Moderation Events

[mmglobal]

02/14/09 - moved "Getting Banned" post to the Transparent forum.
Allowing continued posting and venting, but not as primary focus of the iSpine forum.

02/19/09 - merged Surgery Blog forum into Surgical Outcomes forum
It was confusing what to post where. This just makes more sense. Less forums, less confusion.

03/02/09 - shortened title of Cindylou's thread - too much to explain here, see post below.

12/17/09 - removed "Transparent" forum. (One post in 11 months.) It ran it's course... served it's purpose.

12/17/09 - merged Caregiver forum into iSpine forum... lack of traffic... see below.

2/9/10 - deleted spam post from insurance forum. Because this concerns travel insurance, for now, I'm leaving a similar spam post with explanation here.

[mmglobal]

Original Post for starting Moderation Events thread

In the 2.5 years I've run this forum, it has required almost ZERO moderation. I've occasionally deleted pure spam posts, but have never banned anyone (except the spammers).

I have set up a forum that is visible only to registered members. It's called 'Transparent' and the purpose of this forum is to have a place where people can air their opinions about community issues that have nothing to do with spine or the warm and fuzzy nature of the community support forum. These threads often contain discussions that are important to the community, but they clearly detract from the main purpose of the forum and are unpleasant distractions. My goal is NOT to stifle these discussions. Quite the contrary, my goal is to provide a place where these discussions can take place, but in a manner that doesn't detract from the good vibe that exist here 99% of the time.

I'll eventually keep this 'moderation events' thread closed, so it will be visible for a while after some moderation is required, but it will not appear as a primary focus of the forum.

All the best,

Mark

[Terry Allen Blackburn]

Thank-you for doing this. I never meant to stir up a hornet's nest, but had strong feelings about what occurred, and continues to occur with the previous site.

Anyone who truly knows me knows that I have one interest in my heart, and that is to be a support to others, and make a difference in the world around me.

All the best.

Terry Newton

[mmglobal]

I haven't seen anyone posting something that they need to apologize for. We all are invested in this community and feel strongly about things. I have seen MANY cases where information brought to the patient community has saved lives. (Read about Cindy and Tom on the GPN patient stories page. Their life saving surgery is courtesy of BrianK who brought his story of piriformis syndrome following ADR surgery to my original yahoo group. BTW, I have recently corresponded with BrianK and he is doing VERY WELL!)

We all need to be free to speak our minds. We also all need to be adult enough to not overreact when we see something that we feel is off color. NO APOLOGIES NECCESSARY. We expect to see a hornet's nest once in a while. No single person is the arbiter of right and wrong, or proper and improper etiquette here. We can agree and disagree, but still be supportive as we are all here for the same reasons.

Mark


OK... I confess... moderation event 0... I once asked (not told) someone to remove a joke that I thought was funny... but too politically incorrect to be here.

[trkdoc714]

I didn't get a PM on that last joke, so it must've passed muster

[mmglobal]

3/2/09, I shortened the title of Cindylou's thread. I removed "and Mark is going to attend". If anyone is interested why this made me uncomfortable in the post title, please contact me. No changes in post content... just the title.

Mark

[mmglobal]

The requested caregiver forum is not getting any traffic. I don't expect caregivers to come and form an online community. I think that the patient's postings regarding caregiver issues are probably more in tune with what the main forum is.

I'm considering moving the caregiver threads under the main iSpine forum... less forums is less confusing.

I'll leave insurance for now... I think that this may pick up as the traffic picks up.

I've been working on the avatar issue for several days. I hope to have it knocked soon. I'll let you know.

Also, I'm going to be dispensing with the main page. in a few days, the ispine forums will all be at iSpine.org and will not be at ispine.org/forum. When this happens, you'll probably want to update your bookmarks.

All the best,

Mark

PS... I'm looking for feedback on the caregiver forum... anyone have any strong feelings about closing it?

[Eastex]

Mark,
I thought more spouses would of been on the caregiver forum by now. I talked to my wife about sharing some information or asking some questions. Well, I think with my surgery and a lot of the suffering gone she decided not to do it. I think it is a great idea to have it, but the site is more for spineys and it seems to be hard to convince people on the other side to post or read.

[mmglobal]

I've been on the internet spine forums for almost 10 years now and rarely see spouses posting except for information about surgeries and immediate post-op updates.

Most of the spouses I do see are advocates looking for the technical information and don't even feel comfortable seeing the pain and disability as something grinding on them too.

Many spouses view the internet forums as providing useful information, support and entertainment at best. On the other end of the spectrum, many spouses view the internet forums as dysfunctional places where people wallow in their misery. "If you'd just stop focusing on your problem, you'd get better!"

I'll leave things alone for a while, but will most likely remove it unless someone really thinks it's helping.

Mark

[Gil Denis]

Hi Mark
I agree my spouse just wants me to get better.
She has read some information and is more stressed out and afraid what may be in the future for me
I`ll just leave it at that.
Take Care
Gil