Boards is becoming a Ghost Town

LuckyLloyd

Turtyturd wrote: »

Was afraid this would happen. It was a sub 300 post thread, with about 50-60(???) different posters before it was hijacked by two posters having their little back and forth, and it pre-empted the comments about bad moderation with a ban on them. It was more an example of how many people have left the forum than positive feedback.

The DRP forum will give you a better idea of the problems in the SF.

That thread was an opportunity to articulate issues with the forum. You alluded to problems but chose not to clearly state what you believed they were / are. It's hard to know what to make of that. Every year I genuinely see an effort from Soccer mods to identify a consensus from the yearly soccer forum feedback thread and implement changes on the basis of same.

People need to clearly state their issues imo. No sympathy otherwise.

BMMachine

Flint Fredstone wrote: »

Is this just what you think is going on in your head or have you anything to back it up with?

a troll post on the soccer forum was deleted by a mod by a well known troll (someone who has been sitebanned before for trolling) and they offered no explanation.
I put it down to the type of culture that has overtaken large parts of the site. I dunno, there are probably a lot of other examples if you go digging though

Flint Fredstone

BMMachine wrote: »

a troll post on the soccer forum was deleted by a mod by a well known troll (someone who has been sitebanned before for trolling) and they offered no explanation.
I put it down to the type of culture that has overtaken large parts of the site. I dunno, there are probably a lot of other examples if you go digging though

Are you 100% sure it was deleted by a mod? Are you 100% sure it wasn't actioned and then deleted?
Was it definitely "a troll post"? It might have been deemed not trolling but still not worth the hassle.

BMMachine

Flint Fredstone wrote: »

Are you 100% sure it was deleted by a mod? Are you 100% sure it wasn't actioned and then deleted?
Was it definitely "a troll post"? It might have been deemed not trolling but still not worth the hassle.

yes Im 100% sure neither happened and Im 100% sure it was aggressive obvious trolling.


but its probably best not to bring up the soccer forum in this thread

Winterlong

So much of this thread is about moderation and admin action, feedback from users who care enough to post and give their feedback.
How about taking on board some of the feedback instead of constantly defending the current mode of operation?

LuckyLloyd

BMMachine wrote: »

a troll post on the soccer forum was deleted by a mod by a well known troll (someone who has been sitebanned before for trolling) and they offered no explanation.
I put it down to the type of culture that has overtaken large parts of the site. I dunno, there are probably a lot of other examples if you go digging though

I mean who knows? If someone clearly articulated this problem maybe people unaware of same would see it and champion it as an issue? Any time we're in 'oh there's that problem we can't talk about' territory it's helping no one imo.

BMMachine

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

I mean who knows? If someone clearly articulated this problem maybe people unaware of same would see it and champion it as an issue? Any time we're in 'oh there's that problem we can't talk about' territory it's helping no one imo.

you kind of run into walls with that though, especially if you aren't 'known' if you get me. But you are absolutely right, it helps no one and would be nothing constructive. I said it in earlier posts on this thread on simple things that could be implemented but as for changing how the site is viewed, thats up to the top guys & gals. If they want the site to grow again, they are going to have to get rid of the stigma that is 'moderators.ie' and that means a large restructure of how moderating is done.
for me, less transparency would actually help. More common sense and less bureaucracy - christ I sound like Nigel Farage

People complain about moderation , there aren't many irish alternatives to here really if you want a cover all topics site. In my mind the alternative is the comment section of every Irish social news site, read the comments section of any journal/broadsheet etc article and imagine how boards would be with that level of modding. Without it that's what this site would become in a day if not an hour. The other issue is that is where boards.ie main competition is imo and who they are losing massive numbers to. Why come here and be censored for a long list of things and arguments you might have to back up or be banned when you can log in with your facebook account and spout whatever nonsense you want and argue and troll till your hearts content elsewhere.

It's not even about me being snobby and wanting serious discussion or whatever it's the new world order. Every idiot with a phone thinks it's their god given right to tap some rubbish on the screen and post it and defend it to the bitter end. It's a societal issue not a boards issue but boards will suffer for it I think. I would say unless they adapt but if they adapt like they need to ??????? I'll be out of here.

J Mysterio

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

On that particular point, though, I agree with that stance.

Very specifically, that is one of the things the soccer mods have gotten spot on down through the years - no silly, childish or abusive nicknames for players, managers or clubs.

