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Yahoo! Takes Down News Message Boards
hondo77 writes "Yahoo! has taken down their news message boards. According to the message from General Manager Neil Budde, 'Over the next few months, we plan to offer new discussion forums based on topics in the news and incorporating the latest features to foster a better discussion for all of our readers.' Okay, I can understand wanting to fix the boards so they're more useful but to take them down for months before a replacement is released?"
It's Yahoo message boards. I 100% guarantee that anybody smart enough to have an opinion worth considering is not affected in the least by this - so why does it matter?
--Ryv
Let's face it... too much spam and off topic posts are the reasons Yahoo took down the boards, not to improve the board itself.
The boards were pretty much my only reason for visiting Yahoo!
Enjoy Every Sandwich
I've never used their discussion boards (to be honest I rarely use Yahoo). However it sounds to me like they need a system for moderating comments. Perhaps have a few trusted users given this ability.
TFA doesn't say why the current systems has been pulled offline prior to a new system being put into place. I'd hazard a guess though that perhaps they want to start beta-testing various new methods shortly and that would be easier to do with the old method gone.
ACK NAK RST
Before we all jump on the "let's bash Yahoo" bandwagon, why don't we all just sit down and discuss this?
Oh, right..
Yahoo! was awash in nastiness so it was forced to take them down.
Translation: we couldn't beat the trolls, so we took down the bridge?
Lunatic Fringe. It seems only the lunatic fringe are attracted to news message boards. Our local newspapers web site added comments and everytime a hispanic name is mentioned dozens of people would go into rants and start flame wars about illegal aliens.
Read it a bit closer:
Over the next few months, we plan to offer new discussion forums
They plan. That means they do not necessarily have a replacement currently available, or they would use the more definite "we will offer new discussion forums". These might be going away for good and they simply don't want to say so at the moment. Or maybe they've got some vaporware-ish thing they're currently writing, which may or may not materialize.
There is no real indication of these forums coming back in the article, if you read it closely. This might read "We're closing these but don't want to alienate any of our current users."
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
.. Michael Richards, high on drugs, screaming "NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER I HATE NIGGERS" over and over again for hours and hours. Add to that an evangelic Christian screaming "FIND CHRIST" at the top of his lungs, once every 45 minutes precisely. Finally, imagine an overweight 40-year old divorced mother crying and saying "why is everybody so mean".
This is what the Yahoo boards were like. They were worst than useless.
Yahoo said they'd bring back the rooms they deleted last year, except the pedo ones of course.
After a few months of no action I gave up on them.
I never actually participated in their discussion groups. I see it as a case of giving the users too much freedom and the corporate side was taking heat. Maybe the users views did not meet or match those of advertisers/news source/Yahoo in general, or there really was a few jackass trolls ruining it for everyone.
I remember back in early/mid 90's, arguing with some guys on Usenet about commercial postings. Unsolicited messages were not a problem back then but people saw it coming. He claimed that all companies large and small would eventually turn to Usenet because it was free advertising and possibly used for constructive discussions about the company and products. I thought that companies would reject the idea because of the uneasiness of having no control of the feedback and it is there for all to see like it or not. The Microsoft groups are working out well to this day but typically you do not see companies getting involved in any type of forum that they do not control the mute button for. Obviously, Yahoo has the mute button in this situation and they used it.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Yahoo killed those over a year ago and they haven't been brought back, even though they said they would. Yahoo has enough things to worry about, they don't see forums or user chat rooms totally useful.
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EOM
I took a brief look at the Y! message boards once...the incivility of the "discourse" I found there made /. look like the British Parliament.
I agree. In today's market-driven website hub that is Yahoo, the liability of keeping user driven conversation enabled is more trouble than it's worth.
From the Header:
SLASHDOT. NEWS for nerds. Stuff that matters.
Judging from this crowd, (myself included,) it appears you are correct.
With Michael Richards involved, that sounds like the makings for a cable sitcom.
...all the trolls were leaving for digg, anyways...
Newsvine always seems to have a pretty high signal to noise ratio. I'm not at all familiar with how Yahoo's message groups used to work. I can tell you that Newsvine has a very interesting formula going for a user driven interactive news site.
