Now Ye're Talking - to Boards.ie: Sean

Boards.ie: Mark

For our next AMA, we have one that was much sought after in the AMA Wishlist thread. JCX BXC and Victor requested that Boards.ie staff or management make an appearance, and so we have Boards.ie: Sean here to talk all things Boards.ie.

Please remember that some information may be quite sensitive and he won't be able to disclose absolutely everything. Fire ahead with your questions below

Boards.ie: Sean

Hi all. As CEO of Boards.ie I'm happy to answer any of your questions (as best as I can ).

There may be some things of a sensitive or confidential nature that I won't be able to go into too much detail (if that's the case I'll let you know) but what I can share I will so ask away.

Cheers,
Sean.

Fr_Dougal

Hi Sean, thanks for doing the AMA.

The removal of the Feedback forum has annoyed most posters on boards.ie, it has taken away the majority of feedback and silenced dissent amongst posters.

Even in the commercial TalkTo forums, more than one poster is allowed to comment on a single thread.

Feedback should be considered a gift, boards.ie seems to treat it with contempt. My question is, why has this ridiculous decision regarding Feedback not been reversed?

Boards.ie: Sean

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

Hi Sean, thanks for doing the AMA.

The removal of the Feedback forum has annoyed most posters on boards.ie, it has taken away the majority of feedback and silenced dissent amongst posters.

Even in the commercial TalkTo forums, more than one poster is allowed to comment on a single thread.

Feedback should be considered a gift, boards.ie seems to treat it with contempt. My question is, why has this ridiculous decision regarding Feedback not been reversed?

Thanks for the question. So the Feedback forum hasn't been removed, you can find it here. However, there were some changes made to the way it operates and when making those changes the forum was temporarily closed, hence the possible confusion. But rest assured, it is open now.

Rather than Feedback being a free-for-all (as it had become) we felt it could be most useful for genuine feedback if we allowed anyone to start a new thread there but restrict the threads so only the original poster can post in the thread. Posts are now pre-moderated and must be approved by an Admin (or in some cases moved to a more appropriate forum like Help Desk or Site Development). However all threads and posts in the Feedback forum remain readable by all users.

We did this to ensure that users still had the ability to post their feedback about the site but where we weren't in a situation where Admins spent more time dealing with the tangents of threads than the original feedback.

We posted details of these changes along with some of the reasons why they were made in this post

5rtytry56

What boardsie would you like to meet in person from their postings?

frozenfrozen

what differences do you see for boards.ie in 5 years time

Gloomtastic!

Hi Sean,

I believe it takes about 10 years to get to the top in any media business. How long did it take you?

Compared to all the other brands in the Distilled SCH group, Boards.ie is probably the least commercially viable - there’s no mention of it on the Distillled Media mobile site. As a businessman how do you justify the continued financial support of Boards to your shareholders?

If you could, and you had unlimited funds, what changes would you make to Boards to make it profitable?

Are you a techie or a salesman? What do you think Tom and the other founders of Boards think of you?

Kuva

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

Thanks for the question. So the Feedback forum hasn't been removed, you can find it here. However, there were some changes made to the way it operates and when making those changes the forum was temporarily closed, hence the possible confusion. But rest assured, it is open now.

Rather than Feedback being a free-for-all (as it had become) we felt it could be most useful for genuine feedback if we allowed anyone to start a new thread there but restrict the threads so only the original poster can post in the thread. Posts are now pre-moderated and must be approved by an Admin (or in some cases moved to a more appropriate forum like Help Desk or Site Development). However all threads and posts in the Feedback forum remain readable by all users.

We did this to ensure that users still had the ability to post their feedback about the site but where we weren't in a situation where Admins spent more time dealing with the tangents of threads than the original feedback.

We posted details of these changes along with some of the reasons why they were made in this post

What you've done to feedback is unforgivable.

Ignoring ALL of the feedback in the big last few threads in feedback is unforgivable.

I opened the first page of a thread in feedback not long before it was nuked but actually didn't read it until maybe 5 hours later, I then hit refresh and at least 3, in my eyes, utterly harmless posts had been deleted, I don't even know myself what I want to ask from that other than to say it doesn't go unnoticed the stuff that gets deleted around here and that's before the tonnes of stuff that can't be mentioned in the first place anymore...is this your doing? To please who?

