Boards is becoming a Ghost Town

Lovely Bloke

Trojan wrote: »

And in the last 12 posts we see both claims of boards mods limiting discussion too much, and too little. They're damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

the hell are you on about?

asking for Russiatrolls to be dealt with properly is not the same as asking for discussion limiting, and you well know it

Lovely Bloke

I also note that neither mod, nor cmod, nor ex-admin have actually commented on the russiatrolls, is that to be taken as the hierarchy do not see them, do not see them as a problem, or condone their posts?

Lord TSC

Turtyturd wrote: »

So the mods green lit the decision then asked for input in the token feedback thread?

Presuming that was in response to my comment....will happily add the word "provisionally" if you want. Had there been massive outcries from the regulars not to open it up, obviously said "green lighting" would have been fully reviewed. But there wasn't. I think Gav tried to raise the point in that thread multiple times, and largely it didn't get much response or backlash.

Lovely Bloke

but that was before the refusal to deal correctly with the putintrolls

The Moldy Gowl

The phrase putintrolls or whoeverbots gives my eyes serious damage from being rolled back so far.

Lovely Bloke

The Moldy Gowl wrote: »

The phrase putintrolls or whoeverbots gives my eyes serious damage from being rolled back so far.

fair play loadsa thanks

The Moldy Gowl

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

fair play loadsa thanks

Don't worry. They are only thanksbots.

Using those terms just make you look like a raving lunatic no one takes seriously.

Lovely Bloke

cool story, loadsa more thanks

smash

This thread has gone to shít.

GavRedKing

Dav asked us in 2014 our thoughts on opening the forum.

Some were against it, some were for it but we all agreed to give it go and test it, as long it didnt mean the forum was being opened up going forward.

It wasnt mentioned in the feedbck thread at the time and some users jumped the gun before being allowed to discuss it in feedback, despite peoples concerns the WC in 2014 and the opening of the forum was a success pretty much.

This year for the Euros I approached Dav to open it again and dropped him a PM, he said he'd have no problem opening it up if we wanted it, I went to the Mods and CMods and after seeing that the WC went off without much trouble we said yes but decided this time to tell people in the feedback thread and get feedback and responses on it, not many posts outlined an issue with opening the forum so I went back to Dav to give him the thumbs up for it and here we are.

The Moldy Gowl

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

cool story, loadsa more thanks

At least I'm not acting like a moody teenager using stupid terms that mean nothing except to make you look like an idiot.
So at least there is that along with my cool story.

ibarelycare

smash wrote: »

This thread has gone to shít.

I feel like that's the intention. Let it go to shit so it can be locked and forgotten about.

smash

ibarelycare wrote: »

I feel like that's the intention. Let it go to shit so it can be locked and forgotten about.

Business as usual then.

FriendComputer

511 wrote: »

It's well known fact inbreeding often does effect the level of intelligence of the incestuous couple's offspring, but liberals don't like to engage in debates about the genetics of non-whites because it's too much Adolf Hitler.

Another disgraceful decision from a message board that is hell-bent on pissing off its userbase and destroying itself.

Just for anyone that says certain opinions should be argued against instead of banned: this is what you're up against; you don't like the facts? Well you would say that, you liberal!

Some people are so deep in this stuff that there is no debating them.

FriendComputer

511 wrote: »

It's well known fact inbreeding often does effect the level of intelligence of the incestuous couple's offspring, but liberals don't like to engage in debates about the genetics of non-whites because it's too much Adolf Hitler.

Another disgraceful decision from a message board that is hell-bent on pissing off its userbase and destroying itself.

Just for anyone that says certain opinions should be argued against instead of banned: this is what you're up against; you don't like the facts? Well you would say that, you liberal! (and before someone jumps on this as some sort of "gotcha", I'm obviously using the word "facts" facetiously. They're seldom anything of the sort or are presented in a massively misleading way)

Some people are so deep in this stuff that there is no debating them.

FriendComputer

Dupe post.

FriendComputer

Okay, for some reason whenever I try to edit my post it brings up a blank scree and... as you can see, when I do get through it duplicates it.

4zn76tysfajdxp

The Moldy Gowl wrote: »

The phrase putintrolls or whoeverbots gives my eyes serious damage from being rolled back so far.

The feedbacktrolls (or "feedbots") truly have run riot. Probably a Stalinist conspiracy to discredit the West. lol

Lovely Bloke

didnt take you long

LoLth

I know posters beating the crap out of one another means you're not beating the crap out of the mods/cmods/admins but it really does undermine the genuinely good points that have been raised elsewhere in the thread.

as a recently returned admin and mod of feedback I've been avoiding active moderation of this thread in the interest of allowing opinions to be expressed. I apologise if that has come across as intentionally letting the thread "go to ****" - though as mod I can hardly be given all the credit for that, the content surely has some input there

so, a friendly mod-nudge to cut the personal attacks and insults and drop the bickering please.

