Can we talk about AH?

Beasty

Lawson Tinkling Fishhook wrote: »

The economic, social, and democratic self-destruction of Venezuela didn't begin six years ago. It began not long after Chávez came to power in the late 90s -- although starry-eyed Western socialists refused to acknowledge the growing authoritarianism in the country, accompanied by the systematic demolition of democratic institutions, bad economic policy, and reliance on magic-money-tree economics.

Posters on Boards sang the praises of Chávez for years. Now they want to pretend that 1.7 million percent inflation and a population reduced to eating rats have nothing to do with Chávez -- when they have everything to do with Chávez.

Please refrain from picking up examples from this long ago to support your contentions on current moderation. It's completely inappropriate to do so. The mod team has changed, moderation has changed and the site has changed (and indeed Venezuela has changed, but that's certainly not the topic here)

Zorya

Was the point not to demonstrate that what is ''right on'' or ''far right'' (or whatever) changes considerably over time - which requires hindsight as an almost essential factor, thus the passage of time?

Change is constant as the saying goes (or as Heraclitus would have it, perhaps), and it is by the very act of looking back (also known as the study of history) that we can examine change of all sorts in context.

I think it is interesting to have any perspective on changing viewpoints. It prompts one to try and be less reflexively judgmental about viewpoints expressed in the present moment.

For example I saw a thread today in AH which was 4 years old - and it was giving out yards about AH. This is useful for perspective.

Baggly

The first thread in AH was a thread giving out about AH iirc

Zorya

Pter wrote: »

The first thread in AH was a thread giving out about AH iirc

Haha That's excellent.

Pter

Pter wrote: »

The first thread in AH was a thread giving out about AH iirc

Pfft. Fake news.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1420

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

Beasty wrote: »

Please refrain from picking up examples from this long ago to support your contentions on current moderation. It's completely inappropriate to do so.

Where exactly did I comment on moderation, past or present?

TheValeyard

Boom_Bap wrote: »

Can we not just permaban this Chavez user from AH?

He's already banned from life

osarusan

I'd like to mention that although this thread has been open for 3 weeks, and there have been more than 300 posts, there have been just 2 posts from Boards.ie staff, and here they are.

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

Mod Note: This thread is in relation to After Hours. If you would like to discuss the Politics forum, and more particularly the moderation of the forum, please start a thread in Help Desk. As always, it's worth reminding people to use the report post where you feel posts should be sanctioned, appeal in the Dispute Resolution Forum (after trying to discuss things with the Moderators) where you feel that your ban (and not the lack of action elsewhere) wasn't warranted, and highlight concerns to the Moderating team or the CMods.

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

Mod Note: A reminder that you need 100 posts and to have been registered for at least 3 months to post in Feedback.

Mods and admin have been active, which is good, but effectively nothing from the staff. No response whatsoever to any of the content of the thread, or to questions asked of them.

Not even a post to say that the discussion is being followed. Very very poor form in my opinion.

robarmstrong

osarusan wrote: »

I'd like to mention that although this thread has been open for 3 weeks, and there have been more than 300 posts, there have been just 2 posts from Boards.ie staff, and here they are.





Mods and admin have been active, which was good, but effectively nothing from the staff. No response whatsoever to any of the content of the thread, or to questions put asked of them.

Not even a post to say that the discussion is being followed. Very very poor form in my opinion.

To be fair, Beasty is staff or engages with the office quite a bit (I think) and he's been really active on this.

I think though anyone that has less than the requirements needed to post here that has something to say about the thread should be allowed to PM those relevant in here.

Boards.ie: Mark

osarusan wrote: »

I'd like to mention that although this thread has been open for 3 weeks, and there have been more than 300 posts, there have been just 2 posts from Boards.ie staff, and here they are.

Mods and admin have been active, which is good, but effectively nothing from the staff. No response whatsoever to any of the content of the thread, or to questions put asked of them.

Not even a post to say that the discussion is being followed. Very very poor form in my opinion.

Discussion is always followed.

As has been pointed out in other conversations, it is difficult to keep everyone happy when it comes to Moderation. Within this thread, and other feedback threads, the site is overmoderated to some, undermoderated to others, and left or right leaning/biased depending on your point of view.

A Current Affairs forum has been mentioned, but there are issues to be addressed and considered. Otherwise we end up back at square one with the same accusations at a different forum or people trying to post in After Hours and complaining when a thread gets moved.