I've just come back from abroad, the state of that responsive site (how have bugs that have been reported a thousand times "IN FEEDBACK" on the touch mobile site ended up being replicated in the responsive site? It must be 7 years in the making, how has it taken so long to get to the pitiful state it is in now?

Why do boards staff leave?

What are the usage figures for the site now versus when you started?

Thats it for now.

Cookie_Monster

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

Thanks for the question. So the Feedback forum hasn't been removed, you can find it here. However, there were some changes made to the way it operates and when making those changes the forum was temporarily closed, hence the possible confusion. But rest assured, it is open now.

it has been gutted so much to make it unusable and unfit for purpose.
Is this going to be addressed at any point or will it continue to be ignored?

5rtytry56

Sean, what do you see as the most successful social platform right now?

Boards.ie: Sean

5rtytry56 wrote: »

What boardsie would you like to meet in person from their postings?

Without a shadow of a doubt padraiggg but only so he can introduce me to the legend that is Trent

GLaDOS

If you had unlimited funds, what changes would you make to boards?

Boards.ie: Sean

frozenfrozen wrote: »

what differences do you see for boards.ie in 5 years time

One of the interesting ways of approaching a question like this is ask yourself what would success look like for Boards 5 years from now. Thinking about that, for me success would include ... having a vibrant and growing community of passionate and active users ... using a platform that is fit for purpose, robust, stable and (where appropriate) making use of new technologies and frameworks ... where conversations continue to be topic/forum based (as opposed to many other social media platforms) ... where the company is profitable and experiencing sustained revenue growth ... where Boards is seen as a primary source of information and insight into what is happening in Ireland and what Irish people are talking about and thinking about ... and where new products and/or services are launched that leverage the unique strengths we have (an existing large and engaged user base, insight and experience into growing and managing communities and technical expertise in building high traffic, high availability web platforms).

Picking this apart a bit about what we would need to do over the next 5 years to get there and therefore what would be different in 5 years time:

- we need to get a lot better at onboarding new users when they register with Boards (for example we did an analysis of new registrations in a one month time preiod, 55% of people who went to the trouble of registering with Boards never made a single post, if we want a vibrant and growing community we need to change this)

- we need to encourage new voices to get involved in conversations; this is the only way we can ensure the long-term viability and vibrancy of Boards. This requires a whole community effort rather than just us here in the office

- we need not only to maintain the current legacy site (which let me be clear we are committed to doing) to significantly improve the current responsive site (which we are currently working on)

- the realities of the world are that we need to generate revenue in order to keep Boards running and digital advertising (like everything else) is evolving. It is no longer good enough to have a couple of ad slots on the page and just sell banner ad placements. That type of business model is dying. Advertisers now are looking at measures like the viewability of an ad (how long the ad actually appears on the screen, rather than being loaded off screen at the bottom of a long thread, for example), new formats (for example instream and outstream video) and native formats (in Boards' case things like sponsored posts and sponsored subforums). This is where the advertising spend is moving to and anyone replying solely on the old banner style ads over time will die. So whether we like it or nor we will have to adapt to these industry trends in order to stay relevant form an advertising perspective

- we need to think about what our products and services we could build to complement our core offering which is Boards. But before jumping into that, in the short term we need to address any major outstanding issues on the legacy site and the planned improvements for the responsive site

Boards.ie: Sean

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Hi Sean,

I believe it takes about 10 years to get to the top in any media business. How long did it take you?

Hi Gloomstastic! I haven't had the most traditional career path in getting to my current role with Boards. I was involved in a couple of tech companies back in the late nineties / early two thousands, then took a different route (I co-founded and ran a not-for-profit organisation that invested in high potential start-up charities and social enterprises, helping them get their ideas off the ground) and then moved to Boards just over 3 years ago (for anyone who's interested, and I'm sure that won't be many, a quick search on LinkedIn for Sean Coughlan Boards will give you a bit more detail)

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Compared to all the other brands in the Distilled SCH group, Boards.ie is probably the least commercially viable - there’s no mention of it on the Distillled Media mobile site. As a businessman how do you justify the continued financial support of Boards to your shareholders?

