[spireitetoo]

Quaker, on 06 February 2024 - 04:12 PM, said:

Yes, I am a hypocrite, I admit that I do post on there, "always posting stuff" is a bit of a stretch though. I also take holidays from it, just like you.

I dont think its relevent on a messageboard dedicated to a football club. There are hundreds of "political" forums on the web, all there for people to use to their hearts content and lets be honest, the personnel section on this messageboard is more like a political section. Its a political soapbox for a number of people.

Why would it spread to the main board if we didn't have it? Do you think people are not capable of restraint.

Maybe do a democratic poll asking if people want a politics section or not and go with that?

It's not just a politics thread tho, there's the places to eat, the TV/programmes, music threads that are also used regularly, plus many other different non football related things go in there, many of the other threads I've looked at have a non football section, that's all that it needs to be called rather than 'personal'

[frearsghost]

Quaker, on 06 February 2024 - 04:12 PM, said:

Yes, I am a hypocrite, I admit that I do post on there, "always posting stuff" is a bit of a stretch though. I also take holidays from it, just like you.

I dont think its relevent on a messageboard dedicated to a football club. There are hundreds of "political" forums on the web, all there for people to use to their hearts content and lets be honest, the personnel section on this messageboard is more like a political section. Its a political soapbox for a number of people.

Why would it spread to the main board if we didn't have it? Do you think people are not capable of restraint.

Maybe do a democratic poll asking if people want a politics section or not and go with that?

For what its worth, I'll go with the majority but my preference is football only because the personal's section has long been highjacked by political activists and has become toxic. A fresh start is needed. The 'in memoriam' is a great idea. Good moderation would ensure a more pleasant place for discussion.

[calvin plummers socks]

Quaker, on 06 February 2024 - 05:18 PM, said:

I like to use the Where to eat thread but the section is overshadowed by politics 100%.

I can choose not to look at the political bickering and mostly that’s what I do but we have people who solely use the message board to push their political agenda with an occasional meander into football.

Gee the irony

[dart in the crossbar]

frearsghost, on 06 February 2024 - 05:20 PM, said:

For what its worth, I'll go with the majority but my preference is football only because the personal's section has long been highjacked by political activists and has become toxic. A fresh start is needed. The 'in memoriam' is a great idea. Good moderation would ensure a more pleasant place for discussion.

I'm ambivalent about the Personal section.

I completely agree with your final sentence. The fairly predictable posts in the Personal section from a fairly regular poster often go way beyond what could be decribed as 'pleasant'.

[The Earl of Chesterfield]

Gotta smile at folk who've played as much a part as anyone in the political posturing once more adopting a pious position over others.

But all this bottoms out at one simple question: do we have maybe half a dozen people prepared to administer and moderate a new forum?

Our friend 'Azul' has showed how easy it is to set one up whilst money isn't the problem. So hopefully the six souls in question will step up.

For what it's worth, and whilst I've not always agreed with every decision, 'Moondog' and Co seem you've got things more or less okay.

Besides, it's pretty clear to me: post a set of easily understandable lines-in-the-sand (racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, etc, etc, etc) and apply them to all. Then anyone who doesn't wanna get involved in any particular exchange, just don't get involved...

[dart in the crossbar]

The Earl of Chesterfield, on 06 February 2024 - 08:44 PM, said:

Gotta smile at folk who've played as much a part as anyone in the political posturing once more adopting a pious position over others.

But all this bottoms out at one simple question: do we have maybe half a dozen people prepared to administer and moderate a new forum?

Our friend 'Azul' has showed how easy it is to set one up whilst money isn't the problem. So hopefully the six souls in question will step up.

For what it's worth, and whilst I've not always agreed with every decision, 'Moondog' and Co seem you've got things more or less okay.

Besides, it's pretty clear to me: post a set of easily understandable lines-in-the-sand (racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, etc, etc, etc) and apply them to all. Then anyone who doesn't wanna get involved in any particular exchange, just don't get involved...

