Community/Learning on this Forum

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Yesterday, I was thinking about a post I read earlier and someone was having issues possibly related to Interstitial Cystitis,and I remembered the first time having that illness how scary and isolating it was.

I also remember a time where I had to learn full on diapers/tabbed briefs by myself, without any help, and how frustrating that was.

Which brings me to this post, I am not trying to "take over" this forum, but I was curious if anyone else would like to learn more from this place, or if anyone has other resources available to them, they would like to share? I truly enjoy this forum, but would like to see it "grow" in a way. Sorry if overstepping my boundaries, but I want to help people that I can.

If people are interested in learning more, we would have to try and figure out how we would go about that. I have some general ideas, but unsure how it would be in the long run. I have also considered beginning a blog in hopes of helping others.

 

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Koigal, if you'd like to educate others how about using "Start New Topic" button, and every time you (or others) want to educate others, simply put "Educating Others" in the Topic. Folks could then add to, respond to, or delete whenever they want? That is how I used to run a forum in an earlier career.

 

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Definitely excellent ideas and an excellent post @Koigal!! I don't get the impression at all that you're trying to take over this forum. Instead you are on this forum to learn and share things which is the whole point of a forum like this. You have found us and we have found you!!!
The people here are very passionate about sharing their experiences and at the same time very compassionate with others who face the same or similar issues.
In my experience here I have learned a lot and hopefully some have learned from me and I enjoy sharing knowledge and also look forward to seeing what others say about the "hot" topics around here.
Although we do share this condition, the good thing about this forum is we begin to know each other as real people (although we are scattered across the country and the world)who have a lot to offer and it allows everyone participating to get an idea of personalities and interests but most importantly to be able to show genuine caring for and about each other.
Yes, things like IC and incontinence are unsettling to say the least, but here we quickly learn we are not the only ones and that is a condition shared here by a lot of very wonderful and worthy people. It doesn't define us although it is a part of us and we learn the best ways to deal with it. But one of the best things is we, through talking with others, learn we can go through this journey holding our heads high!!
And you are not overstepping any boundaries by any stretch but you are showing support for others just as we all support you and each other.
And a blog would definitely be a worthwhile investment of your time and ideas. You can tell about your experiences and how you handled those situations and that encourages others to open up and know that we don't have to face this thing alone.

 

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Thank you both for your feedback and ideas, they are very helpful! I think the trickiest part would be figuring out what would be most helpful for others, unsure we can make polls on here for what topics to cover, but also it is good for it to be up to the original poster/ in this case the teacher which could make the desire to know what everyone wants to learn somewhat irrelevant, depending on the knowledge level.

Anyone is welcome to contribute ideas or perhaps we should make a request topic too? Unsure as of yet with my sleepy brain.

 

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I'd echo what @fleemoore @billliveshere say. Education and support is what the forum is about, and I've learned something from pretty much every post that I've read. You definitely wouldn't be overstepping a mark by doing more.

A lot of posts start with a question, or a point of anxiety which is fine - these are "in the moment posts" that serve the support side of the forum.

Education posts are different in that they retain their relevance over time.

@Koigal I agree that the "timeline" appearance of the forum doesn't work as well for education-type posts. Older posts drop down the page, then off the page, then they are gone. The search doesn't work well - especially if you don't know exactly what you are looking for.

One idea would be to add a new tag for informative articles. This would still leave the posts mixed in among the rest of the posts, which is not ideal.

A better approach (probably needing a bit of programming) would be to add a new type of post to sit alongside "topics" and called "articles" or "education" or similar. This would allow all education posts to be collected together in one place, keep them separate fron the new topic posts, and they could be accessable from every page via a new button next to the "start new topic" and "forum home" buttons ("articles home")). Additionally these articles could be set to never expire or get locked.

Also - if we're adding new features - a second new category of posts could be "blogs" that allows one user to create a blog thread and add new entries to the blog, while all other users are able to comment on any blog entry.

I think doing any of the above would be a worthwhile addition to the forum. @Koigal - do you know how to make suggestions to the dark powers that make things work?

 

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@Phil6003 I agree with your posts, and with growing, learning new things is how things are made better. I do not ironically but I have a guess. I really liked your ideas, they will be helpful. I would love to see this forum become more of a community if possible, because most people are ashamed, needlessly, of their incontinence.

 

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Thank you all for this wonderful feedback! We'd love to hear more thoughts on what you'd like to see on the forum. Please continue adding to this thread and/or reaching out to us directly to let us know if you have features or other things that you think might be helpful to yourself or others. We are all ears!

I'd also like to remind everyone that the forum is just one part of the NAFC community, which offers a lot of education on all sorts of bladder and bowel health conditions. Feel free to poke around there also for additional information, articles, blogs downloadable tools, and more to help you on your journey. (You can go to our homepage here: www.nafc.org or click on the links in the menu above to get to the main site.)

 

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Thank you, @NAFC for your support and enabling us to keep this forum doing what it does best!!!
And @Koigla, I feel this forum does have the makings of a real community whose big objective (or at least one of them) is to do away with people feeling needlessly ashamed of their incontinence. I think everyone who has participated actively in this forum has done a good job of that and for those who originally came here feeling ashamed, I like to think that everyone has pulled together to make those people feel better about themselves and realize there are some pretty awesome people on their side!!

 

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I guess I don’t understand the post. This site has always felt like a community to me. This and another incontienence site have gotten me through some dark times. I have a blog (that I haven’t updated in forever) and have felt that this site along with the other one have been all the support I need.