The slow death of forums *see OP for Admin warning and update 28/02/18*

TOss Sweep

I still love Boards. I have been on it since 2006(re-reg). I really only ever post in American Football forum though because its mainly what I am interested in and I find the moderation has been really good over the years even when I got frustrated got banned and blamed the mods it wasn't them it was more me It does get morons from times to times who have nothing better to do than be trolls or wind up merchants. They usually never last and the mods get to them quickly. Even through disagreements, heated debates and arguments the American Football forum is one place where it feels like everyone still gets a long and respect each others opinions. The mods have done a good job letting it flow until necessary to step in.

I don't post as often as I used to due to moving abroad and working 60 hour weeks but I used to post a lot when I went through a stint of being unemployed and a student again.

I will say I do prefer the legacy site over the new format. I normally do like change at times but for me the older look feels better. I would be sad if the discussion ever stopped on boards.

_Dara_

John mac wrote: »

Not having read the entire thread ,
my 2c .... i would love to see a proper search function.

As someone who finds the search function really easy to use and useful, I’ve asked before what people’s issue with it is. Nobody has elaborated, only said that it’s terrible. Can you enlighten me?

Calhoun

I have a real questions with the quality of moderation at times of boards, you know what they say about something being free your not the customer but the product.

Back when i first joined boards i viewed the moderators as people devoting their time to make the site run smoothly, that seems to have changed into folk with certain political points of view taking up moderation posts and their own views influenced how they moderated / what was allowed to be discussed.

There doesn't seem to be a consistency in dealing with people fairly, if your on the wrong side of the political argument you will either, 1. be baited into going to far by many posters and will get banned or 2.will be shut down/abused when ever you try to post.

Not two weeks ago we had a poster who was going from 1-2 threads calling another user a racist and bigot, now they could have been but if they were so bad why were they not banned? It was only after the self appointed mod started to argue on thread with an actual mod that they got banned.

Its not so much a discussion site anymore than an echo chamber at times.

_Dara_

If I know the thread you’re talking about, the poster being called racist was certainly saying racist things. I’ll never feel sympathetic towards someone who feels aggrieved at being admonished for expressing repugnant views. Diddums.

Billy86

Victor wrote: »

I think dealing with the organised bigotry band-wagoning on After Hours is something that would be desirable. I don't see much such hatred on the internet (I know it still exists), other than on AH.

Suddenly, the obsessive thanks-whore-circle-jerk bridge that pop up whenever certain topics are being discussed makes a lot more sense.

Fathom

Cool summary Beasty! My 2 cents per your request...

Beasty wrote: »

Moderation ...However (and this applies equally to the suggestion of doing away with forum charters altogether), there is never going to be a one-size fits all solution when we cover such diverse topics

"Be civil to one another" works, if followed consistently by members and mods. Reference/link Terms of Use. Avoid redundancy with Terms in charters. Add a few specific posting standards recognizing forum diversity, when needed. Charters should be short. Very short. Reading long ones problematic. Comparatively, who reads long app user agreements? Same for long charters?

Beasty wrote: »

Post 376 – mods to only be shown as mods in the forums they moderate

Unnecessary. Members simply look below mod's username. All forums they mod are given. Outside of these, they post only as members. As for mods requesting this disappearing feature, mods should be given a choice. Choice is important for volunteers. My choice (for me) is to leave it as is. Let others disappear by choice. To the contrary of this hidden mod proposal, I've had members say they discovered my forums because they were listed below my user name, when I posted elsewhere.

Beasty wrote: »

An additional point was raised at post 1740 about trying to give prominence to more threads on the front page, but there has not been much further discussion on this particular point

Too many defeats purpose. How about one screen? Dedicating half to most prolific, and half randomly picked daily from less prolific throughout site. Latter to drive up posts & views in lesser known forums? Write an algorithm to do this. Take advantage of programming.

Beasty wrote: »

Post 894 - Hiding inactive forums (maybe dropping them down a level could be considered though)

Hiding kills them. Rather decide: to keep and creatively simulate; or consolidate; or archive? Example: Environmental Science with few recent posts was archived under Sustainability & Environmental Issues.

Beasty wrote: »

Post 401 – feedback stickies in every forum

Will do this now for forums I mod.

