I think the overall concept of "message board" is dying in favor of blogs and social networking, much like how technologies such as e-mail and AIM have lost popularity and how MySpace has lost ground to Facebook and Twitter. Blog comments, Facebook groups, and tweets have become the new means of communication for many people, especially because Facebook groups can often be better advertised than, say, a message board hidden on a website of a sports team under some submenu or a forum available through the click of a button on a side menu on an unofficial site for a video game franchise.
Five years ago message boards were insanely popular, having replaced their predecessors (bulletin boards) and offering a better communications alternative to the rarely-read e-mail or the "answer me now" nature of AIM. I am also on the official Pittsburgh Pirates message board and have been for six years. However, I'm rarely there anymore because most of the discussions are either a) people making fun of each other and not about baseball or b) something that begins as a baseball-related conversation that quickly goes south. Most of the posters who had so much insight when I was there more often have disappeared and all of the discussions seem to say something like "I hate the ownership of the Pirates" instead of saying "well, the owners may have decided to dump the contract of Player A, but Player B, who we got in return, may be an improvement here or a step back here for these reasons". Also, the board has little "cliques" anymore and has no real moderation. It's a shame, since it was once a great place to talk about baseball. Now, if I want to talk about Pirates baseball, I typically use the Facebook groups or Pirates application or I reply to comments left by the various bloggers who write about the team. Sometimes I've found the best way to talk about the team is to (gasp) talk to my fellow fans in person!!!
However, this board is different. Baseball fans are a dime a dozen. I'm sure many of you reading this have a baseball team you follow and discuss with other fans, either in person or online. Super Mario video games are a different story than baseball. Yes, nearly everyone has played a Mario game at some point, but not everyone wants to discuss strategies about them, speculate on the origins of Wario, contemplate the relationship between Luigi and Peach, review the two ways to get the sixth star in Tall Tall Mountain in SM64, etc. This is one of those "limited interest groups" that can really only exist online because the odds of running into someone interested in Mario as much as we are in your city are a lot slimmer than finding a fellow baseball fan. (Even if you root for an out-of-town team, it's easier to find someone who knows what you're talking about unless that team is a big rival).
The lack of moderation is what seemingly killed the Pirates message board. Even now I don't think they have a moderator and the longtime members who remain from before the board went sour have joined in the madness of cliquery and whatnot. (If "cliquery" wasn't a word when I typed it, it is now--ask a linguistics professor and they'll tell you what I did was legal). Also, the longtime members who were not moderators served an important role in regulating the board. They provided positive role models for the newer members to follow and didn't go around posting spam links, etc.
However, some moderation was too harsh on that board. There was a time when it was difficult to talk about shortstops, believe it or not, due to an intolerable moderation technique. Here's what was once an illegal sentence:
The Pirates had a SS named Dick Groat in 1960, who compared favorably to Jack Wilson and Jay Bell.
If we wanted to talk about Groat and use his first name, we had to substitute an "!" for the "i" because the software thought we were saying a dirty word. Also, we would have to type out the word "shortstop" since they thought that "a" went with it despite the space in there. This is an example of why too much moderation is a bad thing. (At one point some of us just had to say "that shortstop we had in 1960" or something of the like). In the end, running a board is just as bad as running a country!!!
I may be a newer member here, but after seeing a great board fall I don't want to see this happen in another community. I came here to talk Mario (my favorite video game franchise of all time) and want to make sure that will happen. I'll be happy to chip in any way I can to make this board a better place.