Was that aimed at me?

[Mr Mercury]

The Earl of Chesterfield, on 06 February 2024 - 08:44 PM, said:

Gotta smile at folk who've played as much a part as anyone in the political posturing once more adopting a pious position over others.

But all this bottoms out at one simple question: do we have maybe half a dozen people prepared to administer and moderate a new forum?

Our friend 'Azul' has showed how easy it is to set one up whilst money isn't the problem. So hopefully the six souls in question will step up.

For what it's worth, and whilst I've not always agreed with every decision, 'Moondog' and Co seem you've got things more or less okay.

Besides, it's pretty clear to me: post a set of easily understandable lines-in-the-sand (racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, etc, etc, etc) and apply them to all. Then anyone who doesn't wanna get involved in any particular exchange, just don't get involved...

Who decides the lines in the sand? Because it’s obvious your lines in the sand are different from others, so who’s to say whos lines are right?

[Andy Spireite]

Ffs, can we work on securing the forum without the petty squabbling?

[The Earl of Chesterfield]

dart in the crossbar, on 06 February 2024 - 08:55 PM, said:

Was that aimed at me?

No, mate...

[moondog]

Webster, on 06 February 2024 - 08:53 AM, said:

The update

As it stands we could continue as is with the fundingin place but this board version is in much need of some TLC / upgrade which due to various reasons i dont have the time to do currently

The CFSS as an entity no longer exists so who actually owns this im more of a caretaker so i new domain name would be good

I personally think a new start would be best and that needs to be up and running by June with a new andn perhaps some old names running it

I agree Rich, the board needs an upgrade, but to lose 20 years of social commentary about our club would be a crying shame, I hope we can find a solution that saves the board but repairs the many faults and bugs maybe we can get fujitsu on the job, but in all seriousness is there someone out there who can have a proper look into this ?

[azul]

moondog, on 06 February 2024 - 10:36 PM, said:

I agree Rich, the board needs an upgrade, but to lose 20 years of social commentary about our club would be a crying shame, I hope we can find a solution that saves the board but repairs the many faults and bugs maybe we can get fujitsu on the job, but in all seriousness is there someone out there who can have a proper look into this ?

What will actually happen to this board come June, will it disappear into the ether, will it disappear into the ether at unspecified later date or will it remain unsupported until it dies or will it be read only, or……..

[azul]

Andy Spireite, on 06 February 2024 - 09:09 PM, said:

Ffs, can we work on securing the forum without the petty squabbling?

Too much waffling about the future of the personal section when we don’t seem to have a solution to the main problem - it’s exasperating

[moondog]

azul, on 06 February 2024 - 10:50 PM, said:

What will actually happen to this board come June, will it disappear into the ether, will it disappear into the ether at unspecified later date or will it remain unsupported until it dies or will it be read only, or……..

I don't know, depends on the hosts attitude to it not being funded, something to look into as part of the decision making process

[Wooden Spoon]

Maybe a new board is needed. A fresh start.

You see some people posting things that are offensive and being banned/moderated and others seemingly getting away Scott free.


You see some people on genuine wind ups/trolling being banned, while others almost encouraged by moderators.


Too many “cliques” and personal friendships influencing moderation on this board - a new start, a clean slate is most definitely needed and the free options out there, with no broken or clunky links seems to be a No brainer.



I’d suggest also a set of rules, that are not subjective be applied across the board to everyone, posters, moderators, everyone. So no personal issues/mates/opinions apply.


Cross the line you get a yellow card. Cross it twice you get a red and a three game ban.


We don’t have that, we have a quango who’s personal friends and opinions decide what is worthy of not


The sock puppet and his master have gone. Bobs board played its part in that. Times have now moved on. The police are no longer needed.


In future if we had a similar situation then I’m sure folk would step up the plate, as they did prior to bobs board in the BD era.


