Moving popular threads into Politics Cafe = thread death sentence

Kivaro

I don't know if the mod who moved the migrants from Italy thread into the Politics Cafe had a sudden rush of blood to the brain this morning.
Many of us will not venture into PC because of previously poor biased modding and the "private club" nature of the forum.

Ireland agreeing to take migrants from Italy is a social issue and the thread should have remained in After Hours. I thought that the time when mods who had extreme liberal views deciding on what the majority could discuss was a thing of the past.

Since boards is now operating as a business, this type of action will affect their bottom line. And we were assured in the long feedback thread that the issues revolving around Politics Cafe would be addressed. These were just hollow words to appease "the people" (aka customers) at the time. It is disappointing because After Hours was well run recently and there was a certain flow to the forum, which was enjoyable.

Wibbs

If we forget the [insert bias here] stuff for the moment, this is kinda ridiculous and it's too regular with moderation on AH. That and closing threads rather than I dunno, doing the job title and moderating them.

For a start, when threads get moved, the After Hours mods don't even leave a redirect. Something that is a given in every single other forum on this site. As a mod you have to specifically choose to not leave a redirect. The default setting is "Leave Permanent Redirect" so not doing so requires an extra click. This suggests pretty clearly that this is "policy" in AH. An idiotic policy, especially if the stated aim has been to "direct traffic into other forums". That's a nonsense if you're not leaving links to the forums you claim to want to direct users to. It certainly makes it look like it's policy to kill certain subjects. How else can explain this AH only moderation? And then people wonder why Boards/AH has a certain reputation?

As for the "better suited to PC" - Ok but then why is the "The post referendum thread. No electioneering" still on the front page many months on since said lead up to and conclusion of a state referendum? It couldn't be any more political and it's hardly the only example.

Oh and before the usual damned if you do, damned if you don't defence/explanation, that might hold water if the moderation was consistent in such matters, but it's not. It also depends very much on whichever mod tackles a thread.

Kivaro

Wibbs wrote: »

.....
As for the "better suited to PC" - Ok but then why is the "The post referendum thread. No electioneering" still on the front page many months on since said lead up to and conclusion of a state referendum? It couldn't be any more political and it's hardly the only example.
.....

Which is why when threads are guillotined and sent to the Politics Cafe; one would have to wonder if there was bias by the moderator due to the topic ................. like the thread on Ireland accepting migrants from Italy. How much more "social" can you get with that topic. That conversation is way more than just politics.

Wibbs

Like I say forget the bias for the moment, the complete lack of redirects in After Hours for any thread that gets moved is both puzzling and stupid in about equal measure. Especially when the claim comes up that Boards is trying to get traffic into other forums rather than AH becoming the catch all. I can't recall the last time I saw a redirect, threads just vanish. I've seen it happen with Personal Issues threads, Feedback threads, as well as PC threads.

So yeah, forget about the bias stuff, can anyone answer me why the default leave a redirect when you move a thread on every single other forum on Boards is not in play in After Hours? And what is this supposed to achieve beyond killing the discussion in any thread that's moved?

Though getting any feedback on a subject that isn't sitewide is like pulling teeth and largely pointless.

Beasty

I have just gone through the AH moderator log, which shows all mod actions over the past 10 days. Only one thread has been moved and that was with a redirect

Beasty

And I have now gone through the forum to the beginning of August (yes I really am that sad)

The only threads I can find that were moved were:

1. Italian migrants - to Politics Café
2. Buying a house in Limerick - to Limerick
3. Jeremy Corbyn and anti-Semitism - to Politics Café
4. Irish conspiracy theories to - yes you guessed it - Conspiracy Theories

So yes 2 threads to PC. Is that excessive? I will let others reach their own conclusions on that

Ken.

Beasty wrote: »

And I have now gone through the forum to the beginning of August (yes I really am that sad)

The only threads I can find that were moved were:

1. Italian migrants - to Politics Café
2. Buying a house in Limerick - to Limerick
3. Jeremy Corbyn and anti-Semitism - to Politics Café
4. Irish conspiracy theories to - yes you guessed it - Conspiracy Theories

So yes 2 threads to PC. Is that excessive? I will let others reach their own conclusions on that

Since you looked, Did ALL those threads have redirects?

