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Yahoo! Takes Down News Message Boards

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the broken-beyond-repair dept.

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?"

4 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Yahoo - check out Newsvine... by almondjoy · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  2. Many reasons the boards needed an overhaul by beej · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  3. Re:That's pretty accurate... by leland242 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm with you. Anytime I read an article on yahoo that was remotely provocative, I would always check the message boards. I will try, below, to recreate the average thread titles:

    WHERES CINDYBIN http://www.cindybin.com/
    NIGS LOVE CRIME
    IM SHAKING MY BIBLE IN ANGER
    REPUKES SUCK
    LIBTARDS ARE RESPONSIBLE!
    KILL ALL MUSLIMES!!!
    DO YOU SUCK BLACK C@CK?!

    There are some other gems I'm missing, but you get the idea. Always entertaining. Always assured me humanity is doomed.

  4. Re:trolling was the least of their worries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Well I'll be damned - there it is

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3540778.stm

    What a complete twat. Oh, better post anon so he doesn't sue ME!