Why is Boards so quiet?

Zaph

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This has nothing to do with your feedback being taken on board or not, the simple fact is that I don't know the answer to your question. I can only go with what we've been told on this site. I'm a volunteer here, I'm not DM staff, so I have no more insight into the way the company decides policy than you do, which is why I suggested you contact them if you want to find out more. I'm not really sure what more you're expecting from me here tbh.

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looksee

@....... Do you remember when you would wail to your mother 'but Jimmy's mammy says he can go/do whatever' and your mother would answer 'well I am not Jimmy's mammy' and that was the end of the discussion?

You cannot expect Boards to run on the basis that 'other people do it'. You have asked various questions about why things do, or don't, happen here and been given answers. If there is a sound reason why those answers should be challenged, then do so, but the argument that 'everyone else does it' is childish and irrelevant.

If you want page 3 girls you don't buy the Irish Times then complain that there are no nudes, you buy the paper that does.

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looksee

Not only do the mods here not seem to know, they dont seem to care and to throw labels like "childish and irrelevant" at me for even daring to ask the question seems like wagon circling and an attempt to discredit a legitimate query.

Can I just point out that I am not a mod in here, this is just my opinion so if any wagons are circling they are people who happen to agree with me, rather than mods. And my argument stands.

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Jobs OXO

looksee wrote: »

Can I just point out that I am not a mod in here, this is just my opinion so if any wagons are circling they are people who happen to agree with me, rather than mods. And my argument stands.

It would be great if the 'Moderator' title was only used when there is a moderator action. This might save on a lot of confusion.

KERSPLAT!

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I understand what you're saying, and it's a fair question IMO. Unfortunately I have no idea why they continue to do it or why we come down so hard on it compared to others. Because it may involve legal action against board I do what I'm told and that is to not allow discussion of cases currently before the courts.

Maybe the office can advise further, I don't believe it's something mods, cmods or even admin can answer. Maybe someone with knowledge of the law itself can shed some light on it too.

Beasty

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I am sure all the points being made in this thread are being looked at. However that does not mean they will be acted upon. The mere fact that some posters feel the need to post in Feedback highlights there are some genuine concerns out there. Equally there are many who continue to happily post without such concern. The key for the Boards hierarchy (which certainly does not involve mods, and I would guess Admins input, although welcome, is only going to be part of what influences whether any change in direction is forthcoming) is to decide what they believe is best for the site, its employees, its owners and its users recognising all viewpoints. So yes feedback is very welcome, but that does not mean all feedback will be acted upon.

KERSPLAT!

Jobs OXO wrote: »

It would be great if the 'Moderator' title was only used when there is a moderator action. This might save on a lot of confusion.

There were requests for it to only display when a mod posts in their own forum however I don't believe it's possible on vBulletin.

Stheno

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

There were requests for it to only display when a mod posts in their own forum however I don't believe it's possible on vBulletin.

I think you're correct there

Colonialboy

The mods have gotten worse .
Fear is in their eyes.
The more downhill boards is goign the more htey are repeating their mistakes. 

I thought with the left and liberalism gettig a kicking in recent months that maybe the MODS would learn and realise maybe they need to open up the discussion, cos obviously mainstram media was out of thouch with what peopel wanted and what people wanted to discuss. 
But no they got worse and have gotten even heavier handed at censorship. 
Im about to get banned in Politics Cafe cos of what I posted in the Donald thread.
I brought up a book 'Shattered' written 4 months ago about Hilarys campaign, and thats deemd no relevant to DT. but Nixon and what happend 50 years ago is relevant. 
Im pretty much done here. You won MODS, im off  to find somewhere were people are open to discussion and the moderators arent just censors and bigots.

Insect Overlord

Don't let the ban-hammer hit you on the way out. :rolleyes:

seamus

Wibbs wrote: »

So. Much. This.

But isn't this ultimately the "damned if you do, damned if you don't", issue when it comes to moderation?

Quicker on the ban, leave the threads open and people complain about mods being too ban-happy, "they're driving everyone away". Close the threads, let the dickheads continue to hang around ruining threads and the complaint is that you're stifling discussion by closing threads.

Is there a happy medium? Probably, and I think most mods try to stick within that happy medium, and continually get burned for it by closing some threads and banning some people.

So they get stick from both sides.

For a long time I had always thought that boards should be less "ethical" about handling banned users. The SA forum, for example, used to just ban people. And GTFO of here with your whinging about the rules, I don't care what your claim is, you're barred, fuck off and stop wasting our time.

Now, boards should never go that extreme, as that's the echo chamber issue. But boards was built on such a strong concept of allowing communities to grow and define their own direction, that I always felt there was just a little too much kowtowing to to the rules lawyers. A little too eager to be fair, resulting in long-winded appeals procedures draining lots of time.

The end result may be this problem where moderators themselves feel too confined to the rules to make a decision. One dickhead knows how to skirt the rules and ruin a thread, the moderator knows a ban will sort it, but also knows that the dickhead will whinge if he's banned. So the less painful option is closing the thread.

