Is Boards.ie complicit?

VeryTerry

Some of us have been here for over a decade under various usernames. Personally I was here for the Phantom fm sub forum, some were here for Quake or whatever.

Now it's full of reregs and extremists. It's a done duck as far as I can see. Full of people on the wind up.

Twenty Grand

Boards is a business. When you're chasing clicks then it's good to have clickbait.

gozunda

Is Boards.ie complicit

You mean like the Nazis? There I've done it - I've Godwined the thread :pac:

I'll get my coat ....

PeteEd

very merry terry
i'm due a re reg anyway

VeryTerry

gozunda wrote: »

You mean like the Nazis? There I've done it - I've Godwined the thread :pac:

I'll get my coat ....

Wibbs will be along in a minute for a long winded lecture about how his culture is superior to others and everyone will seal clap along like little *****.

gozunda

VeryTerry wrote: »

Wibbs will be along in a minute for a long winded lecture about how his culture is superior to others and everyone will seal seal clap along like little *****.

I dont see the link but erm no ....

I think this is just a general moan thread no?

Arghus

Complicit in what exactly?

kippy

You must be a rereg yourself.
Nov 2018?


Boards is what you make it.

VeryTerry

VeryTerry wrote: »

Wibbs will be along in a minute for a long winded lecture about how his culture is superior to others and everyone will seal clap along like little *****.

I like Wibbs. Even though I often disagree with him.

I also like people who've stuck it out under the same username for many years, there's something sincere about that, dont you think ?

I've had various usernames over the years (Later11, Later12--wild imagination, I have), and I reckon most users here have actually been here for a long time, but also decided to take a break from the site for whatever reason.

I reckon it was a mistake to allow users to delete their profiles, although it was probably implemented for Data Protection reasons - and so, the site probably had no choice. It's led to users being somewhat transient, and usernames being somewhat disposable, which has certainly diminished the overall quality of discourse here.

Sam Quentin

VeryTerry wrote: »

Some of us have been here for over a decade under various usernames. Personally I was here for the Phantom fm sub forum, some were here for Quake or whatever.

Now it's full of reregs and extremists. It's a done duck as far as I can see. Full of people on the wind up.

I heard you're an EXTREME re-reger.
Would that be true!?

Checkmate19

WHY

Omackeral

VeryTerry wrote: »

It's a done duck as far as I can see.

Then leave. Plenty of other places to go that might suit you better.

The irony of calling out re-regs is startling when the rest of your post is taken into account. Also, did you just create this thread to have a go at Wibbs? Seems you couldn't wait to name drop him. In a thread complaining about "extremists", you pick out a very reasonable poster. It's all a bit sad and bitter.

EL_Loco

who types anymore? Forums? Whut? Is it 1999 or somethin?

Wibbs is my spirit animal. If I didn't know better, I'd assume he's my sober self posting.

VeryTerry

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

I like Wibbs. Even though I often disagree with him.

I also like people who've stuck it out under the same username for many years, there's something sincere about that, dont you think ?

I've had various usernames over the years (Later11, Later12--wild imagination, I have), and I reckon most users here have actually been here for a long time, but also decided to take a break from the site for whatever reason.

I reckon it was a mistake to allow users to delete their profiles, although it was probably implemented for Data Protection reasons - and so, the site probably had no choice. It's led to users being somewhat transient, and usernames being somewhat disposable, which has certainly diminished the overall quality of discourse here.

You might be right.

Sam Quentin wrote: »

I heard you're an EXTREME re-reger.
Would that be true!?

Yeah, over the last almost 20 years I've had a few accounts. No one is still on their first account


Anyway it's a troll fest these days and I'm out.

Necro

VeryTerry wrote: »

Yeah, over the last almost 20 years I've had a few accounts. No one is still on their first account


Anyway it's a troll fest these days and I'm out.

I am, see no need to change.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out though.

