Please Rethink The Big Pot Design

[gasp]

Keep it the same ... vote for McCain!

Oh ... sorry, wrong thread

Yep, although I think this topic comes up more like 3 times a year ... we should have one more before the end of the year if I'm correct.

So I agree, the forum works just fine as it is ... seriously, it does.

[-SWS]

Snoredog is just plain SMART...like brilliant!! I'm always impressed. I'd be willing to bet that his IQ is somewhere around 152 to 160?

That smart Snoredog has also sired two brilliant daughters.

[gasp]

OK, I'll jump on board. There was a time like you I wanted sub topics. That was mostly when I was trying to wade through all the info to find what I needed for successful therapy.

The process of wading, introduced me to some wonderful people, I found tons more info that I would have in sub topics, and I came to understand that what we do here on the forum isn't about how fast I can find the info - it''s people helping people.

Also, you can look back in the threads and see I just started an OT General Chat post for people to do just that - chat OT. I did this because I do OT so often and thought I'd make a gesture to try to put it in a 'more appropriate place'. The OT thread died a quick death.

We are like a bunch of people at get together for a charity. We care about the reason for the event, but it's not going to stop us from whipping out pictures of our family to show each other, or trade business cards, or talk about everything but the charity.

Every time I come to the forum, I know I'll get good information and learn something, connect with great people, and get to put in my two cents - which makes me feel a part of this community in a way that sub topics and organizational thinking wouldn't do for me

By the way, have I told you all that I have a new niece?

[Wulfman]

By the way, have I told you all that I have a new niece?

Congratulations on the addition to "the family".

Den

[marshaeb]

Well said, Gasp!! And thanks for whipping out your picture of that beautiful little girl.


Marsha

[-SWS]

We are like a bunch of people at get together for a charity. We care about the reason for the event, but it's not going to stop us from whipping out pictures of our family to show each other, or trade business cards, or talk about everything but the charity.

Congratulations on that great little bundle!!!

[Nodzy]

My few cents worth...

I looked through many forums before settling into this one in 2007. For good reasons I joined... very active participation... thousands of members... great info that was easy to find... only one section to search through and post in... and the layout was sensible and easy to use. Compartmentalizing the posts and replies by topic, or other, would just make it tougher to navigate, especially for many who don't have patience or much experience with ferreting out information. It's fine the way it is... and Old Lincoln.... hang around.

Gasp.... congrat's on the nice niece bundle!!!!

Nodzy...."Being one’s self may be a tough job, but trying to be someone else is welcoming certain failure."

[jsmythe]

Nodzy, great post, I have missed ya.....

[alnhwrd]

Any changes have to made by someone. Since the forum is a freebie supported by our gracious hosts, I would not want to put any additional burden on them. MHO.

[dgsupersleepy]

I want to stipulate up front that I truly appreciate this forum as I have learned a great deal here the last couple months, and am sure I will continue to. I am not attempting to berate or be mean towards anyone or the posts/work they do here. I am just putting forth my opinion on the organization of this forum.

Well I was going to stay out of this because I'm fairly new and for the overwhelming outcry over OldLincoln's suggestion. But honestly, I agree with him, even though we are pretty much the only two apparently. I get the feeling he is in some type of IT from his posts (I was too for a long time), so maybe that has something to do with it. But I really do not understand the opposition to 2 or 3 forums. I personally like my information organized, so off-topic threads tend to annoy me (no offense intended). I want to see things by subject, and do not understand or agree with the theory that it would kill the forum, or that it would make things hard to find. Having a choice of 2 or 3 forums does not make things harder to find. If you are able to figure out how to click on a thread, I'm sure you could handle clicking on a forum. I also think that things are much harder to find in 1 very large forum.

Currently, the search function is very hard to find what you want, mostly b/c there is so much information turned up on a search. You spend just as much time searching through a search as you do posts. I would imagine that is why there are so many posts on the same subjects over and over and over again. It is easier just to post and ask then it is to wade through so much information (I'm guilty too. I have even found similar posts not too far down from some I've made when I take my time). A few forums would help alleviate the overload of information in a forum. Also, having multiple forums so that if you want to chat with people you know OT allows you to go to that forum and do so w/o having to wade through all the sleep apnea problems and vice-versa. It would be much easier to find OT threads to chat about something else other than sleep apnea in its own forum.