I know there may be some confusion out there regarding Boards and Distilled Media (technically Distilled SCH). Boards used to be part of Distilled Media but in 2015 we moved out independently of Distilled, primarily because Distilled was focusing on classified sites, of which Boards clearly was not. Distilled subsequently entered into a joint venture with DoneDeal, another classified site. That's why we are not listed on the Distilled site.

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

If you could, and you had unlimited funds, what changes would you make to Boards to make it profitable?

As it turns out Boards has been profitable in both 2015 and 2016, so that's good!

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Are you a techie or a salesman? What do you think Tom and the other founders of Boards think of you?

I think that I'm a bit of both, but in both areas there are people on the team who are a lot better than me For a short while back in the late nineties I did code before moving into product management. And in all the roles I have been in since then there has always been a strong element of selling. However, we have both a very talented dev team and a very talented sales team here in Boards that are way better than anything I bring to the table. I guess what I bring is what management generally brings, an ability to understand the different sides of the business (which I do), to manage the team you have working with you, to coordinate and prioritise how the company will best utilise the resources at its disposal and to plan for the future.

As to what Tom and John and the other founders and original Boardsies think of me, I think it's best to ask them!

robyntmorton

I always thought that an employee doing an AMA here would turn into a bit of a trainwreck for people complaining about things being done in a way that they don't like, so thank you for stepping into the lions den!

As head honcho, can you hint at anything the userbase has coming its way? Obviously I'm aware that you can't give away anything solid before time for commercial reasons, but hinting at how Boards is evolving for and with the userbase, maybe?

job seeker

Hi Sean, What's the strangest private message you've received?

Also, is coke and hookers still in fashion or a is it a thing of the past?

Finally, what advice would you give someone who would love to follow in your career path?

GypsyByName

What has been your favourite AMA that you have read?

begbysback

As CEO do you have the power to rescind a yellow card?

Boards.ie: Sean

Kuva wrote: »

What you've done to feedback is unforgivable.

Ignoring ALL of the feedback in the big last few threads in feedback is unforgivable.

I opened the first page of a thread in feedback not long before it was nuked but actually didn't read it until maybe 5 hours later, I then hit refresh and at least 3, in my eyes, utterly harmless posts had been deleted, I don't even know myself what I want to ask from that other than to say it doesn't go unnoticed the stuff that gets deleted around here and that's before the tonnes of stuff that can't be mentioned in the first place anymore...is this your doing? To please who?

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

it has been gutted so much to make it unusable and unfit for purpose.
Is this going to be addressed at any point or will it continue to be ignored?

Firstly, everyone's entitled to have a viewpoint and at times it will be different to ours. And I'm not trying to argue that we're right and other people are wrong when they disagree with us about the changes we made to the Feedback forum.

What I will say is this. Some people had strong views that the old Feedback forum was not working well. Some people have strong views (Kuva and Cookie_Monster amongst them) that the new Feedback forum is not working well. So we have the well worn but true cliché that you can't please all of the people all of the time. If we left the Feedback forum as it was some people wouldn't be happy. If we change it some people won't be happy.

Lots of decisions we have to make are like this, it is rare that we have the happy task of making a decision that we know is going to be universally welcomed. So our job is to balance those differing view points, along with the views of our mods and admins, along with an analysis of the implications it will have for the site (which could include one or all of the implications it will have from a technical, community and/or commercial perspective) and make a call.

That's what we've done here. Some people think it's a bad call - that's fair enough. We try to make the right call and we do it in good faith. For sure, sometimes we get it wrong but that is inevitable, making a decision based on imperfect information means that you won't always get it right.

But I would say this. We do have a Feedback forum so anyone saying we haven't is factually incorrect. People are free to post in it and everyone is free to view those posts. We think the current setup is better than the last one but if it turns out, after having run it this way for a period of time, that it isn't working well then we will revisit it and change it if necessary. Personally, I don't think that's an unreasonable approach.

Thanks.

Boards.ie: Sean

Kuva wrote: »

Why do boards staff leave?

