Boards is becoming a Ghost Town

mzungu

FriendComputer wrote: »

One thing I do remember was that the site, at least the parts I used, weren't as vitriolic, as bitter and cynical and utterly, utterly hateful as it can be now. I don't know what happened to make people so tetchy—maybe some are so attached to their accounts, their personas, what have you—but I often get the feeling of tension hanging in the air, like we're just one stray comment away from someone losing the run of themselves. Which is why I said to link anyone to the last few pages of this thread, it's the perfect example of what I'm talking about. But then again there's been passive-aggressiveness going on all through the thread, hasn't there?

I don't think anything happened as such, just more people have access to it now and as a result the amount of crazies increases. If the same amount of people had access back then as they do now, things wouldn't be much different. Quite a few crazies about back then too though!

Perhaps it's just confirmation bias on myself and others' part but it feels like the animosity and arguments between left- and right-leaning people politically has become a lot worse. Where for a long time, "PC gone mad" was the rallying cry here, I'm starting to see SJW being used. A sign that the wider conflict has arrived on Boards.

Always going to happen unfortunately, we always end up aping the US with these things.

So, again personally, I don't believe over-moderation is the problem, but I also don't think you can point to one issue as to why the site's become quieter.

Other issues have been touched upon - the rise of competing sites like Reddit, changing demographics of internet users, etc.. These all play a part. Whether they're something Boards can do anything about isn't something I can speak to. I can only address my own issues with the site.

There is a hell of a lot more mediums these days for people to choose from. As stated earlier (and by yourself) in the thread a lot of younger people prefer FB, Twitter, Instagram etc. So it's only natural that this would have a knock on effect of traffic here. Lots of young people use mobile BB these days and stuff like social media is tailor made for it. But it's likely there are many other factors contributing too.

Yeah, I've seen the comments about over-moderation, about how the site's apparently spoken of elsewhere but personally, I very seldom see the site spoken of at all. I think either some people are overstating what goes on or it's confined to some specific sites (which wouldn't surprise me). Just as surely, there's a group of posters who'll never be happy until moderation is lax enough that they can post any old ****e they like. That sort of ties into what's been happening on the internet over the last few years. Something that, I'm sad to see, Boards hasn't been isolated from.

I don't believe that over moderation has lead to the drop off either.

I recall a forum I was on yonks ago (90s) with practically no mods. Started out with around 15 regulars who knew each other from a chatroom. It was grand for a few months until more people joined, and of course the resultant trolling (I don't think it was called that at the time) meant one or two had to step up to the plate and mod.

Hence cries of 'this place is over modded' and some epic pre-Godwin stuff went down too. It was all of course short hand for 'I can't come in here and rile people up anymore'. There were of course others who didn't troll, but grew weary of reading passive aggressive posts and got drawn into arguments and ended up getting warnings themselves. This made them think the place had changed and that they were being treated unfairly.

So, in the end, even though I think there might have only ever been around 200 members (with only 30-40 or so consistent contributors) we had a thread quite similar to this discussing the drop off* and how modding had changed the place etc. Errors were made, for sure. But that's human. The place needed it, otherwise it would have been anarchy.

Anyways, it takes a lot of time and effort effort to mod and run a forum. If it was nigh on impossible to keep a mere 40 odd in line and content back in the days of yore, it's quite the feat to keep a site like this ticking over.

Long story short, the dance in this thread has been oft repeated in the past on probably every forum that sees a drop in numbers. Modding has always been the scapegoat, a convenient area to apportion blame. Is modding perfect? Of course not, but the place wouldn't be all that nice to post in without it.

*It was about 3 or 4 regular posters but on a forum that small it was felt.

evolving_doors

mzungu wrote: »

I don't think anything happened as such, just more people have access to it now and as a result the amount of crazies increases. If the same amount of people had access back then as they do now, things wouldn't be much different. Quite a few crazies about back then too though!



Always going to happen unfortunately, we always end up aping the US with these things.



There is a hell of a lot more mediums these days for people to choose from. As stated earlier (and by yourself) in the thread a lot of younger people prefer FB, Twitter, Instagram etc. So it's only natural that this would have a knock on effect of traffic here. Lots of young people use mobile BB these days and stuff like social media is tailor made for it. But it's likely there are many other factors contributing too.