I honestly cannot fathom the people who want the alternative. Why does a person feel the need to use terms like "Manure" "Lollerpool" "Whiskey Nose" if only to rile up, or have the "mad bantz" with rival fans.

It adds absolutely nothing of substance to the forum, and, in fact, serves to annoy users and lower the tone of the forum.

There ARE copious forums on the internet where such puerile nonsense is allowed, welcomed and celebrated. Luckily, the Boards.ie Soccer Forum is not one of them, and yes, if you don't like it, I do hope you go elsewhere.

I'd say you're great at parties.

Zaph

J Mysterio wrote: »

I'd say you're great at parties.

Less of the personal digs please, they don't contribute anything to the discussion.

Alf Stewart.

gandalf wrote: »

Gordon if the management aren't listening to those that create the content and are willing to enter into commercial arrangements that eat away at the integrity and impartiality of the site then they are effectively killing it anyway. Except it's a death of a thousand cuts instead of a quick decisive one.

I come here out of habit. I no longer create any meaningful content. The forums I loved like Politics have been gutted by bad management and are only a shadow of what they were. At this stage I am a user, I use boards for information and a light bit of interaction. From my perspective the site is only a shadow of what it was and the direction that management are taking it in is continuing and accelerating that downward spiral. I don't appear to be alone in this assessment either.

I suppose I care enough to continue posting here but one day I won't be bothered doing that either.

I'd have to echo most of this.

Especially regarding the politics forum, I mean, you have politics cafe, a supposedly light hearted version of the more serious, and high brow main politics form.

Any threads started in after hours that verge in being political get shunted to the cafe, and that's fine, only you can't post in the same light hearted manner that you could in after hours.

Just this evening I received a pm warning me that my posts were sub standard (I used the word turd) and the next posts in the same manner would earn me a card " and all the implications that would go with that" I mean WTAF

Fair enough, I welcome the pm, and view it as a kind of "heads up" but feel it was unwarranted non the less.

I pmd the mod back in question, and pretty much shared these sentiments (and that was long before I actually read this) that I have got to the stage where I might just bloody well not bother any more anyway, as I'm unsure if the site is for me these days.

Basically, the place is now so over modded, and in such an inconsistent way, I am not sure if I'm even bothered about any "implications" receiving a card will have on my account. In fact. Meh.

Been on here since 04, this being my third account the only ban I've ever received worth talking about was my recently served month from the rejazzed, politics cafe.

Im unsure if I will ever have a fourth account to be completely honest.

Outlaw Pete

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Posters don't always get a chance to defend themselves properly based on their history though - mods can get away with smearing people as soapboxers, and it gets stated as the gospel truth, just because the mod says so - then once it's stated from a high enough level cmod/admin, it's discussion over and there is no opportunity to defend yourself.

Absolutely and it happened many times on Boards over the years. Certain rules have been brought in to facilitate it in fact. It's one of the elephants in the room which has been pretty much ignored on this thread thus far. Users have been shouted down for years when then they had legitimate feedback on how Boards was being moderated. Accused of having opinions which they patently did not. Cries of 'axe grinding' usually went hand in hand with that. Wagons circled, backs slapped and the user is then forever known as whatever the hell mods/admin wanted them known as. In my case: the misogynist who lost the plot.

LoLth wrote: »

it has to stop somewhere. Before the rule of "final say" there were back and forth between mod/cmod/admin and users that went on for weeks if not months.

Yeah, you're right, LoLth, Admin decision should be the "final say" in the DR forum, no question about that. However, what if an the admin moderation is the "first say". What then? Should a user not be afforded the option of appealing that type of decision? Surely for the sake of transparency, if nothing else, they should, as I feel every user should have at least one layer of protection on the forum against what they feel might be unfair moderation. It's precisely what I wished was available at time on Boards when via PM I was permanently banned from a forum which I no previous bans in, and also not so much as a single infraction. In fact only 32 of my posts (out of a total of 16,000 or so in five years) were made on that forum and so naturally I wished to appeal that ban but I was stonewalled at every turn and told that admin have had 'the final say'. Here is a link to that DR thread where you can see that response:

OutlawPete wrote: »

I have recently...