Like most business, there's no one overriding reason why staff leave, it's normally for a variety of reasons, and I actually think that we have very little staff turnover which I take as a positive, people like working at Boards.

But to give you a flavour, the three people to leave Boards in 2017 did so for the following reasons:

- One got headhunted by a start-up that focused solely on sports. The combination of trying out the start-up environment and getting to work solely on sports (they were genuinely sports mad) was the clincher

- One wanted to travel the world so to do an English language teaching course in Barcelona with plans to travel from there

- One was on a fixed term contract and got offered a full time, permanent role

As you can see, the reasons are both varied and understandable

Boards.ie: Sean

Kuva wrote: »

What are the usage figures for the site now versus when you started?

I started in 2014 and have usage stats from Dec 2014 to Sept 2017. Here are some of the relevant ones:




From a peak in early 2015, pageviews are holding relatively steady and there are encouraging trends in sessions and particularly new registrations

irishgrover

How difficult is it to get the balance right between commercial realities and community spirit?

I'm thinking specifically in relation to the "Talk to" forums.
For example, a very clear behavior has emerged in the Talk to forums where the pattern goes as follows..
1. A member makes a request from a "Talk to" company
2. The "Talk to" company then sends a PM to the OP, and then states publicly (via public post) that information has been given / the issue resolved.
3. The OP refutes this, and to defend themselves and their reputation shares directly or refers to the PM.
4. The tread gets closed by boards because sharing of PM's is against rules.
5. I fully understand the original concept of protecting PM's between individuals but when it is being used as a vehicle for purposely mislead, does it not concern you?

Alternatively, another example is obviously Gearbest, where a poster would get labeled a shrill and be shot on sight for even mentioning them, and then overnight after they pay to hop into bed with you, boards an gearbest are suddenly best of friends, and end result is allegedly counterfeit and potentially dangerous products being bought by unsuspecting boardsies..

I fully understand that you exist to make a profit from our existence, and hopefully provide a service in return, but is it difficult to get the balance right? How do you balance between top line and community ?

hawkelady

Have you ever been contacted by solicitors looking to sue because of a post ?? Have guards ever contacted you looking for info on a poster because of something that was posted?

Colonel Claptrap

1. The previous iteration of the Politics Cafe turned toxic fairly quickly. A lot of long-time posters shut down their accounts which was a pity.

Management of the forum looked like such a pain for the mods and admins. Are you happy with the Cafe currently? Looking back, do you think shutting down the old Cafe was the right decision?

2. What does a day in the life of the boards CEO look like? Is it as glamourous as it sounds?

3. I understand that targeting new revenue streams - such as sponsored forums - is vital to Boards future. But is there an active plan to increase the number of active posters? Would you be willing to share some stats on posting trends?

Thank you.

Why did ye ditch Vbulletin? The answer might be obvious but I know **** all about running a forum

joujoujou

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

I started in 2014 and have usage stats from Dec 2014 to Sept 2017. Here are some of the relevant ones:




From a peak in early 2015, pageviews are holding relatively steady and there are encouraging trends in sessions and particularly new registrations

Sadly I can't see any of the attachments you posted.

I guess they're uploaded into a section of Boards where no usual boardsie have access to.

So, if you don't mind me asking - what's average monthly data transfer to and from boards.ie servers?

irishgrover

Oh yeah, I forgot one that is so obvious and so annoying that we have almost just accepted it :-)

Q: Why is the search functionality so very very bad in this day and age

Esel

Can't see the usage stats (or a link to them) either.

Tokyo

Usage stats posted by Sean earlier, for those who currently can't view them:

begbysback

Stats in the last graph are exaggerated by CSG

Boards.ie: Sean

mike_ie wrote: »

Usage stats posted by Sean earlier, for those who currently can't view them

Thanks mike

knucklehead6

begbysback wrote: »

Stats in the last graph are exaggerated by CSG

CSG?

begbysback

Chore sex guy

Sean - has this name reached the ears at the top?

FunGoose

Hi Sean,

I am on boards.ie everyday, I very seldom post as I guess I don't have much to say.

So, obviously I've got a hell of a lot more out of the site/users than I have put in. I have tried to help other users but there are always others who are more qualified/knowledgeable than I am so I end up not posting as it wouldn't do much good (they are much quicker at posting too!).

