The decline of this board and BS in general.

[Dark Savante]

May I ask why this place is going down the pan?

I've had a few convos in PM about how to bring it back to life again. Every attempt fails. In the past I'd just go to the BG forum when this place was going through a bad spell, but that's atrocious now.

If you take away the pointless squabbling on here how much actual convo is there? Why do threads get 100's even 1000's of views and a miniscule amount of responses? Why do so few people even start threads? Is there a tonic to all of this, or do people think this board is as good as it was, say, a year and a half ago?

I know right now I could ******** off from this place for a week and not have any stimulus to read once all the pointless squabbling is taken out of a thread with a high post count. I believe that's why there are so few posters on here at any one time these days - there's not much to get your teeth into, is there?

BS used to be my first port of call if I had access to a computer or was in for a quick surf. I find it's slipping further down the list of 'things to do' I don't know where they've gone, but a lot of quality posters have disappeared or make cameos once or twice every 1/4 season, and a lot of guys who were posting well thought out threads have gone back to spending the majority of their time on here embroiled in one pointless squabble or another?

I go to a few other sites/forums for entertainment 99% of them are bereft of any intelligent discussion, I used to get that from BS' various forums.

Real life plays a huge part in the standard of the board. Work, school, women & social life take up large chunks of a day/week, but when you come here, what do you come here for? For me it was always to bounce ideas and discussions off of others, generate talking points with threads and for the craic. Genuine, intelligent talking points seem to be few and far between these days. You can generally be sure that outside of the usual Ronaldo or Rooney (g)stuff, the transfer thread and the matchday threads nothing much will be going on. How'd that happen? Why are so few people here inclined to start threads, for instance?

In all honesty, the last thread I remember everyone taking part in was the Darren Fletcher debate a while back. Since then this board has become heavily fragmented. I can't recall a discussion since then being in-depth and involving more than 5 people at any one time.

Is this stuff all in my head, or has this board taken a nosedive in quality?

Will it ever get back to a good standard, or is this it from now on?

[Vermont Red]

While I still enjoy days on the board, like today, I find that many of the days don't include my gaining any additional knowledge about football or United. I don't think its because I've learned all there is to learn.

There are scores of petty squabbles and scores of threads which are derailed as soon as certain posters give an opinion. People on here used to take the piss but now they just attack. We're all fans of United but we don't appear to have any common ground.

I also think that its very rare on here for posters to acknowledge that they may have been wrong about something and admit it. I remember once when Benni admitted that he'd decided to reevaluate something because of some posts that had been made. But what is one to reexamine these days: who the biggest divers are?

I'm a culprit in some of this, I admit. This board used to fill my need for footy talk that I couldn't get anywhere else. Now I often only skim most posts and read completely only certain posters who consistently make thoughtful posts. And its not just DS who feels that the board had declined. I've also had discussions with other former regulars who can't be arsed to come in here.

I don't know what the solution is. Maybe a little more tolerance and a little less need to always have the last word. Maybe a little less blagging. Maybe a breakaway site for the old guard. (I'll miss them.)

[Teso Dos Bichos]

I'm sorry.

[jayro75]

I'd honestly like to post my thoughts on this but I'm afraid I'd offend to many posters and might get moderated by certain Arsenal mods who only visit here when we call Wenger a

[holytoledo]

I enjoy coming to this board, it's one of my usuall stops online behind email, soccernet and facebook (:o). However even though I wasn't on the board for the "glory days" that DS and VR among others were, I too have noticed things taking a downturn, although I do enjoy the board. The petty squabbles combined with a number of the "fanboys" not really contributing much and trying to stir things up I think is the main culprit. I rarely can't be bothered to write lengthy posts due to time issues and the fear of getting my head ripped off for having the wrong opinion ;) , among other things. Although if it would help DS from jumping ship I'd be more then happy to give essay posts an effort!

Even if this board is not what it used to be it is still the best place for me to get intelligent, educated discussion, news and debates regarding United. I can't get that from my real life friends/community so that I think is part of why I enjoy coming to BS. I think that most of the "regulars" have a nice rapport and it is definitely possible to improve things around here.

I don't blame Teso though. :D

[sdotsom]

same 3 websites as me, holytoledo!

[holytoledo]

Get in!

[Numquam Moribimur]

I agree with the most people , the board has declined a lot in the past couple months ....I am still on this site most of the day but my posting quality has gone down I’ll be the 1st to admit. If we want this place to go back to the old days 1st thing needs to happen the fanboys need to ******** off I am sorry if I am sounded harsh but it’s the truth .Tbh you would think the way we are playing this year this board would be a lot better ...let’s bring the board back to the old ways come on !