For the next two weeks I tried to communicate with members of admin via pm in an attempt to get an explanation as to why it was that I was not being allowed to appeal that ban and was flat out ignored. To give a little context, at that time (mid 2011) I had no bans, and not even so much as an infraction anywhere on Boards but yet it was deemed appropriate to treat me that way. After about two weeks or so I was given advice by a moderator that the only thing I could do was to challenge the rule that made admin bans exempt from being appealed in the DRP. So that is what I attempted to do. I started a thread in this very forum and it was immediately locked by a member of admin citing a post from Dav which arguably had nothing to do with me and even if some might suggest that it did, it was still irrelevant as what I wished to have a discussion on here was just why it was that admin bannings could not be appealed by Boards members, not as the member of admin had suggested, to have my appeal heard here in feedback. Here is that thread:

OutlawPete wrote: »

Would like to give some brief Feedback on this ..

LoLth wrote: »

Not everything a mod says is taken as gospel. Mods are not instantly believed over users.

Absolutely, and the only AH ban that I ever had was overturned by a member of admin and they were sound to me throughout and gave the matter a fair hearing:

OutlawPete wrote: »

Yesterday I was banned from After Hours for joking/ribbing another user.

If only I could have also appealed the other ban.

I closed my account shortly after that as I felt that I and many others were getting shouted down and not listened too. Users were saying one thing and admin were ascribing entirely different views and opinions to them, on what seemed like a daily basis. They were convinced users held opinions which they did not. Feedback became strawman central. I seen a mod recently post about that time and they were patting themselves on the back about it. That they had got rid of a whole load of misogynists. Utter nonsense of course and same goes for much of those labelled racists back then also. Of course you will always get the odd person who is like that but users that were here for many years were having that crap thrown at them. Users who started their first ever thread in FB after having held their account for yonks were told they were just axe grinding and had clear agendas. It worked though and those users were effectively muzzled. Job done.

Incidentally I don't think Boards or it's moderators are anywhere near like that now but for many years they were and it undoubtedly had a negative effect. At one point there was even a sticky in AH on 'Misogyny'. Not sexism, misogyny. It got so as users were walking on eggshells in there. I absolutely felt the forum start to hemorrhage users at that time. Especially so when certain topics were not allowed to be discussed and threads on them were instantly locked. These were not topics on ongoing court cases or anything, just certain incidents that had made the news in Ireland in a big way, that everyone and their aunt were talking about but yet Boards had decided that discussion was not taking place on. The Journal, Politics.ie, comment sections on all Irish news sites were all allowing discussion regarding them though. Feedback invariably would be descended upon as a result and everyone would be told that Boards prided themselves on not discussing the topics in question. My feelings, and those of many, was that mod notes in the OP's of those threads would have easily prevented the type of discussion that admin were afraid users would resort to.. but locked those threads remained and elsewhere users went to discuss the topic.

Another major reasons (possibly the primary one) that I feel saw Boards begin to somewhat at least resemble a bit of ghost town is that After Hours pretty much had the life choked out of it by a certain fraction, of which consisted many members of Boards admin. These people all but hated AH and resented the fact that it was where the bulk of the site's traffic came from. Down the years I lost count how many times I seen certain members of admin sneering at AH and it's regulars as if they were above it and it's regulars. I always felt that was kinda odd given the place would have been a ghost town long ago but for it. Those admin (excluding Zaph one or two others) were always happy to point out how many page impressions the site had, how many new members were signing up etc but yet the very forum that was responsible for the vast majority of that, they never themselves posted in and when they spoke of it, it was in a disparaging tone. They pretty much treated the forum like the proverbial black sheep.

Imo it was felt that 'Yeah, we have all this traffic in AH, but those users / lurkers mustn't have noticed all the other fora we have, lets show 'em'. It was almost as if they felt they could take a rolling pin to the userbase and spread it from one corner of Boards to the other. As if they weren't all in AH by choice. In a way I think they were successful in that endeavour and it did help help some of the smaller forums, but it also simultaneously was yet another thing that was killing AH.