Beasty wrote: »

Post 91 – user survey

I volunteer to help with survey construction, analysis, and reporting. PM me.

Esel

Fathom wrote: »

Unnecessary. Members simply look below mod's username. All forums they mod are given. .

Not on touch site.

Calhoun

_Dara_ wrote: »

If I know the thread you’re talking about, the poster being called racist was certainly saying racist things. I’ll never feel sympathetic towards someone who feels aggrieved at being admonished for expressing repugnant views. Diddums.

The thread i am talking about had a number of pages of posting with people engaging in conversation, while one poster who has since been banned was allowed throw abuse around.

If people are so bad then let the mod take action on it as per their role, or outlaw all topics of conversation that people are not allowed to discuss.

Samuel T. Cogley

What's going on with the VR forum?

Up until recently there was no word. Not great especially when various users have PM'd about it.

Calahonda52

Re this
Post 577 – removal of usernames from closed accounts – it would be incredibly confusing if posters cannot see the way a thread developed, and equally I’m not sure what benefit we would get from this.


Not sure who the we is here, however I think, if requested, substituting a closed account username with with a generic name such as CAXXXX, where XXXX is a sequential number.
Ask any lawyer who is dealing with an acrimonious divorce...

c.p.w.g.w

Conspectus wrote: »

This would work no problem if people were forced to sign up with their own names and addresses and not able to hide behind a user name so that when the solicitors letters arrived Boards could pass them on.

I doubt many would agree to that.

But boards have access to user's IP address so address could be found out. Thought the site had done that in the past? Or am i confusing boards with another site

Tell me how

Deedsie wrote:

You should be allowed delete posts if You want. Stupid rule that you can't.

You can within 5 minutes. I think that that is enough.

If it were more, people might delete significant portions of a thread making it impossible to follow.

Also, would make it very easy for someone to say provocative statements and then remove them.

If you are not willing to stand by your posts, don't write them.

Delirium

Fathom wrote: »

Unnecessary. Members simply look below mod's username. All forums they mod are given. Outside of these, they post only as members. As for mods requesting this disappearing feature, mods should be given a choice. Choice is important for volunteers. My choice (for me) is to leave it as is. Let others disappear by choice. To the contrary of this hidden mod proposal, I've had members say they discovered my forums because they were listed below my user name, when I posted elsewhere.

Just on this point, while that is true on boards desktop version, if you're using the touch site it just says moderator under a moderator regardless if they post in their forum or not.

This can certainly lead to confusion for new users experiencing boards for the first time via the touch site.

ch750536

The rise of reddit is the demise of many boards.

NeVeR

You need to fix the menu. Personally I found it much better when you had lots of topics across the top. It's too hard to find the old forums. I know it's been gone a long time.. but I still miss it.

Having Talk To and Adverts up there shows it's all about the money !

.......

This post has been deleted.

whoopsadoodles

Victor wrote: »

I think dealing with the organised bigotry band-wagoning on After Hours is something that would be desirable. I don't see much such hatred on the internet (I know it still exists), other than on AH.

Correct me if I'm wrong, or if some thing has gone straight over my head then I'll happily say whoopsies, but haven't you just provided evidence that AH is very much not the place this so called hatred starts and therefore you have most definitely seen it elsewhere on the internet. AH (along with politics cafe and from what you quoted, reddit) are being used as vehicles for this hatred rather than being the starting point. No?

Sorry if I'm completing misunderstanding your point.

Kurtosis

whoopsadoodles wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong, or if some thing has gone straight over my head then I'll happily say whoopsies, but haven't you just provided evidence that AH is very much not the place this so called hatred starts and therefore you have most definitely seen it elsewhere on the internet. AH (along with politics cafe and from what you quoted, reddit) are being used as vehicles for this hatred rather than being the starting point. No?

Sorry if I'm completing misunderstanding your point.

I didn't interpret Victor's post as suggesting AH was the starting point for this hatred, moreso that he didn't see much of it elsewhere so perhaps these organised efforts to spout bigotry aren't dealt with as well as they could be in AH. I think you're spot on though, those screenshots show a lot of this is coming from elsewhere, but it also shows the site is seen as an avenue to spread this kind of thing. I agree it'd be nice to prevent this but that's much easier said than done.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

ch750536 wrote: »

The rise of reddit is the demise of many boards.

