Yahoo! Takes Down News Message Boards 135
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?"
I fail to see the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
--Ryv
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Yawhat?
Yawho?
YooHoo?
Nope, never heard of them...
Re:I fail to see the problem. (Score:5, Funny)
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I fail to see how this is "news" (Score:2)
The real reason (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The real reason (Score:4, Insightful)
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If people still use them (and they do, in droves), that's all that would matter to yahoo.
I have a feeling they were worried about being held liable for content/weirdos so they're putting in some sort of automated screener to find questionable content.
Everyone jumped for joy when MySpace was getting sued for the actions of its users. Now other sites have to watch out to protect idiot
It's To Save Money (Score:1)
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entr
Too bad (Score:3, Funny)
Moderation? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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Just did a quick Google - appears to be a quote from Steven Wright. Guess I should cite my source
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For the most part the news boards were filled with vitrolic and vicious post from Dems, Repubs, Christians, Muslims, and racists of every sort. Yahoo never followed their own policy of removal and banning user from the forums.
The only problem I have with user moderation is a gaggle of like minded individuals often act in concert, whether they know it or not, to mod down opposing opinions. For example in this moderated forum anyone posting anything pro Microsoft is usual
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Hang on.. (Score:2, Funny)
Oh, right..
Trolls? (Score:5, Funny)
Translation: we couldn't beat the trolls, so we took down the bridge?
Fark? (Score:2)
Lawyers are lower than trolls by magnitudes... (Score:2)
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*
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Two words (Score:3, Funny)
Welcome to the Lunatic Fringe (Score:5, Funny)
From the Header:
SLASHDOT. NEWS for nerds. Stuff that matters.
Judging from this crowd, (myself included,) it appears you are correct.
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Not necessarily (Score:2)
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
imagine, if you will... (Score:5, Funny)
This is what the Yahoo boards were like. They were worst than useless.
Hmm... (Score:1)
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That's pretty accurate... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Banning by IP is stupid (Score:2)
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
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WHERES CINDYBIN http://www.cindybin.com/ [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.
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The aristocrats!
Mod parent funny (Score:2)
-Eric
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Yahoo Chat rooms were to be redone too (Score:2, Interesting)
After a few months of no action I gave up on them.
Loss of control? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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Hey! Trolling the Microsoft hierarchy is a great idea!
Like the user created chat rooms, never came back (Score:3, Insightful)
True... (Score:1)
REC IF YOU THINK YAHOO MSG BOARDS BLOW CHUNKS! (Score:1, Funny)
Important Stuff Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. U
Good Riddence (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good Riddence (Score:4, Insightful)
Off topic (Score:2)
I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a Dead Milkmen lyric. Just had to give you some props for that.
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I tell you one thing. If those trolls have hit Slashdot exactly they did to Yahoo, CmdrTaco would ask for credit card verification to have account at Slashdot or thousands of IPs would get banned.
Of course yahoo had no responsibility (could implement karma system) but those messages were hosted at
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Never been to usenet, I take it.
Clearly never watched Parliament either.
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I've *never* been to Yahoo! discussion boards. If I wanted meaningless, I'd go to, well, Usenet...
ps- British Parliament is hilarious. Back-benchers make it all worthwhile. Almost like a CNN forum...
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Congress--with a two drink minimum!
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Using Parliament as a measure of civil discourse was a creative move on your part, I'll give you that.
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-Eric
British Parliament (Score:3, Insightful)
The comparison does a great disservice to
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The comparison does a great disservice to
Yeah, I men for a start, most of us here are actually awake!
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read any Hansard [martian.fm] recently ?
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Yahoo - check out Newsvine... (Score:4, Informative)
Newsvine's approach v. Booger throwing (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
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Probably. If you weren't, you might have come up with the more accurate analogy of "feces-flinging monkeys".
Seriously, anybody who thinks Slashdot or even Digg has worthless discussion should go check out Yahoo or Digg or CNN or YouTube [xkcd.com] or anything like that. That's worthless discussion.
If only they had karma (Score:4, Insightful)
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.)
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You know, I keep hearing this repeated over and over again, but I really don't think it's true. There are plenty of examples of contrary views getting modded up highly. For example, the second comment [slashdot.org] on the recent story about how Microsoft is abusing personal data is saying that it's fine what Microsoft is doing. This clearly goes against the slashdot "groupthink" as you call it, and yet it's rated a 5. There are plenty more examples in that story and in nearly every other controversial article.
Though it
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However, in practice most moderators browse at +1 or higher, so it never gets seen again.
Personally, I think if you choose to moderate a discussion, you should be forced to browse that discussion at -1. As it stands, an AC (or even a normal user without a karma bonus) can be completely silenced by one or two people in about 2 seconds.
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Real men read at -1.
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Sorta on-topic I suppose...
Many reasons the boards needed an overhaul (Score:3, Informative)
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.
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Seriously?! These boards must be beyond horrible if being more like Usenet is an improvement!
(Kidding. I actually have plenty of civilized discussions on Usenet)
you know why... (Score:1)
IMHO (Score:1)
Yahoo! News Message Boards Analogy (Score:5, Funny)
Yahoo! News Message Boards were to intelligent discourse as toilet paper is to the great classics from English Literature.
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Sure...
Yahoo! News Message Boards were to intelligent discourse as a rusted out Yugo is to classic collectable luxiury cars.
Hope that helps.
agenda posting (Score:1)
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 th
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i dunno (Score:1)
Profit / Loss (Score:1)
They WANT to alienate their current users (Score:2)
Translation: you are horrible, horrible people. We'll take the discussion forums down for a few months, until all you bigot
is it anything like Usenet .. (Score:2)
Yahoo News Message Boards (Score:2, Funny)
. . . the bathroom walls of the internet.
And I mean that in a good way - enteraining as hell.
It's been gone for awhile (Score:1)
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I thought of them as being like Mos Eisley: (Score:2)
(Well, maybe more of the former than the latter.)
Yahoo still doesn't get 'community' (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
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I will miss some of them (Score:2)
Great! (Score:1)
I'm upset (Score:2)
trolling was the least of their worries (Score:1)
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
This is good news for many of the posters (Score:2)
I hope they take their time. (Score:2)
1. The subject line only flamebaiters. Say the most offensive thing possible in one line and leave.
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
S/N == 0 (Score:2)
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