Soccer Feedback Thread 2023

ShamoBuc · 27-06-2023 6:07pm #1

The Soccer Feedback thread for 2023 is now open. The purpose of this thread is for forum members to have an opportunity to provide constructive feedback about the forum and set out how you would like the soccer forum to be improved.

Timeline:

This thread will be locked next Friday week and will be reviewed by the Mods, Cmods and Admins.

Rules:

Trolling, abuse or breaches of the charter in this thread will be an immediate infraction and 2 week ban for anyone who breaches the rules. If you want to post in this thread you are agreeing to accept this rule, we want this thread to run smoothly as its in all your interests.

Couple of basic ground rules before we get going:

(1) This isn't a platform to attack individuals or Moderators. This isn't to turn into a witch hunt against people you don't like. This is your chance to tell us what we should or should not be doing.

(2) If someone makes a point that you don't agree with then either respond in a constructive manner with a decent counter-point or don't respond at all. Attempted witty one liners to undermine an argument are pointless and will not be tolerated. Most of the time you think you're being funny, you're not. If you think it's not a good idea outline reasons why you think it's not going to work instead of dragging the thread wildly off topic.

(3) Please, when you're making a point take a second to THINK about it and make sure it's what you actually want. So make sure when you're asking for something to happen that you realise it's going to effect you too, not just other users.

(4) As usual, we'll be using 'Thanks' to work out what suggestions seem the most supported, so if you agree what someone says thank their post and it gives us a better idea and makes it easier to keep track that trying to add up loads of individual posts. This is your chance to have your say so if you have an issue and you think it needs to be resolved mention it, but please remember this isn't a place to grind your axe, try be constructive in your input.

(5) Let's have a grown up discussion.

Charter Change:

Under the current charter all warnings for a poster since 01/08/2019 are included in the totting up process. We plan on changing this to a rolling two year period instead. That would mean if a poster were warned today, 27/06/3, their record since 27/06/21 would be taken into account when determining if they pick up a ban, rather than going back to 1/8/ 2019.

This change makes moderation easier and makes it easier for posters to clear their name with sustained good behaviour.

It was discussed previously and will take effect once this Feedback thread closes if there are no issues.

Thanks.

martyos121 · 27-06-2023 6:59pm

Apart from the massive drop off in posters and activity since they f**ked the site up, I’d say the soccer forum’s in a really good place. I can’t speak for every thread, but from the ones I’m active in there’s never been less trolling or problematic posters.

While that’s obviously a great thing, the whole place does feel a bit flat and I don’t think it’ll ever recover from the site being destroyed.

Moderation has been silent but effective btw, the way it always should’ve been. Can’t fault it, the best it’s ever been IMO.

Flaneur OBrien · 27-06-2023 8:06pm

I was away for a bit, but are match threads not done anymore? I missed them this season. I can imagine they were a ball ache for mods on some game days, but it often helped pass the time while watching a match that wasn’t living up to its billing.

El Gato De Negocios · 27-06-2023 8:08pm

Aye, nothing more to add really from what MOS has said above. Moderation has been there when required but from what I've seen at least there generally hasn't been much need for it. One of the long term bad actors got his marching orders and tbh, there seems to be little real trolling / needling like there has been over the years, a bit of silliness / over zealousness but nothing out of the ordinary.

Tbh the site in general is circling the drain and having the forum private / invisible to non members isn't helping with user numbers.

Just on that, I dunno has the question ever been asked but is it not possible to change the forum to not private but still restricted (like it used to be) or is it just a lack of functionality that Vanilla has?

TheCitizen · 27-06-2023 8:24pm

I have reported a couple of comments recently as it happens, I'm not in the habit of reporting other posters.

I specifically asked for a reply to those reports but didn't receive one. Instead a general warning was issued to stop talking about Chelsea more or less and then when the new thread opened it came up again and I was named in a general warning to stop talking about Chelsea.

I'd prefer a reply to a post that I have cited, as I say I don't normally do that but when I do I'd like to know why an action has been taken or not taken as the case may be.

Thanks

y0ssar1an22 · 27-06-2023 9:32pm

agree re making the forum public to see. at least using your phone there is a sticky of where to find this forum, on desktop there is nothing - invisible. unless you search of course whereupon you are greeted with loads to nonsense.

the top result as sorted by 'best match' was last updated in 2003 for example. basically if you search for football on this site you would not realise there is a dedicated forum.

at least have the sticky for the forum as top result when you search football or soccer. there must be loads of potential new members being missed cos its made near on impossible to find.

