Boards is becoming a Ghost Town

Maireadio

Dav wrote: »

For this thread, as you may have spotted earlier Myrddin has kindly posted some of the work we've been doing to address some of what was raised here. I'm trying to come back with complete answers/suggestions for other problems raised rather than piece-meal solution that will only make things worse. I can't imagine my coming to this thread to say "I don't have a solution yet" every day is going to help anything.

Why has 25% been given over to adverts.ie when you were driving home in an earlier post that they are a seperate entity?

Tipperary Fairy

Skylinehead wrote: »

You'll have people complaining whatever happens there.

Open = "cringeworthy"

Closed = not transparent

Well then how about a rule of not acting the dick?

Oh wait

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Cookie_Monster

Maireadio wrote: »

Why has 25% been given over to adverts.ie when you were driving home in an earlier post that they are a separate entity?

revenue generation for boards from adverts for advertising is the only justifiable reason IMO

Lovely Bloke

Maireadio wrote: »

Why has 25% been given over to adverts.ie when you were driving home in an earlier post that they are a seperate entity?

no answer given

it's the way of the office

address what they want to, everything else is irrelevant and can be brushed off as mouthy malcontents blowing hot air for the sake of it

Lovely Bloke

here on boards we just want to be able to have some safe fun.

yep

Maireadio

Maireadio wrote: »

I use TripAdvisor a lot and that hasn't been my experience at all. LOTS of people go to the trouble of writing positive reviews.

Yea, if I have a truly positive experience with somewhere, I'll actively go and leave reviews for them wherever I can. And then get disappointed if I notice they don't have a yelp account or anything.

_Tombstone_

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

no answer given

it's the way of the office

address what they want to, everything else is irrelevant and can be brushed off as mouthy malcontents blowing hot air for the sake of it

Exactly. Jaysus, awful carry on.

Spending hours trying to word a post to make a poster look like a tool rather than answer questions asked multiple times for weeks.

Chorus_suck

This post has been deleted.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

no answer given

it's the way of the office

address what they want to, everything else is irrelevant and can be brushed off as mouthy malcontents blowing hot air for the sake of it

I'm no fan of the Boards.ie office but methinks you take this all so serious. You should step back from the keyboard and play a few matches with your five a side team. Clear your head.

Lovely Bloke

what five a side team?

Lovely Bloke

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

I think that certain low-level trolls are also tolerated because they skirt the rules in such a way as to get people "outraged" and encouraging posts and content creation.

...

yep

more of the same

"oh I don't know what you are talking about"

right

yeah

4zn76tysfajdxp

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

what five a side team?

The one you play for?

And I would kindly ask you not to send me any more aggressive PMs, please.

Lovely Bloke

:rolleyes:

aggressive? you precious flower

nice personal attack there you smug

what five a side team are you referring to?

do you get off on belittling people?

but yeah, you are, and always have been, a low level troll, and the powers that be have been letting you away with it.

Fair play to you.

You're getting away with it again.

And it's what Boards.ie is all about these days.

Pelvis Parsley

Jaysus lads, take it handy. TPTB would love an excuse to shut this down.

12Phase

I think Boards needs to be very careful that it doesn't just throw the baby out with the bath water here.

It does need new infrastructure and I do think the recent DDoS attacks show that there are major weaknesses and also the site is looking very dated, but attempting to emulate Twitter (which is actually an abject failure as a business btw) is just silly.

Also I think the admin level stuff needs to be more customer oriented. A lot of the issues around moderation here tend to be a Comic Book Guy style response and someone just gets annoyed.

At the end of the day, the forum users are customers but they're also the content makers creating your product. So you really need listen and listen very carefully to what they want.

Get it wrong and it's curtains.

andekwarhola

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Fair point but it's still applicable to anybody using the site, especially new users.

Not a huge point, just something that irks me whenever I chance upon it.

Winterlong

andekwarhola wrote: »

Fair point but it's still applicable to anybody using the site, especially new users.

Not a huge point, just something that irks me whenever I chance upon it.

The trouble with the prison forum IMO is that it is a form of macabre entertainment where the jailers can seem to be enjoying the pleading of the banned a bit too much.

No need for it to be public.

A list of banned people can be easily seen here if anyone wants to keep tabs on such things.
www .boards.ie/vbulletin/banlist.php

smash

Winterlong wrote: »

The trouble with the prison forum IMO is that it is a form of macabre entertainment where the jailers can seem to be enjoying the pleading of the banned a bit too much.

From your link "League of Bastards" / "Righteous Admin". Says it all.

andekwarhola

Skylinehead wrote: »

You'll have people complaining whatever happens there.

Open = "cringeworthy"

Closed = not transparent

I don't particularly care one way or another, just highlighting what I see as small ways in which the site could address the increasingly adversarial vibe between users and owners and that forum reflects poorly on the site.

Even calling it Prison brings to mind parental admonishment.

mahoganygas

Winterlong wrote: »

The trouble with the prison forum IMO is that it is a form of macabre entertainment where the jailers can seem to be enjoying the pleading of the banned a bit too much.