Beasty

Putinbot wrote: »

Since you looked, Did ALL those threads have redirects?

Yes

And to add something further. I reckon there are another 20 or more threads over that period (where the most recent post was during August) in AH that had significant political overtones that could arguably have been moved, but were not. Admittedly some of those threads did not gain a lot of traction, but equally quite a few did

Wibbs

Beasty wrote: »

I have just gone through the AH moderator log, which shows all mod actions over the past 10 days. Only one thread has been moved and that was with a redirect

Odd B, I don't see a redirect. Maybe because I'm using the legacy site?

Beasty wrote: »

And I have now gone through the forum to the beginning of August (yes I really am that sad)

The only threads I can find that were moved were:

1. Italian migrants - to Politics Caf2. Buying a house in Limerick - to Limerick
3. Jeremy Corbyn and anti-Semitism - to Politics Caf4. Irish conspiracy theories to - yes you guessed it - Conspiracy Theories

So yes 2 threads to PC. Is that excessive? I will let others reach their own conclusions on that

The question still remains B, why move them? And why not move others? The first thread in your list was running to 15 pages long in a rapidly moving thread, then gets moved. If any thread is that popular leave it the hell alone I say. The site has become too stuck in the old paradigm* of rigidity in thread subjects going into their "proper" forums. That used to work but it works less and less now outside of extremely specialised forums. General chat wants to be in general chat and there's too much online competition that allows that. Leaving them alone will also increase traffic and chat. EG the aforementioned thread generated 15 pages of back and forth in not much more than 24 hours, gets moved to PC and barely page over the same timeframe. Oh and for me the thread subject doesn't really matter, if a thread is generating posts, leave it where it's most likely to continue to generate posts, or redirect it to die. Which is the most sensible for a discussion site and keeping said discussion site going?


*yes I feel dirty typing that B

Wibbs

Beasty wrote: »

Yes

And to add something further. I reckon there are another 20 or more threads over that period (where the most recent post was during August) in AH that had significant political overtones that could arguably have been moved, but were not. Admittedly some of those threads did not gain a lot of traction, but equally quite a few did

Which again begs my question B, why move any, or none? Not just with political stuff either B, there would be a shedload of threads that could live elsewhere, but again where is a thread going to get the most attention and the most traffic and posting?

Then again to be fair I would be one of those who would advocate for a major winnowing, archiving and closing of forums on Boards. More ghost towns than 1950's cowboy flics. Since the redesign a few years back and the reduction of easy access to forums many have dropped off the earth. As the CEO noted in the other thread hereabouts page views have remained fairly constant, so that's not a problem, but in the interests of growing the site reducing the clutter would make a helluva difference and make the site look and be more active. My take anyway.


PS this is bugger all to do with AH moderation, or the mods there. IMHO it's far better than to was a couple of years ago.

Hitman3000

Ah the Politics Cafe where uncomfortable topics are sent to die a slow death.

Beasty

One of the things that was outstanding from the "Slow Death" thread (that I recently closed in AH:)) was the future of Politics Café and how we could accommodate discussion of political (and perhaps other topical "current affairs" issues) without the constraints of PC

Clearly the current format requires access to Politics Café which itself can cause issues with threads that are moved, as those who may have already contributed, or indeed wish to contribute may not have access

Hence perhaps this thread is an opportunity to discuss further how we may accommodate such discussion without those constraints, but also without some of the issues we had seen in PC when there was open access

One idea that was put forward was to establish a "Current Affairs" forum for such threads. There was a forum request but that failed to gather enough support to warrant further consideration under the Forum Request rules

Let me put that idea on the table again. And just to add up front, we have seen complaints in AH of overmodding that came to a head in the Slow Death thread, so the mods backed off. Now we are seeing complaints of undermodding on some of the Papal visit threads. Let's acknowledge up front that the mods are placed in a no-win situation on anything contentious like the Catholic Church and its controversial history. Separately we have seen complaints that AH facilitates left-wingers agendas while at the same time they are being accused of being right wing

How would a new forum/place for discussion of such topics work? Or more accurately how would the userbase want it to work? My view is if you do not have an access system you probably need strict moderation to weed out those that are intent on stirring things early on. But how can we differentiate between those posters and users who are very passionate from either end of the political/religious etc spectrum?