Interesting topics, different opinions, less cliquey, self moderation without anyone dying, not an echo chamber, customise what you like to see. What's not to like!

Boom_Bap

Based on the feedback here, there's been one small change made to After Hours. One issue raised was that there are too many stickies, so it's been reduced from 4 to 2 now. Hopefully that eases up the clutter on the front page of AH a bit.
Only a minor change, but it's a start.

As Beasty has noted, he's keeping a list of site-wide feedback items, the AH mods are keeping a note on the AH specific ones. These are being discussed and we are thrashing them out behind the scenes.

Boards.ie: Mark

I really like some of the suggestions being made here, though some of them require dev work, which means added discussion and slotting into a packed schedule - some have been raised in the past, in Site Development and the likes, and haven't been forgotten about (the ability to hide your username when logged in for example, but in the meantime you may have to cleverly position a post-it on your monitor ).

Non-tech solutions are certainly things that we'll have more control over. So things like whether Forum Requests is the right place or whether it should be on a Category by Category basis is food for thought. And we could be more experimental / proactive (if a topic is particularly popular, which is how the Fighting Game forum came to be for one - built up a community of active posters in a thread and then when the Forum Request was put forward, they flooded in and it was easy to see that the interest was there).

Virtual Reality Gaming slipped through the cracks and I apologise for that, but that's something that we can tackle now.

Boards.ie: Mark

As for the deletion of posts and concerns over personal information, mass deletion would render the forum unusable at times. However, if there are concerns about particular posts and threads, you can contact mods as Conspectus said or e-mail us. I can't promise that what you would like disappeared will be deleted, but we will review posts.

whoopsadoodles

Kurtosis wrote: »

I didn't interpret Victor's post as suggesting AH was the starting point for this hatred, moreso that he didn't see much of it elsewhere so perhaps these organised efforts to spout bigotry aren't dealt with as well as they could be in AH.

Thank you that does make sense. Not saying I agree with it but the point is clearer

bot44

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

As for the deletion of posts and concerns over personal information, mass deletion would render the forum unusable at times.

How would it render the forum unusable? This issue doesnt affect Reddit or Facebook?

Madness that users dont have control of their own content two days after they post it, forcing users to close accounts and open new ones to obfuscate their identities and protect their privacy. To top it off, Boards tell us we are liable for the content we post even though they prevent us removing it!

This is totally unworkable in 2018 and will spell the end (along with the ridiculous over-zealous moderation) for Boards eventually.

Delirium

bot44 wrote: »

How would it render the forum unusable? This issue doesnt affect Reddit or Facebook?

Madness that users dont have control of their own content two days after they post it, forcing users to close accounts and open new ones to obfuscate their identities and protect their privacy. To top it off, Boards tell us we are liable for the content we post even though they prevent us removing it!

This is totally unworkable in 2018 and will spell the end (along with the ridiculous over-zealous moderation) for Boards eventually.

what would you suggest happens to active threads where the initial post is included in the bulk delete of posts for a user? Do you drop the active thread?

Pintman Paddy Losty

A simple solution that doesn't require a tech workaround is removing the access request from Politics Cafe.

That forum went from being one of the most popular forums on the site to a graveyard overnight due to the access system. This decision needs to be reviewed.

bot44

Delirium wrote: »

what would you suggest happens to active threads where the initial post is included in the bulk delete of posts for a user? Do you drop the active thread?

Could do the same thing that happens on Reddit, initial post shows <deleted>. Or show <deleted account> instead of the posters name if you must preserve the content of initial posts in a thread.

bot44

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

A simple solution that doesn't require a tech workaround is removing the access request from Politics Cafe.

That forum went from being one of the most popular forums on the site to a graveyard overnight due to the access system. This decision needs to be reviewed.

This one is the most comical example of the moderation Boards is widely mocked for. One of the mods is on there celebrating that there are no reported posts now too, gas.

He's delighted that he doesn't have to moderate it any more.

Boards.ie: Mark

bot44 wrote: »

How would it render the forum unusable? This issue doesnt affect Reddit or Facebook?

