impossible to have an opinion in After Hours or the soccer forum anyway. Moderated to death.

Are you kidding ?. The amount of crap I produce when in a euphoric and drunken state and cringe the following day expecting bans and red cards when I log on in pm... Amazingly there are none.

It's not the moderation in my opinion, not a chance. I think the moderation is fair. It's in the right place and it never bothered me and I received my fair share of bans and infractions since 2008. I didn't try the new site-look, I'll be sticking with the original until I have to move ahead and then will get used to it, adapt and overcome.

The recent DDOS attack I can understand, as that could very well put a lot of folk off with the glitches and slow-downs etc...

The search feature was never very good in the first place as I even gave up on it and just used google to retrieve a boards.ie thread much faster. People come and people go. But that DDOS attack really fecked up the site and not many folk can handle slow forums. It will pick-up again when it is made fully stable. You have to admit though, there is a great information database here on boards.

KERSPLAT!

Felix Jones is God wrote: »

Sick of that old chestnut... Thousands never get carded.... Frankly...nobody cares!
If you're in an active forum with debate, chances are you will pick up a card or 2....if not, well you're either a lurker with nothing to contribute bar banging the thanks button or someone who has nothing original to say imo

"It's everyone else's fault, definitely not mine"

Plenty engage in discussions with no issues.

Felix Jones is God

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

"It's everyone else's fault, definitely not mine"

Plenty engage in discussions with no issues.

Who's blaming anyone? If I get a card, grand, no issue, I move on...but if you are on boards for 5 years, and don't pick up an infraction, it probably means you frequent a forum with no traffic or real discussion. Again, just my opinion,

Fr_Dougal

Felix Jones is God wrote: »

Who's blaming anyone? If I get a card, grand, no issue, I move on...but if you are on boards for 5 years, and don't pick up an infraction, it probably means you frequent a forum with no traffic or real discussion. Again, just my opinion,

I'm on Boards 4 years and post mainly in AH; no infractions.

I think the issues with the site, between DDoS and then infrastructure issues, have contributed towards a decline. Other factors would be the way social media has changed, people have Facebook and Twitter accounts to communicate.

Any of the very dead fora, well they're either not relevant anymore, or have been moderated to within an inch of their lives.

Tombi!

Mixture of social media overtaking forums. Social media now is basically "look, I'm special" with Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and every eejit known to man with a blog or video on Youtube.

Doubt the moderation has much to do with it. While regular reregs who would wind up users might be gone so more activity on that side is down, discussion hasn't died. And I could look at a few people who've gotten a card or two in AH and haven't been a problem. A card isn't the end of the world. Plenty of people go through Boards without being a problem. I think that's the issue most people don't seem to understand.
A card or even a ban once, okay if you learn your lesson and reign it back in to follow the rules. Seems to me that the people that complain about moderation the most are either: the ones that can't reign it in/would rather break the "don't be a dick" rule or else (understandably in this case): see a lot of mods posting in bold and think they're being heavy handed because they don't know what's going on behind the scenes.

Case in point would be the Prison forum - plenty of idiots in there that are just reregs. They look all nice and innocent till they get told they're a rereg then they start trolling/being abusive.

Wibbs

Links234 wrote: »

If there's anything killing boards, it's some of the outright nastiness that goes on from overly hostile users with a bug up their ass and an axe to grind about whatever their pet subject is. The Ladies Lounge was absolutely buzzing with activity, but the life was practically stamped out of it by people who were quite aggressively derailing every other thread, the mods there are doing a good job trying to turn it round, but it's barely recovered and might not fully recover at all. Some folks are just making boards a seriously hostile place, and people are leaving because of it. I've quite a few friends who've left boards entirely, and it's that hostility that's the reason, it's fracturing any sense of community.

Great in theory if that's the theory one is trying to prove, but the reality doesn't bear it out. I modded the place for years from right off the bat and well past the peak of activity and we had muppets from day one. Oh and by the by, not just men coming by to troll. We also had the women who were at various levels of "outrage" because it wasn't the forum they wanted or what they thought "it should be". And it weathered those. Indeed at the height of the "the Ladies Lounge is an abomination to men/free speech/my flavour of feminism"[delete as applicable] with near monthly Feedback threads and toys outa the pram by all and sundry, at times requiring the ministrations of The Office(™) to sort, it was still flying along and garnering new people posting. At the very peak of "buzzing with activity".