What other things, do you think, I can try to do to help/repay my fellow boardsies?

Boards.ie: Sean

5rtytry56 wrote: »

Sean, what do you see as the most successful social platform right now?

Depends what you mean by success but if success is measured by size, power, influence, ubiquity and financial clout then it has to be Facebook

Boards.ie: Sean

GLaDOS wrote: »

If you had unlimited funds, what changes would you make to boards?

Now you did say unlimited, right? Not just a large injection of cash. Okay, so this is not an exhaustive but if I had unlimited funds, here as a starter for ten, are some of the things I'd do:

- Hire 5, 10, 15 times more developers, however many it takes, and fix all the issues that our users have told about on the legacy site, add in the new features they've requested and realise (i.e. develop, test and release) the plans we have for the responsive site (which I think are really good, it's just taking us a while to get there), keep both versions of the site running and supported, build proper apps, develop a class leading onboarding process

- Remove all the ads forever (remember it's unlimited funds). I'd still keep things like sponsored posts and sponsored subforums because I think there's value for both the community and brands to be able to interact in these types of fora, but other than that no more ads

- Do something nice for all our mods and admins and do it regularly (a night out, a Christmas pressie, whatever). I think the voluntary, community-led aspect of moderation on Boards is really powerful and I wouldn't want to lose it so I wouldn't see all mods getting paid for their work or anything like that. However, they put it a huge amount and time, effort and dedication to Boards and they don't get nearly enough recognition for it. In fact, often it's only when people have a complaint about them or a decision they've made that they hear from the community. They're human and like all of us they won't always get it 100% right but they do put a huge amount into the site and Boards couldn't operate without them. We should all give them a bit more love

- Spread our wings a bit ... develop and test some new products (we've got a couple of ideas but it's still too early to go into any details as yet)

- Get the word out there about Boards. I think Boards is a great resource and more people should know about it and use it. A bit of marketing and promotion wouldn't go amiss

- Get a table tennis table for the office (we'd need a bigger office ...)

I'm sure I'll think of more but hopefully that's enough to be going on with

eviltwin

Is there anything that can be done to stop persistent reregs?

What is the biggest challenge facing Boards at the moment?

bucketybuck

Are you involved with the daily administration of the forums? Making decisions on complaints or reported problems, things like that?

If so, have you ever decided that enough is enough, that a certain poster is just an ass and their whining is more trouble than its worth, and so got fed up enough to throw due process out the window and just unilaterally ban them from the site, just beause?

mariaalice

How come there are so many raciest type posts and paranoid posts about woman on AH lately. There use to be a bit of an effort to keep a lid on it, has that stopped for some reason.

Interesting question why are posters like that attracted to boards.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

JCX BXC

How much of boards would you read youself?

Do you have a regular account to post without identifying yourself as CEO?

fussyonion

Are you aware of any celebs who have Boards accounts?
And I don't mean "social influencers" :rolleyes:

circadian

Are you guys bricking it trying to get everything ready for GDPR? Honestly, it's one of those processes that digs up skeletons. Complete nightmare.

Do you still host the site yourselves or have you made the jump to aws or similar? (That's not your phone number, it's your AWS bill)

Boards.ie: Sean

robyntmorton wrote: »

I always thought that an employee doing an AMA here would turn into a bit of a trainwreck for people complaining about things being done in a way that they don't like, so thank you for stepping into the lions den!

Thanks

robyntmorton wrote: »

As head honcho, can you hint at anything the userbase has coming its way? Obviously I'm aware that you can't give away anything solid before time for commercial reasons, but hinting at how Boards is evolving for and with the userbase, maybe?

So, from a user experience perspective a big focus of our efforts has been on significantly improving the responsive site. As I previously said (and will continue to repeat as I want there to be no confusion about this) we will continue to support the legacy site. Why? Because this is what many of users like and want.

However, if you've been around for 19 years (as we have) then your user profile and user expectations change over time. If you look at the age profile of our users year-to-date (1st Jan till today), 10% of our users were in the 18-24 age bracket and 33% of users in the 25-34 age bracket. So that's quite a high proportion of our users being 34 or younger.