Madness that users dont have control of their own content two days after they post it, forcing users to close accounts and open new ones to obfuscate their identities and protect their privacy. To top it off, Boards tell us we are liable for the content we post even though they prevent us removing it!

This is totally unworkable in 2018 and will spell the end (along with the ridiculous over-zealous moderation) for Boards eventually.

To me, they are quite different. Historical content on Boards is often useful and informative, or at the very least it can provide some insight into the way things were. I think a more accurate comparison would be to giving an interview; if you say something on public record, it's there forever.

Reddit has issues with OPs / highly rated comments being deleted. What frequently happens is someone else posts the image / gif / whatever (often titled "I've no idea why the OP deleted this...". And seeing a highly rated comment deleted breaks the flow - you can either look at the nested comments to get an idea or wonder what was.

But, as I say, highlight concerns to mods or e-mail us.

Jayop

Jayop wrote: »

For boards to compete with those it needs to be better than what it is and inconsistent at times agenda driven moderation is without doubt the worst thing about boards right now.

I'm not sure it is agenda driven (although a moderators personal opinion will no doubt influence their moderating) but it is the inconsistency and unwillingness to engage in debate about moderating decisions that i believe is a problem.

I think a lot of this comes down to what people's expectations are. To a lot of us, this is somewhere that topics can be debated and explored. Is this how "Boards Inc" see it, or are they just interested in lots of traffic to drive up the google ads revenue?

pilly

Discodog wrote: »

Totally agree. Mods should be told to watch out for this. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I don't know about this. Yes everyone is entitled to their opinion but where the problem arises is where people make sweeping statements as facts where there is no basis for them. That kind of sh1t belongs on Facebook.

A silly example say "cranberry juice cures cancer". It may be an opinion but it certainly can't go unchallenged by intelligent posters.

CruelCoin

TallGlass wrote: »

More and more I find myself going to post, writing a post out and then going 'naaahhh' not worth the effort and cancel it.

For me its the PC culture that does this.

I can no longer type out what I want to say without fear of a SJW gender spaghetti manbagging horde chasing me down with pitchforks.

CruelCoin

Beasty wrote: »

I am proposing we close this thread around lunchtime on Friday. This allows anyone who feels they have more to add, or think we have missed an important suggestion to respond accordingly.

Can we make all AMA guests completely anonymous?

The "Now Ye're Talking - to a video game journalist" was a joke for example.

Because the guest was identified, the thread devolved into a fanfest.
The guest pointedly ignored the vast majority of questions about the actual industry that did not refer to him or his work, and instead spent more or less the entire thread preening.

Anonymous guests would increase the quality of the discussion.

pilly

pilly wrote: »

I don't know about this. Yes everyone is entitled to their opinion but where the problem arises is where people make sweeping statements as facts where there is no basis for them. That kind of sh1t belongs on Facebook.

A silly example say "cranberry juice cures cancer". It may be an opinion but it certainly can't go unchallenged by intelligent posters.

No, but when 80% of posters believe that cranberry juice does solve cancer and attack anyone who disagrees, you have a problem.

HowItsMade

I'm 21 and the only one in my group of friends who'd post on a forum.

Having said that, I wouldn't know as I'd never admit to posting in here

For no major reason other than it being considered strange and old-fashioned..

oh the youth of today.

flc37ie6ojwkh8

I don't think forums will ever die. Using whatsapp and facebook is a good way to communicate with people you know, but what about meeting new people or finding new opinions?

Captain Obvious

Beasty wrote: »

Everyone is responsible for anything they post here or elsewhere. Anyone can copy and paste anything in the public forums. And that's the point - it's public, and posters know that when they post. You may have the right to be forgotten, but your actions are not and cannot be eradicated. And that applies even if you post under your real name. If you post anonymously, what is there to be forgotten?

I think the law coming in May is much more expansive than that.

bot44

Captain Obvious wrote: »

I think the law coming in May is much more expansive than that.

Indeed, GDPR will hopefully force Boards to allow its users control of their own personal information.

hots

bot44 wrote: »

Indeed, GDPR will hopefully force Boards to allow its users control of their own personal information.

It's not personal though, it's anonymized right?