In saying that, maybe "left wing/right wing" should go the way of "yore ma/blast them with piss"

My own take is that it is odd that such serious topics end up in a forum under "Social & Fun" when there is often little of either in the responses (though this gem should be highlighted as an exception: https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=108718631&postcount=28).

Zorya

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

My own take is that it is odd that such serious topics end up in a forum under "Social & Fun" when there is often little of either in the responses

I don't find it odd. Some people want to discuss current events, and not be larking about all the time, but politics and the cafe there does not seem appealing for such everday discussions, the more contentious discussions such as people do have over the dinner table or a pint now and then.

DareGod

AH is a cesspit of white male nastiness. And it's the majority, so anyone who dares stand up to it or question it is automatically in the minority, and is mocked or belittled, humiliated and ganged up on, It's a bullying ground, heavily disguised as something else.

Tbh, that's what the majority of comment sections on the Internet are.

(I'm a white male.)

I would fully expect any responses to this opinion to follow the above-mentioned theme.

Nonsense.

Gimme A Pound

Why say that they're white? What relevance does that have? On English language forums the majority will be white.

Zorya

Arely Dazzling Sidecar wrote: »

Why say that they're white? What relevance does that have? On English language forums the majority will be white.

Because being white and especially male are mortal sins for which one forfeits their soul

Baggly

This thread is what AH should be.

Someone posts something serious and we all pick it apart and have a laugh about it.

Omackeral

Pter wrote: »

This thread is what AH should be.

Someone posts something serious and we all pick it apart and have a laugh about it.

Duly noted :pac:

DareGod wrote: »

AH is a cesspit of white male nastiness.

How can you tell their skin colour and gender?

DareGod wrote: »

(I'm a white male.)

You're coming off like this

seamus

The Roscommon hotel thread to be fair is now nothing but a pile of racists posting racist rubbish back-and-forth. Any rational discussion left the thread days ago.

Case in point

Years ago once people started posting links to Stormfront, threads would be shut down.

I agree with the proposal that once someone mentions identity politics "left/right/liberal/conservative", they should get a ban from AH. Make it go away, return to some sense of reasonable discussion.

droidman123

DareGod wrote: »

AH is a cesspit of white male nastiness. And it's the majority, so anyone who dares stand up to it or question it is automatically in the minority, and is mocked or belittled, humiliated and ganged up on, It's a bullying ground, heavily disguised as something else.

Tbh, that's what the majority of comment sections on the Internet are.

(I'm a white male.)

I would fully expect any responses to this opinion to follow the above-mentioned theme.

"mocked or belittled, humiliated and ganged up on, It's a bullying ground, heavily disguised as something else". You could be describing the prison threads there

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

I think we've established by now that anyone not on board with the left-liberal multicultural progressive agenda is a racist, bigot, and far-right nutcase. Especially if he happens to be white and male.

jmayo

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

The most obvious manifestation of the hard push to the extreme right was the Presidential election poll, where Casey ended up with more than 50% of the vote, more than double what he got in the real world. So in broad terms, boards.ie has twice as many extreme right posters as the national average. Boards.ie is a good 44% more racist than Tipperary - Casey's best performing constituency.

It seems that the powers that be are happy for Boards to turn into gammon-central. Personally, I'm not sure it bodes well, given the ageing demographic. It's probably not a hugely attractive market for advertisers either.

Oh dear god.
Seriously ?

If you think that Casey is extreme right then holy fook what are BNP, KKK, Nazis ?

BTW this has been asked many times but what did Casey say that was racist ?
He actually asked why travellers were treated differently, how come they are classed as a different ethnic group (which a lot of people do wonder about), and especially why some of them had not moved into accommodation built for them at great cost to the taxpayers ?

And congrats on just saying that 23% of the Irish electorate that voted in the presidential election are racist.

And this is the country that voted for same sex marriage, abortion in the last few years.

Holy fook you would have a seizure if you went to a DUP get together.

DareGod wrote: »

AH is a cesspit of white male nastiness. And it's the majority, so anyone who dares stand up to it or question it is automatically in the minority, and is mocked or belittled, humiliated and ganged up on, It's a bullying ground, heavily disguised as something else.

Tbh, that's what the majority of comment sections on the Internet are.