I don't believe that over moderation has lead to the drop off either.

I recall a forum I was on yonks ago (90s) with practically no mods. Started out with around 15 regulars who knew each other from a chatroom. It was grand for a few months until more people joined, and of course the resultant trolling (I don't think it was called that at the time) meant one or two had to step up to the plate and mod.

Hence cries of 'this place is over modded' and some epic pre-Godwin stuff went down too. It was all of course short hand for 'I can't come in here and rile people up anymore'. There were of course others who didn't troll, but grew weary of reading passive aggressive posts and got drawn into arguments and ended up getting warnings themselves. This made them think the place had changed and that they were being treated unfairly.

So, in the end, even though I think there might have only ever been around 200 members (with only 30-40 or so consistent contributors) we had a thread quite similar to this discussing the drop off* and how modding had changed the place etc. Errors were made, for sure. But that's human. The place needed it, otherwise it would have been anarchy.

Anyways, it takes a lot of time and effort effort to mod and running a forum. If it was nigh on impossible to keep a mere 40 odd in line and content back in the days of yore, it's quite the feat to keep a site like this ticking over.

Long story short, the dance in this thread has been oft repeated in the past on probably every forum that sees a drop in numbers. Modding has always been the scapegoat, a convenient area to apportion blame. Is modding perfect? Of course not, but the place wouldn't be all that nice to post in without it.

*It was about 3 or 4 regular posters but on a forum that small it was felt.

I think that's the best summation of what I'm thinking so far.
Boards is essentially a discussion forum, if you wanna act the dick or derail thread because of 'he said/she said/that's not what I said' then that's not discussing.
And the last point is crucial, you have to consider what would be there with low interference moderation!

And yes, of course mods have a role to play in how they deal with disruption (e.g. hitting a first time poster with a ban straight-off the bat without much of an explanation.

Eugene Norman

I don't get the argument that Twitter and FB are taking posters since they are not discussion sites, nor generally pseudonymous. Plenty here would be on both, or one of either. They've also been around for a while.

Reddit, maybe.

Pawwed Rig

Eugene Norman wrote: »

I don't get the argument that Twitter and FB are taking posters since they are not discussion sites, nor generally pseudonymous. Plenty here would be on both, or one of either. They've also been around for a while.

I guess people have limited time in the day for browsing. I spend that time on boards. Were I ever to reach rock bottom and open a twitter account then that might occupy the time otherwise spent here.

_Kaiser_

Eugene Norman wrote: »

There must be more banned posters than posters at this stage. Call for an amnesty.

Edit:

Better URL.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/banlist.php

A quick guesstimate is 50,000 plus banned accounts. No wonder there are issues with re-regs.

Just on the above link..

- Why is this list even public?

- What's with the (frankly) childish titlebars - "Latest bans!" (yay us!), "Righteous Admin", "League of Bastards" (seriously?)

I realise these are probably legacy things from Boards' earlier days but it just comes across as incredibly immature to me.

Esel

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Just on the above link..

- Why is this list even public?

- What's with the (frankly) childish titlebars - "Latest bans!" (yay us!), "Righteous Admin", "League of Bastards" (seriously?)

I realise these are probably legacy things from Boards' earlier days but it just comes across as incredibly immature to me.

Because the mods/admins are bastards, and they are in league with each other.

droidman123

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Just on the above link..

- Why is this list even public?

- What's with the (frankly) childish titlebars - "Latest bans!" (yay us!), "Righteous Admin", "League of Bastards" (seriously?)

I realise these are probably legacy things from Boards' earlier days but it just comes across as incredibly immature to me.

This is nothing new,just read the cowardly way they post in the prison forum,playing to the crowd that's what it is all about and it's cringeworthy. I am still waiting for my points to be addressed about that forum from 5 or 6 days ago and would still like to know what is going to be done about the behaviour of some of the admins on there

_Kaiser_

hullaballoo wrote: »

It isn't that long a post if you actually read it because it makes good points.

+1, but it highlights another issue that I and others have touched on.

Namely what IS Boards? To me it's first and foremost a discussion forum and that's it's appeal to me over the "throwaway soundbites" of sites like Twitter and Reddit for example.

