Suggestions

[Daveman]

Well this is the place to make suggestions over the format or layout of the forum. Suggestions will be considered for consistency with the goals of the forum and added (or not) to a list for implementation.

Of course the suggestions can be discussed, so it's not always an open and shut situation. In the end, the administrators decision is final.

[Daveman]

I sort of thought about the merging the two partner boards.... you're probably right. I guess I wanted the girlfriends or wives to have their special spot.

As far as domain name, I'm waiting for it all to congel a little. I'm using a "spare" account I have with my hosting service fo rnow so there's no extra cost.

Once we get more juice.... I'll probably foot the bill for the domain and hosting.

The other points look good.

[Vincent M]

I think perhaps there should be a spot for "General Methods of Treatment" instead of only the two options of hormonal or autoimmune. For example where would a discussion of a treatment for digestive problems relating to POIS go? Or joint pain/ back pain discussion? Or skin dryness or eye burning?

I agree that the topics hormonal and autoimmune cover a great deal of POIS, but I feel this may confuse some people since they might not know if a particular treatment discussion would belong in one of those categories. So a general methods of treatment section would make everyone feel free to share their experience and knowledge. I think individual threads within that section would provide enough organization to allow a smooth search of the desired treatment topic for others browsing the section.

Just an idea.

[Daveman]

Hi Vincent Marcus

Go back one step to "Support and Miscelleneous" and click "Add Topic".

There you can create a whole thread dedicated to the topic you desire.... as long as it isn't already an existing topic. For instance Silodosin wouldn't go here, but under auto-immune methods.

Digestive problems, particularly effects and treatments could be here, while other aspects of them might be as symptoms and indications of the Type-IV auto-immune reaction (as an example).

And if you don't know, it would go here.

[Daveman]

My list would have less, only 12 topics:
Introduction and Philosophy,
Support and Miscelleneous
Poll Center,
Case Profiles & Member introductions,
General Information & POIS Symptoms,
POIS Theories and discussions (inc. Hormonal, Auto-Immune, Neuro-muscular, Neurological etc)
Medications and Treatments For POIS,
Supplements, Herbs & Diet
Exercise & Lifestyle,
Relationship, Work and Emotional Issues with POIS,
Recovery Successes,
Books, Articles & References

Some of these things will be covered in the WEB header page:

• General Information & POIS Symptoms,
       POIS symptoms can be covered in the general disucssion area if they're not already cover in a "targeted theme"
• Recovery Successes,
      as those reported under the specifi categories
• Books, Articles & References

These areas can be opened individually in Support and Miscelleneous:

• As mentioned above POIS Symptoms can be discussed here.
• Supplements, Herbs & Diet
• Exercise & Lifestyle,
     if I replace "Partners" corner with this I'd get complaints that I'm duplicating themes with  The Down Side
     We might be able to find a better name that includes both.

[Hoping]

My list would have less, only 12 topics:
Introduction and Philosophy,
Support and Miscelleneous
Poll Center,
Case Profiles & Member introductions,
General Information & POIS Symptoms,
POIS Theories and discussions (inc. Hormonal, Auto-Immune, Neuro-muscular, Neurological etc)
Medications and Treatments For POIS,
Supplements, Herbs & Diet
Exercise & Lifestyle,
Relationship, Work and Emotional Issues with POIS,
Recovery Successes,
Books, Articles & References

Some of these things will be covered in the WEB header page:

• General Information & POIS Symptoms,
       POIS symptoms can be covered in the general disucssion area if they're not already cover in a "targeted theme"
• Recovery Successes,
      as those reported under the specifi categories
• Books, Articles & References

These areas can be opened individually in Support and Miscelleneous:

• As mentioned above POIS Symptoms can be discussed here.
• Supplements, Herbs & Diet
• Exercise & Lifestyle,
     if I replace "Partners" corner with this I'd get complaints that I'm duplicating themes with  The Down Side
     We might be able to find a better name that includes both.

