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

Beasty

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

and more specifically this response.

Like wot I said then :pac:

Beasty

CruelCoin wrote: »

Where the blame lies is irrelevant. It's still abusive and kills threads.

Well yes it is very relevant. I posted it so you could appreciate the mods are doing what is expected of them and should not be criticised for doing that.

You may have a different view of what should be expected but you are unlikely to be subject to legal claims if you get something wrong. Unlike some global sites we can't have an army of lawyers picking over posts for defamatory or other illegal content or inappropriate advice.

Tell me how

Boards.ie: Mark wrote:

I think some insight into plans and hopes can be gleamed from the

Thanks will check that out later. Unable to do so now as using Android App and links don't work on that.

Also, blocked users still appear when using App and it is not possible to unfollow threads from it.

Personally, I'd like to see such issues sorted as a priority over the responsive site.

NollagShona

Is the “Hide Thread” proposal still a runner?

irishman86

I havent been here that long but there is a pattern of decent posters in the football thread getting hounded off the site or just banned
While Liverpool/United fans get away with blue murder purely because of numbers

Boards.ie: Mark

Tell me how wrote: »

Thanks will check that out later. Unable to do so now as using Android App and links don't work on that.

Also, blocked users still appear when using App and it is not possible to unfollow threads from it.

Personally, I'd like to see such issues sorted as a priority over the responsive site.

At the moment, we recommend using touch.boards.ie for mobile browsing. I don't think there will be any development work on the app for the foreseeable future.

NollagShona wrote: »

Is the “Hide Thread” proposal still a runner?

As said, I like this idea, but the dev team is stretched as is, so we'll have to see when/if some things can be looked into.

KoolKid

KoolKid wrote: »

The lack of continuity is a clear put off. Especially for casual users. They are not going to read every charter, not to mention the constantly changing ones.

I suppose the answer to this would be to have a two post charter.
For example the first post in the "charter" is a (hard) link that displays the generic one that is edited by an admin and the second post is for mods of the individual forums to edit as required.

Cookie_Monster

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

At the moment, we recommend using touch.boards.ie for mobile browsing.

that doesn't work properly either, why do you keep recommending it when it is very clearly broken?

KERSPLAT!

The touch site is grand in my opinion. Very basic but it works mostly

NollagShona

I love m.boards.ie tbf

PhuckHugh

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

There are too many things you can't say on forums like Boards. You just can't discuss certain things and are supposed to agree with whatever the current status quo or you'll be banned. If someone starts a thread about, say, transsexuals there's no point in even replying unless you want to talk about how great transsexualism is. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but what's the point in a discussion forum with threads where you're supposed to agree with everyone else rather than actually have a discussion? And there's no telling what will be a no go area of discussion next.

If I sign in here and see the front page is full of threads on transsexualism and abortion I usually sign back out again because there's just no point in replying to any of them.

This by a million... Too overly moderated. However, I'm on another Irish forum that is very lightly moderated and debate can get swallowed up by the personal insults - Hard to get the balance right but I much prefer light moderation and some abuse over the heavy touch on here.

Max Prophet

A complete amnesty for all banned users might rejuvenate the site. The majority of banned users were banned in an ott manner.

Beasty

Given some of the recent points and indeed my post earlier mentioning the responsive site, I'm digging out these points from my earlier post

Beasty wrote: »

Site development issues:

Post 31 – Search function
Post 26 – decent app
Post 376 – mods to only be shown as mods in the forums they moderate
Re-introduce menu link to Post of the Day – I understand there may be a quick fix to this

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

I think I can say there is general support for all of these suggestions, and indeed they have been made previously. These though are issues for the Office and Site Development team. As I understand it they have been considered low priority given other issues the site has had to deal with. We will though pass the feedback on to the office. Anything that cannot be accommodated in the current set-up will certainly be considered as the Responsive site is revamped.

Now I've not discussed any of the above directly with any of the development team, but my understanding is they are pretty flat out trying to get the responsive site up to a decent level, and firefighting any particular issues cropping up on the legacy site.

Bearing that in mind, do users think their time is better spent coming up with some short term fixes for this type of issue, or would you prefer them to concentrate on the responsive site, hopefully accommodating some or indeed all of these points

I know which one makes sense to me, particularly as many of us are familiar with these issues and have lived with them for some time. A while longer (and I've no idea how long) would not concern me if I thought the responsive site was going to be the "app of choice" going forward. I would prefer they concentrate on getting that right than divert too much resource to issues on the legacy site that almost certainly has a finite life anyway

KoolKid

Deleted User wrote: »

I suppose the answer to this would be to have a two post charter.
For example the first post in the "charter" is a (hard) link that displays the generic one that is edited by an admin and the second post is for mods of the individual forums to edit as required.

