[ALL USERS PLEASE READ] Proposed Split of the Forum

DrIndy

There have been some significant movement regarding the future direction of this forum and to align it more to the users who visit and comment here.

The proposals are to split Biology from Medicine and to rename Medicine as "Health Science" to reflect the broader user base and allow the discussion of pure science as well as applied science.

How does this affect you - hopefully only positively by broadening scope and creating a definite home for you all to talk freely.

The proposed Biology forum will contain subforums - initially as:

>> Microbiology
>> Molecular Biology
>> Pharmacology
>> Biochemistry

This is hoped to reflect to origins of the majority of interests of the biology posters (which reflect the pharmaceutical and molecular medicine research emphasis in irish universities and biotech companies). If this could be tweaked further - please suggest this. I do emphasise this is just to kickstart the process, any subforums which are clearly in demand would be expanded on further.

For Medicine - it will become "Health Science" to reflect the applied scientific discussion of Medicine, Nursing, pharmacy, Lab Medicine and allied health users who use boards and still remain as a serious and not so serious social atmosphere to discuss the surrounding politics and ethical issues as we currently already do. I would hope that this move would bolster this position and bring forward more users into the fray who may at present only be lurkers on the forum.

There will be two subforums here:

>> Undergrad Health Education
>> Postgrad Health Education

These subforums would allow common discussion either at undergraduate or postgraduate level (postgraduate being either membership or fellowship exams and also masters courses of any health discipline, ATLS, ACLS etc.....) This reflects that although we attend separate colleges (reflected in the Edu category) at undergraduate level - we also have centrally regulated professions and as such have significant amount of common issues and shared clinical knowledge bases to tap into. I believe these subforums should remain in the new Health Science forum rather than go to Edu to reflect the creation of a new and growing social atmosphere for the sharing of knowledge and experience which has really taken off in the last year.

These are proposed changes. If there are significant objections to this - then I will take the opinion of the users and oppose the current changes, but if you broadly support these changes then we will be spurned into much more rapid action to implement them.

Any further comments are more than welcome as would any and all suggestions for change.

bleg

Yea, this definitely makes sense. Bit strange having biological information/links/threads alongside questions about the best way to get into medicine. Definitely agree with this.

mardybumbum

The split sounds like a good idea.
The change from "Biology and Medicine" to "Health Sciences" may even stop people looking for Medical advice here. :rolleyes:

Hopefully they will go off and clog up the Long Term Illness forum. :pac:

darjeeling

One question - will the new main Biology forum contain threads (as does e.g. the Politics forum), or will it just be just the sub-forums that do (as e.g. the Languages forum)?

DrIndy

that is for the users to decide. I believe in open moderatorship and see my role as to aid discusion rather than guide discussion.

darjeeling

DrIndy wrote: »

that is for the users to decide. I believe in open moderatorship and see my role as to aid discusion rather than guide discussion.

I mean I guess it will be possible to post up general biology threads in the main Bio forum? i.e. will there be a 'post new thread' button?

Some main forums - Languages, Religion, Motoring, Travel etc - are set up so that threads can only be posted in the sub-forums. Other forums - Politics, Food & Drink, Military etc - are set up differently, and do allow threads in the main forum.

I think it would be good to have the option of posting in the new main Bio forum any general biology threads that wouldn't fit in the proposed sub-forums.

anotherlostie

Do you think the Biology sub forums would be busy enough to justify having four of them? I think there is nothing worse than empty forums, because that certainly doesn't encourage people to 1) post topics and 2) check the forums regularly. At a guess, the majority of current topics would fit into the Health Sciences forum (nevermind the 'physic cure me' ones).

Fugly

I think it's a good idea. However the four are very specific and leave out some major areas. I think that biology can sometimes be ramdomly posted in other forums, where they aren't totally out of place yet I believe that a a deciated subforum would create an area where all are placed together, I know the title "bio & med" has stopped me from posting threads that refer to other areas of bio. Just my two cents.

Bottle_of_Smoke

The subforums seem very very specific. Don't think they'd get much users, however I myself study three of them in college and they might be helpful for that kind of thing.

One subforum I'd like to see for biology would be Evolution and Animals.

Vorsprung

I think it would be best to have the Med forums as proposed, but to leave Biology at the minute. When the business starts rolling in, then see what subforums would be appropriate. I do think the forums suggested are a bit too specific at this early stage.

DrIndy

good stuff folks - so subforums in Biology may not be a good idea at the start then? My concern is that since biology is so broad that "grouping" users together would generate more discussion by concentrating posts (I look a the very specific area of paleontology which has amassed more than critical mass). You guys think the opposite - interesting.

Everyone seems pretty happy with the layout and ethos for Health Science though.

norrie rugger

DrIndy wrote: »

good stuff folks - so subforums in Biology may not be a good idea at the start then? My concern is that since biology is so broad that "grouping" users together would generate more discussion by concentrating posts (I look a the very specific area of paleontology which has amassed more than critical mass). You guys think the opposite - interesting.

Everyone seems pretty happy with the layout and ethos for Health Science though.

I like the idea but Biology is not just about health

There is Food Science, Marine, Enviornmental etc.

I think that the main biology forum needs to be somewhere that you can post.
The sub fora will be great for specific topics and debate but, to avoid exclusion, the main forum should be General Biology

PhysiologyRocks

I think the split is a really good idea. That said, part of me likes the diversity of this forum.

What if you have a question that is part biology and part healthcare (e.g. In the GIT X causes/potentiates Y. What would occur in the absence of X? Is there a known condition? How is this treated?)?

DrIndy

PhysiologyRocks wrote: »

I think the split is a really good idea. That said, part of me likes the diversity of this forum.

