Just so you know, we have over 1,300 forums – approximately 950 of those are active and 560 of the public ones have had a post/thread in the last 30 days.

With approximately 500 moderators (probably less) we’re averaging around 1 per forum.

The moderators are just users with moderator functionality – everyone seems to have an opinion on the site – me included!

I’m sorry that the site doesn’t suit everyone – I’m sorry that people have been offended by moderator actions, by things that have gone up there, by comments people have made and by things we haven’t done. I’m sorry that there have to be so many rules and I’m sorry that it comes across that all we care about is advertising, visitor numbers and even, as you say Colm “the odd Narcissistical rant here and there.”

All I can do though is work with the others here to continue making the site better for everyone – clearing up the legal implications of what people can post, improving the stability of the site, working with the moderators on if/when/how it’s appropriate to ban someone and then what that member can do to to sort out any issues they have through a cleaner process and better customer service.

We get through each day every post, every email, every member one at a time.

As always, we’re open to helping anyone and everyone who contacts us at hello@boards.ie

Cheers

Darragh

I have never encountered such a concentrated bunch of arseholes in my entire life.

The moderators seem to have an opinion on everything, be that broadband or bouncy castles or personal issues Darragh!!!

Have a look at this> http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055661864What

Are you kidding me?

Why do you have so many moderators anyway? Why so many stupid rules? The site is very badly run. Everything is focused on the moderator and not the user.

All you seem to care about is advertising, visitor figures and giving the odd Narcissistical rant here and there.

Boards.ie does not deserve the business that it is getting at the moment, and time will tell.

Would you care to point out which of my comments are, as you say “smart arsed”?

Darragh

I came across this by accident,i know i’m a bit late coming into this but i thought i would share my thoughts on this subject..i was a member of boards.ie for a brief time,i only joined while looking for fellow musicians to start a band as my own band had split at the time(happily were back on the road)..while i was there i found the admin/moderators to be arseholes and some of the posters not much better…condesending and not half as clever as they think they are as demonstrated by this guy Darraghs smart arsed comments here..i also agree with a lot of the above about trolls and moderators being cosy together and ganging up on people especially new posters…. and whats going to happen to boards eventually..?.. is it will close..why..? because as a previous poster wrote they don’t want to be bothered with or encourage new members…and if i thought that the majority of boards.ie is repesentive of the majority of irish thinking in the 20-40 age bracket then this country would really be fucked….and if i truly believed it was i would get the fuck out but reading other peoples experiences here has made me realise that THEY are the minority..

fair play for starting this as i thought i was the only person who thought that boards.ie was full of shit

Franzoni

I agree with the above poster. Boards.ie has developed into a site that is based around various mods who have tried to create a “cult of personality.”

Good evening Jazzy??

I’d love to be able to respond to these comments if there actually was something I could respond to.

But there isn’t. Feel free to contact me at hello@boards.ie if there actually is anything I can help you with.

If you have a problem with a mod you can report him to….. another mod. (Mods are appointed by other mods, they are chosen because they share their mentality). The chances of a complaint against a mod being taken seriously is …..NIL! So don’t bother, they’ll just invite you into a “help desk” forum where only you and a variety of other MODS can post. They just gang up on you. I suppose it makes them feel big,because I am sure their real lifes are pathetic.

Darragh, you know that there are certain Mods that are just arogant at best.

Of the ones that I know from my dealings over the years, there at least ten mods that disgusting and around a 40 that you SHOULD be paying as they are are class at what they do.

If you say that you don’t know the 10, then I don’t believe you, quite honestly.

Sorry to say that to you Darragh as you seem like a decent sort.

Boards.ie could be soooo much better.

Bring in more Adverts (not tons) if needs be to pay some Mods. Get your appeals process sorted.

At the moment it is ..

PM the Mod (the same one that may have BANNED you for the smallest thing after years of contributing with so much as an infraction.

So you PM the MOD. Then the CAT mod (has a CAT MOD ever overruled a MOD’s decision?).

Well, I have been speaking with Boards.ie users for years and not once have a heard of a CAT MOD tell a MOD they were out of line.

