Threads closed - BUT

gerard65

this afternoon a thread regarding an injury was closed, but the poster was just asking about other peoples experience, which is not different than whats been discussed in an other thread regarding injuries. There is also a thread open regarding food intolerances - thats medical.
To me there is a contradiction at times as to what can be discussed regarding medical issues and what is closed.
Threads are left open on digestive issues and medical advice is dished out, including what over-counter drugs to take, but try discuss other peoples experiences with a physical injury and its closed.
I can understand posters been told not to advise taking this or that drug, but surely its OK to discuss experiences on recovery times etc.

RayCun

<mod hat on>
What can I say? There is a rule saying we can't offer medical advice, and threads looking for it will be closed, but there is no objective standard that we can check to say this is medical advice and that isn't. To my mind, when someone says "I have this injury [and how do they know what injury they have? self-diagnosis?] how do I treat it?" that is clearly looking for medical advice.
The easiest way to be completely consistent would be to close down more threads, but we don't want to do that.
</mod hat on>

shels4ever

RayCun wrote: »

<mod hat on>
What can I say? There is a rule saying we can't offer medical advice, and threads looking for it will be closed, but there is no objective standard that we can check to say this is medical advice and that isn't. To my mind, when someone says "I have this injury [and how do they know what injury they have? self-diagnosis?] how do I treat it?" that is clearly looking for medical advice.
The easiest way to be completely consistent would be to close down more threads, but we don't want to do that.
</mod hat on>

It's seem the rules might need to be looked at, you can harp on in your log about injury treatment and how you deal with these things, but the same thing in a thread gets locked .
People can be advised to lose weight, run more, follow xyz jack d and p&d plan. Should these be advised with out someone having a full medical history taken?

gerard65

Looking for other peoples experience is not looking for medical advice. Doctors differ ..... etc, but asking has anyone ever had <insert injury> and how long did your recovery take, who did you see about it, etc is not asking for advice, its discussing something of which, unfortunatly, is part of running. I can't see any difference with that and 'I want to run a marathon next October, can you help'.
Maybe its easier to close a thread started by a first time poster rather than someone who's be hanging around for years.

gerard65

'Was wondering has anyone out there picked up this injury running - if so what treatment if any did you get for it and how long did the recovery period take before you could go back training again! Was it complete rest that was required or were you able to go for a walk instead of running???'

What exactly is wrong with the above post? Compared to other ongoing threads its not even borderline.

RayCun

(consider the mod hat on for this thread)

shels4ever wrote: »

It's seem the rules might need to be looked at, you can harp on in your log about injury treatment and how you deal with these things, but the same thing in a thread gets locked .

As I said above, if you complain that we are strict about the rules here and lax about the rules there... you are inviting us to be strict everywhere. We do have to enforce these rules, they are boards policy not something we made up ourselves.

shels4ever wrote: »

People can be advised to lose weight, run more, follow xyz jack d and p&d plan. Should these be advised with out someone having a full medical history taken?

No, because they're not offering medical advice, they are offering running advice. If you were on the motors forum and someone asked how to change a tyre, you wouldn't have to ask them if they had a bad back before responding. If you were on a food forum and someone asked how to make a chocolate cake, you wouldn't have to ask if they had diabetes before giving them the recipe.

DULLAHAN2

gerard65 wrote: »

'Was wondering has anyone out there picked up this injury running - if so what treatment if any did you get for it and how long did the recovery period take before you could go back training again! Was it complete rest that was required or were you able to go for a walk instead of running???'

What exactly is wrong with the above post? Compared to other ongoing threads its not even borderline.

If the op had said before the bold that they had the injury and the doc/physio said do this, that and the other, then there wouldn't be much of an issue as the op would just be comparing diagnosis. But we don't know from the above if the OP was self diagnosing and was looking for cheap medical advice.

But that is just me reading between the lines.

RayCun

gerard65 wrote: »

'Was wondering has anyone out there picked up this injury running - if so what treatment if any did you get for it and how long did the recovery period take before you could go back training again! Was it complete rest that was required or were you able to go for a walk instead of running???'

What exactly is wrong with the above post? Compared to other ongoing threads its not even borderline.

You left out the title "Osteitis Pubis injury"
How does the poster know this is the problem?
Either s/he has already consulted a medical professional and got a diagnosis, in which case they should follow that professional's advice rather than ours.
Or they diagnosed themselves, in which case us telling them how to treat possibly the wrong injury is exactly the kind of thing the ban on medical advice is intended to prevent.

hardCopy

gerard65 wrote: »

'Was wondering has anyone out there picked up this injury running - if so what treatment if any did you get for it and how long did the recovery period take before you could go back training again! Was it complete rest that was required or were you able to go for a walk instead of running???'

What exactly is wrong with the above post? Compared to other ongoing threads its not even borderline.