<I'll also be posting this on the old site but wanted to post here too>
First of all, daveman and demo thank you for your work on the new forum! I'm sure it's taken a lot of time and effort, and the benefits will be invaluable. Having some organization to the forum and discussion is a godsend and will allow our investigations into POIS to move forward much more quickly. As others have mentioned, I believe it's still a work in progress. We all need to use it and craft it as we go. The transition might not be easy, but I'm confident that we can do it as a group who is striving towards a unified and noble goal.
I agree with some of horizon's suggestions. I feel that using a more general "Theories" area might be better than dividing it into  "Auto-Immune" and "Hormonal" and allowing other treatment theories to fall into "Support and Misc." We still don't know if POIS is auto-immune or hormonal (it may be neither, or it may be both!). I feel that our theories behind the disease is a really important piece of the discussion and that it's better to start more broad and divide it into subcategories as needed later.

*As a side note: I think the Poll Center has a TON of potential. We can easily compile info from everyone about symptoms, successful and unsuccessful treatments, theories, etc. etc.

[Vincent M]

Hi Vincent Marcus

Go back one step to "Support and Miscelleneous" and click "Add Topic".

There you can create a whole thread dedicated to the topic you desire.... as long as it isn't already an existing topic. For instance Silodosin wouldn't go here, but under auto-immune methods.

Digestive problems, particularly effects and treatments could be here, while other aspects of them might be as symptoms and indications of the Type-IV auto-immune reaction (as an example).

And if you don't know, it would go here.

Thanks Daveman this is the perfect solution to what I had in mind.

[biocentric]

I agree with some of horizon's suggestions. I feel that using a more general "Theories" area might be better than dividing it into  "Auto-Immune" and "Hormonal" and allowing other treatment theories to fall into "Support and Misc." We still don't know if POIS is auto-immune or hormonal (it may be neither, or it may be both!). I feel that our theories behind the disease is a really important piece of the discussion and that it's better to start more broad and divide it into subcategories as needed later.

Thanks hoping, good to see members are seeing sense.

My main problem with the layout, apart from the fact it is confusing, biased and restrictive.. is that it actively puts off future doctors and neuro-scientists of looking into this problem.
you say you want to "target areas", totally bad mistake, members will do this anyway.
The current layout will do POIS a dis-service.

The layout wrongly assumes we know the answers already.
We want to pose the questions in logical manner without assumptions..
so young neurologists can look into things like brain mri's etc. Or TMS experts to get inspired by the questions raised by the forum.
Im thinking 5, 10, 20 years down the line here.
Im not at all convinced it is a hormonal or immune cause, neither are the vast majority of doctors, including Goldmeier.  

As I said previously, before it was deleted, keep it simple, open and democratic, trust in the members to mold the topic routes themselves, if out-of-the-box ideas go into the "POIS theories" section, so be it, we want to hear them, they will either dismissed or looked into.

Trust in the members
and keep it democratic.

[Daveman]

So far, I haven't refused to do anything. I'm just supporting my position as are you.

Also, I ask patience. Some want THEIR PROPOSITION NOW or they go on a rampage. IF it's going to be democratic we can't be reacting in a knee-jerk fashion to each and every suggestion or we'd never get anywhere.

And we're not going to make EVERYBODY happy either, that's impossible, even in the US of A. 

Also, this is not easy nor pleasant. It's for a cause. It's 10 times less pleasant if you have to implement someting that you think is far less than adequate.

I live in Chile, far from the rest of the world but I want a solution too. One of my principal goals is to unite local medical professionals directly to knowledge and support of the professionals. I'm working on the details of how to do that without making YOUR experience a pain, and as soon as I've got it all straightened out, and we've got a consensus, THEN we can implement the changes.

There's nothing impeding using this space meantime. I feel that suggestions leading from direct experience would have more weight, rather than coming from an idea inside your head of what this site really is!

I suggest we start making a list of features we want to see. Then we'll take votes on each of the options.

For instance horizon, you've compiled your list. We need a list like that from each one who has an opinion. Then we combine the lists and vote.

[biocentric]

heres an example of a better simple open layout,

http://www.chronicfatiguetreatments.com/forums/

[Daveman]

heres an example of a better simple open layout,

http://www.chronicfatiguetreatments.com/forums/

Yes, that's what I thought you were looking for. Better than the present NSF which doesn't (can't) have the threading, but still, no focus, no direction.

There may be solutions there...... I guess...  one chooses..... if it can all be put together.

You see? We're used to not having threads, so being able to have them seems like a great leap. But given threads, we can't get out of the mentality of unstructured chat format.