Perhaps boards should always have been quicker to just draw a line, and complaints met with, "You know what, I don't care how right you may be, just fnck off and go away, you're a pain in the hole".

Instead in the interests of fairness, everyone gets a fair hearing no matter how much of a dick they are, even though they have no reason to expect or deserve one from a private site.
Ban all of Russia, ban all of China, ban anyone using a VPN. Oh noes, there are a couple of people who'll lose out. Who cares, there are 1,000 others who won't be able to cause trouble. Delete the prison. Just ban re-regs and don't waste your time engaging them. The CEO should ignore those whinging emails he gets about being banned.

---

The only real criticism I'd have in relation to "keeping control" - bearing in mind I haven't seen the mod/admin interface in 7 years or something - has been the somewhat glacial pace of change when it came to tooling and and enhancements for mods. Things that would likely make threads far calmer - like being able to implement thread bans - have sat on the back burner for a long, long time. As a result mods have had to make do with the tools that they have, and ultimately the solutions which win out are the ones which require the least effort. Like closing a thread instead of removing troublemakers from it.

That's not a criticism of the tech team on that. They've always been only a small number of people with a backlog a mile long and many pressing issues that need dealing with. But there has been a continued failure to engage with a sizeable, talented and qualified technology community on boards, to assist in making things better. Usually offers of voluntary help are waved away with some vagueness about IP and legal issues. I've bent ears about this before, and recently. There's no better time in technology to be more open about your technology and seek voluntary help.

Source control platforms, cloud services and so forth make it easy to leverage the power of voluntary contributors without exposing or compromising your actual systems.

But for whatever reason there's this constant resistance to help, which ultimately manifests as an inability to change.

Colonialboy

Insect Overlord wrote: »

Don't let the ban-hammer hit you on the way out. :rolleyes:

no worries it wont .. and you wonder why ad revenue and clicks are down on boards. 

One of your own MODS is encouraging people to leave. 
I blame the education system.
Knowing that I wont be supporting clowns like you stheno and ancapaillbul**** but not visitng this site , its making it all the sweeter.

ancapailldorcha

Colonialboy wrote: »

Knowing that I wont be supporting clowns like you stheno and ancapaillbul**** but not visitng this site , its making it all the sweeter.

Turrah.

testaccount123

looksee wrote: »

If you want page 3 girls you don't buy the Irish Times then complain that there are no nudes, you buy the paper that does.

Well yeah, there is more open discussion which doesnt feel like its taking place in your local safe space or mother/baby group elsewhere, which is why everyone left.

Stheno

Colonialboy wrote: »

no worries it wont .. and you wonder why ad revenue and clicks are down on boards. 

One of your own MODS is encouraging people to leave. 
I blame the education system.
Knowing that I wont be supporting clowns like you stheno and ancapaillbul**** but not visitng this site , its making it all the sweeter.

Eh you actually asked to be banned from the cafe in your last post?

ancapailldorcha

I don't understand the weird fascination of people who continually post in threads like this, often creating new accounts for that sole purpose with telling us how bad the site is.

seamus

"Boards is so crap! This is the last account I'm creating, ever!

...

This week."

Wibbs

seamus wrote: »

But isn't this ultimately the "damned if you do, ", issue when it comes to moderation?

Quicker on the ban, leave the threads open and people complain about mods being too ban-happy, "they're driving everyone away". Close the threads, let the dickheads continue to hang around ruining threads and the complaint is that you're stifling discussion by closing threads.

As I said before given the choice leaving the threads open and banning any muppets that ruin the thread is clearly the better choice. As for damned if you damned if you don't, I'd rather be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Far better to leave threads open. IMH closing threads is the easy solution that isn't a solution. Close a thread that could have a dozen posting on it with two taking the piss versus remove the pisstakers and leave the dozen to it. If a fight breaks out in a pub, they don't throw everybody out.

Now, boards should never go that extreme, as that's the echo chamber issue. But boards was built on such a strong concept of allowing communities to grow and define their own direction, that I always felt there was just a little too much kowtowing to to the rules lawyers. A little too eager to be fair, resulting in long-winded appeals procedures draining lots of time.

TBH I agree with you here. The only time I had one of those dispute thingies was a clusterfcuk where a cop on bypass was in play and daft levels of time were given to an obvious troll. Rules lawyers are not only on the troll side IME. But that is the bad part of a generally good culture of two way comms on Boards.

The end result may be this problem where moderators themselves feel too confined to the rules to make a decision. One dickhead knows how to skirt the rules and ruin a thread, the moderator knows a ban will sort it, but also knows that the dickhead will whinge if he's banned. So the less painful option is closing the thread.

Lazy option IMHO. I've banned dozens of posters, I'm usually the one with the most bans in the forums I've modded and yet only that one DRP in all that time. Why? Because they were pretty clear reasons involved and in most cases by PM they acknowledged that. Avoiding the schoolteacher naughty pupil dynamic helps.

