Filed under: Internet, News, Yahoo!, Social Software
What's a troll to do now? Yahoo! News Message Boards taken offline
One aspect of the Yahoo! experience that always left me shaking my head is the News Message Boards. Easily accessible from a "Discuss" link at the bottom of news stories, it was the stomping grounds of trolls and other hate mongers with little to no social value, unless of course you are a troll.But now I say, "Hallelujah!" Break out the bubbly and do a little jig on the table because the powers that be at Yahoo! News have shut down the News Message Boards. The "Discuss" link has been replaced with a link labeled, "What happened to the "Discuss" option?" The message at the other end of that link takes you to a short explanation of how the boards were dominated by a few, links were difficult to embed and something bigger and better is soon to replace the old board system: "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."
Will it be an implementation of the new Yahoo! Message Board system or something digg/Netscape-like? Will it combine Yahoo! 360 blogging platform to be more like Newsvine? We'll have to wait and see.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
whatever said 9:05PM on 12-29-2006
A troll should say FUCK YOU, Joe...
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Mike said 3:05AM on 12-30-2006
Hypocrisy at its most disgusting.
So all the left-wingers who bashed Bush and called our troops babykillers aren't "hatemongers'" I suppose.
No need for discussion now that the Moonbats are in power, I guess.
Dictatorships are unilateral, after all.
Typical.
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mike said 4:07PM on 1-07-2007
Dear Neil,
The suspension of the news message boards at Yahoo is a good way to alienate the Yahoo users. The experience of making the readers angry from the newspaper industry is showing.
Watch as Yahoo loses viewers, users, and thanks to you, makes the "un-cool" status.
The message boards were a source of living history. You just threw the baby out the window with the dirty bath water.
Some threads contain hundreds of thousands of responses.
Man, when you go out of your way to make people angry you don't fool around. May I suggest you look into India. Plenty of people to piss off there.
Sincerely,
Mike
Neil Budde wrote:
Yes, we know that suspending the message boards will alienate the 1% of our users who used them. But we also know that improved message boards could attract wider participation.
Neil
From: Michael
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 9:22 AM
To: Neil Budde
Subject: RE: Message Boards
Dear Neil,
I might not agree with what you have to say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
You remind me of the guy that brings a football to play tag football and when a call goes against him, or gets hurt, or is losing the game badly, terminates the game by taking the ball and goes home.
Pray tell how are you going to increase participation by suspending the message boards?
Please don't piss on my leg and tell me it is raining. "A few vocal users?" Christ, some threads have close to a million posts.
You are living proof newspapers and newpaper people are the biggest threat to the First Amendment.
Have a Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Mike
I’d liken it more to a guy who brings a football to play tag football and then one or two guys pull out knives and otherwise turn the place into an uncivil mess that chases all the people who want to play tag football off.
Our goal is to replace the message boards with a system that allows the people who want to play tag football to keep playing tag football even if a few hooligans try to break it up.
Neil
Reply
mike said 5:21AM on 1-07-2007
Dear Neil,
The suspension of the news message boards at Yahoo is a good way to alienate the Yahoo users. The experience of making the readers angry from the newspaper industry is showing.
Watch as Yahoo loses viewers, users, and thanks to you, makes the "un-cool" status.
The message boards were a source of living history. You just threw the baby out the window with the dirty bath water.
Some threads contain hundreds of thousands of responses.
Man, when you go out of your way to make people angry you don't fool around. May I suggest you look into India. Plenty of people to piss off there.
Sincerely,
Mike
Neil Budde wrote:
Yes, we know that suspending the message boards will alienate the 1% of our users who used them. But we also know that improved message boards could attract wider participation.
Neil
From: Michael
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 9:22 AM
To: Neil Budde
Subject: RE: Message Boards
Dear Neil,
I might not agree with what you have to say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
You remind me of the guy that brings a football to play tag football and when a call goes against him, or gets hurt, or is losing the game badly, terminates the game by taking the ball and goes home.
Pray tell how are you going to increase participation by suspending the message boards?
Please don't piss on my leg and tell me it is raining. "A few vocal users?" Christ, some threads have close to a million posts.
You are living proof newspapers and newpaper people are the biggest threat to the First Amendment.
Have a Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Mike
I’d liken it more to a guy who brings a football to play tag football and then one or two guys pull out knives and otherwise turn the place into an uncivil mess that chases all the people who want to play tag football off.
Our goal is to replace the message boards with a system that allows the people who want to play tag football to keep playing tag football even if a few hooligans try to break it up.
Neil
Reply
Joe Beaulaurier said 9:27AM on 1-07-2007
@Mike - I hope Neil didn't have an expectation of privacy and this is all in context because it really displays a sensible approach by Neil and Y! News. Thanks for posting.
Reply
mike said 8:54PM on 1-14-2007
"hope Neil didn't have an expectation of privacy and this is all in context because it really displays a sensible approach by Neil and Y! News. Thanks for posting."
Happy to be here, and thank you for your kind words.
You think Neil's opinion is "sensible?"
What would have been "sensible" business practice is to have made made adjustments to the new message board BEFORE suspending them.
Is it not wise to have a better job waiting in the wings BEFORE you "suspend" your current job?
This "privacy" issue/concern you bring up is a hoot. We are talking about a national message board, not National Security.
You know how badly the press screws up reporting the news. There isn't an article that goes by without these idiots with pens screwing up something.