I can tell you that Newsvine has a very interesting formula going for a user driven interactive news site.
I agree. The biggest problem is that the Newsvine community just feels too small. Part of this may be that people who enjoy thoughful, stimulating discussion have already been turned off by discussion boards in general (or are already in Slashdot, of course). While Yahoo! is taking down its boards, look at the absurd comments that permeate C|NET, for example. It's like watching third graders fling boogers at each other.
The real reason more sites don't go to effective moderation systems seems to be they truly want to provoke the most asenine, aggression-inducing responses possible, so as to keep the third graders coming back for more. There may be far more of the booger-flingers out there than there are reasonable people. Then again, it may be that once again the public is being underestimated by the pointy-haired bosses who run sites that provide an outlet for unmoderated booger-flinging. I hope it's the latter, but I fear the former may be true.
BTW, I don't know where the frack the whole booger-throwing theme came from. Am I trippin' on TheraFlu again?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
It's surprising how few sites have a decent rating system, like Slashdot. It certainly helps. (It would help even more if the editors were also rated, of course.)
Or: We can't compete with Fark at its own game, so we're going a whole different direction?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I frequented them quite a bit. It's great to watch some of the interaction that takes place, pretty much 100% of which is wholly predictable. So why play? Same reason people watch sitcoms--when was the last time you were blindsided by a brilliant joke in a sitcom? It's just braindead entertainment. Same with the discussion groups.
But the boards had quite a few usability problems, not the least of which was that there was no way to get a list of your own posts! Going back to check for replies was a nightmare. Ancient posts on a topic were mixed with the new ones. Navigating a large thread was horrible. The list goes on and on.
Why take them down before a replacement was available? I think it was probably due to the huge number of profane and offensive posts. Your (I'm talking to you personally, here) great-grandmother has been turning over in her grave nonstop since Yahoo Discussions came online because the word "fuck" has been uttered an average of 12.3 times per second every instant since then.
If they bring it back, I hope it's a lot more like Usenet. Especially with a killfile. Or at least something with which I can filter out every post containing the string "your an idiot". That should get rid of 50% of the traffic.
one too many posts of "and I for one welcome our..."
Jesus Saves
You forgot about half the posts asking "Why do Libs hate [victim in news story]?" and after someone starts ranting about "Niggers" there's always someone who chimes in about how much their wife loves nigger cock. Oh and 25% of all posts will be typed in all caps, especially the titles so they catch your eye in the message list.
I remember the news stories about Hurricane Katrina where most of the comments were trying to blame the Democrats or the Republicans for what was in reality a weather phenomenon.
The problem isn't that Yahoo's boards "allow a vocal minority to dominate the conversation" it's that anybody with a Yahoo account can participate and everyone can post as many times as they want, and comments are not moderated at all. So the unemployed jackass can dominate a conversation simply by his ability to sit in front of his computer all day and type what he wants.
If Yahoo actually policed its forums at all and (here's where they fell down) booted users they would have far less issues. There is no policing of the forums at all, and everyone knows it. That's why people do what they want. Yahoo I imagine is not willing to ban people by IP or otherwise because they want those users to stay and keep using Yahoo's other services. I have seen quite a few rumblings on those boards (which I do read/post on sometimes for cheap entertainment value) about people who complain about abusive users or the state of disorganization and their complaints are erased by Yahoo's staff. Yahoo seems to be encouraging the flame wars the same way a supermarket tabloid publishes thinly veiled lies about celebrities and sensationalize everything.
In my experience yahoo has always had more spam getting through than other similar sites.
For those who never used the Yahoo! News message boards, here is a simple analogy which explains (without resorting to quoting 99% of the garbage on said boards):
Yahoo! News Message Boards were to intelligent discourse as toilet paper is to the great classics from English Literature.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
There was some speculation that various 'political entities' were paying people small amounts to go on the yahoo news boards and perpetuate this or that agenda. I find it unlikely, but I wonder if anyone knows anything more about that.
