That board was moderated by snopes (David Mikkelson and most of that time Barbara) with assistance from others, and worked IMO pretty well until he apparently lost interest in it. There was then a considerable stretch of time during which there was effectively no moderation, and requests for anything requiring a mod or admin – including allowing new members to join, resetting lost passwords, and at least one case of a badly needed name change – went unanswered. During this time, not surprisingly, active posting fell off drastically; though the board had remarkably little trouble due to rules not being enforced, possibly in part because new trolls couldn’t join either.
Then we were told that the boards would close briefly while they were migrated to Discourse; and asked for updated contact info so we could be notified of the new location once it was up. And the boards closed down — and never reopened, on Discourse or anywhere else. The archives not only disappeared, they were banned from the Wayback Machine.
There are a number of others here who came over from the snopes boards. There are some references to the whole thing in this thread: Others here from snopes messageboard?
There is I believe a Facebook page. But that’s not remotely the same thing. Some of us tried to get a reddit going; but that format didn’t work for the purpose, and while that still exists last time I looked it hadn’t had any posts for months.
Maybe we could attract more new members by whining more about biased moderation and conservative viewpoints being silenced? Nobody’s ever done that before, so it’s worth a try, right?
That was a blast from the past. I don’t recall when I started or stopped on snopes, but the only names I recognize from that thread are Morrigan and Silas Sparkhammer. I know I posted there a few years before years before I started here, so pre 2002. I can’t remember my user name but when I was there users could change their own name anytime they wanted to. Most people only used it to have special holiday themed names. I don’t recall it being a very busy board, but you could actually read and post to it, unlike the SD, where it took forever for a page to load, if it didn’t time out on you first. I know I left before all the divorce drama, because I just heard about that second hand, probably here.
I’m sure when it happens we will be the last to know. Kind of works that way when you are at the bottom of the ladder. This may be a good time for people to use that download all your posts function that Discourse has.
That had changed by the time I came on; name changes required permission from and action by an admin, IIRC, or at least by a mod; and you had to have a good reason.
I think that’s a good rule; others in a messageboard community should be able to get a sense of who a poster is: how good their knowledge seems to be in particular areas, whether they’ve got a bug about or are touchy about particular topics, etc. Also, if it’s difficult to separate oneself from one’s posting history, that encourages thinking about one’s posts, both in terms of their accuracy and in terms of their jerkiness.
There does need to be some way to change names, because sometimes there is a really good reason.
I would hope we’d at least get some warning. Some places that have shut down have given it. I think it’s highly jerkish not to – although obviously that doesn’t always prevent it from happening.
I’d like to think we’d get a warning if the board would close, but we’ve been shown that Sun-Times really doesn’t give much thought to the board. It would be nice to at least get enough notice that the people who wanted to stay in touch could trade contact info.
The only “name” message boards that shut down that I know of are snopes and IMDB. snopes shut down with no real notice and people still complain about IMDB shutting down, but I don’t know if they gave notice or not.
None of this changes my suggestion about joining up. Snopes clearly can’t run a messageboard - the SD can (the usual grumbles notwithstanding). The SD needs a high-traffic site aligned with its core purpose to attract new members that have an interest in fact-checking and myth-debunking - Snopes is that site.
I get that there are myriad reasons (legal, financial, logistical, etc) why it might not work but it’s not intrinsically a bad idea.
The fashion in which the boards were closed down means that the people involved at the time were untrustworthy in that area, IMO; and not only were unable to run the board any longer (snopes and Barbara had clearly been able to run one successfully for many years) but had no concern for the board members.
If we’d just been told the boards would close on X date and we should salvage anything we wanted to keep and exchange contact info with anyone we didn’t want to lose, and they hadn’t been prevented from the Wayback, I’d feel quite differently about it.
If they didn’t know whether the boards would reopen on Discourse, they could also have said that. We were instead given the impression that it was an ordinary sort of migration, such as had happened before and such as happened here recently in both cases with most info being saved, and that the Discourse boards were basically set to go and would open within a few days.
I’m sorry. It feels weird offering condolences about a message board, but when you get acclimated to something like that and suddenly it’s gone, I imagine it hurts in its own way.
When I was taking my break from here (threeish years) I still dreamed about it. Weird how that stuff stays with you.
I’m not saying we rebrand as the Snopes board. I’m saying there’s a mutually beneficial arrangement to be made while keeping both entities independent.
You’re suggesting we just get them to link to us, with no other connection being made, and their having no control over the board?
If they were paid enough, I suppose they might do it. They’d stopped linking to their own boards quite some time before those boards ended, though, so I doubt they’d link another board entirely for any reason other than being paid to do so.
Yes, with the benefit of them having a de facto board they didn’t have to do anything with. But from what you’re saying, it sounds like they don’t care about having a messageboard of any sort.
If we could raise the money, it might be worth paying them for an ad over there. I just wouldn’t want them to have any control; nor do I think we should ask their advice about anything other than, perhaps, what ads are more successful there.
Imagine how the people feel who spent ten or twenty years here then got banned because they had a bad week or because they just could 't deal with the constant personal attacks and lashed out improperly.