New start needed for a new era of EFL Footy

This post has been edited by Wooden Spoon: 07 February 2024 - 01:17 AM

[azul]

Wooden Spoon, on 07 February 2024 - 01:00 AM, said:

Maybe a new board is needed. A fresh start.

You see some people posting things that are offensive and being banned/moderated and others seemingly getting away Scott free.


You see some people on genuine wind ups/trolling being banned, while others almost encouraged by moderators.


Too many “cliques” and personal friendships influencing moderation on this board - a new start, a clean slate is most definitely needed and the free options out there, with no broken or clunky links seems to be a No brainer.



I’d suggest also a set of rules, that are not subjective be applied across the board to everyone, posters, moderators, everyone. So no personal issues/mates/opinions apply.


Cross the line you get a yellow card. Cross it twice you get a red and a three game ban.


We don’t have that, we have a quango who’s personal friends and opinions decide what is worthy of not


The sock puppet and his master have gone. Bobs board played its part in that. Times have now moved on. The police are no longer needed.


In future if we had a similar situation then I’m sure folk would step up the plate, as they did prior to bobs board in the BD era.


New start needed for a new era of EFL Footy

You clearly have an issue with the moderation on this forum but without getting into spat there are a few of things that intrigue me about this post....

Do "people on genuine wind ups/trolling" actually exist? I thought windups/trolling are by nature anything but genuine.

These cliques you refer to are they cliques of people who know each in the real world, or are they virtual that only live on this message board or a combination of the two?

This Quango you refer to, as far as I am aware a quango is an unelected body. Are you proposing an election of forum administration/moderators?

[Cfc4me]

Firstly, a big thank you to whoever has agreed to sponsor our forum.

Just a few more of my thoughts/things to consider...

Proboards
- Looks good and easy to use and set up, fully managed service so no issues around upgrades etc.
- Quick look on their forum seems to imply that they seem reluctant to give you access to your data if you want to leave. Not a particular problem while ever you stay with them, but worth thinking about for any future forums
- Limit of 50,000 page views per month unless you pay more to remove the adverts. Obviously I don't know what the current stats are but I'd guess we're not far off that. This tally would also include guests/lurkers just browsing. As (hopefully) we make our way up the leagues, chances are this figure will just get higher.

PhpBB
- This is for the admins... It's likely you already have this free forum on the current hosting account, there is a simple install via softaculous. Some instructions can be found at https://www.ukhost4u...ng-softaculous/
- it's well supported, plenty of how-to's on YouTube etc.
- A bit more effort required to set up initially (config / template style etc.)

Invision Power board (current system)
- £150 per year (quoted above) doesn't seem too bad. No idea if this price goes up if you were to upgrade the current version (assuming it's the self hosted one we have), but would mean we get to keep all the topics, users etc. whilst getting some of the current niggles fixed.
- Is the licence fee for a newer version a one-off payment or recurring every year?

Personal section - If we're keeping it, I'd suggest locking it down to a private topic that you need to log on to view, to stop search engines from trawling it. If for example you google 'Bobs board islam', it doesn't show our forum in a particularly good light, and certainly not representative of a football forum.

Finally, if you want to consider any other forum software, there's a decent comparison site at https://www.forummatrix.org/

[azul]

Cfc4me, on 07 February 2024 - 10:10 AM, said:

Firstly, a big thank you to whoever has agreed to sponsor our forum.

Just a few more of my thoughts/things to consider...

Proboards
- Looks good and easy to use and set up, fully managed service so no issues around upgrades etc.
- Quick look on their forum seems to imply that they seem reluctant to give you access to your data if you want to leave. Not a particular problem while ever you stay with them, but worth thinking about for any future forums
- Limit of 50,000 page views per month unless you pay more to remove the adverts. Obviously I don't know what the current stats are but I'd guess we're not far off that. This tally would also include guests/lurkers just browsing. As (hopefully) we make our way up the leagues, chances are this figure will just get higher.

