Boards is becoming a Ghost Town

K-9

riffmongous wrote: »

Regarding scrambling, won't quoted posts show the original name still though? As they currently do for people who have changed their username through subscription

AFAIK the quoted post name would have to change too, that's what actually causes the bother IIRC as you could have say 30 posts in a thread, but they could be quoted 100 times. Plus who quotes who is a random thing!

Chorus_suck

This post has been deleted.

smash

Esel wrote: »

Maybe smash's idea then - unique random names per thread. It would still be possible (but much harder) to identify a particular ex-user's posts.

intheclouds

Esel wrote: »

If every post by every ex-user was attributed to a single Username: Ex-User, it would be a total clusterfunk.

Why?

Ive seen it on other forums and its grand.

K-9

seamus wrote: »

Yes and no. If someone is reviewing a thread, it will become very difficult to follow if 90% of the names in the thread are "[Deleted]".

Same if every single post received a random username, back-and-forths would look like one user having an argument with 20 others.

There are technical solutions here, no doubt about it. Scale is part of the problem;

1. Rename deleted accounts as [Deleted] and suddenly when you do a search for the "[Deleted]" user you get back half a million posts and bring the site down.
2. Rename all posts randomly and when someone with 20,000 posts deletes their account, the system grinds to a halt trying to sort it.


Even just renaming a user is a system-intensive task that as far as I can see still has to be done at early hours to prevent the system slowing down. Yes, these are things that can be overcome, but require effort for very little return in the long run. So when it comes to "stuff that needs developing", they'll stay low on the list.

Tbh people are too attached to the user name part of it, if somebody quotes another poster the name isn't that important, the point they are replying to is. People would just have to focus less on names and go on the conversation, not necessarily a bad thing at all!

But as you say, this could be all redundant anyway if the system couldn't cope with it. Last thing we need is more outages!

Wibbs

Dav wrote: »

The Responsive Site's menu is obviously a total departure from the legacy site's and is geared towards showing off our new forum structure. The legacy site's menu was always going to be a temporary measure, but circumstances change and now the Legacy site's going to be sticking around a lot longer So, we're proposing to basically copy the style and layout of the Responsive site's menu over to the Legacy site - sounds simple, but it's a week's work for Jason and instead of just doing that we wanted to check that this is going to help address the problems people have (discoverability of forums being the number 1 issue).

Jesus you really have the bit between the teeth with the "responsive site" and the lady's not for turning. We're going to copy the stupid "style" and layout from our new baby over to the site that people are telling you in droves and by not bloody posting is the one they prefer. That the clamour to keep the legacy site was precisely because it didn't have the godawful style and layout of this new yoke? And people wonder why numbers might be dropping?

You. Are. Not. Listening. Y'know to the people who actually post and helped build this site.

J Mysterio

The 'Responsive Site' is a heap of shiťe. Sorry. Dont understand how it is any more 'responsive' either? 'Legacy Site' works just fine for me.

K-9

A survey wouldn't go amiss on the new site before just going ahead with it.

This is the time you need one.

Wibbs

K-9 wrote: »

A survey wouldn't go amiss on the new site before just going ahead with it.

This is the time you need one.

If said survey returned numbers even close to the one in After Hours then where would the "responsive" site and the weight of time and money behind it be? The legacy site was given a reprieve out of that and other large scale "the hell is this??", but now it seems the legacy site will be dragged kicking and screaming towards this white elephant. Cant see any survey happening TBH and even if it did the likely overwhelmingly negative response would be explained away as before as "we're trying to appeal to a negative of those who don't join, but might".

Beasty

Wibbs wrote: »

Amalgamate the DRP and Helpdesk into one forum.

Just on this specific one I would agree in principle that having disputes (whether against cards/bans or wider moderation) dealt with in the same place under (mostly anyway) the same rules makes sense

Currently the Help Desk is pre-moderated but the DRP is not. However only the appellant, relevant CMod/Admin or anyone invited by the CMod/Admin (which rarely if ever happens) can post in the DRP and I personally would extend the principle to wider disputes (although would want to facilitate mods explaining their actions as they can already do in the HD, certainly for wider "complaints"/questions about modding). That would though potentially mean still having 2 "categories" of dispute. However wider queries (rather than complaints) could then be directed elsewhere.

mcmoustache

Is all this talk of deleting posts and renaming/scrambling usernames not a little pointless?

