Boards.ie could be "forced to shut down"

@Sue Ellen I would say that you are spot on.

While I've seen a lot of nonsense go on at Boards and I would not like to see AAM mirror what I've seen there, we're more than a bit OTT here, when it comes moderation, on occasion.

Getting back to the future of Boards, I'm struggling to see it survive, at least in its current form.

They host too many differnt sections, and are essentially a jack of all trades, while being a master of none. That doesn't help when they ask for the financial commitment that is now being sought.

Niche specialisation is the way forward, imho, similar to AAM, but for various other interests...that's worth paying for, imho.
 
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What happens to the archive if boards.ie shuts down ? What happens to all the stuff posted on it down through the years does that all just disappear or is it still searchable?
 
joe sod said:
What happens to the archive if boards.ie shuts down ? What happens to all the stuff posted on it down through the years does that all just disappear or is it still searchable
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That depends on the owners.

I was a member of a forum some years ago that closed down. The owner held onto the database of posts and refused to allow it to be used by anyone (some IT heads were interested in reviving the forum and wanted to include the old data)
 
joe sod said:
does that all just disappear or is it still searchable?
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If nobody archives it and makes it available otherwise then some of the content might end up accessible via the Internet Archive. But that's hit and miss for historical content in my experience.

Internet Archive - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org
And they've had their own struggles to keep operating reliably over the years. E.g.:

The Internet Archive is back as a read-only service after cyberattacks

The Wayback Machine is back online.
www.theverge.com
 
Fortune said:
There was a definite change in the user base to the right once they got up and running again.
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Evidently, beauty is in the eye of the beholder! For me the recent shift to the left has been at an Olympian level .... and, as for the moderating well, the less said the better!
 
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@ClubMan Lots of people pay regular subscriptions for online offerings - video, music, literature, dating services etc.

@Brendan Burgess While the convenience of a single log on can't be ignored, I think the risk of people without a common interest regularly involving themselves in your area of Boards, is a bigger negative (i.e. animal rights supporters becoming involved in a fishing section of Boards, to protest against people killing fish).
 
It's interesting from an project management, business point of view.

There were a litany of issues which alienated the user base and broke a lot of the functionality. Quite the leap of faith looking for subscriptions on the back of their lackluster track record.
 
ClubMan said:
If nobody archives it and makes it available otherwise then some of the content might end up accessible via the Internet Archive. But that's hit and miss for historical content in my experience.
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A lot of the historical stuff is obsolete. Not useful for reference only as time capsule. They broke their own back trying to migrate it. Theres a touch of digital hoarding about it.
 
gipimann said:
was a member of a forum some years ago that closed down. The owner held onto the database of posts and refused to allow it to be used by anyone (some IT heads were interested in reviving the forum and wanted to include the old data)
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the archive of a forum like boards is a record of what people were thinking and talking about since the late 90s, it would be a big loss if that was gone, especially the period upto and after the financial crash. Maybe the era of everything being free on the internet is coming to an end
 
The migration to the new platform broke it. However it is still very useful to me for some topics and it is genuinely Irish. I have just subscribed. I hope it survives but they are not doing a good job of campaigning for it. It was through this thread I learned about the problem as opposed to through boards.

Anyone remember p45.ie? Another good place which collapsed.

We are seeing a lot of enshitification at the moment.
 
Well I’m delighted to hear of the demise of boards. They don’t tolerate certain opinions despite pretending they do. Also it’s way too big.
 
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