And while there are certainly times when a wall of text (particularly poorly formatted text - sorry, that's just a pet peeve ) can be irritating, it really annoys me to see a detailed and constructive post like the above dismissed with yet another throwaway comment (for the crowd?) when it's obvious that the poster put a lot of effort into trying to convey his/her thoughts. If attention spans are an issue, then maybe stick to the sites referred to above instead?

That post is a hell of a lot more worthwhile and valuable than the nonsense tit-for-tat sniping and vague mentions of "other" sites and private forum antics that has been derailing the thread for the last few pages - whatever happened to "take it to PM"

_Tombstone_

Is Reddit not a discussion site?

_Tombstone_

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Just on the above link..

- Why is this list even public?

- What's with the (frankly) childish titlebars - "Latest bans!" (yay us!), "Righteous Admin", "League of Bastards" (seriously?)

I realise these are probably legacy things from Boards' earlier days but it just comes across as incredibly immature to me.

Ahh, a bit of crack from years ago.

K-9

I've put up on thread warnings a few times for somebody dismissing a long, well thought out post in politics, there's no need for it.

uck51js9zml2yt

Well, I've read FC's post.
I had a reply written but decided to give it a nights sleep to see if I wanted to say what I had said but deleted .

Wibbs

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Is Reddit not a discussion site?

For me it is and it isn't. It's more a voted posts site. Depending on the sub and nature of the locals up voting can rapidly lead to echo chambers. Sure you can dive further down the thread to see dissenting voices, but it's not ideal. Depends on the subject of course. So if you're going in looking for an answer to a technical problem of some nature then the top voted post is more likely to be the right answer. In grey area actual debate it's far less of a discussion. Sure Boards has thanks and thanks whores playing to the mob, but someone with another angle can come right in after a heavily thanked post and put their point across and it doesn't get buried.


I'd also agree with FC and mzungu regarding the wider overwhelmingly American cultural BS has had an effect here. The same lines drawn there on the interwebs are being drawn here. Go back a few years here and yeah we had Left and Right political types, hippie liberals too, but it was more homespun, less extreme with far fewer loan words and ideologies. I saw the first of it myself when the Pickup/PUA stuff landed like an alien spaceship in Personal Issues. It was only a couple of posters, but they were singing from the same hymn sheet. These days we have an expanding catalogue of bought in ideologies. So you read of SJW, cucks safe spaces and all that nonsense. Rabid support for or against American presidential candidates from Irish posters in Gweedore or wherever. Go Trump! sounds more than a little ridiculous springing from the mouth of a 20 year old Dubliner. Hell, ten years ago if someone said they were a libertarian the average reader would assume they belonged to a group who liked being whipped in dungeons with cantaloupes up their fundaments.

It's all got a bit polarised. Dav recently said in response to a feedback thread about that old favourite "censorship on Boards"; 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. Great in theory D, but just another example of polarisation, where the "tolerance" to differing opinion, including measured differing opinion is often not so tolerant at all.

The real question is; what is the solution to declining traffic? Adapt or die seems the obvious answer. It has long been a thing, a point of pride that Boards.ie is a reflection of wider Irish society, in which case the site has to continue to reflect those changes, including polarisation, or it will stagnate, it will become that old site that used to be with it, but doesn't quite know or understand what it is anymore. That's the other answer of course. Be that "older site" for the demographic that have grown up with Boards. The broadly 30-50 age group. If that is the angle to take, then throw out the "responsive site", keep moderation as is, if not increase it, because that demographic doesn't tend to like change or loud noises.

Eugene Norman

The thing is Wibbs there is no real Irish ideology left. There's no British ideology either. A few decades ago British conservatism was anti-American, now it's basically pro NATO, libertarian and neo conservative. There has never been a pan European right wing ideology.

There did used to be a European leftism though, pro worker, anti American, anti capitalist and anti globalist. That was strong enough to influence American politics to a certain extent ( their unions and to this day Sanders) but largely American identity politics has overtaken that. (American identity politics is pretty amazing in that it notices all privileges but American privilege.)


As an example: Rhodes must fall. The debate about the statues in Oxford. A few years ago battle lines would be drawn in Ireland between pro and anti British sentiment. Mostly the former would dominate.