I mean, if someone for whatever reason wants to find out which username made a certain post, is it not rather trivial?

Pretty much everything that's put on the internet is there forever. There are too many archiving and caching services out there for this not to be the case.

K-9

Wibbs wrote: »

If said survey returned numbers even close to the one in After Hours then where would the "responsive" site and the weight of time and money behind it be? The legacy site was given a reprieve out of that and other large scale "the hell is this??", but now it seems the legacy site will be dragged kicking and screaming towards this white elephant. Cant see any survey happening TBH and even if it did the likely overwhelmingly negative response would be explained away as before as "we're trying to appeal to a negative of those who don't join, but might".

Sunk cost fallacy is very dangerous and I'm sure we all do it at one time or another.

K-9

Sunk cost bias, sorry!

smash

mcmoustache wrote: »

Is all this talk of deleting posts and renaming/scrambling usernames not a little pointless?

I mean, if someone for whatever reason wants to find out which username made a certain post, is it not rather trivial?

The point of the exercise is to make it not trivial.

andekwarhola

Esel wrote: »

If every post by every ex-user was attributed to a single Username: Ex-User, it would be a total clusterfunk.

In the historical social history scenario to which people are (rather grandly, I think) alluding, you probably won't get people getting hung up on individual user names that much.

K-9

It's a snapshot of particular time, not booker prize winning material. Same as a Joe Duffy archive!

kupus

FFS, a fun thread in the sports forum has been locked until the start of the tournament.
You want to know whats killing the site..... Sh1te like this.

Beasty

kupus wrote: »

FFS, a fun thread in the sports forum has been locked until the start of the tournament.
You want to know whats killing the site..... Sh1te like this.

Seriously? One post in the forum in the past 6 months and you are complaining a thread dedicated to non-football related photos of the event is locked until such photos are actually available, rather than allowing you to gawp at the "hotties" from prior tournaments?

KERSPLAT!

Beasty wrote: »

Seriously? One post in the forum in the past 6 months and you are complaining a thread dedicated to non-football related photos of the event is locked until such photos are actually available, rather than allowing you to gawp at the "hotties" from prior tournaments?

It's a mixture of actual issues and non-issues at this stage.

Dav

Wibbs wrote: »

Jesus you really have the bit between the teeth with the "responsive site" and the lady's not for turning. We're going to copy the stupid "style" and layout from our new baby over to the site that people are telling you in droves and by not bloody posting is the one they prefer. That the clamour to keep the legacy site was precisely because it didn't have the godawful style and layout of this new yoke? And people wonder why numbers might be dropping?

You. Are. Not. Listening. Y'know to the people who actually post and helped build this site.

I was talking specifically about the menu. The categories reorganisation had to happen (or do you think that terms like Soc and Rec etc are acceptable?). If you can tell me another means of displaying our forums in a clear and easy to navigate manner, I am all ears - the menu that was built for the responsive site does that very well. I'm not trying to shout back at you here Wibbs, but you're taking my questions about a very, very specific issue and going off on a tangent. No one likes the responsive site - fine, I get it. I'm trying to address a problem with the Legacy site that I have already said is something in dire need of fixing as it was never intended to be in place this long. Everyone is telling me they can't find their forums any more - despite the Follow functionality that has been in place for years. Everyone is telling me that posting on smaller forums is down because of discoverability, again, I'm trying to address that.

intheclouds

Dav wrote: »

The categories reorganisation had to happen (or do you think that terms like Soc and Rec etc are acceptable?).

They were acceptable for many years and are still being used by people who are on the old skin - so whats the problem with them?

Dav wrote: »

If you can tell me another means of displaying our forums in a clear and easy to navigate manner, I am all ears - the menu that was built for the responsive site does that very well.

The old way worked fine.

Tipperary Fairy

Beasty wrote: »

Seriously? One post in the forum in the past 6 months and you are complaining a thread dedicated to non-football related photos of the event is locked until such photos are actually available, rather than allowing you to gawp at the "hotties" from prior tournaments?

I think this brings up a good point - do you consider lurkers part of the audience? Are they not considered important, or just not as important as posters?

Just because you often see an argument come down to this point - well you don't even post in x, or, if you don't agree with some thread just don't look at it. Is there actually any wider concern (not quite the right word, it's been a long day) for the readers of the forums.

Wibbs

Dav wrote: »

Everyone is telling me they can't find their forums any more - despite the Follow functionality that has been in place for years. Everyone is telling me that posting on smaller forums is down because of discoverability, again, I'm trying to address that.

