Boards is becoming a Ghost Town

Tipperary Fairy

I really don't understand why people want to treat boards like a book, or library. Content is generated as part of a current discussion, does anyone post with the notion that they're contributing to something great, memorable and historic? Surely not.

I also can't see the argument for being able to go through a posters old posts from 12 years ago and go 'ha! You said something different here!' it's petty, and doesn't add anything to a discussion and I would have thought boards would like to discourage that kind of thing. I would think it's a most irrelevant thing what someone said as part of a previous discussion.

Esel

Tipperary Fairy wrote: »

I really don't understand why people want to treat boards like a book, or library. Content is generated as part of a current discussion, does anyone post with the notion that they're contributing to something great, memorable and historic? Surely not.

I also can't see the argument for being able to go through a posters old posts from 12 years ago and go 'ha! You said something different here!' it's petty, and doesn't add anything to a discussion and I would have thought boards would like to discourage that kind of thing. I would think it's a most irrelevant thing what someone said as part of a previous discussion.

The issue, as I understand it, is not that a user might be challenged here about some old post(s) of theirs. That would be easy enough to deal with.

Tipperary Fairy

Esel wrote: »

The issue, as I understand it, is not that a user might be challenged here about some old post(s) of theirs. That would be easy enough to deal with.

I don't get you

Esel

Tipperary Fairy wrote: »

I don't get you

See my previous post. Also cyberstalking, doxxing, outing, other invasion of privacy etc.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Tipperary Fairy

Are you being serious? I genuinely can't tell.

Esel

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Would the absence of one (or a thousand) user's posts make much of a difference in that scenario?

We are discussing posts, not threads, at the moment.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Maireadio

Esel wrote: »

Replace 'potential' with 'current' or 'future' employer. How many users post from a work device? Your username is easily available to your employer in that scenario; then your entire posting history is available to them.

Well, this is easy. If you are worried about being indentified that badly... don't post on boards.ie in work.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Have you been following the last few pages about posters privacy being invaded and their identities exposed? As for highly unlikely? I would suggest you're either being purposely disingenuous, or incredibly naive.

As said, the handful of posters who were identified really a lot about themselves on the site, too much. A lot of that discussion was about boards.ie giving people a warning not to reveal so much. Did YOU read that discussion?

Though I should probably say now, I'm not getting drawn into a discussion with you, One Eyed Jack, I value my free time too much.

Tipperary Fairy wrote: »

I really don't understand why people want to treat boards like a book, or library. Content is generated as part of a current discussion, does anyone post with the notion that they're contributing to something great, memorable and historic? Surely not.

I also can't see the argument for being able to go through a posters old posts from 12 years ago and go 'ha! You said something different here!' it's petty, and doesn't add anything to a discussion and I would have thought boards would like to discourage that kind of thing. I would think it's a most irrelevant thing what someone said as part of a previous discussion.

Well, you'd deal with it rationally.

"You said that thing!!!"

"Well, that was ten years ago, I've learned a lot more about x since."

If people don't want to accept that, it reflects more on them anyway.

marymary1984

But what's the alternative? Is there a UK equivalent to boards? Usually we take inspiration in what they do (copy what they do) but now aware of a UK or US equivalent. I know Reddit is out there but it's an Irish thing, the Joe Duffy of the Internet age where we can ask questions and seek advice.
As a concept it works and is very smart - but it has become powerful with a voice and should be treated with the respect it deserves.

Maireadio

The above will be my last post on the post-deleting topic. You guys are obviously not for turning and clearly, I'm not convincing you, so see yis!

I will say though that I think deleting posts is a terrible idea and I hope boards.ie hold firm on this because I don't think it is having any significant effect on there being less traffic, and there is no correlation between deleting posts and new content being generated. Posts have never been deleted and the problems the site is having are much more recent. The two aren't linked.

The end.