I'm not that far off 50 and my experience and expectations of the web are going to be different than an 18 year old's. The legacy site is reflective of websites say 10 years ago and for many people this is fine as it works very well for them. But for others and particularly for some in the younger demographic the legacy site can appear complicated, dated and not very user friendly (before I get a slew of younger users telling me how much they like the legacy site I am not saying this applies to everyone). I believe that Boards requires both the legacy site and a properly enhanced and updated responsive site to well serve all of our user base.

I know the current responsive site is not where we want to be but in coming months we should start rolling out significant improvements to it. And here's an interesting stat .. even still 30% of all visitors to Boards choose to view the responsive site for at least part of their session

Boards.ie: Sean

job seeker wrote: »

Hi Sean, What's the strangest private message you've received?

To be honest, none of the PM's I've received have been that strange. They all either telling something isn't working on the site interspersed with the occasional offer of help or enquiry about a collaboration opportunity. All quite mundane, really ...

job seeker wrote: »

Also, is coke and hookers still in fashion or a is it a thing of the past?

Are they ever out of fashion? (but, hell, what would I know)

job seeker wrote: »

Finally, what advice would you give someone who would love to follow in your career path?

- You don't need a 40 year master plan for your career (nothing wrong with having one if that works for you) but at any point in time you need to be able to answer these two questions: am I satisfied that at the moment this is where I want to be in my career? if not, am I clear where I want to go next and what I need to do to help me get there? You always need to be clear about your direction of travel, either happy staying doing what you're doing now or planning for the next move

- Opportunities don't necessarily come knocking at your door, you have to go out and find them (this is a variation on the theme that you create your own luck which for me means being proactive)

- If you're going to do something, even if it's an unavoidable couple of years slogging away in some uninspiring and/or boring role, do it well. It will be noticed and it's a great skill to develop ... even the most inspiring jobs have parts of them that mightn't be particularly interesting, developing the self-discipline to push through those aspects of the role and do them well will serve you well

- Aim for what you want to do, not what others are telling you to do (you're master of your own career). If you want to make a bucket load of cash, great, figure out where your particular skill set can best be employed in parting their hard earned cash from other people and go for it; if you want to save the world then same thing applies, figure out the best match between your skills and the opportunities and work towards that

- Be persistent and resilient, sometimes you have to put in the hard yards to build up the skills / contacts / experience / opportunities you need to get to the next stage of your career

Boards.ie: Sean

GypsyByName wrote: »

What has been your favourite AMA that you have read?

The AMA by Sonics2k - Now Ye're Talking - To A Man With 2 Mothers

It was an open, inspiring piece, got a huge level interest on Boards and was brilliantly topical coming as the Marriage Referendum campaign was gearing up - I thought it was great

Boards.ie: Sean

begbysback wrote: »

As CEO do you have the power to rescind a yellow card?

Don't know, I've never tried it. I always defer to my much more knowledgeable community managers, Niamh and Mark!

Boards.ie: Sean

irishgrover wrote: »

How difficult is it to get the balance right between commercial realities and community spirit?

I'd describe more as delicate rather than difficult.

irishgrover wrote: »

I'm thinking specifically in relation to the "Talk to" forums.
For example, a very clear behavior has emerged in the Talk to forums where the pattern goes as follows..
1. A member makes a request from a "Talk to" company
2. The "Talk to" company then sends a PM to the OP, and then states publicly (via public post) that information has been given / the issue resolved.
3. The OP refutes this, and to defend themselves and their reputation shares directly or refers to the PM.
4. The tread gets closed by boards because sharing of PM's is against rules.
5. I fully understand the original concept of protecting PM's between individuals but when it is being used as a vehicle for purposely mislead, does it not concern you?

On the specific issue above, you can give me any rule you want and I will give you the exception that proves the rule, you can always find examples where any rule or policy does not work particularly well. But that doesn't necessarily mean the rule is a bad rule. In general sharing publicly PM's is a bad thing particularly since both parties have an expectation of privacy of the communication and one party unilaterally breaking that understanding of privacy without the consent of the other seems unfair. And I would point out any Boards member is still free to express their views on whether the issue was adequately dealt with or not and they can do this without sharing the PM.

