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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..
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.
.. 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.
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.
From the Header:
SLASHDOT. NEWS for nerds. Stuff that matters.
Judging from this crowd, (myself included,) it appears you are correct.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
You ever seen a transmission from the British Parliament?
/..
The comparison does a great disservice to
. . . the bathroom walls of the internet.
And I mean that in a good way - enteraining as hell.
What?
I've never seen intelligent conversation on Yahoo's message boards. The yahoos who post there are a step lower than AOLers.
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?