[Numquam Moribimur]

-
I don't blame Teso though. :D



I blame Fergie!

Fergie OUT !:mad:

[StrikerCW]

Wait, which old days? I have been registered for 6 years. :eek:

Anyways, regardless of my posting quality at any point in my career. I have not been posting as much the past sem or so. Last sem I had way too much on my plate and now it is the same because I am trying to put a much more concerted effort forth in school.

Therefore I lack the time, and really the want, to come on here and read threads and then think about and post comments.

Most of the time when I come on I just look at the NSR forum for threads that I am interested. For one thing, most you DS ;), I don't have time to read such long posts. I wish I was able to get on here and find a recap or something of the posts. But if I were to ask about that in a soccer thread I WAS interested in, I would get yelled at.

So I really don't have it in me to bother anymore. Not that that really has anything to do with the topic at hand, but I figured I would gripe.

What you say is right (from what little I have read) there are only so many consistant posters on here, and they mostly have their own ideas and are stuck in those ways. Thus leading into arguements etc which diliute the points of the thread.

Additionally, certain posted (myself included) don't really add anything to the thread, just getting on to post an agreement or to say something completely random or post something random in the soccer section. This for me ruins the threads that I do bother to read. I don't want to read something about Ronaldo's abillity to trackback and then stumble upon a picture of Rooney servicing him and Keeley Hazell and Vida Guerra fighting to take his place. This has nothing to do with football.

Good day.

edit: Additionally, not sure if I said this (can't be bothered to review HA), but I also dislike when posters have an opinion about certain things and are completely unable to at all share a view about something even if there are slight rational backings for the other view. Regardless of personal thoughts, internet discussion is for discussing not lambasting your view on everyone regardless.

[phishy]

May I ask why this place is going down the pan?

I've had a few convos in PM about how to bring it back to life again. Every attempt fails. In the past I'd just go to the BG forum when this place was going through a bad spell, but that's atrocious now.

If you take away the pointless squabbling on here how much actual convo is there? Why do threads get 100's even 1000's of views and a miniscule amount of responses? Why do so few people even start threads? Is there a tonic to all of this, or do people think this board is as good as it was, say, a year and a half ago?

I know right now I could ******** off from this place for a week and not have any stimulus to read once all the pointless squabbling is taken out of a thread with a high post count. I believe that's why there are so few posters on here at any one time these days - there's not much to get your teeth into, is there?

BS used to be my first port of call if I had access to a computer or was in for a quick surf. I find it's slipping further down the list of 'things to do' I don't know where they've gone, but a lot of quality posters have disappeared or make cameos once or twice every 1/4 season, and a lot of guys who were posting well thought out threads have gone back to spending the majority of their time on here embroiled in one pointless squabble or another?

I go to a few other sites/forums for entertainment 99% of them are bereft of any intelligent discussion, I used to get that from BS' various forums.

Real life plays a huge part in the standard of the board. Work, school, women & social life take up large chunks of a day/week, but when you come here, what do you come here for? For me it was always to bounce ideas and discussions off of others, generate talking points with threads and for the craic. Genuine, intelligent talking points seem to be few and far between these days. You can generally be sure that outside of the usual Ronaldo or Rooney (g)stuff, the transfer thread and the matchday threads nothing much will be going on. How'd that happen? Why are so few people here inclined to start threads, for instance?

In all honesty, the last thread I remember everyone taking part in was the Darren Fletcher debate a while back. Since then this board has become heavily fragmented. I can't recall a discussion since then being in-depth and involving more than 5 people at any one time.

Is this stuff all in my head, or has this board taken a nosedive in quality?

Will it ever get back to a good standard, or is this it from now on?


totally agree DS.

[Invincible]

I don't see it as a decline, I just see it as an injection of young blood. More and more new posters are posting and most of them don't post essay type posts. We also joke around with each other a lot, which might isolate someone like you DS, who enjoys a good 3/4/5/6 paragraph a post discussion. It's kinda like that one 45 year old guy in a college class full of 19/20 year olds who just sits there quietly while everyone else busts each other's balls etc.

I don't think the board is in decline at all, it's a pretty fun place to me. There's plenty of fun poked at each other mixed with good discussion of the team, tactics, upcoming matches, transfers, other teams etc. I see nothing wrong at all.

[SirManchester]

agreed. While many will see me as the culprit of this, I digress. If posters would learn the difference between seriousness and pisstakes, we wouldn't waste so many pages on explaining the latter and could move straight into footy talk.