Same with Admin / Help Desk.

Anyone can read this and it is just a joke. Read the archives. Never, not once does Admin say that the MOD overeacted and your ban has been lifted.

What’s more.

Why is the Help Desk restricted? How come only Mod’s and the OP can post?

Of course the answer is obvious. It is because they don’t want another Boards user posting on the thread.

They would much rather slam the ‘complainer’ from both sides and make a fool of them.

Actually, there is one thread on the Help Desk where a bunch of Mods and seasoned After Hours posters make some obscene jokes regarding Madeline McCann.

If you say you don’t know about it then I don’t know what to say.

The best thing you can do for Boards is have different Levels of the complaints procedure.

If all sections know each other then they will inevitably back each other up.

Maybe have a system where when Admin get complaints in the MOD’s name is blocked out so they can deal with the problem by itself with the backslapping.

Thank God Terry is gone from After Hours. The guy was a jerk.

Get rid of the rudeness from Admin. The smartarse answers and replies that people get is a joke.

Also, and most importantly.

GET RID OF THE THANKS BUTTON!!!

People live for it. Post for it, Be cheeky for it. Unsult for It. Belittle for it etc etc.

Do some people do ‘good stuff’ for it? Yes.

Do some people make ‘funny comments’ for it? Sure.

However, these last two will happen anyway as niceness and genuine comedic people cannot surpress these parts of themselves and so they will carry one posting for themselves anyway, rather than the assholes who post for just ‘thanks’.

“Thanks Whores” ruine Boards.ie.

After Hours is the worst of course and ot would be a terrific place to start.

I am fan of Boards.ie and I feel it could be 100 times better. It has so much going for it but it badly needs a purge.

Darragh, can you imagine what Boards would be like without that intimidating element of the ones swinging the ban hammer?

What it would be like without MODs and Seasoned “Thanks Whores”?

Do you ever browse ‘After Hours’?

It’s by far your busiest Forum. It’s the front of house.

Either clean AH up or close it down.

As it is some people seem to get banned for blowing their noses. That’s the problem. Most of the Moderators are unapproachable, and you know it ( or should )

Shifty blogger from Mayo

Thanks very much for your feedback, albeit anonymous. Let me try answer you properly – though you should know that I don’t moderate Boards.ie.

If something is wrong don’t be afraid to admit it, once it is out in the open then work can start on making it right.

There are things “wrong” on Boards.ie. It has stability issues, issues with members trolling and issues with moderators. Some behave, as you say, like assholes. They could be doing things a lot better and sometimes cause more trouble in conversations than the person who had posted it originally.

We are trying to solve this.

We have 550+ volunteers. How do we train them? What do we train them in? Are they open to being trained? Are they in it to help, to have power to act like an asshole or to be seen as an authority or what? Are they doing a good job? This is what we’re working on, one piece at a time.

I wish there was a better answer here that I could give you, but there’s not. We’re doing what we can to help people but there’s a lot of people to help. I can only, literally, do so much.

Boards.ie needs moderators to keep on going, to avoid it turning into a site just full of crap posts, advertising, libellous material and trouble. Say we get rid of a moderator. Who do we replace them with? Who will do that job for free? It’s a huge challenge for our business.

You say you’ve seen injustice on occasion. So have I. And it depresses and frustrates me every time. If it was an employee I’d know what to do. But they’re volunteers. They’re “trying their best” (we hope) so it’s a decision that needs to be made. There’s no easy win here.

If something is wrong don’t be afraid to admit it, once it is out in the open then work can start on making it right.

I’m not once saying that there’s nothing wrong, but here I am, working on how to make it right. Is there more I could be doing?

A lot of the mods are assholes. There are some good ones but a majority are complete tossers.

Have you ever said this ON Boards.ie to the Admins, and pointed out where a moderator is acting like such? Ever dropped the office an email? Ever put YOUR hand up, used your real name and said “I see a problem here, I think you should solve it?”

How do you solve a propble, You said it yourself. “If something is wrong don’t be afraid to admit it, once it is out in the open then work can start on making it right.”

What if I don’t know that it’s wrong?