(I'm a white male.)

I would fully expect any responses to this opinion to follow the above-mentioned theme.

We are not in American so could we leave out the Americanised shyte.

I am tired of fooking snowflakes, alt right (BTW that is a keybord shortcut sequence to some of us), white male priviledge, ultra feminazi, identity this that and the other, etc, etc.
It is toxic shyte imported from the US which is wy it is quickly going up it;s own ass.

Most people in this country are middle of the road.
That is why we have always had centrist governments.
Yes Labour is really kinda centrist with a tinge of the left.

The nearest we got to real right wing would have been the blueshirts, but they faded away.
Yes we were conservative but so was most of the world.
Hell did you know the labour government in the 60s published a paper about immigration controls that today would sound like Trump?

I would say most people don't hate foreigners, most people want to see criminals punished for the betterment of society, most people are tired of a state where the systems never appear to have anyone take any sort of responsibility for anything wrong, most people want a social welfare system that helps those down on their luck or those who through accident of birth are less capable, most people don't want a muppet like Trump, most people don't care who you are married to or who you are shagging so long as they are not a kid or your relative.

Yet you have posters claiming a lot of us are racist right wing extemists.

Yes you will always get the smart ar**es like in school trying to look cool by coming out with something outlandish or "edgy" such as all women are secondary, only Irish people should be in Ireland, no body deserves welfare, etc.
But most people don't agree with them and can see them as acting the boll*** or really a bit sad if they believe it.

AndrewJRenko

jmayo wrote: »

Oh dear god.
Seriously ?

If you think that Casey is extreme right then holy fook what are BNP, KKK, Nazis ?

BTW this has been asked many times but what did Casey say that was racist ?
He actually asked why travellers were treated differently, how come they are classed as a different ethnic group (which a lot of people do wonder about), and especially why some of them had not moved into accommodation built for them at great cost to the taxpayers ?

He said a bit more than that, in fairness:

"Let's call a spade a spade. Your house price doesn't start going through the roof as soon as you get two dozen Travellers moving in down the street from you," he said.

Travellers are “basically people camping in other people’s land”,

that they are “not paying their fair share of taxes in society”.

All the lazy stereotypes...

jmayo

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

He said a bit more than that, in fairness:

He said a bit more than that, in fairness:


Quote:
"Let's call a spade a spade. Your house price doesn't start going through the roof as soon as you get two dozen Travellers moving in down the street from you," he said.

But it is true.
If people are honest you will find that no one wants to be beside a halting site.
Much like no one wants to be beside a landfill, an abattoir, a powerstation, even a windfarm if you are a life long green.

And one of the results is property prices will indeed suffer.

Most halting sites are unsightly kips if we are honest.

Now you of course can fegin that it wouldn't matter to you, but most of us know when push comes to shove you might be damn uncomfortable.

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Travellers are “basically people camping in other people’s land”,

Whilst that may have been more correct in the past I think it is less so nowadays.

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

that they are “not paying their fair share of taxes in society”.

Well for a group that such high unemployment, such high dependence on social welfare they often appear to have enough funds to purchase reasonably expensive vehicles on a purely cash basis, and spend lavishly on family functions.
This of course begs the question, where does the money come from and if they are making money why are they on social welfare and not paying taxes ?

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

All the lazy stereotypes...
.

Stereotypes often don't just appear out of thin air.

We have ended up debating a subject here rather than the matter at hand.

According to some, yourself included, most posters in AH are akin to nazis and want to round travellers up and send them to concentration or death camps.
Yes you might get the odd nutjob that would say that, but most of the posters you complain about just want responsibility and an active positive contribution to society, not a group living outside society and contributing nothing but negatively.

My big bugbear with a lot of what passes for modern sensibilities is that personal responsibility has gone out the window.
And the ones most unresponsible for their actions or inactions are excused and even supported to continue on the same path.

I believe all of this shyte eminated in the US and the start of it was people finding that they could blame incidents down to their stupidity on someone else and a court would entertain them.

And in AH we now have a lot of people being labelled racist, nazi, etc for hve the above views.

It has totally demeaned the terms.

Back to topic.

AH has become a catch all.
Cafe used to have high volumes, but it is now a wasteland with a few posts, yes posts, a day.
I go in now and again and usually find I am the only user in there and there are at least 6 mods assigned to the forum.
WTF.