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I don't envy the guy having to trawl through any thread on abortion, (or Irish Water, or any 'mega' thread) looking for any salient point

K-9

Well speaking of Irish Water, just after restoring 8 threads and 80,000 posts going back over 2 years because of user feedback and the principal of it. Lots of people were very uneasy at removal of posts.

intheclouds

K-9 wrote: »

Well speaking of Irish Water, just after restoring 8 threads and 80,000 posts going back over 2 years because of user feedback and the principal of it. Lots of people were very uneasy at removal of posts.

Thats the site removing posts as opposed to an individual requesting their post history is deleted.

An entirely different thing.

I do agree that the social discourse aspect may interest future historians - Ive often thought that it would be great if we had boards.ie from the time of the famine in Ireland for example so we could know what ordinary people were thinking.

However, I still think if someone wants "their" content removed then it should be allowed. Its unlikely that everyone will want all of their content removed. So let those who want it gone have it gone.

kupus

What I dont like in thread is seeing this...GET BACK ON TOPIC

its annoying. In real life, conversations meander and what started as a thread on kevin bacon acting abilities could turn into a discussion on chicken burritos or chicken pot pie BUT it will go back to the the thread title eventually, mods dont need to step in and baby people.
Let the discussion follow its natural course.

The way I see it is, modding is like a referee in any sport. If a lot of the talk is about mods and not the match. Then something is wrong and really wrong.

Tell me how

intheclouds wrote:

I do agree that the social discourse aspect may interest future historians - Ive often thought that it would be great if we had boards.ie from the time of the famine in Ireland for example so we could know what ordinary people were thinking.

intheclouds wrote:

However, I still think if someone wants "their" content removed then it should be allowed. Its unlikely that everyone will want all of their content removed. So let those who want it gone have it gone.

I wonder if the poster identifier could be replaced with "contributor 1" or "contributor 2" for example throughout the thread if the original poster requested that their anonymity be restored.
This might preserve the flow of the thread, for readers and historical value but remove fears of eternal exposure for the poster.
Not sure technically how feasible this is or how many would use it.

Maireadio

kupus wrote: »

What I dont like in thread is seeing this...GET BACK ON TOPIC

its annoying. In real life, conversations meander and what started as a thread on kevin bacon acting abilities could turn into a discussion on chicken burritos or chicken pot pie BUT it will go back to the the thread title eventually, mods dont need to step in and baby people.
Let the discussion follow its natural course.

The way I see it is, modding is like a referee in any sport. If a lot of the talk is about mods and not the match. Then something is wrong and really wrong.

I dunno. Some mods are heavy handed with the 'GET BACK ON TOPIC' warning but sometimes I have appreciated it muchly. Sometimes threads wouldn't get back on course if the mod didn't step in, for different reasons, the most common one being two posters getting into a multiquote war on something tediously irrelevant or on one little point and driving everyone else away, killing the discussion in the process.

K-9

intheclouds wrote: »

Thats the site removing posts as opposed to an individual requesting their post history is deleted.

An entirely different thing.

I do agree that the social discourse aspect may interest future historians - Ive often thought that it would be great if we had boards.ie from the time of the famine in Ireland for example so we could know what ordinary people were thinking.

However, I still think if someone wants "their" content removed then it should be allowed. Its unlikely that everyone will want all of their content removed. So let those who want it gone have it gone.

People are already saying the amount of closed accounts are a problem when tbey read old threads.

Now take closed accounts (everybody agrees are a problem) and add 10's if not hundreds of thousands of posts deleted...

Winterlong

Maireadio wrote: »

I dunno. Some mods are heavy handed with the 'GET BACK ON TOPIC' warning but sometimes I have appreciated it muchly. Sometimes threads wouldn't get back on course if the mod didn't step in, for different reasons, the most common one being two posters getting into a multiquote war on something tediously irrelevant or on one little point and driving everyone else away, killing the discussion in the process.