While it might draw more attention its not solving the problems with lack of continuity.
For casual users who are not familiar with the site as a whole & only come to different forums as they need something here are the issues I see & hear from some.

How come its ok to ask this on forum X but not on Forum Y?
How come this was allowed something on Forum X Last month/year but not now.?
How come I can name company A while posting on Forum X but not name Company B while posting on the same forum?

I mostly get this feedback from users with very low post counts who just couldn't be bothered with the hassle of getting something wrong.

Ken.

Beasty wrote: »

Given some of the recent points and indeed my post earlier mentioning the responsive site, I'm digging out these points from my earlier post

Now I've not discussed any of the above directly with any of the development team, but my understanding is they are pretty flat out trying to get the responsive site up to a decent level, and firefighting any particular issues cropping up on the legacy site.

Bearing that in mind, do users think their time is better spent coming up with some short term fixes for this type of issue, or would you prefer them to concentrate on the responsive site, hopefully accommodating some or indeed all of these points

I know which one makes sense to me, particularly as many of us are familiar with these issues and have lived with them for some time. A while longer (and I've no idea how long) would not concern me if I thought the responsive site was going to be the "app of choice" going forward. I would prefer they concentrate on getting that right than divert too much resource to issues on the legacy site that almost certainly has a finite life anyway

I think post of the day is sorted already. Thread in help desk alluding to same.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Conspectus wrote: »

I think post of the day is sorted already. Thread in help desk alluding to same.

Yeah, it's sorted.

Talk to>Boards.ie>What's new>post of the day & thread of the day

mrcheez

Inviere wrote: »

The recent request for a new VR forum is an example of where the current model of forum creation is badly, badly letting the site down. The request was put in at the beginning of August 2017, it quickly met the required vote numbers, and as of today, 17th of January 2018...more than five months later, the forum request sits in the Forum Request forum, locked, and seemingly abandoned. I'd never point the finger at anyone in particular for that, but there's literally no excuse for it, and I'd lay the blame firmly in our current forum creation model. It should have been noted that there was significant user interest in such a forum, and it should have been trialed months ago.

Apparently it's coming but it's almost 6 months now and the momentum has died.

Reddit is becoming the main source for updates about VR for most people. Shame as it would have been a great resource on boards, but I think it's going to struggle to take off now.

Note to self: don't recommend creation of any more forums!

Gone Drinking

I've been reading boards since 2000, nearly all of the people/accounts/mods who would have been active and well known in those years are nowhere to be seen these days. I'd put that down to people growing out of it and or having less time with other more important life stuff.

Even for myself, I would have had 15 or 20 forums I would check daily. Now I only check one or two daily. Unless I'm looking for specific information regarding something.

Young'ins these days have other avenues of online expression, which is probably why its on the decline. Way back when, forums and chat rooms were the only option, its a lot different now.

CruelCoin

Beasty wrote: »

Well yes it is very relevant. I posted it so you could appreciate the mods are doing what is expected of them and should not be criticised for doing that.

You may have a different view of what should be expected but you are unlikely to be subject to legal claims if you get something wrong. Unlike some global sites we can't have an army of lawyers picking over posts for defamatory or other illegal content or inappropriate advice.

Would a simple disclaimer not cover that?

I mean, if McDonalds can get around injury lawsuits with a "Warning: Coffee Hot - Hurr" warning, then why couldn't a "Warning, legal advice is taken at own risk" disclaimer not cover you?

Suckit

Beasty wrote: »

They are already there. One thing we are missing though is an index listing them and their purpose as well as who to contact for access

I didn't realise that, which highlights your point i guess.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

CruelCoin wrote: »

Would a simple disclaimer not cover that?

I mean, if McDonalds can get around injury lawsuits with a "Warning: Coffee Hot - Hurr" warning, then why couldn't a "Warning, legal advice is taken at own risk" disclaimer not cover you?

There's no comparison, as I think you rightly know.

Beasty

Just picking out the Admin/CMod/Mod issues I mentioned earlier:

Beasty wrote: »

There are some specific points as well as a couple of generic ones.

Firstly the generic ones:

...