5rtytry56

A particular 'blight' which will never entirely be gotten rid of on boards is the use of the of DEFLECT gambit by the warrior "class" of poster ("class" is a nice way of describing them) It become more evident since 2017. Deflection adds more "noise" to a thread. Is it getting more difficult to tackle here?

bot44

hots wrote: »

It's not personal though, it's anonymized right?

Most users post history contain information which could be used to identify them. Such information is subject to GDPR, the user is supposed to have control of that information, including the ability to delele it.

Chorus_suck

This post has been deleted.

batistuta9

I wonder how mobile has affected the site, if at all?

It's handy for browsing but I feel it's better suited for short posts. it's not really great for threads where they'll be long replies/discussion etc.
Would you getting bothered getting into a serious discussion or controversial one on mobile?

The social media sites don't have this problem as most posts are shorter.

Green Peter

I gave up on the <snip> forum years ago. The mods were total pricks and signs on its a graveyard for information or discussion. It's a pity because it had potential. I'm no fan of Facebook but there are similar forums now that allow reasonable debate and that's where I go now. The mods lost the run of themselves in <snip> and the site managers failed or choose not to see it. I think this is repeated in many forums that are dying and until it's looked at seriously by the owners of the site their business will slowly be strangled.

This is more of it, editing the forum I was speaking about out of the post. You just proved my point admin.

Beasty

Just to follow-up on my previous update. the site-wide announcement made a couple of days ago has resulted in an influx of additional contributors to this thread. This is very encouraging as it means we are getting wider perspectives on issues, and I thank Kurtosis for the suggestion of the announcement.

In the circumstances I think it would be unfair to close it tomorrow, and we'll keep it open a bit longer, certainly into next week. I'm conscious of not allowing the discussion to drag on too long though, as we clearly need to start getting on with some of the "action" promised. I am therefore putting a new deadline of Wednesday (the 24th) afternoon for the thread to be closed.

FUBO

MODS MODS MODS to bloody strict handing out WARNINGS as if we were a crowd of children and then BANNING people
so much for freedom of speech
probably get banned for this as well

Ursus Horribilis

Trying to come up with a consistent modding policy is quite a challenge. One man's banter is another man's abuse. I would hate for boards to turn into the equivalent of the comments section on YouTube. There'll always be a need for moderation.

I wonder would some sort of discussion thread, using examples, be of use? Just to give everyone an idea of what is and isn't acceptable?

Beasty

FUBO wrote: »

MODS MODS MODS to bloody strict handing out WARNINGS as if we were a crowd of children and then BANNING people
so much for freedom of speech
probably get banned for this as well

You're not going to get banned for it. We have already committed to having a discussion amongst mods to try and get more consistency where it makes sense.

You refer to "bans" but there is no context other than "freedom of speech". In light of the fact this is a private website there is no freedom of speech here, which, I would suggest, caveats your feedback

Beasty

Ursus Horribilis wrote: »

Trying to come up with a consistent modding policy is quite a challenge. One man's banter is another man's abuse. I would hate for boards to turn into the equivalent of the comments section on YouTube. There'll always be a need for moderation.

I wonder would some sort of discussion thread, using examples, be of use? Just to give everyone an idea of what is and isn't acceptable?

There is no way modding will be "consistent" across the site, given the variety of topics and indeed specific limitation on what we can allow in certain areas. We've forums covering diverse topics such as politics, soccer, personal issues etc and there can never be a "one size fits all" Charter. Mods will always need to exercise varying amounts of discretion dependent on circumstances, particularly as charters can rarely accommodate every potential scenario

The things I think we can improve on have been raised in the thread already, including a consistent approach to in-thread warnings (such as updating OPs), and thread deleting. There are probably a few other areas, but I'm writing this without referring back to everything in a long thread

retro:electro

Ursus Horribilis wrote: »

Trying to come up with a consistent modding policy is quite a challenge. One man's banter is another man's abuse. I would hate for boards to turn into the equivalent of the comments section on YouTube. There'll always be a need for moderation.

I wonder would some sort of discussion thread, using examples, be of use? Just to give everyone an idea of what is and isn't acceptable?

I think if people need a template to guide them with respect to conversing civilly then they probably shouldn't be on the internet :pac: