Boards is becoming a Ghost Town

KERSPLAT!

wyrn wrote: »

Listen, I'm not interested in getting involved in user vs mod (cmod / admin) posts and counter posts. I just thought I know the post that Tombstone was referring to and thought I'd be helpful.

Absolutely, and you were. Thank you.

Penn

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

"whose every post involved an inner debate for me trying to decide if it could be infracted."

That there...it pretty much as I said. Silly way to be modding a forum.

On phone, couldn't go looking for the post before hand and I said something like """"""" """"""".

Come on _Tombstone_, you completely removed that paraphrasing from the context of the rest of the paragraph. mirrorwall14 was clearly talking specifically about certain posters whose posts required a higher level of deliberation to see if it warranted a mod action. They were not "looking for posts to card".

And I know exactly what mirrorwall14 was talking about as I often found myself in the same situation. Posts aren't always clearly against the rules or not. Many require a judgement call, taking into account the full context of the thread, trying to determine what the poster's intent may have been, reviewing the poster's history on the forum, discussing it with co-mods etc. And there have always been posters who know how to just stay inside the letter of the rules but fall outside the spirit of the rules. It can take a lot of time and effort, and even then, mods don't always get it right.

We don't "look for posts to card".

Maireadio

One big signal to me that things have quietened down a lot on boards: the thread on the Egyptair flight is sluggish. A few years ago a thread like that would have been hopping.

LizT

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

"whose every post involved an inner debate for me trying to decide if it could be infracted."

That there...it pretty much as I said. Silly way to be modding a forum.

On phone, couldn't go looking for the post before hand and I said something like """"""" """"""".

I would take that as meaning that modding is not black and white. There are some posts you read and you just genuinely don't know if it's acceptable or not. There have been plenty of times I've asked for co mods opinions on something I wasn't sure about. In those cases I wasn't trying to action a user just for the sake of it, I would hope no mod on this site would do that.

Turtyturd

I think that exchange a couple of pages back highlights one of the main non existent problems with moderation.

Poster 1 comes in trolling

Poster 2 responds

Mod comes along and has some connection to poster 1 (both mods in this case) so ignores their trolling and threatens to ban poster 2.

Mr. CooL ICE

Maireadio wrote: »

One big signal to me that things have quietened down a lot on boards: the thread on the Egyptair flight is sluggish. A few years ago a thread like that would have been hopping.

To be fair, I reckon this is more to do with people become desensitized to all the air crashes and acts of terrorism over the past few years.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

K-9 wrote: »

I've taken conservative or against the grain views on subjects and I don't think I've felt mods closed it down. I've felt a bit ganged upon, but copped myself on. I'm on the minority opinion side, of course there are more posts on the other side. Those thanks? They're buttons on a website. Stop being a precious snow flake K-9 and debate my side!

And that's a very reasonable way to respond to the situation, but not necessarily how all or even most people do respond. I post on sites and in threads where there'd be a) far more tolerance of personal abuse b) far less of a left majority, I keep my cool but it can be hard, it's a very frustrating experience.

And honestly I'd say there can be a problem with standard of posting when situations like that arise, mostly on AH. There are some thankswhoring smart arses who just want to mock people's views rather than debate them, and it exacerbates everything.

All across the internet, and boards is no different, conservative people have a censorship complex right now. I've no patience with the school of thought that people should be allowed to call people n*ggers (not because they're racists or anything, but because of free speech and the tyranny of the PC Brigade blah blah blah), but I can see how the moderation on here validates that censorship complex. If this is about who's in the right, that's a different conversation, if it's about factors that are contributing to declining traffic, moderation is relevant.

That said, I don't have any solutions to offer, there just seems to be a general trend on these threads to deny that moderation is a problem despite it being the number one thing people mention.

But as I said previously, group think isn't a left or liberal thing. I've seen threads with more conservative group think and the same thing happens, just in reverse.

Oh absolutely, it's human nature, not anything inherent to one side of the political spectrum.

Lurkio

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

"How to be a mod 101"

Someone needs to write out basic help/tips for new mods.


"Stop locking threads or at the very least have a damn good reason and post it before you lock"

"If putting a warning in a thread put it in post 1"

t.

"If you remove a thread, tell the poster why" wouldn't be the worst idea either.

Maireadio

Nicolas Cage wrote: »

To be fair, I reckon this is more to do with people become desensitized to all the air crashes and acts of terrorism over the past few years.

I don't think that explains it. Many people are very interested in politics that involves terrorism. It always gets people talking. It always did on AH anyway!

polluxspiky

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Shall we get a firing squad ready? You seem to want someone shot over this and won't be happy until it happens.

Let's face it, if you pulled the piss out of mods the way this post pulls the piss out of joe poster you'd get carded. Every mod post here gets thanked by mods and hangers on.
It's not a discussion at all. It's stonewalling.

polluxspiky

Nicolas Cage wrote: »

To be fair, I reckon this is more to do with people become desensitized to all the air crashes and acts of terrorism over the past few years.

You think there's been more air crashes and terrorism in the last few years than the preceding?!?! Northern Ireland?

_Tombstone_

polluxspiky wrote: »

You think there's been more air crashes and terrorism in the last few years than the preceding?!?! Northern Ireland?

I don't think the last 2 years was worse than any other for plane crashes but their was a clump together there at one stage, then the one that got shot down, the one in Asia that hit the bridge sideways and the one that disappeared they've been looking for for near 2 years. They were all over the news for months so it's kinda gone like, meh, another plane crash.