The alternative is that there is no restriction on sharing PM's in which case they stop being PM's and become just M's. I think this would not be good for Boards, there needs to be a mechanism where users can communicate with each privately if needed.

irishgrover wrote: »

Alternatively, another example is obviously Gearbest, where a poster would get labeled a shrill and be shot on sight for even mentioning them, and then overnight after they pay to hop into bed with you, boards an gearbest are suddenly best of friends, and end result is allegedly counterfeit and potentially dangerous products being bought by unsuspecting boardsies..

Ok, Gearbest previously misbehaved on the site , they were called out on it and banned. They went away, thought about things and cam back a while later and said that they wanted to do things the right way - pay for a sponsored forum, be clear that they are a paying customer of Boards and are on the site as company representatives etc.

There are two ways you can approach a situation like this:

1) Say that if commercial companies have misbehaved previously on Boards then we want no truck with them in the future

2) Say that we want companies to do the right thing by Boards, to be up front with our users about who they are and what they are trying to promote and sell. And so, if by previously banning companies who misbehave we get them to re-evaluate their approach, we welcome them back because they have agreed to abide by our rules

Like other things we talked about in this AMA there is no right or wrong answer to which of the above two approaches to take. But let me give you two reasons why we have chosen to take the second approach:

- firstly, if we take the first approach there is zero incentive for other similar companies to do the right thing. If other companies see that by holding their hands up, admitting their mistakes and trying to do things in the right way, the response from us is "No, you've brunt your bridges and we don't ever want you on the site" why would they even bother. At best, this would mean we get the same level of shilling as now, at worst we get even more

- secondly, no question about it, it helps get a bit more revenue into the company

Personally, I admire Gearbest for holding their hands up and trying to do the right thing. And they have worked very hard to try and be responsive to the community against some very significant headwinds of negative sentiment. Fair duece to them, I say

GypsyByName

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

The AMA by Sonics2k - Now Ye're Talking - To A Man With 2 Mothers

It was an open, inspiring piece, got a huge level interest on Boards and was brilliantly topical coming as the Marriage Referendum campaign was gearing up - I thought it was great

And not mine???????

Boards.ie: Sean

GypsyByName wrote: »

And not mine???????

A close 2nd

Boards.ie: Sean

irishgrover wrote: »

How difficult is it to get the balance right between commercial realities and community spirit?

I'm thinking specifically in relation to the "Talk to" forums.
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Alternatively, another example is obviously Gearbest
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I fully understand that you exist to make a profit from our existence, and hopefully provide a service in return, but is it difficult to get the balance right? How do you balance between top line and community ?

On a more general point regarding the balance between top line and community .... what the community sees is the decisions we make that are commercial in nature (putting ads on the site, having subforums like Gearbest, policing Talk To's etc.). What the community doesn't see and can't see is the decisions we make that are community in nature and completely non commercial. We could easily make (at least in the short term!) more money, we've had commercial approaches that involved more ads placements on the site, skinning the site, more intrusive ads, sharing usage data and user interests, not allowing any negative comments about certain paying customers etc.

The community doesn't see these decisions because these are the calls we make when deciding to decline those revenue opportunities. I can think of a number of Irish publishers who have commercialised their sites a lot more than us. We have decided not to go down that route and we are constantly striving to find the right balance between giving the community what they want and running a sustainable and financially viable company and there is a healthy tension internally between community management (who are genuine advocates for our users and argue passionately their case) and sales (who we are pushing to constantly look for more revenue opportunities).

I know that without our users we are nothing. Our users are our content creators, our users provide the traffic numbers that make us attractive to advertisers. If we lose our users then we might as well shut up shop and go and do something else with our lives.

Equally, our users won't have a site to go to (at least nothing resembling its current form) if we don't make some money. A site generating 2.4 million unique visits a month that has always been and continues to be free to use costs money to keep up and running, servers, hosting, maintenance and support, community management, sales ... I could go on

So we all need each other and finding the right balance between community and top line is something we need to regularly check and course correct when necessary. That's why I described it in a previous post as a delicate task.