And just to add, I am making this post based on my own observations across the site. I have not discussed this extensively with other Admins or indeed office staff, although we did have some discussion when the Slow Death thread was very active earlier in the year. Hence my suggestions are certainly not a "formal" position, but at this stage I really want to facilitate discussion on this specific point of how we deal with political and other current issues in a more light-hearted way than the main Politics forum permits

Wibbs

Just a thought B, and on the back of my general take above; why add to the complication?

*Radical crazy bastard personal opinion alert*

Forget Current affairs or PC. Close and archive PC. Bring in the mods of PC to help with the moderation of AH. Can't see any value in creating yet another forum that will gain some traffic from novelty and then die on the vine soon after. It smacks of middle management "look, we're doing something!"

After Hours was conceived as the jokey pub talk forum from the get go. And that's grand. However "pub Talk" includes politics and current affairs as a near given. Hell going in a taxi to the pub and ye'll have politics and current affairs immediately after the "jaysus the weather, eh?" and "are you on long tonight?" introductions. Basically go with where folks organically go already. Forget about trying to drive them somewhere they clearly don't want to go. I mean the PC link is smack bang on top of the heaviest traffic forum on Boards and yet...

Unless a thread subject is extremely specific and local, yes by all means move that kinda thing, if the destination forum has actual traffic and isn't a ghost town.

Thread tags could be useful. [Political], [Social interest], [Feck knows].

Beasty

Thread tags was definitely one of the suggestions made previously. And yes one of the concerns that was highlighted was that the AH mods were really not that comfortable modding certainly "heavy duty" political topics

Whatever we do, I am sure someone will be unhappy. I do though think that your idea has merit and is definitely worthy of further discussion here

Wibbs

Beasty wrote: »

And yes one of the concerns that was highlighted was that the AH mods were really not that comfortable modding certainly "heavy duty" political topics

Which I can well bloody understand B. It's a minefield in so many ways. One that IMHO the AH mods in recent times have navigated pretty well. There's more of a hands off vibe in the air. Certainly compared to a couple of years ago. Much less of the "I'm a mod, respect my ban hammer" ballsology of the past. And credit to them for that. They also post more and I notice them less as mods. That's A Good thing™.

Whatever we do, I am sure someone will be unhappy.

True, but I figure go with the majority. Like the poor, the pissed off will always be with us. One sign of that is the "bias" arguments. Some say(not a Stig reference) Boards/AH is "Liberal" leaning, other's say Boards/AH is a right wing cesspit. Most don't seem to notice either way.

I do though think that your idea has merit and is definitely worthy of further discussion here

Jesus B. Go home, you're drunk.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Thread tags are already in use in the accommodation forum. And on this thread I suppose. Seems to work.

Beasty

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Thread tags are already in use in the accommodation forum. And on this thread I suppose. Seems to work.

Implementing thread tags is straightforward enough. What would be the suggestions for tags though? Serious/Political/Humour/etc.

Having to "compartmentalise" threads may have a negative impact, perhaps making the forum appear more "formal" and putting some off

That's why I am encouraging comments here though - we need to try and gauge what the forum regulars, in general, prefer, be it the nature of topics, any "tags" that may be available, and indeed any other suggestions users want to put forward for discussion

Beasty

Wibbs wrote: »

Jesus B. Go home, you're drunk.

Don't worry Wibbs - I don't reckon I've been proper drunk in about a decade - since I started posting on here in fact! A very sobering place indeed:pac:

Kivaro

Thread tags would be unsuitable for After Hours (in my humble opinion), as it would make it too busy on the eye. Many posters have only time to quick scan forums; tags are a distraction.