PhpBB
- This is for the admins... It's likely you already have this free forum on the current hosting account, there is a simple install via softaculous. Some instructions can be found at https://www.ukhost4u...ng-softaculous/
- it's well supported, plenty of how-to's on YouTube etc.
- A bit more effort required to set up initially (config / template style etc.)

Invision Power board (current system)
- £150 per year (quoted above) doesn't seem too bad. No idea if this price goes up if you were to upgrade the current version (assuming it's the self hosted one we have), but would mean we get to keep all the topics, users etc. whilst getting some of the current niggles fixed.
- Is the licence fee for a newer version a one-off payment or recurring every year?

Personal section - If we're keeping it, I'd suggest locking it down to a private topic that you need to log on to view, to stop search engines from trawling it. If for example you google 'Bobs board islam', it doesn't show our forum in a particularly good light, and certainly not representative of a football forum.

Finally, if you want to consider any other forum software, there's a decent comparison site at https://www.forummatrix.org/

I can only comment on ProBoards....

Ad-free can be paid monthly (currently 25% off) in tranches, for example 50,000 page views is currently $6/month, 100,000 is $11.50/month, 150,000 is $16.50/month and so on
The can also be paid by one time purchases in tranches of 50,000 without the discount, i.e, 50,000 for $8.
Interesting that the one of purchase can be paid for by any forum member, so it doesn't have to really on admin

There are charges for attachments over and above the default allowance, for example upping the 200MB free allowance to 500MB is $3/month

There are similar changes for storing themes and plugins above the default allowance.

There is a flat charge to link your own URL to the Proboards URL but I assume there is also a charge to whoever supplies the new domain name if that is required.

I think that covers all the likely costs that I can see. Might be interesting to know what the page views on this board is.

edit:
That's a very good point about locking down the Personal section. I notice there is a trend with other football message boards doing that, sometimes the entire message board and not just sub forums.

Just tried that search of yours and it is pretty shocking - more justification for a fresh start - surprised the EDL haven't paid us a visit

This post has been edited by azul: 07 February 2024 - 11:45 AM

[Goku]

Cfc4me, on 07 February 2024 - 10:10 AM, said:

Firstly, a big thank you to whoever has agreed to sponsor our forum.

Just a few more of my thoughts/things to consider...

Proboards
- Looks good and easy to use and set up, fully managed service so no issues around upgrades etc.
- Quick look on their forum seems to imply that they seem reluctant to give you access to your data if you want to leave. Not a particular problem while ever you stay with them, but worth thinking about for any future forums
- Limit of 50,000 page views per month unless you pay more to remove the adverts. Obviously I don't know what the current stats are but I'd guess we're not far off that. This tally would also include guests/lurkers just browsing. As (hopefully) we make our way up the leagues, chances are this figure will just get higher.

PhpBB
- This is for the admins... It's likely you already have this free forum on the current hosting account, there is a simple install via softaculous. Some instructions can be found at https://www.ukhost4u...ng-softaculous/
- it's well supported, plenty of how-to's on YouTube etc.
- A bit more effort required to set up initially (config / template style etc.)

Invision Power board (current system)
- £150 per year (quoted above) doesn't seem too bad. No idea if this price goes up if you were to upgrade the current version (assuming it's the self hosted one we have), but would mean we get to keep all the topics, users etc. whilst getting some of the current niggles fixed.
- Is the licence fee for a newer version a one-off payment or recurring every year?

Personal section - If we're keeping it, I'd suggest locking it down to a private topic that you need to log on to view, to stop search engines from trawling it. If for example you google 'Bobs board islam', it doesn't show our forum in a particularly good light, and certainly not representative of a football forum.

Finally, if you want to consider any other forum software, there's a decent comparison site at https://www.forummatrix.org/

You've said enough for me to think you should be taking the lead on this tbh

[azul]

Goku, on 07 February 2024 - 11:11 AM, said:

You've said enough for me to think you should be taking the lead on this tbh

I think you have hit the nail on the head there! It is probably a lot of work even for someone with decent knowledge to set it up and then keep everyone happy. On here it would be like trying to herd cats.