Another thread begun this week raised the topic of who among this community may have better knowledge than others (that is just my perception of the issue as set forth in the writer's post). Started me thinking about this community bulletin board and what a wonderful resource it is.

Years ago (maybe as many as 10) there were few public bulletin boards. I happened to find myself eagerly participating in one - and as it grew, the owner asked me to become a moderator. I also served in that capacity for a 12 step online support group. Those experiences gave me a good look at how these resources work (and thus some ability to sort out the good ones from the bad).

Moderators serve several functions. They may bring specialized knowledge to a particular topic. They may serve as peace-makers as well as police persons (removing posts in violation of TOS -- Terms of Service).

But the real strength of a well-run BB lies in the members who participate. If the Board is strong and well-run, I feel safer in sharing more information with you. The more I read from different members, especially ones who have posted often and with information I have found reliable, the safer I feel relying on whatever information they may share.

As a result, I find my own research needs reduced. Someone has described something similar to my case and often given me a link to the appropriate research. I cannot count the number of times I have "educated" one of my medical team members about something I learned on this BB (after all, the amount of research produced annually is huge and I don't expect my medical professional to have necessarily read it or even heard of it).

The more Vioxx and Avandia stories I hear, the more I shade all Big Pharma information with the cloak of self-interested deception.

This BB is where I learned about BioFreeze (which actually seems to give me at least a half point drop in pain when I use it).

And magnets (not using them just now -- need to learn a bit more about their proper use)!

So thank you for reading. That earlier post stirred up some memories and I wanted to describe why I think this resource (which, ironically, is sponsored by some medical resource for-profit company) is so valuable and helpful to me. And thank you for your postings which make this BB a key part of my medical care planning.

Cowboy

Thank you for the interesting post, Cowboy!

We do have a lot of new members here all of a sudden, so I just want to say:

You do touch upon the value of this forum. We are very lucky to have DocJohn here who took us under his wing, when our other home crashed and burned. It has been 4 years here now, for us, and many others on the other topics. Our Admin team is very kind, and thoughtful. We protect members from spammers and other unsavory types. Unlike some other venues we are allowed to post links and discuss in more detail medical issues. I truly believe we have one of the safest internet experiences, and also one of the most useful. Many of our other forums have members who over the years have contributed huge strides in information and emotional support for the chronically ill.

I've made many friends here, over the years.

The moderators are here to help, and any time you have a problem posting, forget a password, or need to report something that seems out of place, rude, or alarming, don't hesitate to do so. Just click on the red triangle and type in a short explanation in the box. You can also PM any moderator or admin anytime. It is best not to discuss problems publicly on the forums, so please, report, and one of us will take care of it.
I am not an official moderator on the PN forum, but I can and do pass on concerns to the appropriate ones and I do enter the discussions. But I cannot change titles, move posts etc here.

Where is the red triangle?

Dany, if you ever want to report a post, you'll find a button on the left, under any post.

It's simply called "report", so click that if you have any concerns and you'll be able to send a message to Admin about any post that you feel is against NT's guidelines in any way.

The red triangle has a ! in it. It is small and in different locations on the different "skins".

What are skins? Well if you scroll down to the bottom of every page on the left, there is a little box with "default" in it. You can click the down triangle and see other words, and these are the names of the different viewing options you can use. I use Spring, for example, because it is very easy on my eyes, and I like the color scheme. There are several choices, and I think they are a lot of fun. Many other bulletin board locations do not offer their members this choice. So take a look, and be creative!

The report icon is different colors on the other skins also.

On the default skin it is a button icon with REPORT on it.

for the other skins / color themes you can hover your cursor over the little icons in the section on the left where your user name is, and a mini pop up will show the names of what that icon is for.

I can report problems to the moderators?....Awesome...HELP, I have Neuropathy and I just ran out of toilet paper

Uh oh.... I'm a little concerned that you are on your computer and out of toilet paper at the same time... your computer is probably contaminated!

also please note that on the default skin/theme, when you are online, a plus sign + shows next to the report button. That just indicates you are online and is not related to the report button. On the other themes, the online indicator shows as a dot that is green when you are online and grey when you log off

Wow. Lots of mods and administrators commented on this. I haven't added up their collective post numbers, but guess it's close to 50K. Plus most joined in Aug. 2006.

Since I'm a late arrival (2009), I would have to spend a lot of time to match those records.

Thanks all for taking such good care of us!



CB