Grow up Darragh and face it like a man.
A lot of the mods are assholes.
There are some good ones but a majority are complete tossers.

PS I have never been banned myself but have seen injustice on way more than a few occasions.

“Why would I want to smell like a nagger?”

“Yeah I saw one hanging around up by the social welfare office yesterday.

If they don’t sell themselves within 3 months they should be sent back to where they came from imo. ”

infraction for racism
…. full ban for calling a racist an idiot, makes sense(Yes I hold a grudge)

Thanks for taking the time to reply at the weekend, in spite of your previous assertion that you do not work weekends.

I simply laid out the facts, I am sorry if you find that offensive. As for my ‘behaving extremely negatively’ that sounds reasonable – well, without the facts that is.

I am not going to state the facts again and again, while you decide to ignore them again and again. Please re-read my previous posts.

The problem is the moderators, quite clearly, and until the quality of moderation improves I’m happy to frequent more professionally run forums, where I have never had problems like this.

I note your misleading language about me ‘breaking the rules’ and ‘getting caught’. They are catch – phrases, not facts. For anyone reading this, please see previous posts for the facts.

See, I have spoken to the moderators in question. I have a record of all your posts, all the PMs you sent the moderators, all the discussions and all the issues around it.

You yourself have both behaved extremely negatively and blown a matter that could have been resolved simply and easily (as requested initially) right out of all proportion. You broke our rules a number of times, you were caught, treated accordingly but rather than accept or resolved it have tried to turn it to your advantage.

I’m really sorry you see the need for this constant rebuttal and apparent need for the last word. In your case I am more than happy to give that to you.

As I say, sorry things didn’t work out and best of luck in the future.

Best regards

Darragh

A lot to learn.

I don’t quite know what else to say Darragh.

After all that, I don’t either. I invited you to email me on October 30. You still haven’t done so.

If your decision is to stay away from Boards.ie, then so be it. I wish you the very best.

Darragh

I would be happy to keep the correspondence on here, with the continued goodwill of the host. Firstly I can say that I have indeed tried to contact you through boards.ie several times. I used this page to do so: http://boards.ie/contact/?

Regarding my comments about you / my blog, I was mistaken. The blogger in question – Stuart Curry if I recall correctly – appears to have no blog, but rather has linked into yours instead, which lead me to believe that it was your blog. Sorry about that, honest mistake.

To get down to the issue at hand, let me give you a very relevant example or two from the thread which I was banned from, both from a moderator who did a fair bit of trolling and the poster who then got me banned. It’s well worth the read. I will not quote it verbatim, as it is highly libellous.

( poster ) Drummerboy08: ” Remember, this is the same constituency that re-elected a convicted fraudster a few years ago (Mr *******, for those who dont remember).”

Did he get banned for this grave contravention of boards.ie? Hell no!

(moderator) Kbannon: “I don’t think that Mr. ********* was convicted of anything.”

( poster ) Drummerboy08: “Sorry. Post edited. But you know what I mean….”

He reposted the same thing with ‘convicted’ crossed out but ‘fraudster’ still visible. This is about a man who has been publicly vindicated of impropriety. People can draw from that as they wish, but it gives no one the right to call him ‘fraudster’ in public.

This post is still there in the full knowledge of the category moderator. It jumped right off the page to me, such is the libellous nature of it. The same moderator pulled a perfectly reasonable post of mine for fear of ‘libel law’!!!

The problem otherwise Darragh is that there is no point in reporting anything to the moderators when they are friends of some posters. I have absolutely no doubt that past issues ( my posts being deleted because of differences of opinon for example ) marked me out on the threads. Far from helping myself, I think I have in fact helped you a lot – more than is deserved, bearing in mind how I was treated.

In conclusion, it is impossible to correct posters who are good friends. It is also impossible to get people to accept the ‘rules’ when they are completely fluid, depending on who is posting.

Despite being registered since 2004 I only began using boards in the past month or two. In that time the moderators in my field of interest – cars – have removed several of my posts, attempted to humiliate me on threads, and apart from disagreeing with everything I said and then ignoring my responses, banned me!