One thing that people haven't mentioned here is that the flame wars on yahoo news discussion boards were extremely entertaining and probably more intense than anything i've seen on usenet because of the short delay in the time it would take for a message to post.
And the offtopic discussions were not surprising because there is only so much you can say about something like uncountable civilian deaths in Iraq and the like.
should retreat back under your bridge, you have no place here.
...never used anything other than google groups.
Eclipse PDE and Me
Could it be that the cost to pay someone to moderate the boards started costing more than the ad revenue they brought in? Sounds like they are simply cutting their losses and coming up with a new business model.
Well, he/she can't go back to his/her usual place, as Yahoo! shut off their message boards.
*chuckle* :)
What is really means is we believe that soon we are going to have our 'balls' in a legal vice over what is posted on our boards, so rather than wait for the disaster to happen, we are going to preemptively set up a locked down system requiring verified emails and with unique id's so we can quickly and efficiently surrender that information to the FBI and the Homeland Security Gestapo
*then again I've been accused of being paranoid*
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Does this mean that Web 2.0 is too hard for Yahoo? If they get rid of user content then they will have to admit they are only a Web 1.5 company at best.
You ever seen a transmission from the British Parliament?
/..
The comparison does a great disservice to
Reduce, reuse, cycle
I've often wondered about the psychological state of those who post to news groups. I've not seen Yahoo msg boards but if it is anything like Usenet then it is infested by disturbed individuals who set themselves up as self appointed monitor and post 24/7. Any legimite debate is then totally shouted out of existance by them and their helper trolls. What do the psychiatric profession have to say about people who spend literally years posting abuse to Usenet.
davecb5620@gmail.com
. . . the bathroom walls of the internet.
And I mean that in a good way - enteraining as hell.
What?
I noticed this when I read a news story on Yahoo a few weeks ago. I say good riddance! The last time I looked at the discussion board, it was completely worthless. It was probably a huge waste of disk space. If they bring it back, they need some way to moderate comments and boot abusive users. Personally, I don't see any need for them to bring it back. If I want intelligent messageboard conversation on current events, I usually go to the Fray on Slate.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Given the number of dynamic IP users out there, that's going to lead to
a) people renewing their IP via their cable modem, or hanging up and redialing their dialup ISP;
b) Yahoo banning ISP's;
c) Yahoo reporting people to their ISP.
a) makes the ban useless
b) will inevitably make the boards useless and unpopulated
c) will make ISPs laugh at Yahoo
and I haven't even gotten into anonymizer proxies like boxofprox.com
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Stuart!
I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a Dead Milkmen lyric. Just had to give you some props for that.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
Truly, you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy that shallow into the Internet.
(Well, maybe more of the former than the latter.)
I am SHAKING IN ANGER at ultra liberal Yahoo closing down their message boards. It is no coincidence that right when Nancy Pelosi takes over congress yahoo closes down their boards. That is because liberals HATE free speech. Liberals are the spawn of satan and are TRAITORS to America. Now excuse me while I go defile a liberals salad and run over a liberal Prius in my H2 Hummer!!!
Imaging the above post 100000x and you have the old Yahoo boards. RIP.
The message boards have ALREADY been offline for more than a month. Here's a flash for you: Slashdot is anything BUT timely in the "news" department.\
The irritatingly stupid thing about this is that you and the annoying majority like you read such an assinine comment as "we're doing our best to get them back up" and believe it. You're an idiot, and your mother dresses funny.
As bad as many yahoo boards can be, there are people who hang out there. Yahoo has a long history of arbitrarily and instantly destroying online communities which have many years of history. You can't just re-create a community. Does anyone have a clue at yahoo?
Yahoo did the same thing with the finance message boards a few months ago. With no warning, they forced everyone over to a new user interface that was extremely bad and poorly tested.
It immediately stifled discussion and massive numbers of long time posters fled to alternate services. There are many reasons users camp out on a particular stock message board.. I know folks who have over 10K posts on a single stock board and who have been there for 7 or 8 years. Long time investors, former and current employees and friends and family, the company is local, etc. And, of course, community.. Those communities have value. That yahoo has been unable to preserve them shows just how far they are from monetizing them..