Multi quoting drives me nuts! Some people are serial offenders with long winded multi quoting argumentative posts that can send a decent thread off course.
Perhaps it is just me been unable to digest posts that are too long.

intheclouds

Tell me how wrote: »

I wonder if the poster identifier could be replaced with "contributor 1" or "contributor 2" for example throughout the thread if the original poster requested that their anonymity be restored.
This might preserve the flow of the thread, for readers and historical value but remove fears of eternal exposure for the poster.
Not sure technically how feasible this is or how many would use it.

Yes, Id rather this than nothing.

intheclouds

K-9 wrote: »

People are already saying the amount of closed accounts are a problem when tbey read old threads.

Now take closed accounts (everybody agrees are a problem) and add 10's if not hundreds of thousands of posts deleted...

I dont agree they are a problem. They do affect the perception of the site (for some), but they dont cause a problem reading things. I dont have any problem with them.

Maireadio

Winterlong wrote: »

Multi quoting drives me nuts! Some people are serial offenders with long winded multi quoting argumentative posts that can send a decent thread off course.

And often I think they don't even really care what they are arguing about, they just have to "win" or get the last word. If the other poster is the same, it's seemingly neverending. Or they just don't want to lose face by admitting they were wrong and won't give in. It's awful stuff to read.

Winterlong

Maireadio wrote: »

And often I think they don't even really care what they are arguing about, they just have to "win" or get the last word. If the other poster is the same, it's seemingly neverending. Or they just don't want to lose face by admitting they were wrong and won't give in. It's awful stuff to read.

They often do win, by been so pedantic no one could be bothered to argue back!

K-9

intheclouds wrote: »

I dont agree they are a problem. They do affect the perception of the site (for some), but they dont cause a problem reading things. I dont have any problem with them.

Whereas hundreds of thousands if not millions of posts deleted will cause a problem reading things!

hardCopy

There a lot of useful resource posts that would be a loss if they were ever deleted. Most forums have a few important ones and they usually end up as stickies.

Nutrition 101
Shortcut to Slow Cooker Recipes
Cooking Club Recipes By Category

Boards would be for the worse if those posts were ever deleted. I could maybe see the logic in allowing a username to be removed, but not deletion of everything a user ever posted.

Neyite

I don't feel that removal of individual posts is the answer. I've seen some fora where every second post is --message deleted at poster's request-- and the discussion is impossible to follow, people's replies to a now-deleted post or posts make it disjointed and confusing. But I'd like to see a middle ground somewhere between Nuke All My Posts and Keep Them Forever. I'd see the solution as a mixture of different approaches.

The fact is that Boards as a discussion site works very well because people have the freedom of relative anonymity to discuss certain topics or debate a controversial opinion. If a person feels that their posts on their political stance or mental health issues from 5 years ago might affect their current promotional prospects for example then of course they have a right to be concerned. Lets take a brilliant thread as an example - Lets All Laugh About Depression in AH. Many, many of us shared very personal MH issues on there that we would never dream of putting on FB or Twitter under our own names. There are people on that thread who maybe attempted suicide and they'd prefer their mammy not to know how bad that time got for them back then. But it's too valuable a thread to delete. Like Permabear suggests, it could be a snapshot in time of how society's attitudes changed. Likewise, the debates surrounding the Marriage Equality Referendum last year - that will be of huge historical interest in years to come. Going back to read a good thread on the 1995 Divorce Referendum would be very interesting for example.

It's all very well saying that if you don't want things found out about you then don't post, or to say don't post anything personal. Consider then, how many fora would dwindle to tumble weed if all posters genuinely never posted for that particular reason. Work and Jobs. Work Problems. Legal Discussion. Personal Issues. Separation & Divorce. Non Drinkers. Politics. Religion. Parenting. All the regional forums. A fair chunk of AH. There are probably loads more that I haven't thought of.

Some of you argue that if we don't want our employer to know our post history, then we should post outside of office hours. Well, that's just short-sighted. It might benefit the posters, but it would be of no benefit to Boards if nobody is posting during the day. Because discussion overall then falls, the site gets quieter, blander. Discussions that previously were thought provoking and insightful are toned way down. People don't bother to post because every time they consider it, they hit the back button. Soon they forget to log in at all. Boards struggle to attract advertising because footfall would be down. RIP Boards.