Not only do I just use this account, everyone knows it. My brother, girlfriend, and many friends can check in and see whatever scutter I happen to posting on a given day. If they don't like it, not my problem.

Edit: That's a lie. I have my Cato the Elder account.

Kermit.de.frog

I still have my Ads by Google and DeVore accounts.

DEFTLEFTHAND

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

I like Wibbs. Even though I often disagree with him.

I also like people who've stuck it out under the same username for many years, there's something sincere about that, dont you think ?

I've had various usernames over the years (Later11, Later12--wild imagination, I have), and I reckon most users here have actually been here for a long time, but also decided to take a break from the site for whatever reason.

I reckon it was a mistake to allow users to delete their profiles, although it was probably implemented for Data Protection reasons - and so, the site probably had no choice. It's led to users being somewhat transient, and usernames being somewhat disposable, which has certainly diminished the overall quality of discourse here.

I knew it. I used to observe the Thunduerdome yrs back when you were posting under later10. They used to call you LT.


You were posting with some heavy hitters , Degsy, CD and those east Galway gobs Bantum, Serge and Crown.


As a fellow Tipp man I was always pulling for you.

Omackeral

VeryTerry wrote: »

No one is still on their first account

Except for all the people that are.

VeryTerry wrote: »

Anyway it's a troll fest these days and I'm out.

kneemos

VeryTerry wrote: »

Some of us have been here for over a decade under various usernames. Personally I was here for the Phantom fm sub forum, some were here for Quake or whatever.

Now it's full of reregs and extremists. It's a done duck as far as I can see. Full of people on the wind up.

So obsessed with not offending anyone means the crazies can't be called out for what they are.

The level of dialogue is embarrassing.

Irish Guitarist

Complicit in what? People signing up to abuse someone?

When you spend all your energy arguing with someone over a load of nonsense and picking every word of their post apart you're letting everyone know you're easily riled. That's almost guaranteed to have someone sign up under a new name just to type abuse at you.

JohnnyFlash

Standard Friday night moralising and quit. He’ll be back. Whoever he was.

Giveaway

I suspect Wibbs is a national director of elections for a major political party and his posts are well crafted means of guaging support for certain stances amongst the electorate. If anybody wants to post Quimby polling the electorate meme please go ahead because i dont know how

Wibbs

Giveaway wrote: »

I suspect Wibbs is a national director of elections for a major political party and his posts are well crafted means of guaging support for certain stances amongst the electorate.

Finally, I'm appreciated for all the work I do...

super_furry

There feels like there's been a concerted effort on After Hours to spread an American style alt-right agenda by a seemingly constant stream of brand new accounts over the last year or so.

It's something I don't really ever see reflected in Irish society or even in other Irish online communities like Reddit.

The J Stands for Jay

VeryTerry wrote: »

You might be right.



Yeah, over the last almost 20 years I've had a few accounts. No one is still on their first account


Anyway it's a troll fest these days and I'm out.

I'm still on my first account. I was a lurker before that.

biko

VeryTerry wrote: »

Some of us have been here for over a decade under various usernames.

Now it's full of reregs

I think you answered your own question

Wibbs

super_furry wrote: »

There feels like there's been a concerted effort on After Hours to spread an American style alt-right agenda by a seemingly constant stream of brand new accounts over the last year or so.

It's something I don't really ever see reflected in Irish society or even in other Irish online communities like Reddit.

Oh it's out there S, but I'd say Boards gets the more Yank style stuff* you describe because it's been long seen as a very left leaning "liberal" site, so that will attract dissenting voices and those dissenting voices will be pointed at as a "sign" the site is going one way or t'other. And there's evidence for that, just as there's evidence for the right wing stuff. Which over time suggests it's neither to any great degree. If I had to pin it down I'd say over the years it's broadly centrist with some scattered patches of left and right. I'd reckon as the demographics of the place age, those who pick a "side" tend to be pickled in it and less likely to sway from it as the ageing mind tends to lose plasticity and prefers the comfortable.