By continuing to follow the site layout design that apparently caused this discoverability issue in the first place? And yes a category rejig was required, but to then reduce the entirety of the community built up since 1998 to one menu was not the way to go about it IMHO. It sends a bloody awful signal. Clearly. I recently went back to the old stylee with soc rec etc spread across the page and it looks like a huge place with lots of nooks and crannies, the new layout most certainly doesn't and I genuinely believe this perception is negatively affecting numbers. Along with the Mods.ie perception.

Beasty wrote:

Just on this specific one I would agree in principle that having disputes (whether against cards/bans or wider moderation) dealt with in the same place under (mostly anyway) the same rules makes sense

Currently the Help Desk is pre-moderated but the DRP is not. However only the appellant, relevant CMod/Admin or anyone invited by the CMod/Admin (which rarely if ever happens) can post in the DRP and I personally would extend the principle to wider disputes (although would want to facilitate mods explaining their actions as they can already do in the HD, certainly for wider "complaints"/questions about modding). That would though potentially mean still having 2 "categories" of dispute. However wider queries (rather than complaints) could then be directed elsewhere.

I have a lot of time for you B, I really do, but try to read that back in the eyes of a passerby, a newbie. It reads not unlike management speak from the HR dept of a multinational. Now maybe because a fair chunk of mods work in such environments or similar it doesn't read like that for them? I dunno, but it really reads that way for me. I doubt I'd be alone in that. The "appellant"? I mean c'mon. Imagine you're 21 reading that. You'd think "oh oh Internets series bizniss, man they fancy themselves". Oh and B, I'm not particularly picking on your post as a problem, it's not close to an extreme of this kinda vibe. There have been "worse" on this thread and elsewhere. And I also well know you don't take yourself too seriously and are sound, one of the soundest here IMO, but you're the closest. .

We're really overcomplicating this stuff IMO. Lose the cards, infractions, "official warnings", building records on people and all that shíte. Warn, 2nd warn, thread ban, ban. PM's to folks you know might be just having a hard day and newbies who don't know the ropes. As for DRP, just go straight to admin, and/or a fire a few level heads to mod the forum. Appeal. yeah/nay… end. You'll always have some who will whinge mod clique no matter how many bans you overturn. Or don't. In short lighten up.

Obviously there will be special forums and special cases(PI, Soccer etc), but they can be accommodated.

kupus

Beasty wrote: »

Seriously? One post in the forum in the past 6 months and you are complaining a thread dedicated to non-football related photos of the event is locked until such photos are actually available, rather than allowing you to gawp at the "hotties" from prior tournaments?

why dont ye stop all talk of the euro finals till the start of the finals in that case. Its a light hearted thread gawping at the hotties as you say.
discuss the first irish match..... no kids sorry ye cant. ye all have to wait till the kick off.

But its the mentality of the place that ye are treating posters like little kids.

whats next, no discussion of the olympics?

What the point of a discussion forum if all chat is closed down?

Permabear

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darced

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smash

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

They got you twice!

osarusan

kupus wrote: »

why dont ye stop all talk of the euro finals till the start of the finals in that case.

Nobody said this.

kupus wrote: »

discuss the first irish match..... no kids sorry ye cant. ye all have to wait till the kick off.

Or this.

kupus wrote: »

whats next, no discussion of the olympics?

Or that.

It's all just a pointless slippery slope argument to try and make something insignificant look like something significant.

kupus wrote: »

What the point of a discussion forum if all chat is closed down?

Ironically, some of the previous incarnations of the thread in question have had a 'no chat' rule.

riffmongous

K-9 wrote: »

AFAIK the quoted post name would have to change too, that's what actually causes the bother IIRC as you could have say 30 posts in a thread, but they could be quoted 100 times. Plus who quotes who is a random thing!

Yeah and what would be the mechanism for changing the quotes I wonder? Because I would assume if it was straightforward it would already be implemented, which it is not. It might just not be possible

K-9

Jaysus, people throwing dummies out of a pram over not being able to look at some pretty ladies on the Internet. For a week or so!

That poster that said posters need to calm down wasn't far wrong. Must be the heat or something.

As for the reorg, yes the old menu needed tidying up and still does. That isn't the problem, it's having just topics and regions as headings in the main menu is the problem.

Half the regions forums are very quiet.