Politics is now appears to be a circle jerk where politicos hang out reaffirming each other.

The site desperately needs a current affairs section where one doesn't have to be a political scientist, doesn't have to only read the guardian or only read the daily mail, and people can discuss topics without being labeled racist, snowflakes, etc.

osarusan

Thread about AH problems has become an AH thread.

pleas advice

osarusan wrote: »

Thread about AH problems has become an AH thread.

Classic After Hours....

jmayo

osarusan wrote: »

Thread about AH problems has become an AH thread.

Any other contribution?

Like for instance do you agree or disagree with the statement ?

The site desperately needs a current affairs section where one doesn't have to be a political scientist, doesn't have to only read the guardian or only read the daily mail, and people can discuss topics without being labeled racist, snowflakes, etc.

osarusan

jmayo wrote: »

Any other contribution?

I've already made my comments on my opinions on AH.

jmayo wrote: »

Any other contribution?

Like for instance do you agree or disagree with the statement ?

I disagree. I don't think it matters whether there is a new forum or not. What matters is the quality of discussion. And there is good discussion in AH, as there would be in any new forum.

But there is also discussion of the lowest quality imaginable on AH.

Posters whose arguments are nothing more than mindlessly slinging words like racist, libtard, bigot, feminazi, alt-right, cuck, at absolutely anything and everything they don't like.

Posters who just want to rant about a particular topic, and will use any statistic or source at all to argue that (or none at all). It doesn't have to be right, it just has to sound good to them. And when it is proven to be wrong, they will either endlessly move the goalposts or else just disappear from the thread. Above all, they will never, ever, admit they got something wrong.

Posters with a razor-sharp eye for, and apparent contempt for, the double standards, logical failings, or hypocrisies of their ideological opposites, but who will readily do the all same things themselves when it suits their position to do so.

It's that kind of utter rubbish that has infested AH. AH has become the place (or maybe it always been the place) for people to pretend they are having a serious, mature discussion when actually they are talking complete and utter garbage. And that when action is taken on their complete and utter garbage, they lament the lack of freedom for serious discussion.

And a pretty much complete failure to stamp it out means that the actual serious discussion gets sidelined and drowned in a load of bile.

That is the problem, and unless it's gotten rid of, it'll continue to be the problem, whether in AH or some other/new forum.

Zorya

osarusan wrote: »

I've already made my comments on my opinions on AH.



I disagree. I don't think it matters whether there is a new forum or not. What matters is the quality of discussion. And there is good discussion in AH, as there would be in any new forum.

But there is also discussion of the lowest quality imaginable on AH.

Posters whose arguments are nothing more than mindlessly slinging words like racist, libtard, bigot, feminazi, alt-right, cuck, at absolutely anything and everything they don't like.

Posters who just want to rant about a particular topic, and will use any statistic or source at all to argue that (or none at all). It doesn't have to be right, it just has to sound good to them. And when it is proven to be wrong, they will either endlessly move the goalposts or else just disappear from the thread. Above all, they will never, ever, admit they got something wrong.

Posters with a razor-sharp eye for, and apparent contempt for, the double standards, logical failings, or hypocrisies of their ideological opposites, but who will readily do the all same things themselves when it suits their position to do so.

It's that kind of utter rubbish that has infested AH. AH has become the place (or maybe it always been the place) for people to pretend they are having a serious, mature discussion when actually they are talking complete and utter garbage. And that when action is taken on their complete and utter garbage, they lament the lack of freedom for serious discussion.

And a pretty much complete failure to stamp it out means that the actual serious discussion gets sidelined and drowned in a load of bile.

That is the problem, and unless it's gotten rid of, it'll continue to be the problem, whether in AH or some other/new forum.

Maybe AH is not the place for you then?

If I don't like something I usually leave it alone. I think that's what regular people do in real life.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Zorya wrote: »

Maybe AH is not the place for you then?

If I don't like something I usually leave it alone. I think that's what regular people do in real life.

Well, this is a feedback thread about AH. It would be a short thread if the response to any criticism was “If you don’t like AH, don’t visit it”. What’s the point in having those occasional feedback threads on various sub-forums on the site if that’s the apparent solution?

Cookie_Monster

Zorya wrote: »

Maybe AH is not the place for you then?

It used to be...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV0wTtiJygY