Other online communities are not so much forums anymore, so tend to reflect the views of the majority of whatever community it is and dissenting voices either don't get invited in, or get downvoted so are less likely to be read.




*American style is evident not just with the alt right types, the "liberal" type parrot it just as accurately. And irritatingly. IF anything they were at it first. The imported alt right stuff is more recent. Then again the rise of the right in public anyway is more recent.

Unearthly

Strange thread.

Always wondered why people felt they were important enough to announce their account closure

Ger Roe

"Originally Posted by VeryTerry View Post


Yeah, over the last almost 20 years I've had a few accounts. No one is still on their first account


Anyway it's a troll fest these days and I'm out."


Still on my first account and still operating to a simple principle :
I only view and contribute to something that I actually want to have an input into and I don't post anything I won't stand over.

It's too easy to wind people up these days and it's more interesting to actually make honest contributions to what are essentially debates written line by line. Boards has also been a great source of advice on some of my technical interests over the years, so if you actively avoid the troll subjects and contributors, you can still live a happy boards life.

biko

OP has left the building but will rereg soon, and thus become part what he described as a problem.

emo72

If the left wasnt so overbearingly pontificating these days there would be no right.

The left is even pushing lefties to the right.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day everybody!

Oafley Jones

The politics forum is a waste for the most part. Interesting topics are buried with pages after pages of posters responding to the same old bollox from reregs. As I’ve pointed out a few times, new accounts can’t post rubbish about Liverpool, Man U etc on the soccer forum, but spreading toxic ideological ****e on politics is grand. There seems to be zero desire to counter it.

Shefwedfan

Who ever came up with the idea of Thanks should be banned for life from boards

corks finest

TBH you're always going to get a dolly mixture of ppl on a forum such as this( ignore function needed) but personally I find boards informative- interesting- great craic at times,and v helpful

RandomName2

VeryTerry wrote: »

Some of us have been here for over a decade under various usernames. Personally I was here for the Phantom fm sub forum, some were here for Quake or whatever.

Now it's full of reregs and extremists. It's a done duck as far as I can see. Full of people on the wind up.

You're being a bit hard on yourself OP. There's no evidence that you're an extremist

corks finest

corks finest wrote: »

TBH you're always going to get a dolly mixture of ppl on a forum such as this( ignore function needed) but personally I find boards informative- interesting- great craic at times,and v helpful

There is an ignore function for posters.

corks finest

Oafley Jones wrote:

The politics forum is a waste for the most part. Interesting topics are buried with pages after pages of posters responding to the same old bollox from reregs. As I’ve pointed out a few times, new accounts can’t post rubbish about Liverpool, Man U etc on the soccer forum, but spreading toxic ideological ****e on politics is grand. There seems to be zero desire to counter it.

Called democracy

nozzferrahhtoo

Unearthly wrote: »

Strange thread.

Always wondered why people felt they were important enough to announce their account closure

There is a word for it. And some Chat Forums even have a whole culture around it and being highly amused by it.

Checkmate19

Forums wont exist in a couple of years as it will take to many mods to police as you wont be able to say anything. It's like comedy. The reason its gone **** is people take offence to easily nowadays. The minute you mention anything wayward someone finds offence and your gone. There is going to be little point for board's etc in a few years as your going to have one giant mod just in case of getting sued. The way the world is going.

hatrickpatrick

emo72 wrote: »

If the left wasnt so overbearingly pontificating these days there would be no right.

The left is even pushing lefties to the right.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day everybody!

I've always been a leftie, even far leftie tbh (check my posting history as far back as the late 2000s if ye want evidence) but I completely and totally agree with this statement. The alt-left as I like to call it, or the SJW-left as it's often described, adopted an extremely toxic "you either agree with us 100% or you're a worthless subhuman piece of sh!t" attitude towards political opposition, and the utter intolerance of dissent is so infuriatingly arrogant that many former lefties I know now identify as conservative. To take one ludicrous example, in the 1990s and the 2000s, the left advocated for unfettered free speech while the right opposed it on religions / family / sexual morality grounds, and since the early 2010s, this has flipped around entirely, with the left now supporting large scale censorship and promoting the idea that "wrongthink" is an actual thing that exists and should be punished, while the right now cries for freedom of expression as they are currently the ones being denied it.