If you look at when it went from a rolling 100 odd number of posters to under 20 it happened within months if not weeks of the category rejig. Hell, as I said I modded the place, stopped subbing to the forum and rarely looked back in because it was just too many extra clicks beyond my "couldn't be arsed" threshold. Granted I'd have the "couldn't be arsed" threshold of a 16 year old with ADHD, but it seems I'm not alone in this. The proof of the pudding an all.

You also reckon that "outright nastiness" is killing the site and I'd bet After Hours would be in the firing line there(as it usually is, as night follows day), yet it's in many ways too popular a forum that is dragging bums on seats away from elsewhere. Dav himself has mentioned this. "outright nastiness" isn't the issue as far as numbers go, that child has many fathers, one of whom is the "streamlining" of the site. There are forums outside the outrage sensitive forums that have also fallen off a cliff.

Smash wrote:

Whether displayed under a username or not, I think the feature itself is a necessity these days with the amount of targeting of users being done. Both on site here and on other forums.

That appears to make sense S. I did type appears. So Wibbs gets targeted by others. I close my account. Big whoop. My posts and username are still attached and clearly visible. What has changed? Feck all. I rereg a day later when I've recovered from all the awfulness and soon enough my new handle is noted(the number of users I can think of that have done just that). What has changed? Feck all again. It's one of those security ideas that actually has near zero security involved. Big Idea; If it gets too much and that's fine, then just walk away and stop posting. Whether that be for a while or for good. Simples. Nobody is holding a gun to anybody's fully grown adult's head here.

Fr_Dougal wrote:

I think the issues with the site, between DDoS and then infrastructure issues, have contributed towards a decline. Other factors would be the way social media has changed, people have Facebook and Twitter accounts to communicate.

Any of the very dead fora, well they're either not relevant anymore, or have been moderated to within an inch of their lives.

That would be the bones of it alright.

RDM_83 again

Links234 wrote: »

Quite frankly, that's giant elephant dung. Constantly you see threads about travellers, immigrants, people on the dole, feminists, etc, and they're brimming with, if we're being polite, decidedly un-PC opinions. Quite frankly, there's some absolutely blatant racists on boards, yet users have gotten carded for calling people racists/bigots, it's laughable.

If there's anything killing boards, it's some of the outright nastiness that goes on from overly hostile users with a bug up their ass and an axe to grind about whatever their pet subject is. The Ladies Lounge was absolutely buzzing with activity, but the life was practically stamped out of it by people who were quite aggressively derailing every other thread, the mods there are doing a good job trying to turn it round, but it's barely recovered and might not fully recover at all. Some folks are just making boards a seriously hostile place, and people are leaving because of it. I've quite a few friends who've left boards entirely, and it's that hostility that's the reason, it's fracturing any sense of community.

I will reuse this recent post of mine to a different user

Quote:
Originally Posted by Samaris View Post
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.

Perhaps the Ladies Lounge has died because the users moved to After Hours?

smash

Wibbs wrote: »

That appears to make sense S. I did type appears. So Wibbs gets targeted by others. I close my account. Big whoop. My posts and username are still attached and clearly visible. What has changed? Feck all. I rereg a day later when I've recovered from all the awfulness and soon enough my new handle is noted(the number of users I can think of that have done just that). What has changed? Feck all again. It's one of those security ideas that actually has near zero security involved. Big Idea; If it gets too much and that's fine, then just walk away and stop posting. Whether that be for a while or for good. Simples. Nobody is holding a gun to anybody's fully grown adult's head here.

it could be one of the issues. A lot of people just don't feel safe online any more and that's why so many social networks are upping their privacy game but it's an area where forums have failed miserably. In fact forums are pushing for more social platform integration without any of the back up for when something goes wrong for a user.

I'll add to this that the big boards hack a few years back made a lot of users leave and the continuous DDOS attack down time doesn't make users feel safe either.

Bongalongherb

Jezz, no matter what way the site is made-up or advanced to make folk happy, folk will nonetheless complain because it is not to each individuals liking. Ye can't make every 'Individual' happy of course.

Though this 'Political Correctness' scenario in a lot of threads does my head in, I still put up with reading it at times. PC gone mad it has become.

PS: Indeed, the Boards hack a few years ago was a real problem and I can imagine a lot of folk leaving from that one, especially subscribers.