A Current Affairs forum request did not get the expected support, which should tell you that the obvious alternative then is to just let things flow in AH.
There is a natural evolution of topics on that forum, but the big difference is that you can make a wise crack or inject humour on what could be deemed a serious topic, which in turn could organically pause the outrage and give posters an opportunity to relax. Injecting a funny comment in a Current Affairs type of forum could lead to a ban for being off-topic. There has been a major improvement in the 'enjoyability' of boards recently with the more lax modding on AH. The simple rule of "don't be a dick" is working out well.

If posters want to take a more stringent approach to a topic, then the Politics forum is there for that purpose. Just let After Hours be After Hours. Imagine going to your local pub and being told: "Right lads, anyone who want to discuss the sad state of affairs in Irish Politics need to take up the conversation in the smoking section outside".

Wibbs

If we compare Boards to a road network(bear with me... ) the "old" Boards built roads to villages all over the place and that was fine because people wanted to visit said villages in enough numbers. But things have moved on for various reasons and now people want to drive on the motorways to a few big towns. So instead of widening roads and improving signage to villages that nobody visits, or building new villages that nobody wants to live in, instead widen the existing motorways that have more and more traffic. Places like the Politics cafe are like Kinnegad, and that's not a good thing.

Hurrache

I think at this point the Politics Cafe is a solution for which there's no problem.

The Politics forum is for the serious political talk (albeit it can be a bit too staid at times with over the top moderation of any post that may be deemed not serious).

So anyone interested in politics will hang around there. Like it was said above, the pub talk type of political discussion sits fine in After Hours, you know the type of discussion you may find in there.

But the Politics Cafe, what is it? Serious, semi serious? It's a half way house with no visitors as it doesn't seem to serve a defined purpose.

Hitman3000

The Sean Gallagher thread moved to the PC, ah well what could have been interesting is now doomed a lingering death.

As a follow up to the Gallagher thread moved at 10.42, time is now 12.49. Posts in that time 4. Says it all.

Kivaro

Beasty wrote: »

......
Hence perhaps this thread is an opportunity to discuss further how we may accommodate such discussion without those constraints, but also without some of the issues we had seen in PC when there was open access

...........
Hence my suggestions are certainly not a "formal" position, but at this stage I really want to facilitate discussion on this specific point of how we deal with political and other current issues in a more light-hearted way than the main Politics forum permits

I am a bit confused with this Beasty.
I thought that after the long Feedback thread, you were going to take our suggestions from that thread under advisement and the team was going to follow up with actionable items.
Granted, the Current Affairs forum request was put into play, but since there was no traction with it, why not just stick with what's working in AH ....... or what was working up to very recently.

Cookie_Monster

Kivaro wrote: »

I am a bit confused with this Beasty.
I thought that after the long Feedback thread, you were going to take our suggestions from that thread under advisement and the team was going to follow up with actionable items.
Granted, the Current Affairs forum request was put into play, but since there was no traction with it, why not just stick with what's working in AH ....... or what was working up to very recently.

That's the party line, but like all the other previous threads it just gets quietly forgotten about. Sure we might see some very minor changes but the vast majority of stuff gets parked until the same thread appears six months later with all the same points.
Maybe there is stuff going on in the background, and if so great, but it cannot take that long to decide and change things.
The responsive site is a good example, still nowhere near finished and broken after how long now? Or Politic cafe, still a broken forum where threads go to die, it used to be great and funny and it's been comprehensibly proven the registration requirement doesn't work but still no change after dozens of threads on it...

Beasty

What happened was Discodog put forward the suggestion of a Current Affairs forum, and then started a Forum Request thread, where I personally supported the idea

Alas that request stalled due to lack of interest

Hence when this thread was started I took the opportunity to resurrect the idea and invite other suggestions, which is where we are now. To be clear though there was a definite feel within that AH thread that Politics and some of the "heavy duty" threads it could spawn were not the sort of things the AH mods wanted to have to deal with.