I've probably posted this anecdote too often, but I predicted the victory of both Brexit and Trump long before either was taken seriously as a realistic possibility by the media (we're talking Autumn 2015 or even earlier) - solely on the grounds that the mainstream left had no actual positive arguments in favour of either Remain or Clinton respectively, it was just "do what we tell you, or it means you're a geriatric, racist, uneducated, ignorant and worthless human being". In my view, nothing exemplified how much the mainstream left lost touch with political freedom than all the commentary on social media the day after Brexit passed, blaming the Boomer generation and actually suggesting that "there should be an upper age limit to vote in referenda because old people won't live long enough to suffer the consequences" and other such vile "we lost and didn't have a majority, so let's change the rules to make sure we win next time even if we still don't have a majority" bullsh!t.

It really saddens me that this is how everything has ended up. I hate the fact that I have to come across as constantly taking the side of the alt-right just because it's become so unthinkable to suggest that they are entitled to set out their stall and express their political beliefs without consequence or persecution, just like everyone else. That should be an extremely basic tenet of a democratic society, not a controversial notion which results in drama and accusations of actually supporting the views one merely defends the right of others to hold.

The funny thing is, this is often dismissed as "ah you're just getting more conservative as you're getting older" but it's not the case, as the content of my (and other lefties in a similar position) beliefs hasn't actually changed at all. The only thing that's changed is the political alignment of those views - what used to be endorsed by the left and attacked by the right is now attacked by the left and endorsed by the right. And that's bizarre.

Dial Hard

Deleted User wrote:

There is an ignore function for posters.

Doesn't work on the app, unfortunately.

I can kind of see some of the OP's point; Boards definitely isn't what it used to be and re-reg trolls are a huge issue, imo. Don't agree that we're all hiding behind various name changes, though. I'm here well over ten years and this is only my second account. And the only reason I closed my original one is that someone in my job at the time recognised me and caused quite a bit of trouble for me.

A lot of the forums are dying on their feet but I'm not really sure what can be done about it, tbh. The re-regs generally aren't a problem in the quieter forums, people just aren't visiting the site/posting anymore. I think loads of people just never came back after the DDoS attack a few years ago.

Kivaro

Omackeral wrote: »

Then leave. Plenty of other places to go that might suit you better.

The irony of calling out re-regs is startling when the rest of your post is taken into account. Also, did you just create this thread to have a go at Wibbs? Seems you couldn't wait to name drop him. In a thread complaining about "extremists", you pick out a very reasonable poster. It's all a bit sad and bitter.

I do not believe that the thread was created to have a go at Wibbs. To me it smacked of an extremist on the left trying to lay some blame on Boards.ie for what happened in New Zealand. It's the usual innuendo that the OP and other extreme leftists try to do. Dav3 is another example of a poster using this tactic when he made veiled threats against Boards administrators and mods for allowing contentious topics to be discussed.

I call posters like VeryTerry, Dav3 and the rest of that clique extremists because they absolutely HATE the fact that we have an opportunity to express a view that is contrary to their stance on social/political issues. They want to completely shut down any conversations that may question the rationale of left-oriented policies. The Irish media, and especially RTE and the Irish Times have collectively made it impossible for the populace to express views that is not consistent with leftist ideologies.

So yes, Boards.ie is complicit in giving all of us a voice, but Boards.ie is not complicit in what happened in New Zealand.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

VeryTerry wrote: »

Wibbs will be along in a minute for a long winded lecture about how his culture is superior to others and everyone will seal clap along like little *****.

That sums up much of what is wrong here. Not Wibbs, but you calling him out so you can have a moan about nothing.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

VeryTerry wrote: »

. No one is still on their first account
.