During the transition to the new interface, some message boards were lost in the shuffle. A lot of those people were investors, you know, people with money.. Seems like a pretty good demographic. Does anyone understand business at yahoo? FWIW, yahoo had a terrible quarter shortly after the finance board overhaul. They blamed it on reduced ad views.. Wonder if the reduced finance board traffic was part of that?
I had my dose of "fun" on some of them. The CA board from time to time provided very interesting inside scoop on company reorgs. The SCOX board would make wonderful material for researching about short squeezing & pump'n'dump. I hope the board content is archived somewhere and made available for research and not destroyed.
Now I don't have to read "Bush sucks" vs. "Bush is God" when I want to discuss the news article entitled "New Element Discovered."
Really. They've been down for a while. I first noticed it at least 2 weeks ago I think.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
Honestly, I am. They just pulled the goddamn plug without a replacement. As worthless the boards were concerning my time, I still posted regularly if only for the fact it made me feel better to bitch about something or just make a statement 10 people would read. I'm not sure what "value" the boards had, but they still managed to help me kill an hour or two while being bored out of my mind at work.
the yahoo boards are famous for their trolls but yahoo couldnt care less about them. yahoo possibly incouraged flame wars by posting 'loaded' stories so they would get high click throughs for their ad's.
the main reason yahoo is "improving" their boards (e.g shutting the old filthy ones down) is because a lawyer named Stephen Galton is suing them over the fact he was badmouthed. some think there is some sort of political motive as well.
new boards are available but are filled with spam and it doesnt look like yahoo cares. there is also a way to use the old ones as well but there is no point when there is nobody on them that you can wind up.
Yahoo's traffic has been dropping steadily for almost two years now There's a finite amount of attention span out there.
y =search_engine_comparison
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entr
The Yahoo message boards used to be relatively good probably about 6-7 years ago. Then the trolls started showing up and drove away the good and knowledgeable people who helped out people in the various boards. Various emails for getting rid of troublemakers went unanswered, or they were given ridiculous blocks only to come back with other usernames (anyone remember JAOM?)
Funny..
The overseas Yahoo boards still support chat.
Actually, I find this to be more than a bit ironic.
This "Internet" generation we have now makes me wonder
about the pseudo-techno-public at large, is the population at large just
a mass of hate and fear mongering rioters in stasis?
Are they just venting, waiting for a venue?
We talk about free speech here, but I find much more "Free" in other places.
-Ymmv.
"..requiring verified emails..."
If Yahoo! requires verified e-mails for use of its new&improved message boards, will they count ones ending in "@yahoo.com"?
They're working on the ID problem. Any given Yahoo! ID can be used almost anywhere in their maze of services. (For instance, if you use Yahoo! Messenger, you can get an email account with Yahoo! using the same username almost automatically.)
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Now that the boards are offline for a while maybe some of the posters will start taking their medication. The Yahoo message boards attracted the crazies like a 100W bulb attracts bugs.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
1. The subject line only flamebaiters. Say the most offensive thing possible in one line and leave.
...on and on.
2. The "HOW DARE YOU" right wingers. Usually taking the bait from #1 forming a poorly written 3000 word essay that #1 will never read.
3. The super-christians (Cape included) who capitolize LORD, GOD, WORD, TRUTH. Cherry pick parts they want to argue about from #2.
4. The super-non christians who take every opportunity to tell #3 how silly they are.
5. The Israel/Zionist/N.W.O. connection conspiricy theorists.
That's the only thing I'm going to miss. That when a good story came through it was better than a car crash, it's like watching a motorcycle and a car wreck with a train and then having a helicopter crash into it followed by a jetliner. How can you NOT watch!
Wonder if they'll introduce a moderation and meta moderation system. If they do and then apply for a patent, I'm sure the USPTO will grant it.
[Insert pithy quote here]
The MEDIA doesn't want you to comment on the news. Yahoo was the last bastion for hope until this change came along.
Tell me, what news writer wants people to post and call him out on his lies? Did you ever wonder why other news sites don't let you comment on news articles?
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
and others like it, would smash that "defense" into a million pieces.