The only real criticism I'd have in relation to "keeping control" - bearing in mind I haven't seen the mod/admin interface in 7 years or something - has been the somewhat glacial pace of change when it came to tooling and and enhancements for mods. Things that would likely make threads far calmer - like being able to implement thread bans - have sat on the back burner for a long, long time. As a result mods have had to make do with the tools that they have, and ultimately the solutions which win out are the ones which require the least effort. Like closing a thread instead of removing troublemakers from it.

Sure a thread ban function would be nice S, but let's face it we're chock full of buttons as it is. You can warn, card and ban people. We need more direction not more buttons.

That's not a criticism of the tech team on that. They've always been only a small number of people with a backlog a mile long and many pressing issues that need dealing with. But there has been a continued failure to engage with a sizeable, talented and qualified technology community on boards, to assist in making things better. Usually offers of voluntary help are waved away with some vagueness about IP and legal issues. I've bent ears about this before, and recently. There's no better time in technology to be more open about your technology and seek voluntary help.

Source control platforms, cloud services and so forth make it easy to leverage the power of voluntary contributors without exposing or compromising your actual systems.

But for whatever reason there's this constant resistance to help, which ultimately manifests as an inability to change.

+1000, but good luck with that S. Whatever hope of that kinda thing happening ten years ago, IMH the corporate management malaise of today would break out in a rash at the thought.

testaccount123

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I don't understand

Its fairly obvious you dont understand alright. People are amused by boards.ie and its crazy notions of trying to enforce a bazillion obscure, contradictory rules on internet communications in 2017. Other forms of social media have moved on, but Boards carries on like someone handed usenet over to a bunch of condescending special education primary schoolteachers. 500 word posts about moderation when nobody gives a toss about moderation and havent for the best part of a decade. Boards and its same posse of 20 mods has been a laughing stock on the internet for ages. Entire other websites have risen up dedicated to laughing at it. All the while the mods are scratching their heads wondering why people keep coming back to threads like these - its because they are car-crash funny and so are you.

maudgonner

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This post has been deleted.

There was recently a defamation case over comments on thejournal.ie.

http://www.con-telegraph.ie/news/roundup/articles/2017/05/09/4139678-gaa-player-and-dad-awarded-damages-for-defamation/

So it was not ok, to the tune of 25k against the guy who posted it. The site was lucky the case didn't include them, maybe because the post was deleted (by the poster himself) within a day of being posted.

Perhaps there are a lot of posters on here who should be very grateful to boards mods for restricting what can be said?

Murrisk

testaccount123 wrote: »

Entire other websites have risen up dedicated to laughing at it.

Don't those sites have, like, ten users or something?

ancapailldorcha

Murrisk wrote: »

Don't those sites have, like, ten users or something?

Tends to be smaller groups of triggered little snowflakes moaning about how bad the site is.

JCX BXC

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Tends to be smaller groups of triggered little snowflakes moaning about how bad the site is.

Generally because everyone else has left

(And don't get me started on the word 'snowflake')

Insect Overlord

testaccount123 wrote: »

Boards and its same posse of 20 mods has been a laughing stock on the internet for ages. Entire other websites have risen up dedicated to laughing at it.

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Tends to be smaller groups of triggered little snowflakes moaning about how bad the site is.

"Hey guys, I just found this awesome new club! I don't agree with most of their rules, but I'm going to join anyway!"

(some time later)

"Guys, it's so unfair! I just started sharing all my uneducated opinions and insisted that everyone else was wrong for disagreeing with me! Then the people who run the club gave out to me, so I called them names! Now they won't let me in the club anymore! We should laugh at them because they can hold a mature, polite, well-reasoned, logical conversation and we can't!"

dudara

Colonialboy wrote: »

no worries it wont .. and you wonder why ad revenue and clicks are down on boards. 

One of your own MODS is encouraging people to leave. 
I blame the education system.
Knowing that I wont be supporting clowns like you stheno and ancapaillbul**** but not visitng this site , its making it all the sweeter.

Let's make this easier for you. As a result of your persistent failure to provide feedback, and your desire to insult moderators, you can take a permanent break from this forum.

Hopefully, you might considering extending that to a permanent break from this site.

KyussBeeshop

There's a large bunch of longtime Reddit posters slamming Boards here, and you can't fob them off like you can with the 1-person-100-accounts 'rhymes with boat' site, because over on Reddit a quick look at their profiles gives a good indication that they are genuine posters.

Boards can not go on arrogantly ignoring its shítty reputation, and fobbing-off/dismissing all of the negative feedback.

It has EARNED its reputation, and has a long way to go with doing anything about it - can't even reach step no.1 of acknowledging the bad feedback/reputation without fobbing it off or making excuses ffs.


It's notable that it's almost always mods who are the ones mounting that kind of arrogant dismissal of negative feedback, too - if anything it comes across as some mods treating their position on the site, as some kind of privileged 'club', where they mount a kneejerk defence of the status quo (even if that is presently destructive to the site), to maintain their standing.

Most mods aren't like that, but it's bloody frustrating to see that kind of dismissive attitude to the very valid negative feedback here and elsewhere.