Kill the forum? Only if you add too many. Even though I'm a newbie, the all so subtle mentions to sleepapnea.org are worth mentioning. Yes, I agree the forum is a ghost town. I agree that is largly due to so many different forums. However, even 1 additional forums to chat about something other than sleep apnea would help. The dearth of information here is overwhelming, and even though I am here most days looking, I still have not adjusted to it in 2 months.

Everything under the "Our Wisdom" area above is categorized and organized to the nth degree. Why not just put all that in one large post? Because it would be impossible to read. I feel that is much like one large forum.
So in conclusion if you jumped to this last paragraph, I think the overlap of posts/questions/information would largly be reduced with the additional of 1 or 2 forums. As many users as there are on here, it should not kill the forum to have one or two more. I also believe it would make life easier in the world of zillion reposts.

[Wulfman]

There are actually a huge number of members of this forum who are or have been in the Information Technology or other highly technical and scientific fields.
The biggest benefit of having everything in one forum is that more people learn more about all the subjects being discussed.....if they choose to read those threads. For example, I have only used full face masks, so it's an extremely rare occasion that I'll even peek into a thread about nasal masks.
I just went to the ASAA forum and counted the number of categories there.......there are 13. All of those subjects are discussed here in one.......including Narcolepsy, Pediatric, spousal situations, sleep studies, oral appliances and everything else. It all has to do with this condition that we share in various ways. The more I know about ALL of it, the better off I am.

If we take the example of "Information Technology" and made a forum out of it and categorized ever aspect of it, it would be almost an endless list of categories. In my case, my job classification has been called an IT "Specialist"......however, in reality, I'm an IT "Generalist".......I'm expected to have a huge amount of knowledge about a lot of different areas in this field. I hate having to search so many different places for the information that pertains to my job and what I need to know. So, that's why I like this forum......everything about this condition and therapy in one place and one all-encompassing forum.

Den

[dgsupersleepy]

Please don't mistake my comment about IT. I just got the feeling he was saying it from an IT perspective. I guess since no one else mentioned the IT thing, I didn't really think of most anyone else being from it.

In addition, I also agree that 13 forums would be too much, and would stand a good chance of killing the forum. I just meant like 2 or 3. One for apnea related stuff, one for OT, and maybe one for something else. I really think it would help with repeats and search functionality.

[ozij]

One of the recent OT threads was a expression of hopes that people in Texas would be OK during the recent hurricane.

A thread like that is very very much part of what this forum is about: caring about people, and wanting to know more specifically that members and friend are OK.

Funnily enough, the OT on it misled me to think it was about football or one of those really OT subjects, and I ignored it. It took me almost 24 hours of wondering how our Texas members were doing, and appreciating the way the forum is still up (cpap.com is based in Houston) for the penny to drop for me. Ike was no longer a hurricane by the time I started browsing that thread . And I would not have skipped the thread for so long if it had not had an OT in front of it. People's thinking styles are different, as is the context of their reading. There were many people who immediately undrestood what that thread was about. And for anyone who unknowingly skipped that thread because he or she does not read the OT forum, cpaptalk would have been a very different, far less humane place.

Once we have categorized forums, people who really like things categorized by subject will obviously get annoyed at the way other people choose to categorize their threads - or even their posts. So we'll have tons of "this thread/post should be here and not there" posts to wade through - as well....

A "dearth of information" on this forum?
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dearth

• 1. an inadequate supply; scarcity; lack ,<snip>
  —Synonyms 1. shortage, want, paucity, insufficiency.
  —Antonyms 1. abundance, plenty, sufficiency; surplus"

O.

[gasp]

Thanks all, Den, Marsha, SWS, and Nodzy on the congrats!

[rejoicem56]

I don't know you yet but what a beautiful baby !!!! What a nice break from all the what to do about the Big Pot Design. Thanks for sharing , Melinda
By the way, have I told you all that I have a new niece?

[/quote]