YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

May I suggest a sort of "other" or "general" forum? Maybe somewhere to post things that don't fit in other topics or just if people want to, I dunno, discuss movies or something random? Not to take the forum off super off topic, of course, just somewhere for things that don't fit orrrr? Or am I the only one that never knows which topic to post in? Hahaha

I was about to create a similar topic.

There's something good about the super specialized sub forums, but they also fragment all the forum activity and which means it's hard to keep track on the active topics. While we all have our own special variations of problems, we also share a broad common denominator both in the shape of general life quality problems, but also simply all being human beings.

With a General forum, you could create a broader space for more general problems or themes, where replies are more frequent and momentum and interest in discussions are maintained for longer time. Maybe also experiment with a more simplified board index, so people are not overwhelmed when seeing 40 different boards. I've moderated a few forums in the parst, don't get me wrong, I'm not volunteering so I also know it can be a hellish puzzle to impliment changes to the overall board structure and forum member usually never instantly embrace change.

But I think the community could benefit from a little more centralized activity.



I'm also adding an unrelated drawing to sex up my post

I'm sure there it is a very difficult job to organize a forum! Keeping it on topic, while still letting people be broad and whatnot. I'm not really sure what the answer is either, tho, haha. Something in between a random board and a specific board?

PS, that drawing totally brings the post together.

Yes I agree. Many forums I've been to have a "water cooler" type area.

I agree with the "general board" idea. When I started posting here I was looking around for one, and obviously couldn't find one. I suppose that would be a bit of a "stabilizing" thing for the forum overall.

I do kinda like the larger number of boards, though. Especially since they're largely alphabetized. You don't have to dig around for "PTSD" or "Being a Mom." So I personally appreciate that.

P.S. That drawing is brilliant. In every way.

The problem we experienced in the past with a General forum was it got spam bombed about 100 times more than other forums, so we took it down.

Paul

Oh, that's pretty strange. But also a good reason for not having it, haha.

I gotta say, even though I feel almost narcissistic to think this, that I'd be much more inclined to participate if there were a lot fewer subforums, so I could worry less about my posts being seen. I feel like I've put a lot of time and thought into posts that seemed like they'd be relevant to people, but they've gotten mostly overlooked. Maybe the posts weren't that interesting after all, but at least if there were fewer forums, I wouldn't waste so much time paralyzed by my options every time I think of starting a new thread.

Just throwing in my two cents, probably to join my penny graveyard at the bottom of a deep dark well. (That was one metaphor too many, but I couldn't resist penny graveyard.)

I'll just use this old thread to say, that I totally love the new forum layout!

Such a bummer about the spam, hopefully a wonderful alternative will emerge