Lastly, 'selective moderation' was also something that has had a huge effect on why users stopped logging in here and went elsewhere. 'Attack the post and not the poster' was always the best thing about Boards from a discussion perspective but it was never applied fairly. If you were of a certain political opinion or your views didn't match the Boards consensus, you were pretty much left flapping in the wind. Took me three weeks to get a disgusting post made about me moderated once. In the end Zaph moderated it but he shouldn't have had to as I shouldn't have had to go to admin about it given that it was clear abuse. Seen it happen with many other users also where a blind eye was turned to someone getting personal crap thrown at them. Those with emboldened usernames have always got away with it much more than an ordinary user would too. I could link to those posts but I am not looking to start a witch hunt here, that is not what I posted any of the above.

tl;dr

Boards hemorrhaged a huge portion of it's userbase because people were sick and tired of not being able to express themselves on this discussion forum. They were sick of the overly left liberal agenda being shoved down their throats and the moderation of the forum enabling it. All that did was make the sanctimonious self righteous 'right-on' cliques happy and drove away anyone that they had in their crossfires. Users who were of course creating your content. Some of which you (Boards office) may not have been in agreement with but which a lot of userbase were. After Hours was santatised within an inch of it's life and the regulars had enough of it (most of them at least). You can keep collectively sticking your fingers in your ears as much as you want about that but it won't change a God damn thing. They were the reasons why people stopped posting here. Feck all else. Facebook, Twitter and the like have all of course had an effect on the sire and Boards is not exactly easy to use on mobile devices but none of those things has the effect of killing Boards anywhere near what I speak of is. If those things and many of the things raised by others on this thread so far, are not addressed, then you're wasting your time with all the superficial upgrades and facelifts. Your userbase is your lifeblood. Listen to them, for once.

RasTa

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=99990001&postcount=1

This is a silly idea, mainly due to the fact they mention it will look like the help desk which looks abysmal with the topic colours.

Zaph

RasTa wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=99990001&postcount=1

This is a silly idea, mainly due to the fact they mention it will look like the help desk which looks abysmal with the topic colours.

The overwhelming consensus on the various forums under Food & Drink was that merging them all into a single forum and adding tags was the best way forward. If you feel it's such a bad idea why didn't you contribute to any of the feedback threads as the mods were open to any suggestions that would increase traffic in the forum.

K-9

RasTa wrote: »

http://m.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=99990001&postcount=1

This is a silly idea, mainly due to the fact they mention it will look like the help desk which looks abysmal with the topic colours.

Merging quieter forums is a great idea and something that is ongoing, I think a fair few people suggested that earlier in the thread. We've done it twice in politics, first time didn't really work but so far, so good this time, early days yet though.
Toots did it for languages and religion in Society & Culture.

A lot more need to be done in slimming down forums and categories. It's a pity because trawling through the menu and finding some nook and crannies you didn't see before used to be part of the charm of boards.

The tags can be a bit unseemly all right. Maybe only use them if the thread title is a bit vague?

RasTa

Zaph wrote: »

The overwhelming consensus on the various forums under Food & Drink was that merging them all into a single forum and adding tags was the best way forward. If you feel it's such a bad idea why didn't you contribute to any of the feedback threads as the mods were open to any suggestions that would increase traffic in the forum.

There was none placed in the drinks forum so I thought that was being left alone, considering the homebrew is part of it too.

Hence didn't bother adding. Also you missed my point to regarding the tags, they are awful looking.

Actually beer might be staying were it is so ignore that part but fix the the tags.

Zaph

RasTa wrote: »

There was none placed in the drinks forum so I thought that was being left alone, considering the homebrew is part of it too.

Hence didn't bother adding. Also you missed my point to regarding the tags, they are awful looking.

Actually beer might be staying were it is so ignore that part but fix the the tags.

What do you suggest instead of the tags?

RasTa

Zaph wrote: »

What do you suggest instead of the tags?

Nothing. They are not needed.

Zaph

RasTa wrote: »

Nothing. They are not needed.

Pretty much everyone else who responded disagrees. The mods are simply responding to what they've been asked for.

RasTa

Zaph wrote: »

Pretty much everyone else who responded disagrees. The mods are simply responding to what they've been asked for.

Nobody suggested it but the mod of the forum with the 3rd last post in the thread. A few people thanked it but that's it.

Not sure why you don't just trial it as a normal forum then add those yokes if it gets too confusing.

Zaph

RasTa wrote: »

Nobody suggested it but the mod of the forum with the 3rd last post in the thread. A few people thanked it but that's it.

Not sure why you don't just trial it as a normal forum then add those yokes if it gets too confusing.

It was suggested by a non-mod of the forum in this thread (post 5), same in this thread (post 6) and also in the main thread (post 4). Basically the reasoning behind it is that posters in each of the F&D forums tend to stick to specific forums, e.g. Cakes & Bakes or Cooking & Recipes, and they don't want to be searching for threads related to these topics in a consolidated forum. The tags allow people to filter for what they're interested in. So why not trial it with the tags and remove them if they turn out not to be as useful as people expected?

