Will Boards survive the Covid?

faceman

ReginaldSmythV wrote: »

Done and dusted. Was a fairly obvious and simple remark anyway, and having subscribed in the past myself I found the reply about being able to use mobile payments a valid and useful one. You’d probably need to climb down a bit.

Christmas hugs Reg, Christmas hugs

Discodog

AutoTuning wrote: »

It’s not very obvious though.
Should be made easier & be able to accept ApplePay & GooglePay etc for ease of mobile payment.

I agree. Many of us end up with unused phone credit.

One of the things that is really hurting the site is a a poor mobile experience in this day and age you should have all of the regular site functionality available on mobile devices.

The site needs a complete revamp with a a mobile first experience.

Discodog

Deleted User wrote: »

One of the things that is really hurting the site is a a poor mobile experience in this day and age you should have all of the regular site functionality available on mobile devices.

The site needs a complete revamp with a a mobile first experience.

Years ago I asked why Boards didn't have an app. The reply suggested that Boards new far more about these thing & knew how to provide a mobile experience. I still think that an app could be a good idea.

dxhound2005

AutoTuning wrote: »

If it generates more income then it makes money. Sales-Cost of Sales = Profit. There’s always some degree of overhead in sales.

It’s like all those shops that used to refuse to take cards, forgetting there are also overheads and processing fees to bank cash, and especially large volumes of coins, which many of them happily accepted.

I doubt very much any shop will accept large volumes of coin unless they need for their business. Like you say they would have to pay to bank it, so that would not make sense. By law they only have to accept a maximum of 50 coins in any legal tender transaction.

thesandeman

Discodog wrote: »

Years ago I asked why Boards didn't have an app. The reply suggested that Boards new far more about these thing & knew how to provide a mobile experience. I still think that an app could be a good idea.

They did have an app but it was a disaster.

Discodog

thesandeman wrote: »

They did have an app but it was a disaster.

When? I don't remember it .

thesandeman

Discodog wrote: »

When? I don't remember it .

It's still there but not supported any more.

Ubbquittious

Choosehowevr. wrote: »

That's what I was thinking

I heard they just add a gigabyte of ram when the site crashes

It's actually one of these that goes in


https://ie.rs-online.com/web/p/sram/1511491

Deshawn

Some sort of a bitcoin mining rig powered by"thanks" on posts

Arghus

Bigmac1euro wrote: »

Same. Boards has done a lot for me over the years. And for free. I wouldn’t mind giving back.

I wouldn't be against subscribing in the future, I have subscribed in the past. Boards is a great resource and has given me advice and knowledge, not just entertainment down the years.

I know it's very unlikely to become subscription based over the years, but a long running thread I post in in the podcast forum put me thinking about the nature of this place.

The podcast in question - Second Captains - is subscription based so all the people, or at least the vast majority who post in thread are subscribers to the show and it can't be a coincidence that the thread has remained one of the few to hit 10000 without becoming a cesspit of hot takes, squabbling and re-reg trolls, which is sadly a frequent enough feature of just about every thread with more than a 100 replies in busier parts of the forum. Having that slight barrier to entry keeps the ejitry out and thread is better for it.

I know part of the appeal of boards is the ease of use and the potential variety of users and opinion, but that can work against boards to an extent too. There is so much drivel posted here, WUMs, Edge Lords, re-reg trolls, reactionary hot takes on just about everything - look at that CA forum - it's a horrorshow.

Ubbquittious

Arghus wrote: »

I know part of the appeal of boards is the ease of use and the potential variety of users and opinion, but that can work against boards to an extent too. There is so much drivel posted here, WUMs, Edge Lords, re-reg trolls, reactionary hot takes on just about everything - look at that CA forum - it's a horrorshow.

What are WUMs?

jmcc

Ubbquittious wrote: »

What are WUMs?

Wind-Up Merchants. A staple of any forum site. Some are entertaining and some are not.

Regards...jmcc

coinop

Boards.ie's chronic problems have been well documented over the years so I'll only briefly rehash the main points here. There were originally two main attractions to the site: info and entertainment.

1. Info: This is where Boards carved out an Irish-specific niche that couldn't be found elsewhere on the internet back in the early 2000s and it was hugely successful. What time does the last bus leave Limerick on Friday night? Who are the cheapest barbers in Kilkenny? How do I apply for a job in the Civil Service? Once upon a time you could be guaranteed that someone on Boards would have the answer. This function has been supplanted by sites like Yelp, Google Maps, Facebook and Twitter. Irish cyberspace has grown to the point that we have created our own little communities within the larger sites. Meanwhile the regional/college/hobby specific fora on Boards have fallen into a death spiral and become ghost towns. A passer-by is far less likely to bother asking a question in a forum if the last thread was active in 2011 and it looks like nobody is around to answer.

2. Entertainment: Before social media exploded in popularity in the mid-2000s, Bulletin Boards were a fun place to chat to others, pass the time, and maybe learn something new. Even better, you could chat to other Irish people with common cultural reference points to you, which seemed like an oasis in the Amercanised wider web. This was a time before trigger warnings, micro-aggressions and 52 genders, so you could crack a joke knowing it was all in good fun and nobody's feelings got hurt. Like most of Silicon Valley, sites like Boards were created by apolitical tech bros who enjoyed video games and nerdy pursuits like Dungeons & Dragons. Then the SJWs move in like a virus and take over the host, hijacking someone else's hard work and imposing their vision of justice on the world. (Read up on the Ellen Pao saga and Reddit if you're interested. Too much to go into here.) Trivial bans were handed out which just antagonised the community that made the site so successful. It caused a negative feedback loop where the content creators, who attracted new users to the site with their helpful answers and specialised knowledge, got banned for wrongthink which in turn cause a drop in new users.

I wish the best for Boards as it has its place in Irish internet history and contains a treasure trove of info and insights from the past two decades, but I don't see any future growth potential as the age of the average poster gets increasingly older. Young people are used to freedom of expression on Reddit and Twitter where they can say what they feel. Compare to Boards where each of the 100+ fora have their own set of rules and individual charter (lol) and whether you get banned depends on the mood of the mod overlord that day.

Even worse than the moderators mood, it’s becoming far more common that cards and thread bans are being handed out or held back based on a moderators own views on a particular topic also. That is definitely a road to nowhere fast and the administrators should have moved to stamp it out as soon as it began, not that the disputes or feedback process is any more than a public runaround for a bit of show at this stage.