You're more than a little wrong with that assertion.

dav3

People calling out other people who haven't even posted in a thread is cowardly. It's goading, it's baiting, it's harassment and it is something that is continually allowed without any clear moderation or guidelines. So for something like the above, the moderators are 100% complicit, it's something that is starting to get out of control.

For most things though, the issues don't lie with the moderators, but the people actually running the website. If these people aren't open to change or accepting feedback, there's not much future for them.

Wibbs

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I've always been a leftie, even far leftie tbh (check my posting history as far back as the late 2000s if ye want evidence) but I completely and totally agree with this statement. The alt-left as I like to call it, or the SJW-left as it's often described, adopted an extremely toxic "you either agree with us 100% or you're a worthless subhuman piece of sh!t" attitude towards political opposition, and the utter intolerance of dissent is so infuriatingly arrogant that many former lefties I know now identify as conservative. To take one ludicrous example, in the 1990s and the 2000s, the left advocated for unfettered free speech while the right opposed it on religions / family / sexual morality grounds, and since the early 2010s, this has flipped around entirely, with the left now supporting large scale censorship and promoting the idea that "wrongthink" is an actual thing that exists and should be punished, while the right now cries for freedom of expression as they are currently the ones being denied it.

If I could thank your post more than once I would HP. Nails a helluva lot of how I feel about the subject. Particularly the above part. Wrongthink is very much in play and like you note very much a reversal of previous.

Though that's almost always the case historically when any ideology that starts off in the minority gains the upper hand. It initially fights for the right for all ideologies to be heard, "free speech" and all that, hoping and counting on a rising tide that floats their boat that little bit higher in the water, but once it is heard and it gets comfortable in the conviction it is the only "right thinking" way, it then fights for the suppression of contrary voices. Until the next ideology comes along and they never comprehend that they become the midwife for that next ideology. They don't even spot the labour pangs. Rinse and repeat.

I wouldn't describe myself as a "leftie", but I'm not a "righty" either. For the most part a centrist with Left leanings, but with a particular distrust bordering on antagonism towards identity politics and a major distrust of so called libertarianism imported from the US.

Fifty grades of shay.

Wibbs wrote: »

If I could thank your post more than once I would HP. Nails a helluva lot of how I feel about the subject. Particularly the above part. Wrongthink is very much in play and like you note very much a reversal of previous.

Though that's almost always the case historically when any ideology that starts off in the minority gains the upper hand. It initially fights for the right for all ideologies to be heard, "free speech" and all that, hoping and counting on a rising tide that floats their boat that little bit higher in the water, but once it is heard and it gets comfortable in the conviction it is the only "right thinking" way, it then fights for the suppression of contrary voices. Until the next ideology comes along and they never comprehend that they become the midwife for that next ideology. They don't even spot the labour pangs. Rinse and repeat.

I wouldn't describe myself as a "leftie", but I'm not a "righty" either. For the most part a centrist with Left leanings, but with a particular distrust bordering on antagonism towards identity politics and a major distrust of so called libertarianism imported from the US.

Holy moly, you're a Fianna Failer!
Edit, and maybe a Catholic too.

Wibbs

dav3 wrote: »

For most things though, the issues don't lie with the moderators, but the people actually running the website. If these people aren't open to change or accepting feedback, there's not much future for them.

**[Translation]** Change and feedback that suits you. The site has had many changes and the vast bulk of them came from feedback from the users. Just because you don't like some of them, doesn't negate that. Though down the years I've noted both as a user and a mod of a few forums, no matter what direction you take you will never please a small cohort of people, even if you accede to their feedback and change things to their way.

Tacklebox

I'm just an observer, who uses his vote to get an extra tenner in his pocket.
Survival of the fittest.
Living from day to day.

Politics, religion and sociology ain't my thing.

Sorry I hope I'm not derailing the thread I was responding to political leanings...