Shopping removed; Mental Health added -
Kyng - 08-08-2021
For a while now, our board layout has been fairly static (the last new addition was "Ask Me Specifically", and
that was over a year ago now!). However, following
recent discussions, I have decided the time has come to make a couple more changes, which are as follows:
1) The 'Shopping' sub-forum of Health and Lifestyle has been removed
For a little over two years now, we have had a 'Shopping' sub-forum. At first, this was in the 'Recreation Station' forum - and then, when that section was removed, it was moved to 'Health and Lifestyle'. However, it was never really that successful: more than half of all posts there were in three low-quality threads ("
Last thing you bought?", "
What do you want to buy?", and "
Last shop you went in?"). Secondly, there was a
lot of overlap with other parts of the board: there were threads about food shopping that could go in Food and Drink, threads about clothes shopping that could go in Home and Beauty, threads about shopping apps could go into Technology and Computers, and so on. Thirdly, a lot of the threads weren't really "Health and Lifestyle": the threads about spending habits were, but the threads about shop closures weren't (unless those shops were specifically selling products that were
themselves health-and-lifestyle-related, e.g. beauty products).
Therefore, I have decided to break up the 'Shopping' sub-forum, as follows:
- Threads about specific kinds of shop have gone into the appropriate forum or sub-forum (for example, threads about food shopping are now in Food and Drink, and threads about music shopping are now in Music and Audio);
- Threads about shop closures, and other non-health-and-lifestyle shop news, has gone into Current Events and Politics. (However, these threads have always done very badly, so I'll probably just stop creating them altogether in the future);
- Threads about people's spending habits have stayed in Health and Lifestyle (and the forum description there has been updated to make a reference to 'spending habits', in order to make this clearer);
- The three low-quality threads that I listed in the first paragraph have been moved to General Chat, as have a handful of other threads that I couldn't fit in anywhere else.
However, the main reason why I got rid of 'Shopping' was to make way for the following:
2) A new "Mental Health" sub-forum has been added
About a week ago,
loves2chat suggested adding a new sub-forum dedicated to mental health. It was a little while before I was convinced; however, after some discussion, I agreed to remove the Shopping section, and add Mental Health in its place. (I did consider throwing in topics about interpersonal relationships, so it would become "Social and Mental Health"; however, in the end, I decided against that. I can always do it at a later date if I decide that this would be helpful after all!)
In this part of the board, you can discuss all mental health topics, as well as seeking advice with any mental health issues you're suffering at the moment, and give such advice to your fellow members. In order to give members a bit of privacy while they do this, this new subforum is visible to
members only: guests and users awaiting activation cannot see it. However, we must emphasise that
this section is NOT a replacement for seeking professional help - for a full disclaimer and more information, please see the "
Mental Health - Introduction and Disclaimer" thread pinned at the top of that sub-forum.
I hope you find the new Mental Health section to be useful - and, enjoy posting in it
!
RE: Shopping removed; Mental Health added -
loves2chat - 08-08-2021
Thanks
Kyng for being willing to give this a try. I hope it will be a sucess and useful for people.
RE: Shopping removed; Mental Health added -
Kyng - 08-08-2021
(08-08-2021, 12:56 PM)loves2chat Wrote: Thanks Kyng for being willing to give this a try. I hope it will be a sucess and useful for people.
You're welcome
!
I certainly hope it'll be a success too
. And one other benefit I forgot to mention in the opening post is that I hope this will shift the emphasis of 'Health and Lifestyle' back towards the health aspects - since that part of the board was just turning into a second General Chat with slightly different topics.