Dyr

Another fine example of an AH mod pulling the ould strokethat a certain former AH mod had made their signature move

Put on your mod hat to shut down an differing view on utterly spurious grounds safe in the knowledge that if anyone calls you on your bull**** in the thread you can just ban them

Some pair of balls on this cowboy:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=99993589&postcount=98

_Kaiser_

Zaph wrote: »

Pretty much everyone else who responded disagrees. The mods are simply responding to what they've been asked for.

I can see his point TBH.. this multi-coloured tagging idea is running in the main Politics forum too and personally I find it a mess to read/navigate - although I use the dark skin so maybe it's easier in the standard white.

Zaph

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

I can see his point TBH.. this multi-coloured tagging idea is running in the main Politics forum too and personally I find it a mess to read/navigate - although I use the dark skin so maybe it's easier in the standard white.

Well they don't have to be multi-coloured, it's no problem making all the tags the same colour. I use the old white skin and they look OK to me on that, but I will concede that that may not be the case on other skins, in particular the dark one.

GLaDOS

Maybe an option to enable/disable tags?

Obviously one for the tech lads, may not be feasible

Zaph

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Maybe an option to enable/disable tags?

Obviously one for the tech lads, may not be feasible

It's not possible with the current software that Boards is running on.

Oafley Jones

Bambi wrote: »

Another fine example of an AH mod pulling the ould strokethat a certain former AH mod had made their signature move

Put on your mod hat to shut down an differing view on utterly spurious grounds safe in the knowledge that if anyone calls you on your bull**** in the thread you can just ban them

Some pair of balls on this cowboy:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=99993589&postcount=98

Actually, i just came here to post that. Absolutely bizarre statement from that mod. They need to be stripped of their mod hat fairly quickly.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

That's a bit harsh. I have found that mod in question to be very fair with any issues I've had going on. I've been on the recieving end of plenty of warnings, and infractions in my time on boards and I can genuinely say he's probably one of the fairest mods on boards. I don't have the highest regard for a lot of them but if I had a problem or issue, he's fair and approachable and I think AH has been better since he's been mod there.

I don't understand what's wrong with that post, as I haven't read the entire thread but those threads tend to get messy and are a troll fest so maybe it was a clumsy attempt of trying to keep things on topic? I don't know but calling for his head is very dramatic and not very fair.

Maireadio

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Incidentally I don't think Boards or it's moderators are anywhere near like that now but for many years they were and it undoubtedly had a negative effect. At one point there was even a sticky in AH on 'Misogyny'. Not sexism, misogyny. It got so as users were walking on eggshells in there. I absolutely felt the forum start to hemorrhage users at that time.

That's not when it started happening. That thread was, what, a good three years ago? Open to correction there, but the hemorraging of users from AH is far more recent than that.

And if I recall, there was a misogynistic undercurrent running though AH at that time.

As for your post as a whole, I wish people would stop bringing personal grievances onto this feedback thread. It's tedious to read.

jackofalltrades

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

tl;dr

Boards hemorrhaged a huge portion of it's userbase because people were sick and tired of not being able to express themselves on this discussion forum. They were sick of the overly left liberal agenda being shoved down their throats and the moderation of the forum enabling it. All that did was make the sanctimonious self righteous 'right-on' cliques happy and drove away anyone that they had in their crossfires. Users who were of course creating your content. Some of which you (Boards office) may not have been in agreement with but which a lot of userbase were. After Hours was santatised within an inch of it's life and the regulars had enough of it (most of them at least).

Fully agree with you here.
The window on what kind of opinions are acceptable on Boards.ie are often completely at odds with whats acceptable,
on other mainstream sites and the real world in general.
While it's got slightly better recently, there still seems to be a bit of a gulf sometimes.
Threads that have anything to do with immigration, Islam, travellers or transgender issues seem to be particularly bad.
Whether they continue to stay open or get closed seems to depend on which side of the argument is winning.
It's a discussion site, if people can't discuss issues there are plenty of other sites that seem to have a healthier attitude to the concept.

Also certain posters seemed to have been given a lot of leeway due to to the fact that they towed the "party line".
Which no doubt seems to have created a fair bit of bad blood towards the site.