I suppose there's a risk there that if I answered that I had the same problem, I rested for a week and it went away. The OP then decides not to see a doc/physio, waits a week and tears something the following week.

Would they have sought medical advice from a professional if I had said nothing? Am I or boards now liable for their treatment?

As someone who has been a member here for a long time, I have taken other members advice on diet, training, equipment etc. But I have some idea of which posters I can trust or ignore. What's to stop bad advice, trolling or even sarcasm being taken as gospel?

hunnymonster

There are a lot of judgement calls, the best thing is that we mods continue to leave open anything that doens't ***Definitely*** contravene the boards.ie rules and if posters see something that they feel is inappropiate they report it and we will take an even closer look at it.

RoyMcC

To be fair the present mods are allowing a lot more latitude in these matters. I'm happy for them to call it as they see it. After all the mods are answerable to the supermods and could get their asses kicked :eek:

gerard65

OK, so I open a thread about runners trots, I get loads of opinions on what to do including over-the-counter-meds, but I could have colon cancer, so infuture should all threads medical be closed, blisters, cramps, etc. using this logic.
Whats annoying me is that something that may actually help someone is closed, but the greatest load of bullsh1t is allowed to carry on in two threads which have been gracing the front page in the last few days. Of course longterm posters have been contributing

RayCun

gerard65 wrote: »

OK, so I open a thread about runners trots, I get loads of opinions on what to do including over-the-counter-meds, but I could have colon cancer, so infuture should all threads medical be closed, blisters, cramps, etc. using this logic.

There are three options here

1. Close all threads that might, somehow, contravene the 'no medical advice' rule. No advice about diet, because weight problems could be down to an underlying condition. No advice about blisters, because there might be some weird blood disease that is causing the blisters. Delete the shin splints thread, because that pain in the shins could be cancer.
2. The mods have latitude to close the threads that they think cross the line, and leave other threads open.
3. Leave all threads open

Option 3 is not going to happen.

So do you prefer option 1 or option 2?

shels4ever

RayCun wrote: »

(consider the mod hat on for this thread)



As I said above, if you complain that we are strict about the rules here and lax about the rules there... you are inviting us to be strict everywhere. We do have to enforce these rules, they are boards policy not something we made up ourselves.



No, because they're not offering medical advice, they are offering running advice. If you were on the motors forum and someone asked how to change a tyre, you wouldn't have to ask them if they had a bad back before responding. If you were on a food forum and someone asked how to make a chocolate cake, you wouldn't have to ask if they had diabetes before giving them the recipe.

But some threads are asking for running advise, can i run with, this happend when i was running what should i do. I know its a very hard thing to moderate and to be honest 99% of the time I agree with all the calls that have been made. But its a fine line between running/injury

gerard65

RayCun wrote: »

Option 3 is not going to happen.

So do you prefer option 1 or option 2?

Maybe if option 2 was implemented with a bit more disgression instead of the jackboot approach.
What I notice is your ignoring my critism of the two tier approach to newbees and the more long term posters. Is trolling not also against the holy charter?

RayCun

gerard65 wrote: »

Maybe if option 2 was implemented with a bit more disgression instead of the jackboot approach.
What I notice is your ignoring my critism of the two tier approach to newbees and the more long term posters. Is trolling not also against the holy charter?

Yeah, I suppose long term posters do get more slack, but I tend to go easier on trolling (which is really a judgement call) compared to number-trading or medical advice. That's one reason for having multiple mods, others might pick up on things I let go, and vice versa.

baza1976

RayCun wrote: »

gerard65 wrote: »

OK, so I open a thread about runners trots, I get loads of opinions on what to do including over-the-counter-meds, but I could have colon cancer, so infuture should all threads medical be closed, blisters, cramps, etc. using this logic.

There are three options here

1. Close all threads that might, somehow, contravene the 'no medical advice' rule. No advice about diet, because weight problems could be down to an underlying condition. No advice about blisters, because there might be some weird blood disease that is causing the blisters. Delete the shin splints thread, because that pain in the shins could be cancer.
2. The mods have latitude to close the threads that they think cross the line, and leave other threads open.
3. Leave all threads open

Option 3 is not going to happen.

So do you prefer option 1 or option 2?

So theres 2 options

RacoonQueen

This comes up all the time.

I told vagga months ago that a knee strap helped my patella tracking issues, just in passing in a thread. He went out and bought what looks like a full on exterior bionic knee replacement and continued on running on his knee injury with his new bionic knee. Sometimes that would be construed and medical advice even though that wasn't the intention. I think sometimes the way some things can be picked up as 'medical advice' while a similar reply wouldn't. Grey area, I understand it's difficult for mods but it can be a bit annoying for us minions.

GKiraly

I can see where the mods are coming from on this one and I understand its a grey area but personally I find this place a good haven for scouring around for first hand experiences from fellow runners and athletes bout similar injuries they may be similar to my own.