That doesn’t make for a healthy forum really, does it? If people want to argue with me that’s fine – I love a good debate – but that’s not what happened at any point. In reality it’s more the case that I walked in on a private club and they were hostile. I do not see how I could ( if I wanted to ) help myself against that backdrop.

I don’t quite know what else to say Darragh. At the end of the day I’m not quite ‘gutted’, I’m in no hurry to return to forums which are mismanaged in this way. I would have to go back to what I’ve said before, and that is that my main interest is in discussing cars. As things stand, I’m not finding that opportunity on boards.ie – either banned or not banned. This is much greater than any percieved upset ( clearly on the part of the moderator(s) ) that banning me could cause.

Despite the obvious view ( actions speak louder than words as they say ) of many moderators, the public are not idiots with endless time to write posts that get deleted when in fact in the worst case scenario they may need minor editing. Removing posts is a last resort, and not a first resort as is the case on boards.ie ( to say nothing of banning people on a whim )

Oops. It looks like Darragh has disappeared.

Sorry Tony, but I don’t work weekends. I get to things as I can.

Have you emailed me like I asked you to? It still hasn’t hit mu inbox.

Maybe this is like the time he left a cryptic comment on my blog under the blogger name ‘irishstu’ on the 22nd. of July 2009. I replied and sent him a message asking him to clarify, and heard no more.

You sure that was me, Tony? You really sure? It couldn’t maybe have been Irishstu could it? Who has a blog at http://www.irishstu.com/stublog? Just a thought.

Now, back to the issues. You haven’t emailed me. You haven’t linked me directly to any posts. You haven’t contacted anyone in the office and yet you say we’re not trying to help you?

I’ve read both your blog posts Tony, and in fairness, I don’t think I can help you without you being willing to help yourself. Thanks for the feedback. It will be taken on board.

Kindest regards

Darragh

(hello@boards.ie will get me)

I now see that the moderator who banned me has since been making fun of me on the threads in which I’ve posted, knowing that my right to reply can not be fulfilled.

Sorry Darragh, but your attempt to cast what happens on boards.ie as standalone incidents about which you’re concerned really doesn’t stand up.

To quote a comment on Alexa.com: “The moderators act like 10 year olds and are proud of it”. I agree. The poor moderation is clearly a cultural problem, not the odd mistake here and there as you try to portray it.

I’m sorry to have to say this, and I generally avoid personal references, but as personalities are the order of the day allow me to digress. Most of the moderators on the ‘Motors’ forum seem at best to be trying to impress everyone.

Very little conversation about cars seems to take place, when you actually strip away the banter. Don’t get me wrong, I like banter. It’s just that I also like to talk about cars, which is why I frequent Motoring forums.

During my short time on boards.ie your moderators ignored me, save for coming on here and there to disagree with everything I said.

Indeed the moderator who banned me did this too, and straight after banning me posted a complete contradiction to a previous comment which served to disagree with me.

I don’t think I know it all and I’m sorry if your moderators feel threatened by the fact that I can talk about cars with some knowledge. There’s also more to life than Top Gear.

Top Gear? – well yes, your moderators seem to be trying to develop a personality based on the trio of presenters on same. It’s a great programme, but it’s not meant to be taken THAT seriously!

Thanks for the offer of ‘helping’ me with ‘anything’ Darragh, but I’m afraid there’s nothing you can help me with. I like to discuss cars, so I’ll have to keep on looking.

Regarding my “reason” for being banned, as explained eventually I said to a troller that he was talking “verbal diahorrea”. He was, too. The moderators were watching at the time and should have dealt with it before it reached this point, instead of allowing him to troll.

I notice that I was banned for ‘trolling’ and ‘abusive language’. The trolling is an obvious joke. Regarding “verbal diahorrea” being so abusive, my mistake.

I forgot to use the more common boards.ie language: you don’t seem to mind people being called ‘p***k’ ‘c***’ ‘f****r’ ‘w****r’ ‘b*****d’ ‘p*** Artist’ or ‘kn***er’. You’ve even posted in some of the threads yourself, so I’m sure you’ve noticed.