Posy

I definitely browse less since the topics disappeared into one big heading. I never, ever stumble across random topics anymore whereas before that, I would have often seen a topic and thought 'I didn't know there was a forum for XYZ' and give it a click.

Wibbs wrote: »

There's that too many forums thing right there H. Two forums that basically cover the same subject.

I totally agree with this- there could be so much streamlining done with various 'dead' forums/fora. Less than 50ish posts a year and I fail to see the point of a forum, when a thread somewhere would suffice.

Wibbs wrote:

Another thing that's more a psychological one is the "Closed Account" option. Maybe it's just me to be fair, but I think that sends a really bad signal. 1) it makes your account, you seem less "valuable" and 2) comes across as a negative when reading a thread

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

New site and close account function would be the main issues, IMO. The close account function has ruined the site and the new site will kill it off.

+1
I was reading a thread started last month in AH and the first page had several 'closed accounts'. It just looked so bad.
Accounts seem like a throw away thing now, I know several posters who are completely open that they are on account number 7/8/9.
It looks like at least 50% of users are either 'closed accounts' or 'banned.' It really negates the community spirit that boards once had.

Lone Stone

I use to be fairly active in after hours and enjoyed the topical posts about things for the casual rant but barely bother anymore with it since mods dump any interesting stuff into politics which I don't really like the atmosphere in those forums.

Esel

I composed a long post, but then I clicked back.

Esel

The gods cannot hear
Shouting in their ear
Thesis? Jebus
Golgotha is near

KERSPLAT!

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

Read: it's impossible to be a dîck, you always get banned



Thousands upon thousands have no issues with moderation but you always get a few who act the bollox, get banned, get carded, etc and blame moderation rather than look at themselves. Then you've the reregs who hate the site and moderation but still stick around because... Well, I don't know why, you'd have to ask one of them.

Moderation is far from perfect on boards but it wouldn't be a leading cause for the downturn in users, IMO.

I got barred from a thread, with no explanation at all.
It's not even a thread I'm in that much, but without a reason why, it really grates.
It would put me off the whole site tbh.
A reason, or an explanation why, would go a long way.
It would make me move if it keeps on happening

Bongalongherb

bubblypop wrote: »

I got barred from a thread, with no explanation at all.
It's not even a thread I'm in that much, but without a reason why, it really grates.
It would put me off the whole site tbh.
A reason, or an explanation why, would go a long way.
It would make me move if it keeps on happening

You do know that there is a boards thread for this... If any-one has a dispute you can easily forward the information to be analysed by other mods/category mods or administrator if necessary.

Bongalongherb

Bongalongherb wrote: »

You do know that there is a boards thread for this... If any-one has a dispute you can easily forward the information to be analysed by other mods/category mods or administrator if necessary.

I did
I still didn't get an answer
Then I went back to the original mod that barred me
Still no reason/ explanation

Esel

Bongalongherb wrote: »

You do know that there is a boards thread for this... If any-one has a dispute you can easily forward the information to be analysed by other mods/category mods or administrator if necessary.

Not sure if ironic, or the problem.

Bongalongherb

Esel wrote: »

Not sure if ironic, or the problem.

Paranoid the lot of you are. Get back in a thread and make it happen, bring something funny to the fore and expand it accordingly, no excuses. This is not a thread you should be spending your time on, it should be spent advancing the good stuff on After-Hours and getting deeply in on the action..

And it takes a stone-head to make you understand this. Move forward ye-all into making boards.ie more crazy and titillating to folk with the catches and bombardments of good things. Now off with you all.

Esel

Bongalongherb wrote: »

Paranoid the lot of you are. Get back in a thread and make it happen, bring something funny to the fore and expand it accordingly, no excuses. This is not a thread you should be spending your time on, it should be spent advancing the good stuff on After-Hours and getting deeply in on the action..

And it takes a stone-head to make you understand this. Move forward ye-all into making boards.ie more crazy and titillating to folk with the catches and bombarments of good things. Now off with you all.

As I said.

Too many words to assimilate.

Can we please (not) appeal
To the lowest common

Denominator

Bongalongherb

Esel wrote: »

As I said.

Too many words to assimilate.

Can we please (not) appeal
To the lowest common

Denominator

There is no common denominator, all things are different, and as such should be expressed accordingly.

Be well Esel.