Nobody's there to consolidate. Testosterone is testosterone. As noted, we still don't realize that sometimes it may be having effects against one casual process AND different effects over another causal process. And perhaps as is infered by some, we still don't know for sure, but in the open chat format, who's there to push enough to KNOW?

But yes, this open format is probably the direction we're going to go. That's what we're used to and that's  what we seem to want.

[demografx]

We're used to not having threads, so being able to have them seems like a great leap. But given threads, we can't get out of the mentality of unstructured chat format.

Would this possibly work? Or is it too much for the 5-10 frequent posters at any given time?

A. Structured discussions at Simple Machines Forum

-and-

B. Unstructured (free-flowing) discussion:

          1. Naked Science Forum

           2. Delphiforums (I opened an account last year)
      
                           a.  Realtime chat (several NSFers have used it, but not wildly popular)
                           b.  BBS (messages can be posted)



Hopefully, a volunteer would cross-post any vital message.

[Daveman]

Add to the list semi-structured posting at SMF. Well chosen, open threaded boards of the users' choosing.
Come on with those wish-lists and a defense thereof.

[Daveman]

I'm contemplating the preparations for changes in format that will come. One thing that will likely have to happen is that some of the posts may need to be moved to their "new eventual homes".

But don't let that stop you posting for now. The moving process is very fluid in SMF.

[Daveman]

I am really quite anxious to get on with the changes. I think that with the suggestions we have for now, we're fairly close to what most would want. I'll put together a voting list, and post it. If there are those that want to add someting at that time, they can say so.

Hopefully I'll get the time today to compile and post it.

[demografx]

Add to the [1. NSF + 2. Delphiforums] list [3.] semi-structured posting at SMF. Well chosen, open threaded boards of the users' choosing.

Excellent! I'm so glad I thought of that Item [3.] first!

BTW, when does the 'Dave + Demo' Radio Show begin? (I've lined up a sponsor, they want the show to begin with "Dave + Demo" are brought to you by Watson Pharmaceuticals' Androderm©, the testosterone patch of choice for libido seekers everywhere and POIS relief worldwide. Buy it today and see!")

And if we can only land "Fenugreeks  'R'  Us", the budget's met!

Disclaimer: kidding!

[demografx]

I am really quite anxious to get on with the changes. I think that with the suggestions we have for now, we're fairly close to what most would want. I'll put together a voting list, and post it. If there are those that want to add someting at that time, they can say so.

Hopefully I'll get the time today to compile and post it.

Great! Where do I sign?

[demografx]

I only have 2 suggestions:

1. Twice when I was looking for my exciting T/P post, I had to stumble around quite a bit to find it. Is there something that could lessen the bewilderment? Or is it just my low-tech nature?

2. I agree with fewer "forums"...UNLESS they are highly specific and highly 'technical', for example

- testosterone
- fenugreek
- T/P
- NE's

Now THAT I can relate to!

Thx for listening,
demo

[Vincent M]

I am really quite anxious to get on with the changes. I think that with the suggestions we have for now, we're fairly close to what most would want. I'll put together a voting list, and post it. If there are those that want to add someting at that time, they can say so.

Hopefully I'll get the time today to compile and post it.

The most important change to make in my opinion would be to add a "General Theories/And/Or Treatment Methods" so that it appears on the home page instead of those threads falling into the "Support and Miscellaneous" category. My reason for this is that new POIS members or medical professionals might not think to look under "support and miscellaneous" when looking for additional POIS theories and treatment methods that don't fall under hormonal or autoimmune. Plus I believe Horizon and others desire this change as well.

But take your time considering everyone's opinions. I don't want to rush you. Especially considering all the work you've put into this new site. I still think overall it's a great improvement from the old forum as far as it is much more appealing to the eye of possible medical professionals and the search box seems to work better than our other site.

[Vincent M]

1. Twice when I was looking for my exciting T/P post, I had to stumble around quite a bit to find it. Is there something that could lessen the bewilderment? Or is it just my low-tech nature?

Demo, I looked into this and found that if you go to your profile and click the option near the bottom "last posts of this person" you can simply do a ctrl+F search for the post you are looking for. For example at your last posts section on your profile I pressed Ctr+F then I typed:  T/P  
This worked fairly well. Much better than the general search box at the top anyway.

If you are looking for a specific post from another member you could use the same method. The only problem would be if you didn't know the name of the member who wrote the post you are looking for.