Now the debate is between the SJW opposition to Rhodes and the "white" defenders of Rhodes, americanised identity politics applies "white privileges" to all whites, so most Irish whites now defend Rhodes. A British imperialist.

Develara. Spinning. Grave.

We've been totally mind colonised by American identity politics. there will be more of that. Hence support for trump

KomradeBishop

Another way we've been 'colonized' by American style politics, is through the EU - which adopts and enforces US 'NeoLiberal-lite' style economic policy, and effectively removes it from public discussion entirely, because EU countries no longer have the democratic ability to object to these policies anymore - to do so, they'd have to first leave the EU.

So, all discussion around such topics, is never entertained - because now it all stops at "so you want to leave the EU, and commit national suicide?" - there's an inherent pro-EU bias to discussion, which also creates a bias against discussing many of the above topics (it was part of the reason given, for justifying expelling my own views from parts of the forum, from generally pro-EU mods - i.e. "it's never going to happen, the EU will never agree, stop discussing it").

So, Europe is shifting inherently towards the right, due to this - and has been, over the last 30 years - and 'The Left' in Europe has pretty much been co-opted into this effort; it's only now that economic conditions have permanently* deteriorated, as well as with the migrant influx (and adopting US-style scaremongering about terrorists, with civil liberties rollbacks - imagine that happening here 15 years ago? Unthinkable...), that we are starting to see that being taken advantage of in public discussion, to create a rightward push in our societies as well (much the way Trump in the US is).

That rightward push in discussion of societal issues, is also the perfect strategy, for distracting people from discussing the loss of economic and democratic control over our countries.
Not all of this strictly relevant to the thread, but helps explain the rightward shift in discussion that we're seeing, and also points to smaller nuances in potential moderation bias on the site, that are relevant here.

* People think we are in a recovery, but all of Europe is now in deflation, so this recovery is already over before it began - deflation brings with it, permanent stagnation, until major policy changes happen (which will not happen anytime soon, in Europe) - this will become the 'new normal' now, in the western world.

Tom Dunne

KomradeBishop wrote: »

<snip>

Can we keep the politics out of this. Stay on topic, please.

polluxspiky

Guy A talks politics. Thanked by a mod.
Guy B talks politics. Warned by a mod.

Almost as if moderation is based on the poster, not the post, eh.

Penny Tration

polluxspiky wrote: »

Guy A talks politics. Thanked by a mod.
Guy B talks politics. Warned by a mod.

Almost as if moderation is based on the poster, not the post, eh.

Wibbs thanked a political post.

Tom Dunne asked for political posts to stop.

Wibbs isn't a mod in here.


Stop with the conspiracy.

Insect Overlord

polluxspiky wrote: »

Guy A talks politics. Thanked by a mod.
Guy B talks politics. Warned by a mod.

Almost as if moderation is based on the poster, not the post, eh.

Guy A talks politics relevant to the previous post and gets thanked by one guy, who made said previous post, and just happens to be 1 out of 500 mods.
Guy B talks irrelevant politics and gets warned by an Admin.

Almost as if you enjoy making strawman arguments and misrepresenting what's actually happening here, eh.

polluxspiky

Penny Tration wrote: »

Wibbs thanked a political post.

Tom Dunne asked for political posts to stop.

Wibbs isn't a mod in here.


Stop with the conspiracy.

Ah, that's a shame An File doesn't agree and says one is a "good" politics post but the other is a "bad" politics post. So I guess he admits they are both political posts so the mod warning only applies to the second one.

Wibbs

polluxspiky wrote: »

Ah, that's a shame An File doesn't agree and says one is a "good" politics post but the other is a "bad" politics post. So I guess he admits they are both political posts so the mod warning only applies to the second one.

Honestly P I thanked the chap's post because he expanded on the increasing imported US polarity influence ballsology I mentioned in mine. I did NOT thank it as a way to encourage someone else to ride their usual hobby horse into the thread*. No mod conspiracy going on. Never mind that a proportion of the more visible mods, cmods and admins can't stand the sight of me. Which I'm fine with by the way.