The message boards provided a great service to the public. Many times message boards have exposed screwups, lies, crimes and fraud. Dan Rather is just one of many examples of how the Internet and news boards can check the propaganda lies being passed out as truth.
You are aware the Bush administration has funneled over a billion dollars in buying shills to report favorable news?
So what was the real reason for the message boards being suspended?
It wasn't the "few vocal users" because if a poster is a horrible "vocal user" we had the luxury of the "ignore" option. Believe me, there were not just a few vocal "flammers." One problem I had was my "ignore list" was quickly filled, and I was unable to add to the list. It proved to be a minor inconvenience in the long run though.
This thing Neil talks about turning into a "situation of knives" was kind of silly except for the fact the pen is mightier than the sword
The message board suspension is a very scary development. This is an issue of a "few vocal users" in the minority forcing a suspension. The overwhelming majority of sentiment on the boards prior to suspension was running heavily against the war, Bush, Zionism, the press, and Israel. This was normal, and just a reflection of national scientific polls.
What was not normal was the "vocal" users in the minority, unable to compete or debate effectively, were able to mimic the mob that burned down the library at Alexandia and suspend the polls.
Only a minority, fascists, or an enemy of the Constitution would "suspend" free speech because of "a few vocal users."
Suspending the message boards was a horrible business decision on face and nefarious in its implications to every American that cares about Free Speech and the Constitution in general.
Reply
Tina said 12:10AM on 1-09-2007
I for one am very happy that Yahoo finally pulled the plug on those awful and offensive message boards. The people who posted there were perverts, homosexuals, and America hating Islamics. It would have been criminal for Yahoo to continue to provide those evil doers with a forum to make their asinine comments. As a Christian American, I want to say
THANK YOU YAHOO FOR TAKING THE MESSAGE BOARDS DOWN!
It was about time.
Tina
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David w said 7:50AM on 1-17-2007
Well, I occassionaly used the message board at Yahoo News and I have to say that all of you are right. How often does that happen? The boards were often used by trolls but on occassion many posts remained on topic and were insightful. I for one can ignore the trolls and those whose only purpose was to create an arguement. However, regardless of the users it did provide a visitor with a pulse of american culture, albeit, at times a pulse quite perverted. I will miss the entertainment value, but am hopeful that the new forum will be better overall.
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Udokier said 12:39PM on 1-17-2007
The very thing you are whining about is the very thing that made the Yahoo boards so uniquely great. All other discussion boards are heavily moderated, hell-bent on having only their own views aired. But Yahoo allowed people from all sides to post their opinions, or jokes or whatever freely. Yes, there were some trolls, but many of them were people posing as the opposite of what they actually were, for subtle or obvious comic effect. I often posed in the guise of a crazed fundamentalist, or a log cabin gay republican, to lampoon those particular idiotic subcultures. And there were people on the right who did the same. Experienced readers could tell the difference, but the responses who took the troll posts at face value were truly hilarious. Discussion boards should not just be overmoderated tea parties. The only posters I had a problem with was spammers. But there should be a place where trolls, imposters, users of broad hyperbole, etc. can go to have a laugh. Only an idiot would take the content that was posted on Yahoo's boards seriously.
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Donna said 8:55AM on 1-18-2007
As a long-time user of Yahoo, I will admit the boards did become more venomous, but so what? It was an open forum, free speech at its very best. Free speech isn't always warm and fuzzy. Like we're told to do with television, if a reader didn't like what they saw they could always 'change the channel'. There was an ignore button, or they could always go to message board sites that were more to their liking.
There was nothing wrong with Yahoo boards unless you were hyper-sensitive or you were a lawyer who'd gotten your feelings hurt. My God, the people on these boards are total strangers. Who cares what they think or say if it's obnoxious?
Personally, I'm sick and tired of the thought police. I'm sad that Yahoo didn't stick to its guns and defend its open forum and give its users freedom of speech. At least with Yahoo boards you knew exactly where you stood, unlike many news boards (like MSNBC) where the users are malicious and mean, but they do it in a more subtle fashion, with honey dripping from their fangs. I'd much prefer the trolls on Yahoo; at least you knew exactly where they were coming from.
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Jason Platt said 10:34AM on 1-22-2007
Udokier's last sentence in his 12:39 p.m. post gets at the key issue. The trolls did not take the yahoo board seriously. However he overlooks the fact that some people, such as myself, DID take the yahoo boards seriously and felt that the purpose for them was intelligent discussion. Yes, sarcastic posts can make points if used judiciously but when they are overdone it's effects are tiresome, if not counterproductive in my view. I usually felt I could tell when someone was being sarcastic and someone who was being mean-spirited but not always was I so sure. Having said that, I don't believe in censorship, except for personal attacks (Tina's 12:10 a.m. post is a good example of this). I hope Tina understands that posts like hers were the reason Yahoo message boards were taken down.
I will propose a suggestion and I hope others will comment on this:
Have two message boards--both clearly labeled
1)A message board for people who want to post serious discussion on a topic.
2)A message board for people who want to have fun with the topic.
Important point--posts that attacks or threatens a specific race, creed, or person or that uses abusive or profane language should not be allowed at EITHER board. Posts like these are only funny if you are mean spirited or cruel.
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Frank said 1:37PM on 2-04-2007
Neil:
I have gone over to other news providers after you took Yahoo into the dark zone. Excite, MSN, and Netscape offer superior packages now. There is no reason to look toward Yahoo any longer. You have nothing more to offer.
Take your site off line and nobody will even miss you now. You are redundant band width. Pull the plug and save some bite transmission.
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