What I indicated (I'm pretty sure prior to Discodog's initiative) was that the Politics Café was a topic we needed to work through. I made no promises over timing and TBH I've had a few personal distractions over recent months. Again though the opportunity arose with this thread to further consider the issue, and we have already seen some ideas that were not covered off in the AH "Slow Death" thread

Wibbs

Beasty wrote: »

To be clear though there was a definite feel within that AH thread that Politics and some of the "heavy duty" threads it could spawn were not the sort of things the AH mods wanted to have to deal with.

That is understandable B, but with respect and IMHO what mods of any forum want to deal with or not really shouldn't be in the mix. Or at least certainly not driving how a forum might grow. That's very much the cart driving the horse and can be a part of the mods top down driven ethos that sometimes rears its head in how Boards does things. The forum and the community who post and contribute and keep the forum alive are the engine. They're what matters*.

Forums grow and they change. I've certainly seen that in forums I've helped mod and more than once I've bit my lip with some of the trends that emerged. The thing is it's not, nor should be my place to dictate how a forum grows and changes. My job is to facilitate that growth. If I felt for whatever reason I couldn't, I'd step aside and let others who can. I have done.



* I am fully behind the without mods Boards would be in trouble idea. It's not as if I haven't put in my time doing it, but without posters and posts and communities Boards doesn't exist at all. Put it another way; how many mods are out there modding dead forums, with little to no traffic?

Boom_Bap

Just my 2 cents.


People for the most part are in AH to dick around and have fun.
People who are discussing a political topic are a bit more serious.



When the 2 of them mix is where the trouble starts, the more serious in the discussion want links and evidence, the not so serious will provide a link to a picture of a mickey. And that is the point where the chaos starts.
Chaos may not be the right word - a thread explodes, it's carried over to another thread, people are warned, they don't follow the warning, start blaming others, start blaming everyone, people get banned, cards are flying, threads temp closed, threads closed.


I'm not saying this happens in every such thread, but I've seen it too many times.


My solution would be to listen to why the PC is now quiet. Relax the rules on joining which seems to be the biggest gripe. I think that the P Cafe used to essentially be the Current Affairs forum.

Kivaro

Boom_Bap wrote: »

Just my 2 cents.
People for the most part are in AH to dick around and have fun.
People who are discussing a political topic are a bit more serious.

When the 2 of them mix is where the trouble starts, the more serious in the discussion want links and evidence, the not so serious will provide a link to a picture of a mickey........

But that's the way it is in real life, so why not replicate it in AH.
Let everyone join in the conversation. The not-so-serious posts can be ignored.

And every now and then I like to see not-so-serious posts because it can brighten the mood on serious topics.

Beasty wrote: »

To be clear though there was a definite feel within that AH thread that Politics and some of the "heavy duty" threads it could spawn were not the sort of things the AH mods wanted to have to deal with.

Then let the AH mods who are good handling these types of threads handle them. There are numerous such threads recently on AH that were modded in an impressive manner.
By the way, the last time anyone posted on the migrants from Italy thread was on Aug 27th, which is the date it was moved from AH into PC.
Surely that sends a message to the admins/owners of boards.

Unless it was sent there deliberately to die.

Beasty

Just a reminder - 100 posts and 3 months on the site required before posting in Feedback

Thanks

Beasty

Hitman3000 wrote: »

The Sean Gallagher thread moved to the PC, ah well what could have been interesting is now doomed a lingering death.

As a follow up to the Gallagher thread moved at 10.42, time is now 12.49. Posts in that time 4. Says it all.

Just confirmed with the mod that this thread was moved from the main Politics Forum, and not AH

Boom_Bap

Kivaro wrote: »

But that's the way it is in real life, so why not replicate it in AH.
Let everyone join in the conversation. The not-so-serious posts can be ignored.

And every now and then I like to see not-so-serious posts because it can brighten the mood on serious topics.

From my experience in AH, it's the catalyst for the train-wreck when the 2 collide. The not so serious posts are for the most part not ignored.
In an ideal world, they should be able to live in harmony together on the same thread, but experience shows that they don't.