Oh and someone who would know told me yonks ago that I was the biggest giver of thanks on Boards at the time. I hit the thumbs up for posts I agree with, posts I don't agree with but are put well and as a politeness extended to those folks I'm having a chat with. Basically I'm less a thanks whore and more a client.






*Sorry KB, I would actually agree with some of your points, but change the bloody record, or better yet play it in the right disco. In here it's like a slow set at a rave.

polluxspiky

An File wrote: »

Guy A talks politics relevant to the previous post and gets thanked by one guy, who made said previous post, and just happens to be 1 out of 500 mods.
Guy B talks irrelevant politics and gets warned by an Admin.

Almost as if you enjoy making strawman arguments and misrepresenting what's actually happening here, eh.

Oh dear. They've all piled in behind the theory that BOTH posts were political and warned and here you are saying one was "political good" and the other was "political bad" so only the second got the warning. Which is it?
Anyone can see they are very similar posts on similar topics anyway, so the justification effort was well feeble from the off.

K-9

polluxspiky wrote: »

Oh dear. They've all piled in behind the theory that BOTH posts were political and warned and here you are saying one was "political good" and the other was "political bad" so only the second got the warning. Which is it?
Anyone can see they are very similar posts on similar topics anyway, so the justification effort was well feeble from the off.

You think you might not be aware of the full facts?

polluxspiky

K-9 wrote: »

You think you might not be aware of the full facts?

Why, have you got some secret moderation rules I'm supposed to guess at to separate "good" and "bad" political posts that read almost identically?
Probably too nuanced for me, like "OK trolling by mods because they deserved it".

Maireadio

FriendComputer wrote: »

Other issues have been touched upon - the rise of competing sites like Reddit, changing demographics of internet users, etc.. These all play a part. Whether they're something Boards can do anything about isn't something I can speak to. I can only address my own issues with the site.

Changing the site back to how easy it was to navigate before all the "improvements" would go a long way towards helping. I still think people like a good ol' discussion board, no matter how much the internet has changed since boards started.

I think boards.ie misunderstood how people used the site. People like spending time here but the posting occurs for a lot of people in snatched moments; on lunchbreaks, on the bus to and from work, in gaps of time between housework and hobbies and cooking dinner. Having to do a lot of extra clicking to get to the forum you want might not seem like a big deal to them, but when people are posting on the fly, that is seriously off-putting. Not have the drop down by hovering the cursor is a big loss too. People just cannot be bothered with navigating the clunky menus. You're less bothered to click into forums outside your regular ones due to this.

Shame about the closed account and banned account banners too, they are really depressing.

Eugene Norman wrote: »

I don't get the argument that Twitter and FB are taking posters since they are not discussion sites, nor generally pseudonymous. Plenty here would be on both, or one of either. They've also been around for a while.

Reddit, maybe.

Yeah, I don't get that either. I love Facebook but it serves a completely different role for me.

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

I guess people have limited time in the day for browsing.

Yep, and that's why I think the extra clicks to get anywhere is a disaster as per my first point in this post.

mzungu

Maireadio wrote: »

Changing the site back to how easy it was to navigate before all the "improvements" would go a long way towards helping. I still think people like a good ol' discussion board, no matter how much the internet has changed since boards started.

I'd tend to agree. The format of a discussion board is one of those things that IMO should not be altered on a whim in order to follow the new site designs of the day. It was never broken, and therefore needed no fixing.

I think boards.ie misunderstood how people used the site. People like spending time here but the posting occurs for a lot of people in snatched moments; on lunchbreaks, on the bus to and from work, in gaps of time between housework and hobbies and cooking dinner. Having to do a lot of extra clicking to get to the forum you want might not seem like a big deal to them, but when people are posting on the fly, that is seriously off-putting. Not have the drop down by hovering the cursor is a big loss too. People just cannot be bothered with navigating the clunky menus. You're less bothered to click into forums outside your regular ones due to this.

It's rarely I browse the net on my mobile (could never get used to it) but when I did log onto Boards (usually on a bus journey) it was a problem finding stuff. I persisted, but only because I was killing time.