Moderation – this is something we will discuss with mods initially. One thing we are looking at is refreshing the mod guidelines with a view to getting consistency where appropriate. 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 as Soccer, PI, Politics etc. I would expect us to provide further feedback to the wider community following that discussion, but I don’t want to attempt to put a timescale on that as there is the potential for a large number of points to be considered

Turning now to some of the specific points raised:


A number of points will be discussed with the mod team:

Post 29 – thread locking/deleting
Post 401 – feedback stickies in every forum
Post 979 – zombie threads

We will consider the following at Admin/Office level:

Post 453 – too many forums
Post 730 – focus given to rejuvenating forums (although this is something that has been tried without much success)

I've noted the following new issue that sits at either Mod or Admin level
Change approach to new posters/allow more latitude

I think at Admin level we can add:

Post 1845 - Politics Café structure to be reviewed (with relevant Mods/CMods)
Post 1847 - Forum Creation

Please let us know if they think there is something important we've missed for further consideration at these levels

I'm going to suggest we have a discussion amongst the mod team about the specifics mentioned above with a view to standardising things a bit more where it makes sense (be it at forum, category or site level). We also owe the mods a refreshed mod's user guide which will try and bring together what we conclude in these areas as well as some well established and hopefully uncontroversial practices

We will also discuss the relevant issues at Admin level. I'm not promising definitive action in all of these areas, and I'm not putting a deadline on when any changes will be implemented. Some may be gradual, some may require a bit more thought. What I do propose though is providing an update of current thinking by the end of February.

We have already addressed the Feedback issue, and are finalising details for an Open Discussion on the Feedback forum, and indeed whether we have ongoing feedback threads in more forums

STB.

dudara wrote: »

We have re-regs who register with abusive names, racist names and downright nasty names. We will never engage with those.

We have re-regs who try to blackmail Boards users, threaten them with exposure, or exposure to their employers. We will not engage with those. We need to protect our regular users.

We have re-regs who register to share racist or other bigoted views. We will not engage with those. Boards is not the platform for their views.

Any one who has been banned has Prison open to them to appeal, to work with mods and Admins. Anyone who engages openly with us will be listened to.

The biggest problem Dudara is the re-regs or supposed new regs that post in highly controversial threads. Take for example the abortion/referendum threads (theres one in the last few days right here in AH). Its full of people with low post counts. The source of these is not rocket science.

And that is the huge issue for all fora regardless of what the fora is called. Once you feature in the top 40 websites visited it will be targetted by every nutter group. They simply arent just re-reges. They are organisations with agendas.

That drives normal contributers away. There needs to a zero tolerance to it. How you do it is another thing however.

Zoey Famous Aftershave

Zoey Famous Aftershave wrote: »

There's no comparison, as I think you rightly know.

What advice exists to say that boards is responsible for anyone taking advice from a discussion on the site?

Never heard of a newspaper successfully sued because anyone followed advice on its letters page.

The speed with which the site hurls itself back on legal liability for all and sundry is nonsensical.

Beasty

Deleted User wrote: »

What advice exists to say that boards is responsible for anyone taking advice from a discussion on the site?

Never heard of a newspaper successfully sued because anyone followed advice on its letters page.

The speed with which the site hurls itself back on legal liability for all and sundry is nonsensical.

Are you a lawyer? If so perhaps you could drop a line to the Office and offer them some legal advice

Beasty

STB. wrote: »

That drives normal contributers away. There needs to a zero tolerance to it. How you do it is another thing however.

There is zero tolerance, and you may well be surprised at how many accounts get nuked before they even have chance to post. Alas we cannot nuke on a hunch though. We sometimes need to give posters a bit of rope and see what happens

We did have a discussion earlier in the thread about deleting all posts by a user when we do nuke. Since then I've been a little more circumspect before doing so, as a number of posters expressed a preference to allow at least some of these discussions to progress

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Deleted User wrote: »

What advice exists to say that boards is responsible for anyone taking advice from a discussion on the site?

Never heard of a newspaper successfully sued because anyone followed advice on its letters page.

The speed with which the site hurls itself back on legal liability for all and sundry is nonsensical.

You obviously are not in the law business. Newspapers don't post defamatory letters or any pouting legal advice. They have lawyers they run any suspect material by before publication.
Do you want all posts moderated before posting?

STB.

Beasty wrote: »

There is zero tolerance, and you may well be surprised at how many accounts get nuked before they even have chance to post. Alas we cannot nuke on a hunch though. We sometimes need to give posters a bit of rope and see what happens

We did have a discussion earlier in the thread about deleting all posts by a user when we do nuke. Since then I've been a little more circumspect before doing so, as a number of posters expressed a preference to allow at least some of these discussions to progress

I just read your location title!

