Can boards.ie be fixed?

Brendan Burgess said:
Are all the forums infected? For example, are the various sports forums full of abuse and do they require moderation?
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The McGregor thread started off as place were only posts worshiping the ground he stood on could be made. I almost got banned by a mod for posting something else about him. Roll on a few years and that mod vanished and it became a thread for discussing his various misdemeanors and court cases. The football forms are supposed to be even worse, but I have no interest in them.

The Bargains and Bargain Chat threads are good and tend to be self policing.
 
I wonder whether restricting posters to a maximum of (say) 20 posts a day might help to reduce the quantity and improve the quality.

I can immediately think of one poster who is living proof of the adage that the more one writes, the less one says. (No guesses please!)
 
Marsupial said:
I wonder whether restricting posters to a maximum of (say) 20 posts a day might help to reduce the quantity and improve the quality.
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Interesting. On Askaboutmoney, I occasionally tell posters that they don't need to reply to every thread and post. And if they are more selective, they will have less risk of breaking the Posting Guidelines.

It would be an interesting fix for boards. Instead of banning people, limit them to 10 posts a week. Mind you, you would get some very long posts. So maybe like Twitter - maximum number of characters per week.
 
Marsupial said:
I wonder whether restricting posters to a maximum of (say) 20 posts a day might help to reduce the quantity and improve the quality.
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I'm doubtful as to whether Vanilla could support it, and really it would need to be for specific forums.
There are laid-back fast-moving threads for e.g. sports events, Liveline or Late Late Show blogging, Eurovision watching that you really wouldn't want to limit.
It may lead to posters opening "sock puppet" accounts.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
I presume bits of it are stil
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I assume the regional ones. Though mine has about 20 posts a year.

Also the personal problems one. Strictly moderated. I'm never in there but I can see the need. No idea if it's busy. Looks like it is.

I'd dip into the the DIY/motoring/EV forums. But theres few incessant disinformation posters there, especially on EVs.

Work and business used to be good. Very little there now except public sector recruitment questions. Technology and development mostly dead for years.

I'm mostly on UK forums for computer and technology information. Theres a little bit of those people who just argue with disinformation creeping in but it's about 5% what Boards has.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
For example, are the various sports forums full of abuse and do they require moderation?
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The soccer forum can be quite toxic but that's the tribal nature of the sport I guess. Mods there are generally okay but do play favourites occasionally. They do an annual feedback thread and engage with it at least

GAA and Rugby top can be a bit toxic due to tribalism too and or rugby it's not as welcoming for the casual fan , but I think that's rugby in general.

Cycling used to attract trolls but think that died down. The cycling advertising section is a bit of a mess now as they had pretty straightforward rules but not sure they're stuck to anymore.

Motoring can be the reverse of cycling too.

All the regional ones are fine and the niche ones.

Current Affairs is the problem child, but it spills out elsewhere as problem posters follow each other around and make a nuisance of themselves. They get carded etc, but they are always allowed back to start all over again
 
Marsupial said:
I wonder whether restricting posters to a maximum of (say) 20 posts a day might help to reduce the quantity and improve the quality.
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Other forums I'm on, do this for new posters. But it would help on Boards. In the past though they've had issues with having multiple accounts and even having a discussion with themselves. They are easy to spot, they'll have the same posting style and exact same mindset set.

I suspect boards traffic is so low now that these incessant posters make the site look busier than it actually is. Helping ad revenue. Removing them might make it a ghost town.

They are in survival mode though. Anything that do might kill it faster. But it's dying anyway.
 
LeopoldGloom said:
All the regional ones are fine and the niche ones.
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AlbacoreA said:
I'm mostly on UK forums for computer and technology information
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These are interesting points.

You don't need an Irish forum to discuss international wars or crypto.

But you do need one to discuss Irish issues - tax, Irish service providers, regional issues.
 
I wasn't aware of the regional ones. Just checked them out and they are not that busy. The less busy a site is, the easier it is to moderate.

Take Sligo. Only a handful of recent posts. I then Googled Sligo Discussion Forum and there are various fora for Sligo GAA, Sligo Heritage, Sligo Arts.
 
So what are/were the big national discussion forums?

Boards.ie
p45.net - gone now. domain available.
Politics.ie
Irish economy.ie
The property pin
askaboutmoney.com



Wasn't there a location based one?

Not forums as such
Reddit
Facebook

more specialist but very big

RollerCoaster Discussions

Rollercoaster Discussion Board
rollercoaster.ie
www.Dublinforum.net but seems to discuss everything
 
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I use boards a lot and I never go into the current affairs or politics forums which seems to be where all the aggro takes place. There are plenty of other forums that are reasonably active with very little moderation required. I've subscribed as I'd be sorry to see it go under.

I notice that most of the people subscribing are referencing the likes of Bargain Alerts, DIY and other useful forums and no-one is subscribing so they can continue arguing with trolls about immigration, maybe they should just shut down the contentious forums.
 
shweeney said:
referencing the likes of Bargain Alerts, DIY and other useful forums and no-one is subscribing so they can continue arguing with trolls about immigration, maybe they should just shut down the contentious forums.
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At the moment, they are relying on the activity on the contentious \ most active forums such as Current Affairs, After Hours, Soccer to drive page views, which gives them revenue via ad eyeballs.
To go down that route, they'd need to adopt a different model, maybe switch to a cheaper hosting platform, one that can be funded by subscribers but will be focused on the 'useful' forums.
 
As a long time boards user there isn't actually much wrong with the majority of the forums on the site. I visit regularly and the majority of threads I read are aggression free and largely self-policing. Gardening, infrastructure, regional, money, food and numerous others are interesting, informative and useful. Some forums do (or did in the past) play a very useful role for example PI, Jobs, IOFFL, LGBTQ etc. While the majority of mods are pretty decent and hard working, there are a few that are quite annoying and frustrating to deal with and come across as being on a bit of a power trip but that's hardly unique to boards. I avoid CA and Sport like the plague (they are as bad as politics.ie at its worst) and only visit AH for a laugh very occasionally and never post there. Overall I enjoy using boards.ie and find it far more agreeable than X and the like.

In terms of fixing it I'm afraid the problems are pretty deep rooted and are largely centred around ownership and direction. The owner(s) don't appear to have a clear idea of what they want or where they are going. Their involvement and interjections are pretty random and inconsistent. The Vanilla debacle should have been put to bed years ago rather than being allowed to drag on and on and on. And there needs to be a viable financial model, be it commercial or not for profit. The handling of the current "save boards" campaign is a case in point. The "launch" was cack handed, I suspect the majority of members aren't even aware that there is a problem, the lack of engagement by the those in control in the poorly named "Important News" and "Subscription" threads borders on disinterested if not disrespectful, they haven't even responded to suggestions such as "can I give more than €50", and they are in danger of burning through whatever goodwill (much of it nostalgic) remains. I have no axes to grind, and I stay far away from the endless whining about Vanilla, Mods etc etc but it really seems to me that someone needs to take boards.ie by the scruff of the neck and shake it into shape. With its large membership, broad scope and accumulated respect it's an invaluable resource and it would be a shame if it were not to survive. I subscribed twice over the weekend, in the hope of making a difference and would happily throw more into the kitty in the hope that it will be there for others in the future if I thought there was some sort of plan and there was a mechanism to do so.
 
Talking about popular forums on boards, the "Russian/Ukraine war" forum would be one of the most popular ones with lots of interesting posts and links to what is really happening there especially as it hasn't been on the mainstream news much in last year with gaza taking up much of the attention. Even if boards has fallen in popularity it still attracts the Russian bots and sympathisers
 
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