Wibbs

smash wrote: »

A lot of people just don't feel safe online any more and that's why so many social networks are upping their privacy game but it's an area where forums have failed miserably.

Social networks are upping their privacy more from government influences than anything else. People are only too happy to put their personal details up in public, indeed many are downright competitive about it. Never underestimate the interwebs attention seeker. They're everywhere, or Facebook, twitter, snapchat et al wouldn't be so damned popular.

As for people feeling "safe", how can a forum like Boards make things any safer? There is an expectation that you're a grown adult, you've a choice of username, more you've a choice of your personal details you put out there. You can be as anon and safe as you want, or not. Somewhere like Boards is a lot less personal and vulnerable than somewhere like Facebook. I have no clue who you are, so long as you make the choice not to tell me who you are. As I pointed out at the time of the international celeb phone hack; there are no pics of my willie on the interwebs, because I don't take pictures of my willie and upload them to the interwebs. Blindingly obvious but there you go.

More than once I've had fellow Board's folk PM me complaining that they were being "stalked on Boards", only for me to find that they had a link to their blog/facebook account in their profile. Yep people can be that slow on the uptake. There is nothing that Boards or any forum can do about this and what can be done has already been done with bans on doxxing etc(including getting the cops involved in some cases).

Lovely Bloke

Posy wrote: »

I definitely browse less since the topics disappeared into one big heading. I never, ever stumble across random topics anymore whereas before that, I would have often seen a topic and thought 'I didn't know there was a forum for XYZ' and give it a click.

Many people have stated this, but it's being ignored.

Used to be that I'd hover over (for example) "Science" and then the drop down would come, and I'd see the list of "sciency" topics and go into them one by one. I literally never do that any more, because nothing happens automatically any more. It's effort. I've no particular interest in any of the science topics at all, so I don't make the effort to go into them.

But "The Office" either don't understand the issue there, or are of the opinion that there is a huge horde of people just waiting for a major site redesign before actually posting. How many different "betas" have we seen in the last couple of years? Has the posting base increased or decreased?

smash

Wibbs wrote: »

Social networks are upping their privacy more from government influences than anything else. People are only too happy to put their personal details up in public, indeed many are downright competitive about it. Never underestimate the interwebs attention seeker. They're everywhere, or Facebook, twitter, snapchat et al wouldn't be so damned popular.

But on these platforms(specifically facebook) there's no expectation of anonymity because they're your personal profile. Forums are different as they're an open discussion medium where you don't need to disclose personal information. This works for good and for bad as on one end people don't have to put out details they don't want to, but on the other hand there's no personal responsibility for trolling and targeting.

Wibbs wrote: »

As for people feeling "safe", how can a forum like Boards make things any safer? There is an expectation that you're a grown adult, you've a choice of username, more you've a choice of your personal details you put out there.

Given that you can't resurrect old threads, one option is to hide inactive threads over a certain age. This would knock SEO on a business level but it would make 'post stalking' a whole lot more constrained and give at least the illusion of some privacy. I also suggested before that boards could charge for account removal or destruction if people really wanted it.

Wibbs wrote: »

You can be as anon and safe as you want, or not. Somewhere like Boards is a lot less personal and vulnerable than somewhere like Facebook. I have no clue who you are, so long as you make the choice not to tell me who you are. As I pointed out at the time of the international celeb phone hack; there are no pics of my willie on the interwebs, because I don't take pictures of my willie and upload them to the interwebs. Blindingly obvious but there you go.

I'm more so talking about the reason for people closing accounts and starting new ones repeatedly to limit their digital footprint.

Wibbs wrote: »

More than once I've had fellow Board's folk PM me complaining that they were being "stalked on Boards", only for me to find that they had a link to their blog/facebook account in their profile. Yep people can be that slow on the uptake. There is nothing that Boards or any forum can do about this and what can be done has already been done with bans on doxxing etc(including getting the cops involved in some cases).

I can understand links to blogs/fb etc in signatures for regulars of say the photography or beauty blogging forums who are trying to gain an audience for their work. It's when they step outside of their regular space that they realise how vulnerable they are. Private forums are becoming popular around here for a reason.

the groutch

the moving of certain threads from AH to smaller outlying forums because AH apparently "isn't for chat" certainly isn't helping.

Wibbs

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Many people have stated this, but it's being ignored.

