(Site is a graveyard - How can boards save itself?) Any update?

Firstly, I'll agree the appeals process is convoluted and confusing.

DRP is to dispute official warnings and forums bans etc. Only the OP and mods, cmods and admin are allowed post.

A threadban is not an official ban, you technically can still post on the thread but you've been instructed not to and these are usually appealed via PM with the mod or in Helpdesk. Anyone can post there.

I don't understand the distinction and think the process should be the same for all of these, and that it shouldn't be a free for all.

Feedback - streamline the appeals process, don't allow disputes from a thread that someone has been threadbanned from to continue in the appeal. It's likely done to rile up the OP and make them look unreasonable in some cases.

The ignore list has gone from 50 to 200. I’d suggest using that might be a good decision for some folks. I maintain a short list myself of posters whose inane and witless opinions I simply don’t want to read. Might cut down on reported posts and moderator workload?

Sidebar: why is nearly everyone in 2 groups of registered users now?

Vanilla randomness.

Don't mention the war play

bring back rolleyes! Rolleyeam Walleyes lives on…

There are no dev accounts (to the best of my knowledge).

In Boards.ie's heyday, there were at least three full-time developers. This was on top of non-technical staff like the community managers, and whatever non-frontend facing staff there may have been (accounts? HR?).

Now, there is a total of one, single, non-technical employee (not counting the owner, who doesn't appear to be involved in the day-to-day running). Technical requests either go to Vanilla support (who definitely are not reading anything on Boards.ie, it's just one client among many), or are outsourced to freelancers (who also aren't reading anything on Boards.ie, and may only have the vaguest notion of what Boards.ie is). In the absence of substantial investment, talk of things like overhauling the reporting system are a complete pipe dream.

Things like reviewing charters and the DRP process, items that are under the purview of admins, cmods and mods are at least a little more practical, but again, the numbers of those users are substantially down on what they used to be. Those members are barely treading water as is, and it's more likely that those numbers continue to decrease than recover. Look at CA - there are 9 mods on the mod-list in Help Desk (which would be a not-reasonable number), but a quick look at all nine's post histories tells you that only 4 are actively modding. That's not near enough for the busiest category on the site.

And all of this is happening at a time when social media has become far more adversarial, meaning the workload has not decreased in line with the reduction in users.

You were very against personal abuse earlier in the thread and wanted anyone who thanked such a post to be sanctioned, in your opinion they're dicks. I can post the relevant posts if you like?

Should this not be applied consistently, or should posters that we feel are posting 'toxic content' be open to personal abuse? Who decides what exactly is or isn't toxic?

It's either a consistent rule or ad hoc moderation where some are allowed post personal but others aren't, both can't be applied simultaneously.

Ultimately though the posters must have crossed some lines, or the eventual end result wouldn't have been a site ban.
This is more like a driver with convictions for speeding, drink driving, etc appealing one of those convictions - and the judge took another look at what they had been previously charged with, and instead of overturning the conviction, banned them from driving.

Personal accountability won't make the roads safer, or boards less toxic, if there's a sizable active minority who don't practice it. They have to be held to account, and that can't be done by the userbase or we'd be accused of back seat modding and attacking the poster. That can only come from the application of site moderation, and I doubt I am speaking for myself only when I say strong mod action would have the support of a large number of the most enagaged and long standing users on the site.
I have total respect for the trojan work put in by the mods of CA for example, and the constraints they are under with tools - but that doesn't mean the moderation is as good \ efficient \ consistent as it could be.

Will boards still be here? Isn't that the point of the thread?

Many good posters, posters who contributed positively and rarely troubled the mods, frustrated at what they perceive as toxic content, have taken your advice "go do something else" to its ultimate conclusion… logged off and not come back.

I did see your DRP post. Could not understand it as was not in the original conversation but did see what was happening to you with responses clearly referring to issues somewhere else. It was not ok as I had thought that others were not allowed respond. The issue seemed to be that it was left open for a while so not sure if that is down to availability of mods?