Reminds me of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

Turtyturd

RDM_83 again wrote: »

Partially true but its a bit of a cop out, but one can always strive for greater consistency and if moderation is more inconsistent in a direction that can definitely be tackled.
This might be a controversial view but what about allowing posters to reference other posts in their defense in Dispute Res, if they can show that their problematic post is similar to what has been allowed for others or that they weren't the initiator of incivility it might help even out moderation

This should be allowed but it would take out the handy get out clause for Cmods and force them to address why mods are punishing some posts and not others. If the carded poster can only appeal the post in question, then the mod should also only be able to address the post in question. A lot of mods seem to resort to past posts and there have been instances of mods threatening to ban posters for posts they even weren't carded for during their appeals.

polluxspiky wrote: »

But if two identical posts are reported and only one is actioned you would have clear, incontestable, evidence of bias. And that can't possibly exist, can it?

You should visit the soccer forum.

Also mods have the handy out here by being able to edit/delete posts. And have used the excuse of having taken action but the action isn't viewable.

Liam McPoyle

With the prison forum I can't recall GENUINE appealants being trolled / belittled.

The ones that get the guff are serial reregs from oft banned users and occasionally shills.

Sometimes mistakes are made and more often than not the banner holds their hands up and lifts the ban upon appeal.

In genuine cases.

The fact remains that the majority of prison posts are from trolls, dicks and wasters.

They should be treated with the exact same level of disdain that they have treated the site / other users with that resulted in them getting banned in the first place.

Into The Blue

Quote:
Originally Posted by Myrddin View Post
1) Absent AFK Mods - So far, thirteen absent mods have been demodded, and discussions are happening with Cmods to replace those demodded with more active, invested users of the affected forums. It can take time to identify the right replacement candidates, and even then not everyone says yes to becoming a mod, so bear with us on this. We will keep an ongoing eye on inactive mods also.

Into The Blue wrote: »

Will Beruthiel and Bonkey be put on Death Row? One post between them in 2yrs+ :P

can add lolth to that.

Penn

Turtyturd wrote: »

Also mods have the handy out here by being able to edit/delete posts. And have used the excuse of having taken action but the action isn't viewable.

That's true though. Cards are visible on both the post it was issued on and on a poster's profile, but bans aren't. And sometimes editing/deleting posts is the best course of action if leaving the post up is likely to attract replies and continue arguments.

Boards is a hell of a lot more transparent than other similar sites when it comes to mod actions, but yes, not all of it can be or should be public.

If anything, the transparency of some aspects of Boards moderation but not with other aspects is likely what leads to accusations of bias or hiding things because what seems like similar cases to regular users simply may not be.

K-9

smash wrote: »

From your link "League of Bastards" / "Righteous Admin". Says it all.

Yeah, not really appropriate anymore, pc/safe space, corporate speak and all that bs!

Seriously, why would anybody want to read that? It's years since I looked at it.

Turtyturd

Penn wrote: »

That's true though. Cards are visible on both the post it was issued on and on a poster's profile, but bans aren't. And sometimes editing/deleting posts is the best course of action if leaving the post up is likely to attract replies and continue arguments.

Boards is a hell of a lot more transparent than other similar sites when it comes to mod actions, but yes, not all of it can be or should be public.

If anything, the transparency of some aspects of Boards moderation but not with other aspects is likely what leads to accusations of bias or hiding things because what seems like similar cases to regular users simply may not be.

I have no doubt that there are instances where removing the post is the correct course of action. And I have no doubt that there are some cases which appear similar on the surface but have their differences. But I also have no doubt that there are instances where this difference is who the poster is, and their relationship to the mod and that the refusal to acknowledge/address this is what leads to accusation of bias and hiding things.

BMMachine

I have actually seen a post being deleted on the soccer forum so that a well known troll (one that has been sitebanned before) didn't get in trouble. The said post was quoted by someone else and the mod was obviously a little sloppy and didnt delete that one either.

Thats the thing though isn't it? Thats the hook. People want to be mods, they want in with the boys and that suits the site fantastically as you create a site that in large parts basically runs itself. In doing so cliques are formed and friendships are made and all that transparency comes to the fore and people get angry with being treated 2nd class in comparison to the person thats friends with the mod or the mod themselves. Stop making being a moderator a big thing and stop moderation being such a massive narrative on this site... but that might go against the free labour part

Maireadio

Deleted User wrote: »

Yea, if I have a truly positive experience with somewhere, I'll actively go and leave reviews for them wherever I can. And then get disappointed if I notice they don't have a yelp account or anything.

Aye, Tripadvisor has reviews that range for complementary to meh to negative.

And boards.ie was the same if you look back five years ago. There are many compelling threads where there was little negativity, just people presenting their views in a rational, interesting way.

Thinking that only drama brings the audience is like thinking that only stagey "reality" TV shows get people watching TV.

andekwarhola

Saul T Nutzz wrote: »

With the prison forum I can't recall GENUINE appealants being trolled / belittled.

The ones that get the guff are serial reregs from oft banned users and occasionally shills.

Sometimes mistakes are made and more often than not the banner holds their hands up and lifts the ban upon appeal.

In genuine cases.

The fact remains that the majority of prison posts are from trolls, dicks and wasters.

They should be treated with the exact same level of disdain that they have treated the site / other users with that resulted in them getting banned in the first place.

Just the right note of tetchy superciliousness there. Are you looking for the gig?

I don't particularly care one way or another. Feedback is solicited; feedback is given, no matter how trivial. It's not an attack.