Wibbs wrote: »

The real question is; what is the solution to declining traffic? Adapt or die seems the obvious answer. It has long been a thing, a point of pride that Boards.ie is a reflection of wider Irish society, in which case the site has to continue to reflect those changes, including polarisation, or it will stagnate, it will become that old site that used to be with it, but doesn't quite know or understand what it is anymore. That's the other answer of course. Be that "older site" for the demographic that have grown up with Boards. The broadly 30-50 age group. If that is the angle to take, then throw out the "responsive site", keep moderation as is, if not increase it, because that demographic doesn't tend to like change or loud noises.

I think getting the mobile site up to scratch is key here. Take these results from a recent Eir survey: http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2015/1110/740823-connected-living-survey/

70% of the population have smartphones, according to the latest Eir Connected Living Survey.

Over 75% of the population also say that they use the internet at least once a day, with 18% adding that they access the internet "practically every waking hour of the day". This rises to 41% for 16 to 24 year olds.

A fair whack of the population primarily use smartphones and seem to be online for quite a length of time throughout the day. A good start is designing a user friendly mobile site and try and muscle in on the market. As the moment, I don't think the mobile interface as it currently stands is up to the task*.

Yeah, I don't get that either. I love Facebook but it serves a completely different role for me.

I don't think FB/T is taking users, more a case of a lot of new/younger users not coming here to be taken. From the same article as above:

The survey shows that, not surprisingly, the 16 to 24 age group are "super users" of social media, with 94% of that age group logging on regularly.

To a generation that has grown up with social media it does seem to hold sway. When you have grown up with social media, maybe some view it as being out of date? I am not laying the blame completely at the door of social media btw. But with such a large amount of people on it (and with a sizeable majority of the population in general having Internet access) who presumably have their own networks built up through the years, it is not beyond reason that it has had some impact on traffic on this site. Increasing access to BB and mobile Wi-Fi should mean some kind of knock on increases in traffic for sites like Boards. Increasing access and drop offs in traffic is a definite problem and one that should not be left unchecked for long.

Shame about the closed account and banned account banners too, they are really depressing.

I was having a read of some old episode threads in the Game of Thrones forum the other day. It does stick out like sore thumb. One thread had 4 or 5 posters in a row either 'Banned' or 'Closed Account'. In a way it was a bit like the show itself...you never know who is going to get the chop!


*Devout desktop/laptop user here who never quite got used to mobile/tablet browsing, so maybe those who use mobile/tablets would be a better judge of it.

Insect Overlord

Someone mentioned recently that the third level forums had dropped off a bit. Could it simply be that because people are on their own phones and tablets and laptops so much that there isn't as much exposure in college computer rooms as there used to be? I know people used to queue for computers in my college back in the day and it'd just be rows of YouTube, Wikipedia, Bebo (then Facebook) and the occasional yet unmistakable Boards.ie. It was free advertising for the whole site, effectively.

mzungu

An File wrote: »

Someone mentioned recently that the third level forums had dropped off a bit. Could it simply be that because people are on their own phones and tablets and laptops so much that there isn't as much exposure in college computer rooms as there used to be? I know people used to queue for computers in my college back in the day and it'd just be rows of YouTube, Wikipedia, Bebo (then Facebook) and the occasional yet unmistakable Boards.ie. It was free advertising for the whole site, effectively.

Most departments in third level colleges in this country have their own Twitter/FB pages for new and current students to ask questions about courses/modules etc. Additionally, every class has it's own Facebook page so I would imagine that has contributed to the drop off there. I know when I was applying for a course i contacted the head directly through the Facebook page, and was able to read about the course via other posts on the wall that previous students had made.

LuckyLloyd

I think the touch site is pretty good in terms of a phone posting experience. I don't understand why it is being dumped in its entirety. I would have thought the correct strategy was to try and add some of the missing full site features to it over time bearing in mind that its core posting and browsing experience is very fit for purpose on such a device.

I never used m.boards but that is seemingly very popular with a core of users too. The attempts at cultivating apps or a whole new front end don't make sense to me - but maybe there are piles and piles of marketing and analytics data that contradicts my perception in provable terms.

K-9

The anonymous (well semi-anonymous) aspect of Boards doesn't matter anymore either with social media.

I'm not one for apps either barring banking, newsreaders, podcasts, books, stuff like that. If it can be done on Opera or Firefox mobile I don't see the need to duplicate with an app. But I suppose if young uns are used to apps that's what they'll use.