Discussions about football here can be extremely educational and valuable and with all the characters around there's always going to be pisstakes and joking inbetween just because those are the types of people we are, but if people would take those less seriously, we could move on and have more and better discussions about football.

[schafer]

Maybe it's cause there's not all that much to complain about when you're winning ;)

[MtP07]

I haven't been posting much at all lately. Most of the time I just scroll through the posts looking for certain posters to read what they have to say. Its getting hard to wade through all the crap in each thread.

[Vermont Red]

I haven't been posting much at all lately. Most of the time I just scroll through the posts looking for certain posters to read what they have to say. Its getting hard to wade through all the crap in each thread.

Make sure you review my work from today.

[MtP07]

Make sure you review my work from today.

As always, your work has been excellent.

[lynne]

I haven't been posting much at all lately. Most of the time I just scroll through the posts looking for certain posters to read what they have to say. Its getting hard to wade through all the crap in each thread.

This has been a boring year, Man Utd - wise (knock on wood!). I don't think that would explain why the rest of BS is boring (if it is). But think about it -- for Man Utd, last year Roy Keane was fired, RVN was thrown out of the team, Ronaldo was charged with rape, Rooney ran up a million (dollar or pound? I can't remember) gambling debt, Paul Scholes missed half the year with an eye injury, other injuries were rampant, etc etc. There was always something new (& bad!) to talk about. This year, not so much. (knock on wood one more time!)

This year? it's the same players on the same team doing the same things but just a little bit better. I realize that Michael Carrick is new, but he's dull!(no red cards, no gambling debts, no late night bar fights)! We've spent at least a decade now it seems chasing Owen Hargraves -- to the point that even he must be getting bored with talking & reading about it. Ditto with Ronaldo leaving -- the main problem with Ronaldo staying, best I can tell, is that this topic will go on and on and on and on.....The team all get along great, so we can't worry over training ground fights. The subs are all content with their position. The first team is all happy.

Life is great! Yawn.

[MtP07]

This has been a boring year, Man Utd - wise (knock on wood!). I don't think that would explain why the rest of BS is boring (if it is). But think about it -- for Man Utd, last year Roy Keane was fired, RVN was thrown out of the team, Ronaldo was charged with rape, Rooney ran up a million (dollar or pound? I can't remember) gambling debt, Paul Scholes missed half the year with an eye injury, other injuries were rampant, etc etc. There was always something new (& bad!) to talk about. This year, not so much. (knock on wood one more time!)

This year? it's the same players on the same team doing the same things but just a little bit better. I realize that Michael Carrick is new, but he's dull!(no red cards, no gambling debts, no late night bar fights)! We've spent at least a decade now it seems chasing Owen Hargraves -- to the point that even he must be getting bored with talking & reading about it. Ditto with Ronaldo leaving -- the main problem with Ronaldo staying, best I can tell, is that this topic will go on and on and on and on.....The team all get along great, so we can't worry over training ground fights. The subs are all content with their position. The first team is all happy.

Life is great! Yawn.

I actually think there is a lot of truth in this. Look at which threads go the longest-- the threads for the matches we lose! We're winning and there hasn't been a lot of drama in the team (not that I'm complaining ;) ).

[Sapphire]

I agree that alot of the problem on our board is, ironically, the success and stability of United this season. In fact, the only really exciting thing going on (besides the fairly benign Heinze/Evra and Rio/Vidic debates) are the ongoing situations with Ronaldo. After the game 2 weeks ago, there were 3 separate threads discussing Ronaldo's dive, and they were, by far, the 3 most active at the time. But that was really the only thing going on. I think that part of the problem is something we really can't control.

A second problem is that there are quite a few regular posters who really feel the need to get the last word in every single debate. Sometimes you should just let your original post or point stand, rather than try to straighten out every little counterpoint. Sometimes debate is warranted, sometimes it's not. I think if people just worked individually to back off arguments that aren't so important, it would encourage more people to post, not to mention make dialogue more possible. One-ups-manship is hurting us alot, I think.

A third idea/suggestion. Some of us, myself included, love the NSR boards (I know some people really don't share that emotion). Maybe keeping more (not all, but more) of the silliness confined to that forum would clear the football boards for more serious discussion. I know sometimes I'm having a such a good time bantering with you crazy lot that I forget if I'm in the match thread or some silly bullsh*t thread. I personally plan to try and be more conscious of that. Join me, won't you? Maybe that will help.

I can't speak to the decline of BS in general; this is the only forum I regularly visit. Thanks for bringing these things up, DS. I don't think things are terrible around here, but they certainly could be better.