What if you have a question that is part biology and part healthcare (e.g. In the GIT X causes/potentiates Y. What would occur in the absence of X? Is there a known condition? How is this treated?)?

pick your poison and toss it in either - i think there will be a big crossover of users between the split forum. Many people check in here because they have an interest in Bio/Med and so would use both new forums.

norrie rugger

agreed. I know i would be interested in both.
Just try to not be too specific please

Chunky Monkey

+1 for the split and getting rid of the 'medicine' title.

Tree

Definitely a fan of losing the medicine title and introducing the educational subfora for health sciences.

I'm not so certain about splitting bio from health science, and definitely doubt the nessecity of biology subfora.

norrie rugger

Tree wrote: »

Definitely a fan of losing the medicine title and introducing the educational subfora for health sciences.

I'm not so certain about splitting bio from health science, and definitely doubt the nessecity of biology subfora.

true about the biology subfora but not all biology is health related.

r3nu4l

Keep the feedback coming folks.

My take on the feedback so far is this:

Ditch 'medicine' and make it 'Health Sciences'. Have sub-fora to cater for various interest groups in the health sciences.

Biology should be a separate forum but not split (yet) into subfora because:

1) the subfora may not get enough traffic and appear 'dead'
2) the subfora may exclude huge areas of biology (marine, botany etc).


That sounds good to me and more or less fits in with my personal opinion.

Another option (already suggested) that I like is to allow posters to post general threads in the Biology forum and if there is demand for it, create subfora for 'molecular biology', 'pharmacology', 'botany' etc. as needed.

tallaght01

I'm not sure people wanted to split health sciences into different "doctor "pharmacist" "nurse" subforums. I think there wouldn't be enough traffic, and one of the strengths of discussion on the forum is that we can get the views of other healthcare professionals.

r3nu4l

tallaght01 wrote: »

I'm not sure people wanted to split health sciences into different "doctor "pharmacist" "nurse" subforums. I think there wouldn't be enough traffic, and one of the strengths of discussion on the forum is that we can get the views of other healthcare professionals.

I was thinking more about this:

DrIndy wrote:

>> Undergrad Health Education
>> Postgrad Health Education

I think the Health education fora as a subfora of health sciences would be good but it's up to the userbase and you B&M mods as to what happens.

I wasn't thinking of Doctor, Nurse, pharmacist, Technician etc... that would be a nightmare.

ZorbaTehZ

r3nu4l wrote: »

Ditch 'medicine' and make it 'Health Sciences'. Have sub-fora to cater for various interest groups in the health sciences.

Biology should be a separate forum but not split (yet) into subfora

+1.

Biochem., Pharmacology etc. forums would be major overkill imo.

imported_guy

i think we should have another sub forum, concering GAMSAT/graduate med, or will that be covered in post grad medicine? because i myself and probably others have/will post on those topics?

I'll give my opinion, even though I don't post here.

Biology and Medicine should be split, with Medicine being renamed to Health Science and having a sub-forum entitled Studying Medicine, or something similar.

So, the catagory would look something like:

- Archaeology
- Astronomy & Space
- Biology
- Dental Issues
.
.
.
.
- Eyeglasses & Contact Lenses & Eyecare
- Health Science
>Studying Medicine
- Long Term Illness
.
.
etc.

Both biology and the health sciences are large enough to warrant their very own forums, so I don't see any need to keep them together. There's nothing stopping a discussion of biology in the Health Science forum, for example, so that shouldn't be a concern.

Also, I think seperating them would have one great advantage: this forum is dominated with health science related threads, pure-biology is completely lacking. It's a somewhat intimidating forum to post in about evolution or something, because of the highly professional mods, and I think seperating the forums would fix this "problem".

Also, a link could be placed in the Edu cat. to the Studying Medicine, or whatever it could be called, sub-forum.


Edit: Also, if I could have my way I would create a new catagory entitled Health, which I've outlined here. I didn't get any responses because I didn't post it in the right forum...

Dr Galen

+1 to the idea as posted by T01, r3n4ul and others.

Leave the Bio forum unsplit at the minute and if traffic takes off then you can look at further subfora.

Create the under and post grad fora. Don't make them specific to medicine though as other people from other backgrounds may want info etc.

I also demand a nurse forum to be created, you could just leave me there talking to myself all day

sam34

Mystik Monkey wrote: »

I also demand a nurse forum to be created, you could just leave me there talking to myself all day

I've got some tablets that could help you with that little issue :pac:

Dr Galen

how did i know you'd say that!

nesf

I don't think it's necessary to have such specific sub fora from the get go. If the main Biology forum is overrun with threads dealing with a particular sub-discipline then yes that's the time to do a split.

This is essentially the approach we've taken with Politics, sub forums are added when a particular area is generating a large amount of traffic and threads and only then will a split occur. Ideally you want (in my view) a minimum of sub-fora in order to coalese traffic as much as possible. You're better off with a busy general forum than 3 very quiet sub-fora and so on.


As a side example, Physics/Chemistry (while far far quieter) has functioned fine for years as one general heading for discussion even if at times there might have been enough traffic to justify a particular split (Quantum Mechanics and String Theory are two that spring to mind from the time when I used moderate it).

sam34

Mystik Monkey wrote: »

how did i know you'd say that!

i must be hanging round these parts too much!

DrIndy

Just to bounce this up for the users - the issue is progressing.

As follows:

Bio/Med will split into:

Biology
Health Sciences

We will add a subforum called Health Science Education

This will encompass Gamsat/Hpat/Careers/Postgrad courses/people seeking any information on any health sciences course.

I envision these changes happening very soon and hope it benefits the community.