Superthreads being closed during the United vs Pool match this weekend

Lord TSC

Right, I've never posted a feedback thread on here before but figure this morning that it's the best course of action. (I'm not 100% sure if this should be in the feedback section or in the Help Desk, so would appreciate a move if its in the wrong section)

Overnight, a new sticky popped up in the Soccer forum, >>here<<

The main reason I'm creating this topic is that as part of the announcement, we were told we were not allowed to talk about the decision over on the Soccer forum, and there was no way to actually voice concern over what has been announced. So that's why I'm here; because for a decision like this, there should be discourse, and if its not allowed over on that forum, then this Feedback section comes into play. Because there's genuine issues with what has been proposed and the posters on the soccer forum deserve to get the chance to talk about it, publicly. And worse, if ye don't provide SOME sort of outlet, then there's going to be a bit of a revolution bubbling under the surface. So I'd really appreciate if there could be a thread where people could come in and at least discuss this idea, even if the mods decide to push it through.

I get the charter has said, for years, that match discussions are not meant to take place in superthreads, but this has widely been ignored for years, simply because the vast majority prefer to ignore it. The mods happily turned a blind eye, because a lot more good than bad happens when fans of each team can discuss what they want to discuss in the confines of a "safe space". And I believe the last feedback thread pretty much had the conclusion most people were happier to let that status quo actually become the rule.

I know where the mods are coming from, because I had this argument with them back when I was a mod, especially when I was trying to propose large teams got dedicated, evolved forum spaces within which to discuss their clubs. There's a lot of the moderation team want "melting pots", and wants fans being forced to interact with each other, rather than evolving the space to provide better ease of access to the community. There's a desire to force people into interacting with other teams fans, as if we're children in junior infants being taught to socialize with other kids for the first time. A desire for conservative consolidation rather than progressive evolution of the forum.

The reality is the match threads are not able to provide any actual decent discussion on games, as they will always descend into petty tribalism ("I disagree with that decision because it goes against my team!"). Further, they move far too quickly to actually have any discussion anyway; by the time you post after a goal or an incident, your post gets drowned out in a sea of other posts. Boards.ie isn't a great medium to discuss live sporting events (or live events in general) at the best of times, especially on a forum where there could be over 100 people posting at the same time.

Which is why having match threads AND superthreads was the way forward, in a compromise; those who wanted to talk with other like minded fans received a place to do so. Those who wanted to engage in a "melting pot" could do so as well.

Do people really think closing the superthreads for the match will force everyone off into match threads? The initial reaction I had (as a former mod, and as a very active poster) was "Off to Reddit I go!"

I remember doing a calculation that the United fans generated something like 50,000 posts a year in superthreads alone, and probably do about 50% of that again in match threads. Condensing down threads for discussion is only making it more difficult to talk about things, and get your voice heard. It won't promote discourse. It's going to drive a healthy amount of boards.ie posters off site, to somewhere they can discuss it with people they are happier to deal with.

(And I'm deliberately not going to waste time talking about the impact low level trolls and the likes are going to have on this idea. Match threads are utter bombsites for trolls, on both sides, who will be thrilled with this announcement since they get a captive audience now. An issue that really is much larger than this particular one.)

I've never agreed with the "Ye all have to be forced to interact" attitude, and this feels like such an idiotic, self-inflicted shot in the foot for the forum.

Boards.ie: Mark

Hi Lord TSC, sorry for the delay. I've moved your thread over to Help Desk as it refers to mod action in a specific forum. As I was going to get the link to the discussion in Soccer, I see that you've posted there too. But I still wanted to thank you for taking the time to give feedback and detailed feedback at that.