Necro · 27-06-2023 9:43pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120774816#Comment_120774816

Vanilla doesn't offer restricted access forums to the best of my knowledge which is a shame so the options available to admins are the current situation (private group) or an open access forum ala After Hours, Motors etc. I think this was mentioned in last year's thread too.

It is a shame because it somewhat limits the volume of users as you have to somewhat be in the know to a) find the access request thread and then b) figure out where the hell the forum is located (new users wouldn't have a donkeys notion I expect).

An open access forum would probably be a disaster without a significant increase in mod numbers to deal with the obvious problems that would bring (certainly initially).

My own feedback is that things have been great with little to no hassle at all compared to years gone by. Mod involvement is barely noticeable for the most part which is a good indicator of a well run ship so keep it up 😁

bucketybuck · 28-06-2023 1:06am

This is already the same thing as happened in the feedback thread last year, patting yourselves on the back about how smoothly everything is running but really with only token acknowledgement of the fact that the place is dead.

Its easy to keep the floor clean when there is no footfall lads.

Everybody seems to already know it is dead because it is a hidden forum and know that Vanilla doesn't give much options, but at some point something will have to be tried or it will become a total irrelevance altogether.

Really, is a public forum that needs moderation worse than a dead private forum?

Kingp35 · 28-06-2023 9:31am

I have to agree with the above post, yes the forum has very few problem posters and no major trolling issues etc but this is largely down to the fact that there are no new users and the forum is slowly dying with lack of posters.

This is not a good thing and there really needs to be an active push to attract new posters to the forum, even if that does amount to more work for the mods.

It's a bit silly to be congratulating yourselves for a lack of issues when the main issue is being ignored - a lack of posts and new posters.

pjohnson · 28-06-2023 7:22pm

A public link advertising the area would be good.

Unlike other years there actually is a good mod team that would give any wums the boot.

ShamoBuc · 29-06-2023 11:06am

As a site, Boards has gone through a very rough time but seems to have settled where we are at recently. Soccer has nealry 6,800 posters, a few hundred more than the last time I checked I think. The place is certainly quieter than years ago but it tips away nonetheless. Threads may not have hundreds of new posts daily, but when that was the case, sometimes, it would take too long to read all of it anyway and you might just read the Last Page to catch up - don't think it was just me doing that. Maybe it's now more of a case of Quality over Quantity - or not - depending on your viewpoint.

On the Homepage, new users can click on Sports, scroll to Soccer and see how access is given - not too onerous to find and I wouldn't be in favour of just opening it to everyone for obvious reasons. Vanilla certainly has limitations - the search option can be useless in particular, but it's what we have.

Just as an update, there are now only 4 Soccer Mods, artanevilla, dfx-, DM_7 and myself.

artanevilla · 29-06-2023 12:00pm

My own view would be that opening up the forum would actually likely drive users away. You might get more numbers but the regular posters would probably leave. You might get more quantity of posts but quality would suffer. Modding on Vanilla is a different ball game to the old platform as well so it would be much harder to control.

I think the good feedback the mod team gets is down to our user base, it kind of self regulates to a point and even though people are naturally very passionate about this sport, it's quite rare a mod has to step in really.

I do agree it's still quite hard to locate if you don't know where it is. I think it's something that needs to be looked at. If I'm on the homepage and I click Topics>Sports>Soccer I can see how to access. However if I go Categories>Topics>Sports, Soccer is not listed. My natural inclination would be to go the latter route. It might be something we can bring up with the Admin.

Outside of my views as a mod, as I user I think the forum here is, for the most part, one of the better places on social media to discuss football. There's no echo chambers, you are able to challenge others opinions and it's moderated to a point where it's not the wild west like other social media platforms.

LuckyLloyd · 30-06-2023 11:46am

Forum is dying, completely flat with very little cross supporter interaction and debate. Finding myself only coming on here regularly around Ireland matches. Get it out of the Groups section or watch it die.

Brendan Flowers · 06-07-2023 5:56pm

Why is there 2 feedback threads (2022 and 2023) in the Announcements section?

ShamoBuc · 07-07-2023 3:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120814501#Comment_120814501

That should be fixed now.

Making Soccer more visible in particular when using the search function is something we will discuss with Admins.

The Charter will be updated so Warnings will now only go back 2 years on a rolling basis from now on.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Soccer Feedback Thread 2023

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