Boards.ie
Encyclopedia
boards.ie is an Internet forum
based in Ireland
. It is considered one of the largest indigenous Irish websites online. As of July 2010, the site has 365,000 registered accounts, more than 1,300,000 threads and more than 20 million posts. A wide variety of topics from music to politics are discussed, mostly from (but not limited to) an Irish perspective.
to enable discussion amongst Irish users of the id Software
game Quake, while he was a postgraduate student at the National University of Ireland, Galway
. This forum was part of the Irish Games Network's quake.ie site, and utilized "Matt's WWWBoard" software. The site gained in popularity until the size of its threads exceeded the capacity of the software. Breslin came into contact with Tom Murphy, who had been administrating a Quake-related forum called Quakapalooza, utilizing Murphy's ASP software. Some non-gaming related forums were added to the service, and the retitled "Cloud Boards" began using the Ultimate Bulletin Board software. Murphy proposed a more general (not just Quake-related) forum, dedicated to general Irish issues in 1999, and considered the name boards.ie to be a more useful and desired domain.
In 2000, Cloud Boards was then rebranded for a more general audience. Limitations in what organizations could register prevented private individuals from registering vanity or custom domains. Breslin had previously been unsuccessful in registering the domain cloud.ie with the Irish domain registry. Murphy entered a bet with Breslin that he could successfully register a domain for a rebranded web forum. Murphy renamed his company Spin Solutions to Boards for a day, registered the paperwork with the Irish domain registrar for boards.ie, and was granted the domain.
In 2003, boards.ie achieved one million posts to its forums.
In 2007, the boards.ie Ltd. company acquired the rights to boards.us and other domains from Breslin.
In 2008, boards.ie hired its first full-time developer.
For the 10th anniversary of boards.ie's first historic post, the complete data set of its discussions with semantic
markup (see SIOC
) was made available to researchers, and a competition looking for interesting creations based on this data was launched. Later that year in August, boards.ie saw its first shareholding investment from Daft Media Ltd.
On January 21, 2010 at 11:20 GMT, boards.ie director Tom Murphy took the site offline after an attack on the forums's database. The attack originated from a source outside of Ireland. A portion of the database, including usernames, encrypted passwords and email addresses were accessed. The site advised all users who used the same password on other websites to change it there too.
A new forum can be proposed by anyone, but requires a certain amount of support from other members. Most users do not pay any usage fees, although subscription is offered with benefits such as custom avatars and a change of username, amongst other features.
), boards.us (United States
), boards.jp (Japan
), boards.com.cn (China
), and boards.co.nz (New Zealand
). Sites associated with classified advertising (adverts.ie) and group coupons (boardsdeals.ie) have also been established.
For his contribution to Irish society, Tom Murphy was awarded a Net Visionary Award by the Irish Internet Association in 2004 in the "Social Contribution" category.
John Breslin was awarded Net Visionary Awards by the Irish Internet Association in 2005 and 2006.
boards.ie won two awards in the Irish Web Awards 2008, "Best Website in Ireland" and "Best Discussion Forum". It also won "Best Social Networking and Community Website" in the Golden Spider Awards 2008.
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
based in Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
. It is considered one of the largest indigenous Irish websites online. As of July 2010, the site has 365,000 registered accounts, more than 1,300,000 threads and more than 20 million posts. A wide variety of topics from music to politics are discussed, mostly from (but not limited to) an Irish perspective.
History
In 1998, John "Cloud" Breslin created a single forumInternet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
to enable discussion amongst Irish users of the id Software
Id Software
Id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
game Quake, while he was a postgraduate student at the National University of Ireland, Galway
National University of Ireland, Galway
The National University of Ireland, Galway is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland...
. This forum was part of the Irish Games Network's quake.ie site, and utilized "Matt's WWWBoard" software. The site gained in popularity until the size of its threads exceeded the capacity of the software. Breslin came into contact with Tom Murphy, who had been administrating a Quake-related forum called Quakapalooza, utilizing Murphy's ASP software. Some non-gaming related forums were added to the service, and the retitled "Cloud Boards" began using the Ultimate Bulletin Board software. Murphy proposed a more general (not just Quake-related) forum, dedicated to general Irish issues in 1999, and considered the name boards.ie to be a more useful and desired domain.
In 2000, Cloud Boards was then rebranded for a more general audience. Limitations in what organizations could register prevented private individuals from registering vanity or custom domains. Breslin had previously been unsuccessful in registering the domain cloud.ie with the Irish domain registry. Murphy entered a bet with Breslin that he could successfully register a domain for a rebranded web forum. Murphy renamed his company Spin Solutions to Boards for a day, registered the paperwork with the Irish domain registrar for boards.ie, and was granted the domain.
In 2003, boards.ie achieved one million posts to its forums.
In 2007, the boards.ie Ltd. company acquired the rights to boards.us and other domains from Breslin.
In 2008, boards.ie hired its first full-time developer.
For the 10th anniversary of boards.ie's first historic post, the complete data set of its discussions with semantic
Semantic Web
The Semantic Web is a collaborative movement led by the World Wide Web Consortium that promotes common formats for data on the World Wide Web. By encouraging the inclusion of semantic content in web pages, the Semantic Web aims at converting the current web of unstructured documents into a "web of...
markup (see SIOC
SIOC
Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities Project is a Semantic Web technology. SIOC provides methods for interconnecting discussion methods such as blogs, forums and mailing lists to each other...
) was made available to researchers, and a competition looking for interesting creations based on this data was launched. Later that year in August, boards.ie saw its first shareholding investment from Daft Media Ltd.
On January 21, 2010 at 11:20 GMT, boards.ie director Tom Murphy took the site offline after an attack on the forums's database. The attack originated from a source outside of Ireland. A portion of the database, including usernames, encrypted passwords and email addresses were accessed. The site advised all users who used the same password on other websites to change it there too.
Structure
The site is majority owned by Daft Media Ltd with a minority stake held by some of the original company founders, who delegate administrative and editorial control over the site to hundreds of unpaid moderators. Currently, Tom Murphy is operating as acting Managing Director after the departure of the previous Managing Director, Gerry Shanahan, in February 2009. There are over 1,350 forums, public and private.A new forum can be proposed by anyone, but requires a certain amount of support from other members. Most users do not pay any usage fees, although subscription is offered with benefits such as custom avatars and a change of username, amongst other features.
Expansion
The boards.ie site has expanded into a number of other countries including boards.org.uk (United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
), boards.us (United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
), boards.jp (Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
), boards.com.cn (China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
), and boards.co.nz (New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
). Sites associated with classified advertising (adverts.ie) and group coupons (boardsdeals.ie) have also been established.
Awards
boards.ie was awarded a Zeddy Award in 2001. (The Zeddy Awards have since been discontinued.) It also won a Golden Spider Award in the same year.For his contribution to Irish society, Tom Murphy was awarded a Net Visionary Award by the Irish Internet Association in 2004 in the "Social Contribution" category.
John Breslin was awarded Net Visionary Awards by the Irish Internet Association in 2005 and 2006.
boards.ie won two awards in the Irish Web Awards 2008, "Best Website in Ireland" and "Best Discussion Forum". It also won "Best Social Networking and Community Website" in the Golden Spider Awards 2008.
External links
- boards.ie main page
- boards.ie Wiki (a.k.a. Biki)
- The Gathering Cards
- boards.ie FAQ