Beasty I am posting here quite a while. I prreviously posted under a very similar name, but fell out of love with the site because of appalling modding where my only redress was taking it to feedback like some sort of petulant kid. I chose to close my account. But I came back, many dont. I have seen quite a rise in new or low post counters popping up in thread discussions that will shape the future landscape of this country.

Its not a hunch.

I have no doubt that agenda driven organisations (many foreign based) are hiding behind vpn's etc. The singular messages arent escaping my attention though.

It makes me go I have an opinion here but I am not engaging because its full of people being paid or working for organisations that are circumventing the rules ala the free speech good nature of boards to wreck discussion.

Zero tolerance is not implemented as we wouldnt have these "people" getting away with it. I suggest you look at the doorbell pro-lifer thread just started. Several obvious ones and its only started.

It should simply not be entertained. These posters will never post outside this short screenshot in time and their agenda. They are here to hijack, shut down or bully their point across. Its fairly obvious to me. The soccer forum have a way of dealing with it. The same should be applied to nuclear threads of current debate.

trellheim

Everyone has an agenda where certain things are concerned though. With a repeal the 8th campaigning about to get going its reasonable to assume sone people are going to wallpaper every forum they can - but isnt that democracy ? You're going to see it on every lamp-post soon. Its OK in my view that Boards is reasonably representative

STB.

trellheim wrote: »

Everyone has an agenda where certain things are concerned though. With a repeal the 8th campaigning about to get going its reasonable to assume sone people are going to wallpaper every forum they can - but isnt that democracy ? You're going to see it on every lamp-post soon. Its OK in my view that Boards is reasonably representative

No everyone does not have an agenda. I post in many areas of boards without an agenda. Outside discussion boards is also a reasonable place to have a laugh and to seek and obtain advice.

Genuine contributers probably post in a variety of threads not just one.

Democracy. You'd want to be very naive to presume that some of these posters that I referred even have a vote in the country!

Democracy is no reason to tolerate agenda driven registrations who do so for one specific purpose. NO its not okay. Especially if it drives away genuine discussion from genuine contributors. Its the whole point of this thread.......

The politics forum is another no go area, unless you want to see paid party bots fight each other.

Lone Stone

I really dont use anything outside one or two forums here anymore, i use to love reading after hours then they forced a bunch of stuff to politics cafe for "casual" political talk which was moderated to the point of shilling, and then it was turned into a feckin user approved forum bleh ! remember when they said this is for casual talk bla bla..

Beasty

Beasty wrote: »

Given some of the recent points and indeed my post earlier mentioning the responsive site, I'm digging out these points from my earlier post

Now I've not discussed any of the above directly with any of the development team, but my understanding is they are pretty flat out trying to get the responsive site up to a decent level, and firefighting any particular issues cropping up on the legacy site.

Bearing that in mind, do users think their time is better spent coming up with some short term fixes for this type of issue, or would you prefer them to concentrate on the responsive site, hopefully accommodating some or indeed all of these points

I know which one makes sense to me, particularly as many of us are familiar with these issues and have lived with them for some time. A while longer (and I've no idea how long) would not concern me if I thought the responsive site was going to be the "app of choice" going forward. I would prefer they concentrate on getting that right than divert too much resource to issues on the legacy site that almost certainly has a finite life anyway

So it’s still full steam ahead on the responsive site then. As it stands, it won’t be my “app of choice” and I could see myself trying to persuade the forum I frequent most to set up elsewhere.

CruelCoin

Could we get some basic fixes to long-standing problem? Buggy sites drive people away like no mans business.

My own - If you are following a forum and that gets closed, the unfollow button disappears, so this dead forum stays in the "My Forums" list forever.

Shouldn't be a particularly difficult fix.

Beasty

Beasty wrote: »

Are you a lawyer? If so perhaps you could drop a line to the Office and offer them some legal advice

NB I am not a lawyer and legal advice read on boards.ie is not guaranteed

😀

Boards.ie: Mark

CruelCoin wrote: »

Could we get some basic fixes to long-standing problem? Buggy sites drive people away like no mans business.

My own - If you are following a forum and that gets closed, the unfollow button disappears, so this dead forum stays in the "My Forums" list forever.

Shouldn't be a particularly difficult fix.

There is a manual workaround for this. To unsubscribe from a closed forum, enter https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/subscription.php?do=removesubscription&f=XXX in your address bar. You can remove a sub for any forum by swapping the XXX after f= for any forum ID number. I'll make a note of this though.

Beasty

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

So it’s still full steam ahead on the responsive site then. As it stands, it won’t be my “app of choice” and I could see myself trying to persuade the forum I frequent most to set up elsewhere.