Used to be that I'd hover over (for example) "Science" and then the drop down would come, and I'd see the list of "sciency" topics and go into them one by one. I literally never do that any more, because nothing happens automatically any more. It's effort. I've no particular interest in any of the science topics at all, so I don't make the effort to go into them.

But "The Office" either don't understand the issue there, or are of the opinion that there is a huge horde of people just waiting for a major site redesign before actually posting. How many different "betas" have we seen in the last couple of years? Has the posting base increased or decreased?

+1. Never mind the real world costs in time, effort and money these rejigs have accrued. The "I don't even…" meme really springs to mind here.

smash wrote: »

But on these platforms(specifically facebook) there's no expectation of anonymity because they're your personal profile. Forums are different as they're an open discussion medium where you don't need to disclose personal information. This works for good and for bad as on one end people don't have to put out details they don't want to, but on the other hand there's no personal responsibility for trolling and targeting.

Hence trolling and targeting is jumped on by mods here. Again Boards is much more proactive on this front compared to other forums.

Given that you can't resurrect old threads, one option is to hide inactive threads over a certain age. This would knock SEO on a business level but it would make 'post stalking' a whole lot more constrained and give at least the illusion of some privacy.

Illusion indeed and IMH that's an awful idea.

I also suggested before that boards could charge for account removal or destruction if people really wanted it.

You own, or should own your words and opinions. If you don't want to own them, then don't post them. I personally would be dead set against this except in criminal cases.

I'm more so talking about the reason for people closing accounts and starting new ones repeatedly to limit their digital footprint.

While in most cases attracting more attention to themselves. It would be my opinion that most cases of account closure is more to do with a temporary flounce and storm off in a huff than any limiting of their digital footprint. The fact that so many keep coming back, often within the same day says much. Hell, I've seen one example where they came back to the same thread. Yeah, way to go deep undercover dark web alright. That's James Bond stuff alright, where he tells everybody his name and every gimp behind every bar in the known world knows his drinks order.

I can understand links to blogs/fb etc in signatures for regulars of say the photography or beauty blogging forums who are trying to gain an audience for their work. It's when they step outside of their regular space that they realise how vulnerable they are.

You see, maybe I'm just old or something, but I just don't get this. You want attention so you seek it out by firing your deets* and opinions onto the interwebs for all to see, but you only want the right type of attention and feel entitled to it? Hate to break it to folks but the world doesn't work like that the online world most certainly doesn't. IMH we need this hammered into people at school from an early age.

Again Boards.ie is one of the most proactive in dealing with online stalking, bullying and comes down very hard on it. No matter how proactive they are you still can't legislate for the naive.

Private forums are becoming popular around here for a reason

Private forums are popular enough, but from what I've gleaned over the years there are few that survive in rude health for very long. There are a lot of dead ones I believe. And don't for one minute imagine low level group manipulation, trolling and cliquish behaviour doesn't go on in them either.




*I'm down with the kidz.

o1s1n

I'd also like to add that since the topics were changed I don't browse forums outside of my favourites at all now.

I don't actively avoid it, its just that previously it was so easy to do that it just happened naturally, as odd as that might sound.

Its like with every iteration of boards, less information is available on screen at once and youve to click down through more categories etc.

That little bit of extra hassle might not seem like much design wise but it really stops people from exploring the site.

dinorebel

hullaballoo wrote: »

It's hackneyed at this stage but people (not just the young uns) have a dreadfully poor attention span these days as well.

I'd disagree w

Wibbs

+1 the recent Beta rollout makes this even worse. I mean who thought the idea of moving forum stickies to yet another level was a good one? Take one of the most popular and viewed threads on the site, the daily weather forecast in the weather forum. It's a sticky because, well it deserves to be one. Now it's not immediately visible in the beta site. Stickies are important threads, now gone stealth. That's before we get to forum charters and all that. I'd have loved to have been at that meeting. The mind genuinely boggles.

Lovely Bloke

"But that's not the way we think stickies should be used"

Cookie_Monster

o1s1n wrote: »

Its like with every iteration of boards, less information is available on screen at once and youve to click down through more categories etc.

That little bit of extra hassle might not seem like much design wise but it really stops people from exploring the site.

This, a million times this!!!

But seems to be a common theme on the interwebs these days, dumb everything down as much as possible or hide as much info as possible, not sure why. Modern site design is appallingly bad.