So, we need people to post, and post freely, under anonymity in order to keep the site even ticking over. We need women in Trying to Conceive explaining the ins-and-outs (yeah, I know!) of IVF, fertility tests and so on to others. We need people talking in Banking and Finance about their investments without Mary-Next-Door knowing what they have in the bank. We need LBGT for those who are not quite ready to come out about their sexuality to the wider world yet, and have a homophobic boss.

This brings me back to the various potential solutions.

One idea would be to auto-archive off the really old zombie threads. Have a Boards Classics or The Vault Forum and move the old dead-but-brilliant ones from all forums there that are keepers -Threads could get nominated by users in a Nominations thread. A certain amount of thanks and the Mods consider it for a move. Threads that get moved are not auto-archived.

The second idea is that when an account is closed or banned, its not stated in the tag line, but if you click on someone's profile, you'd see if their status. I'd also like to see the moderator tag only apply in posts within the mods own forums and be visible as a regular user elsewhere. Name changing here for the purpose of wanting to be less identifiable is mostly pointless imo. It's still very easy to search a user's really old discussions and find out their old user-name, where they got mentioned in a thread, or you remember a thread or post of theirs and see the new name on it. It might slow down all the closed accounts and re-reg's.

I've seen where a poster might allude to someone being a re-reg of someone, and I think that's wrong. People have every right to re-reg if they are not doing it to evade a ban. They might have very valid reasons, and I think that any posts which call out a re-reg on a thread should be dealt with - even if that re-reg is fairly identifiable by what they post.

Neyite

Winterlong wrote: »

Multi quoting drives me nuts! Some people are serial offenders with long winded multi quoting argumentative posts that can send a decent thread off course.
Perhaps it is just me been unable to digest posts that are too long.

I fully agree. When I see someone pick apart another persons post with a wall of multiquote I lose interest too.

Can we limit the amount of multi-quote in a post to about 3 or 5?

intheclouds

Neyite wrote: »

I've seen where a poster might allude to someone being a re-reg of someone, and I think that's wrong. People have every right to re-reg if they are not doing it to evade a ban. They might have very valid reasons, and I think that any posts which call out a re-reg on a thread should be dealt with - even if that re-reg is fairly identifiable by what they post.

Try telling that to a mod who accuses you of re-regging to avoid a ban.

Years ago I had an old account that I closed, didnt go near the site for about 6 months after.

Then I wanted to ask something and opened a new account. Got attacked by more than one mod who just refused to believe that I hadnt re-regged to avoid a moderator action. I genuinely hadnt but you cant argue back.

Winterlong

Neyite wrote: »

I fully agree.

Excellent!

Neyite wrote: »

When I see someone pick apart another persons post with a wall of multiquote I lose interest too.

They bore us to death.

Neyite wrote: »

Can we limit the amount of multi-quote in a post to about 3

About right.

Neyite wrote: »

or 5?

Too high!

Neyite

intheclouds wrote: »

Try telling that to a mod who accuses you of re-regging to avoid a ban.

Years ago I had an old account that I closed, didnt go near the site for about 6 months after.

Then I wanted to ask something and opened a new account. Got attacked by more than one mod who just refused to believe that I hadnt re-regged to avoid a moderator action. I genuinely hadnt but you cant argue back.

A re-reg is on any mod's antenna because 9 times out of 10, it is someone actively trying to evade a ban. If someone with an old closed account goes back to the very forum they were banned from and posts on it then I can see why it would be hard to convince a mod otherwise.

All I could suggest is a pm to the mods of the forum prior to posting, declare your former account and discuss it with them if it's ok to have another chance. I've occasionally had a query I didnt want to associate with my regular username so a throwaway account plus a heads up to the resident mods is usually fine.