Quiet boards discussion
 

Hello

The mods have been having a discussion around the quiet boards.

We have noticed that grief and trauma, substance abuse and binge eating are very quiet with not much support happening.

We were wondering what members thought about this and whether it's worthwhile having a think around the boards and whether we should keep them as is or maybe reduce boards etc.

I'm leaving this deliberately vague so as to not influence people but will post my thoughts in due course.

Cam on behalf of the mods

Keep the binge eating board as most conversation is in the comfy couch where the support is.

Totally forgot there was a greif and trauma board to be honest

But one could move that comfy couch to ED?

When I wanted to post about binge eating I would now want to post in the main ED forum for more replies. Even though I really campaigned for the extra board the quietness is sad :(

I often think about this, especially with grief and substance where people who are in serious dark places may not get many replies, so really good question to be brought up Mods. :)

Mmm, it always makes me concerned when I see something in grief or substance abuse that's been sat there a while because it's quiet, that would have had replies in the main board much sooner.

I'd be for streamlining boards.

Streamlining is good.

Off topic but RYL feels like a ghost town in general these days. May be for another thread, but there seems to be plenty of members visiting but not posting. Does it feel unsafe?

Maybe that's contentious but it's just how it looks to me. Thoughts? (Mods please delete if hijacking - will.consider starting new thread).

but I wouldn't even want to post in the normal Ed board as it's mainly aimed at anorexic/bulimic people this is the debate we had before. Keep the binge eating board

^^ but if only a few threads in binge eating are being updated and used regulaly it seems a bit pointless to keep an entire area of the forum. Although I've never used the ED area, to me it seems to make sense to put binge eating back onto it. It might be odd at first but eventually it should flow.

Streamlining to me makes sense, especially in areas of the site that are currently underused.

In my experience on the forums, people who experience overeating are greatly outnumbered by those who experience undereating (terms used for ease of simplification only!!) so I think there is a fear that threads for overeating would get lost in the flood of undereating threads.
I also personally would not feel comfortable posting about my overeating in a forum full of anorexics. It just feels....wrong. And very fat.

I am not sure if that feeling of discomfort is applicable to posts about grief and trauma, which could maybe be lumped into the serious board - but then the Seriousness of serious might get lost as well? I recall another conversation about trying to reduce the number of posts in serious that were not deemed actually *that* serious.

Isn't it just that misconception that needs to be challenged...

I binged more when I was anorexic than I ever do now. Fact.

Its this idea that people with tiny frames and anorexic BMIs wont understand the feeling of a binge or that people who binge eat are not in the same headspace. I just think there could be more compassion and awareness rather than division, I suppose I feel very sad that someone who suffers from binge eating feels unable to post in an ED board.

My thoughts on BORIS:

1) I assume active threads will be moved and not disappear. So the Comfy Couch would still be running and nobody had to miss out on the support they get there.

2) Support threads for binge eating might get more support than on the subforum that is often overlooked.

3) It's an artificial segregation of eating disorders. Challenging the wide spread idea that anorexia and bulimia are the main EDs might be a better approach to overcome the differences in attention and support. I would like to see a board where all EDs are accepted as equal and where binging is represented as just as serious as undereating or purging. Especially new members or people who feel insecure and like their issues are less serious might benefit from treating all EDs the same.

Hope I made sense.

So that's a yes from me to the idea of reducing / getting rid of sub forums as I hope it will increase support for those that are often overlooked.

I have always wanted to reduce the number of sub-forums. Grief is something that would easily go in GSA, or Serious. I would even say that the Vet boards could become part of the main forums.

Regarding the ED section, I would combine it. Currently it feels quite divisive and not always clear where a new member should post. The level of support shouldn't decrease because it is no longer an individual section, if anything it should increase because the pool of readers will increase.

What about changing the name of the ed forum?

I think "Eating Disorder Support" is fine; it's quite general. It seems from this thread and the previous discussion about the board is the attitude of members, and I doubt a name change would make any difference.

I think the name is fine.
What could it be changed to anyway?

Something to include binge eating or something!

Seems some if the objections to BORIS going are because it is specifically for binge eating having a looser title might help?

But binge eating disorder is an eating disorder?

Can any old school RYLers remember the origins of the binge eating forum? To me its existence seems quite strange (why not also have a subforum for undereating and a subforum in mental health for personality disorders etc?), but maybe there was a really good reason for it existing which still stands now that we aren't seeing because we're so used to it.

I'm unsure if that made sense...

Also,
What makes you think it's mainly aimed at anorexic/bulimic people? It only appears that way at the moment because BED and related issues are segregated into another board, if it wasn't then it would just be a general eating disorders board.

^I think you joined before it came about. Aimee (then Alice in Wonderland) was one of the key players. At the time, it was much busier, and BORIS threads were swamped by lots of AN and BN threads and made BORIS people feel really out of place.

Basically what Sophia has said.

Ironically after the creation of BORIS (hehe) I still posted in the main ED forum sometimes because the support is a higher amount, I have friends there too. Maybe we need to challenge the view that it's just for AN sufferers, but ALSO hugely challenge the notion they can't help. They can! And they are lovely!

I think if we were streamlining maybe keep each forums long threads ie. Alcoholism support, comfy couch maybe?, messages maybe?. But I think an alcoholism support thread would be good.