One of the first points raised in this thread was posters wanted a decent app. My understanding is that has been a focus of the development team for some time

CruelCoin wrote: »

Could we get some basic fixes to long-standing problem? Buggy sites drive people away like no mans business.

My own - If you are following a forum and that gets closed, the unfollow button disappears, so this dead forum stays in the "My Forums" list forever.

Shouldn't be a particularly difficult fix.

So you want to prioritise short term fixes to the legacy site ahead of getting a functional responsive site that hopefully accommodates some of these "fixes"?

Explain to me like I’m 5 years old....

Is the responsive site an app or will it be what is shown when I type in boards.ie via my phones browser?

Btw, I’ve switched to responsive to see what’s changed in the last 18 months

El Weirdo

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

There is a manual workaround for this. To unsubscribe from a closed forum, enter http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/subsc...cription&f=XXX in your address bar. You can remove a sub for any forum by swapping the XXX after f= for any forum ID number. I'll make a note of this though.

That link doesn't work.

Boards.ie: Mark

El Weirdo wrote: »

That link doesn't work.

Thanks, now it should work

CruelCoin

Beasty wrote: »

So you want to prioritise short term fixes to the legacy site ahead of getting a functional responsive site that hopefully accommodates some of these "fixes"?

Not everyone uses this only on their phone.....So, yes, fixes to the website would be good.

It's a thread on why people are leaving, and i'm providing some of my bugbears. I'm not sure what the problem is here.

A responsive site means nothing to me on pc

GreeBo

CruelCoin wrote: »

Not everyone uses this only on their phone.....So, yes, fixes to the website would be good.
A responsive site means nothing to me on pc

+1

Do we have stats on the usage rates across the different platforms?

90% of mine is legacy site as its open in the background of the laptop all day.

CruelCoin

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

Thanks, now it should work

That worked great, thanks

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

CruelCoin wrote: »

Not everyone uses this only on their phone.....So, yes, fixes to the website would be good.

It's a thread on why people are leaving, and i'm providing some of my bugbears. I'm not sure what the problem is here.

A responsive site means nothing to me on pc

Agreed. The Responsive Site is alien to me and I'd rather see issues with the legacy site sorted first.

How anybody can weigh the opinions on this defies me as, when all is said and done, the percentage of users posting on this thread is very limited.

Are new sign ups automatically linked to the responsive site?

If so, is it just mobile signups or pc too?

Beasty

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

Explain to me like I’m 5 years old....

Is the responsive site an app or will it be what is shown when I type in boards.ie via my phones browser?

Btw, I’ve switched to responsive to see what’s changed in the last 18 months

I am not in any way technical, and I'm sure someone from the office will be along to correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the whole idea behind the responsive site is it would be a single platform for use via handhelds and PCs. It may look slightly different, but all the base features will be driven by the same underlying technology

Boards.ie: Mark

On mobile, the plan is to improve the touch.boards.ie site, taking community feedback into account, rather than have a downloadable app. So you're spot on when you say that we'd have a cross-platform experience, which may look slightly different but should offer the same features.

As for the current responsive site, people who are outside the Republic of Ireland access it by default but can switch over to the Legacy Site via the header or footer. On mobile, you get the Touch site by default, but can switch to the Legacy Site by selecting Full Site in the footer.

Boards.ie: Mark

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

On mobile, the plan is to improve the touch.boards.ie site.......

Thank god! I dunno what I’d do if I couldn’t kill fellow boardsies once a month

trellheim

There seems to be a repetitive drumbeat here from the office "oh the responsive site will fix it all " ... Actually its been there years and most of the core base I think uses the main site not the responsive one . I use the main site on PC Iphone and IPad , its fine. Can we sort of fix the actual problems please or is the backoffice convinced they know better here ?

Tell me how

Boards.ie: Mark wrote:

On mobile, the plan is to improve the touch.boards.ie site, taking community feedback into account, rather than have a downloadable app. So you're spot on when you say that we'd have a cross-platform experience, which may look slightly different but should offer the same features.

I'm interested in this when virtually every other platform favours the app route rather than browser platform for mobile access.

I'm sure there's a reason but it's not jumping out at me.

by8auj6csd3ioq

Even at a less sinister level, the amount of misinformed **** I see posted and re-enforced by others on places like Facebook scares me. It just becomes an echo chamber and you end up getting whatever news suits your world view. It's extremely dangerous in my opinion.

modern day version of buck she advice and pub talk. There is one guy on certain forum who believes all the rumours he hears in a pub . His source for anything he 'knows' is a rumour