Dav

You know what? I just can't figure out what it is I'm supposed to do about this mountain of criticism here folks. Really I can't. There's so much raw negativity (and some of you seem to genuinely relish in it) and a huge amount of contradiction - you can't all be right.

There is too much for me to try and fix all at once - and I do mean fix. People who claim to love being a part of this place couldn't possibly be so aggressive and flat out irate if something wasn't in need of attention.

I'm one, of a team of two, that has to try and collate all this and try to figure out what's the most important and deal with that first. I've been reading this thread every day, I've got an idea of most important issues and now once again, I will go to my boss and continue to fight for all these things. It's not my job to toe the company line, it's my job to be the middle man between you and the company. We don't sit around thinking "what's gonna piss people off" as some of the more fantastical voices in this thread seem to think, we look at what we need to support and grow the platform and we look at our numbers and the feedback the various groups of members and readers alike give us to determine that. But this is something I've said before.

We cannot wave a wand and change anything overnight. Neither can we wave a wand and change someone's mind about what's best. It's abundantly clear from this thread that no one knows what's best because there are a thousand different definitions of the word depending on what it is you want out of this site. There've been a stack of good suggestions and a stack of frankly crazy ones, but by the time I've had a half hour to think about what I'm reading, you've moved on to something completely different which is equally as important to just as many of you. All I want is some sort of opportunity to make some progress somewhere - all the major issues listed that I know I can work on are going to take months to address though - there's easily 2 man-years worth of projects that I not only think are good ideas, but are things we need in this thread. There are companies that would kill for the feedback and suggestions you're giving us, I cannot overstate how lucky we consider ourselves to have that sort of relationship with our members, even if some of you are a pain in the arse

However, there is something specific we need to address and it's the number 1 criticism - Moderation. We cannot and will not ever have "standardised" moderation on this site - it couldn't possibly work with a chaotic system like this site (that's chaotic as in Theory not as in uncontrolled madness). Every forum is different - it's supposed to be. What's a rule breach in one is not in others and so on. There are thousands of members and only a handful of mods in comparison; people claiming mods are this and that because they missed some reports or because they're not omniscient or omnipresent are living in some sort of fantasy land if they think that these ratios of hundreds of posters to a small team of mods mean that things won't occasionally be missed. Look at how they're treated here as a result? Everything under a microscope, everything torn apart, everything questioned all because they just wanted to help out on a discussion forum. Immediate and frankly ridiculous claims of bias because of political leanings or what sports team they support or whether or not they're a "liberal" or "conservative" etc? Who'd be bothered? If you think that a moderator's decision is somehow a personal attack then please try to remember that whilst you might think that your interactions are some sort of deeply personal "one on one show-down," on one of the busy forums like AH or Soccer, you are just another one of hundreds who have requested attention to something or other. I'm sorry if this impersonality comes as a shock to a lot of you, but this is the reality. It's not at all that the mods are automatons doing busywork to fill in quotas or something, but if you're number 14 of 36 private messages that a mod is looking at, they may not remember the last time you spoke about something and maybe they don't get the tone of their message to you as well as they should have in an effort to get through that list of 36 messages. We have checks and balances - please avail yourself of them instead of tarring all the volunteers here with the same brush. There are people who've been mods on this site for 10 years and who've never had a DRP to deal with. There are people who have been mods for a month and who've probably already dealt with more issues than one of those afore mentioned 10 year veterans because they're in a fast and furious forum with dozens of new posts per hour. To expect these two people to draw the same conclusions to a given situation in the same way is both unreasonable and unrealistic.

Would you rather we replaced our mods with some sort of 100% member driven system with no human interaction? Cause we could do that. It'd be a total disaster, but we could do it. If you don't believe me, just look at any online poll that's been co-opted by vested interests. The Hugo Awards, the Boaty McBoatyface polls, massive up/down voting between whatever outrage du jour on sites like Reddit etc.

You need humans to do this.

You need to understand that because of that, there will sometimes be mistakes.

We need to be better at being consistent within our individual forums - it's definitely something that needs work and I'm not for one moment shying away from that, but that will never, ever mean that for 100% of reported issues, what's a red card in AH is going to be a red card on the Christianity forum for example.

We've descended into point scoring and rehashing specific events and at this stage this thread is no longer contributing much in new ideas, so I am, as has been suggested by many of you, going to close this thread so I can pick it apart with Niamh and we can start turning this thread into a list of tasks.

Lovely Bloke

have you a view yourself on the pro-russia agenda pushers currently infesting the soccer forum?