Sometimes I may put a question out there and see what comes back, most recently advice bout preparation for a HM this weekend, some will say to do it some will say not to, everyone and everyones body is uniquely different and each and everyone may have their own way of preparing for a particular race and especially so with an injury coupled with the preparation. I may have a calf injury while preparing for a HM, but thats not to say another hopefully competitor with a calf injury has the exact same injury as me.

The important thing here is the responsibility of each and every one of us to know that we're all old enough to make our own decisions and hopefully smart enough to appreciate that due to the complexity of the human body alot of the time two SIMILAR injuries does not constitute as being the SAME injury.

Therefore, for me personally I dont take another persons advice or story of experience as gospel but rather mix it among my own experiences and advice from my physio - who at least knows my body from having worked with it - and make my judgement from that. To take someones advice from here, and here only, about a serious injury and make judgement on it, without further professional advice, I think that could be described as reckless. All in all, im all for a bit more leniency on the advising side of things - providing one has the cop on to treat it as another persons opinion and not an order to do this or do that with the injury - as like I said, its good to hear about how fellow athelets deal with similar issues.

Middle Distance

Just for information I have had an MRI scan done which has confirmed this is indeed my injury - it's not me playing a guessing game or anything like that. Advice giving from sports doctor was that I could run easy on it once it wasn't causing any further pain/discomfort and advice from a physio was for complete rest/icing and anti-inflammatory tablets for 2 weeks or so etc. In my PREVIOUS post I was just wondering had any of the posters on this board ever had same injury & if so what rehab they had and how long did the injury take to heal - it was nothing more sinister then that!

RayCun

PM sent

menoscemo

RayCun wrote: »

PM sent

+1 probably the same PM about a certain logger with this injury?

RayCun

No, about moderation

ecoli

Only getting around to reading this now. Wow leave for a day or two and the whole place turns to Anarchy:D

Few points on this. I can understand peoples frustration with the whole rule on this but it is a site wide policy as opposed to one the moderators have imposed.

Unlike other forums however injury is a part of running and as such many feel that it should not be a taboo subject. For this reason numerous moderators have brought this up and discussed it to nauseaum at this stage but there is no budge. For this reason we have to police this however it is our interpretation of the charter which allows us some leeway in terms of letting some threads continue and I know myself I usually try and allow as much discussion as possible without actually being in violation of the rules.

People may feel that their is a tendency to shut newbie threads quicker and perhaps this is true simply because more regular posters know the story regarding the charter and as such most aren't looking for diagnosis (Regardless of the wording of it). This I have found to be true as most posters will reply politely aplogizing saying they were not aware of the charter

As Getonwit it said experience posters learn who they feel they can listen to advice on and who not and take things with a pinch of salt etc however there are the small minority who would look for advice on boards and be as quick to cause legal problems if the medical advice had any ill effects which is why the rule is in place to protect the majority. Newer posters will take a while to understand the nature of posters (like some of our resident trolls:D)

Personally I feel there is more leniency of the last while regarding this matter but I guess there is no pleasing everyone;)

gerard65

There is a difference in discussing one's experience with injuries and actually giving medical advice.
But, whatever, I've actually got loads of others experience on RunIreland and Letsrun regarding a current injury.

average_runner

Gone for a week and i miss loads

I do think sometimes threads are shut down too early but rules are rules and the jobs, the mods have to do is not an easy one sometimes.

One thing i think would be good, if a thread is moved to another area you pm that person.

My 5 cents.

ecoli

gerard65 wrote: »

There is a difference in discussing one's experience with injuries and actually giving medical advice.
But, whatever, I've actually got loads of others experience on RunIreland and Letsrun regarding a current injury.

But therein lies the problem one person might take advice on board as a reference point where as another might see it as bottom line.

Again 99% of the time common sense does prevail but its that 1% which are the reason why the rule is to be enforced

This is not my personal opinion I am just trying show both sides of the argument (moderator/poster)

Again as I said I know injury is a part of running discussion which is why it has been pushed for but rules of the site need to be adhered to.

Regarding letsrun/Runireland obviously there rules on moderation are different (imo sometimes can be a good thing in the case of some letsrun threads and their trolling/abuse)

gerard65

ecoli wrote: »

Regarding letsrun/Runireland obviously there rules on moderation are different (imo sometimes can be a good thing in the case of some letsrun threads and their trolling/abuse)

Theres moderation on Letsrun??:) Its a fcking free for all.
Come here for the fluffy stuff, but go elsewhere for the real meat and gravey.

ecoli

gerard65 wrote: »

Theres moderation on Letsrun??:) Its a fcking free for all.
Come here for the fluffy stuff, but go elsewhere for the real meat and gravey.

It usually consists of threads being deleted (I know they must really bad if they get deleted off that considering what the let go )