K-9

polluxspiky wrote: »

Let's face it, if you pulled the piss out of mods the way this post pulls the piss out of joe poster you'd get carded. Every mod post here gets thanked by mods and hangers on.
It's not a discussion at all. It's stonewalling.

I'll expect your post to get carded then!

Pelvis Parsley

This site is getting very divisive these days.

Into The Blue

Into The Blue wrote: »

Not the whole site, just their own forums.. lougc is an example of building the Christmas forum.. excellent job done.

The it's not my job mentality will close the place.

But the fact is it's not a mods job to do that kind of thing , I agree with what you are saying but that is where the good will comes into it and without out that boards is nothing. My point being had I received an email like you suggested I'd have politely told them to do one and closed my account.

FortySeven

I think boards is great. Top job people.

Lest we forget.

Chorus_suck

This post has been deleted.

Chorus_suck

This post has been deleted.

_Tombstone_

The "community" spoke in post after post after post in that category reorganisation thread about not leaving that mess of a menu bar like that and were ignored.

And people wonder why users can't find their way around the site???

_Tombstone_

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

And people wonder why users can't find their way around the site???

Whatever happened to the making of the Video Tutorials for newcomers to the site to help them find there way??

6 years ago they were coming...nearly as long as the new site.

mirrorwall14

You know what, this is the only the second time I have been seriously upset by a post on boards. And this is one of those times that I am considering closing my site and just ****ing off to Reddit completely and to hell with boards.

I worked my ass off as a mod in a very difficult time for the forum in question. I came on this thread and honestly tried to describe how I felt at the point I stepped down. It feels like not only have I been misunderstood but deliberately misinterpreted and partially quoted to suit the narrative. I don't feel my post was vague enough to be misunderstood in the way that I have now been quoted.

I am just sick of this ****. You want an example of why people close accounts? This. This is why.

Tilly

Lexie you know I love you to bits but if you're posting stuff that's making you identifiable then that's on you, not Boards. Plus posting stuff on the internet is forever. And this is a public site so anyone can take your posts/info and use it if you put it out there. Again, I love you to death but I just can't see what Boards can do to stop this from happening? What would you like them to do?

The Moldy Gowl

The site is <snip> and they are a bit special over there. It got members when reddit banned all the hate groups like fat people hate among others.

Just went on it there and the general consensus is the people doing it are geebags.
I wouldn't worry about it. All they have is your photo as far as I see.

Sure if the admins here wanted, they could track you down easier. They have your email.

Zaph

Please don't mention the site in question, doing so merely encourages others to go take a look. The more hits they get the more they'll feel that their antics have some sort of legitimacy and they'll only keep them up. Starving them of the oxygen of publicity is the only way to deal with them. Thanks.

Lurkio

I have a good idea/notion of two current boards members who post in that particular forum at this stage (its not rocket science lets face it), and whose username is which in one case, but given the reactions I received with perhaps the only major issue I've had here in 8 years I just couldn't be arsed passing the user names on, tbh.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

Tilly wrote: »

Lexie you know I love you to bits but if you're posting stuff that's making you identifiable then that's on you, not Boards. Plus posting stuff on the internet is forever. And this is a public site so anyone can take your posts/info and use it if you put it out there. Again, I love you to death but I just can't see what Boards can do to stop this from happening? What would you like them to do?

I agree Tilly, it is on me. It's 100% on me what I post and I am very open. What never even crossed my mind was a) I'd ever be interesting enough to warrent my own stalker and b) my stuff being yanked from here and being used to try stalk me everywhere else. It's weird. I didn't even know it was a thing.
This isn't boards fault AT ALL, but it's happening and they need to deal with it better. At least let users know this is out there, were being targetted by bitter virgins wearing skidmarkked yellow y-fronts, be careful posting your mush, basically.

K-9

I think notifying those who fall victim is best.

It's a fine line. That forum was dormant for months AFAIK and has maybe 4 or 5 regular users.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

That site seems to be a big factor in a lot of the higher profile account closures, which is something that's come up a lot in this thread and is being blamed on moderation.

It's also a nice peek beyond the looking glass of the sort of content a portion of boards' user base would generate if they got the kind of laissez faire moderation they're calling for.

Several users are complaining about boards' handling of this. A big theme on this thread is admins, office etc. not listening to complaints, this is one of the few actual serious IRL complaints and it's being deleted when it comes up, apparently. Lexie broke no rules in her post there and we're at the point where she just assumed it'd be deleted.

Are we saying none of this is relevant to declining traffic?

I know we should all be careful about what we post online as a matter of course, and I understand not wanting to give them oxygen, but the little dance for joy they'd do for five minutes over a sticky with a general warning about doxxing outweighs the good it might do?

Tilly

K-9 wrote: »

I think notifying those who fall victim is best.

It's a fine line. That forum was dormant for months AFAIK and has maybe 4 or 5 regular users.

Is it best tho? I'd rather not know tbh. What I don't know and all that...

Esel

<snip>

That is a crap thing to have happen to you.

If any of those identifying posts are still here on Boards, maybe PM an admin and ask for them to be deleted. At least that would prevent a repeat.

I really can't comprehend the mentality of people who would do that.

Do you have any suspects? Maybe do some sleuthing yourself.

Hopefully, someone, somewhere, with sufficient technical knowledge, will take that site down and keep it down.

Take care of yourself. Remember, fup the begrudgers.