Guidelines to the forum

How To Be A Better Poster

Post in a forum where the subject is relevant.

You should put posts where they belong. A library where people put books in any section they want will soon become unusable. Resist the temptation to say "I'm not going to post in the right forum because more people read THIS forum;” all that will happen is that your topic will immediately go off topic, you will be slated and the moderator will move the post to the right place and probably infract you. You may get fewer responses on the correct forum, but they will be far higher "worth". You want Quality, not quantity.

Contribute in a constructive way.

Nobody is interested in your laser sharp ability to cut someone down. Nobody is interested in the funny thing you cat did, unless it’s a thread on funny things cats do (basically, we mean cut down on the LOLCats). The odd humourous comment thrown into a thread is fine but consistently contributing nothing but noise/negativity is not helpful. One word answers aren’t useful. Please use the "rate thread" feature to vote on a thread instead of jumping in and posting 'this subject is silly and pointless'. If you like what a poster had to say, use the thanks system.

Comment on the post not the poster.

Responding to someone's point with personal attacks, regardless of how "witty" you think they are, is not big or clever. It just comes across, at best, as being an ass and at worst a bully with a small doodah (we mean “mind” of course).

It’s much better to stay on the topic of their post, not on the person who posted it. People will respect you for that, take your opinion more seriously and you put the ball back in their court to answer your points.

Abuse is tantamount to saying "you have beaten me with your argument; I can only resort to name calling".

If someone abuses you, don’t respond in kind. Report the post and a moderator will swing by to review it. Abusing them back simply drops you to their level and will probably get you both infracted and/or banned.

Respect/manners go a long way.

Around these parts, people recognise good contribution. This isn’t YouTube or 4chan (*). Being respectful, mannerly and even occasionally acknowledging that someone has made you consider something in a different light, is going to win friends and influence people a lot more than being yet another rude "anonymous" internet keyboard warrior. No one wants to be around that guy.

* These sites are rife with extremely abusive language and content and that’s not the sort of culture we have or want on boards.ie

You are not anonymous.

This is the greatest myth of the internet. Unless you are fairly technically skilled and go to some lengths, you are by no means anonymous on the internet. If you do something illegal and the police approach us with the correct documentation (usually a court order) we will hand them everything we know about you (as we are required to do under Irish Law). This is not a platform for anonymous defamation. YOU are responsible for what YOU say.

No freedom of speech.

This is a private website. There is no "right" to freedom of speech here. We, the Admins and moderators DO want to promote discussion but FREE un-moderated discussion online turns into a screaming match between children. We believe that rules of etiquette should be applied (see below). Shouting about how we have infringed your "freedom of speech" on a privately owned website is silly. You can use blogger.com to say what YOU like, what you aren’t entitled to is access to the community we have built here without abiding by the community's rules, as decided and enforced by us.

Enjoy yourself and enjoy the site.

Don’t take everything too seriously, so someone on the internet disagrees with you. Ok, *shrug*. You don’t have to argue with them until everyone agrees that you are superior to them you know

These are guidelines for Boards.ie. People might refer to them as "rules" but it is impossible to create a set of "rules" to govern human interaction. These are broad brushstrokes of what we here at Boards want for the part of the internet we call home.

If these aren’t to your liking there are other websites perhaps better suited to your needs and tastes but we believe these form a reasonable, rational, mature basis for adults to chat natter discuss laugh debate joke banter and interact.