nutrition and diet forum mods

Dragan

neuro-praxis wrote:

How could we present the charter so that people are free to speak their minds correcting the diets of others meanwhile allowing and encouraging differences? Honest question there.

That’s a pretty easy one to do, you just make a "Point the First" in your charater along the lines of….

"We are all hear to learn and to teach. We will be sharing information. It is perfectly fine to point out options and choices to people, or guide them when they may be going wrong but it's important to remember that Nutrition is not an exact science and differences of opinion will always exist. Remember, you are not here to tell anyone what to do, merely to offer insight and opinion based off your own learnings and experience. Seek to help, by all means but do so in a respectful manner. Anything else will be met with a ban."

I believe that something along those lines does a good thing of opening discussion on the board, but ensuring that it stays as that, polite discussion. Not people throwing points at each other hard and fast to see what sticks?

neuro-praxis

Thank you - have made a temp. adjustment and will take a look at yours and Vegeta's input later on this evening or tomorrow and produce a final product. All your feedback is appreciated.

nesf

If you can find the line between "Eating a Curly Wurly is fine so long as you do it while standing" and "If you can't count your ribs you're a fat lazy slob" and get people to engage in constructive criticism and advice it'll do well.


You will have issues with people coming in and taking an absolutist hardline stance on the "perfect diet" and criticising (negatively) anyone who is not on it or you'll have people talking absolute crap about how one MacDonalds a day won't do you any harm. You'll just need to nudge them back into line. Or better still, watch as the forum's regulars do it.


Putting absolute rules in the charter will not achieve this and only stifle conversation and hinder the development of the community. Leave the rules loose and (hopefully) the wiser heads will steer discussion back from either extreme. Imho, anyway.

homah_7ft

I say let the current mod get on with it. I don't see where anyone has pointed to where Neuro has done something wrong so leave the forum develop before calling for heads.

Dudess

Neuro, I took a look at the charter and you have made it clear that you are not qualified in the areas of diet and nutrition, so to be fair, it's not like you're masquerading as such.
However, I do think that the name of the forum is misleading. And I think people are going to assume that it IS moderated by someone who's qualified in the area. The first place I came across it was under your username - I immediately assumed it would be under Science or Fitness.
So, what I'd suggest is giving it a different name - what about "Healthy Food Alternatives" or something? I know what Minesajackdaniels is saying - that it's not really suitable for a foodies forum. But I think changing the name to something like what I suggested would make it just as appealing to foodies.

homah_7ft

Dudess wrote:

. And I think people are going to assume that it IS moderated by someone who's qualified in the area.

Why would they assume that? Did you assume that? Do you assume the mod of work and jobs is a HR expert?

Dudess

Some people might, like I did. It's one of the reasons why this thread was started.

Time Magazine

I guess their false assumptions can be given the response they merit.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

why would you assume that? i really don't understand your logic. there is no requirement that moderators have a qualification in their mod area. and also neuro-praxis has said that she/he has done a course in nutrition.

EDIT: this is in response to Dudess

Tree

A qualification is not nesecary but an open mind should be. After reading a thread in teh forum I felt that as a fat girl not overly obsessed with slimming down I would be in a minority. There's a lot of emphasis on weightloss and how being fat is bad, not much emphasis on how being skinny is bad. Being told repeatedly that one is overweight and should lose weight is bad for the selfesteem and is no help whatsoever to the person.
Having a mod who is clearly biased towards skinny adn getting skinny probably isnt the best idea.

A lot of the topics to be covered in the forum could be located clearly in other fora w/o confusion eg. weightloss adn maintenance in hte fitness forum, ideas for foods int eh food/drink forum, advice on vegetarianism/veganism in teh veggie/vegan forum, advice on longterm restricted diets such as a gluten free diet could be found from the lovely ppl in long term illness.

I'm not certain why teh forum was created but the negative vibes from it mean i will probably seek any advice elsewhere.

Dudess

Fair enough, I withdraw my comment. I suppose I should have said "someone with a level of expertise" rather than a qualified person (the way people have been calling for G'em to co-moderate). Sorry, of course I don't expect every forum to have a qualified person moderating it. I think though, the name of the forum is quite scientific. That's the only concern I have with it. Other than that, I think it's great and wish Neuropraxis best wishes. I'll certainly be a regular visitor, and was quite chuffed when I discovered it.

cast_iron

I think this is a storm in a teacup.

No forum needs a Mod qualified in that area, but is certainly is an asset, and a strong one at that. I don't see the whole "safety" thing as a big problem. As a general rule, boards is self-policing and I can see no more danger here than there is on the Fitness forum.

There are posters on every forum competent in the topic and when someone approaches dangerous territory, it gets clamped down on very quickly (be it by Mods or competent regulars). Having a knowledgeable Mod can be a benefit in this area, as when some posts are out of line, it's their call as to what gets deleted and what gets left, etc. This would just make life that bit easier on a practical level for all involved.

To me, G'em certainly seems competent enough to make sound judgment calls on what I think will be a rare occurance of dodgy requests (same situation as many other forums!).

cast_iron

Boston wrote:

If this forum is going to be a forum on how to rapidly loose weight through basically starvation, then I think its inherently flawed.

Well spotted. I'd say that's exactly what the Admins had in mind.

I really don't understand why you continually post confrontational, nonsensical bullsh1te here. Between this case, insulting someone you know has you on "ignore" (and I'm not far off) and many other examples in previous threads, it seems to me you do absolutely nothing but troll in here.

Time Magazine

cast_iron wrote:

it seems to me you do absolutely nothing but troll in here.

Click me

I was advised to do click it on the Mod forum once. It makes Feedback much more enjoyable .

Boston

cast_iron wrote:

Well spotted. I'd say that's exactly what the Admins had in mind.

I really don't understand why you continually post confrontational, nonsensical bullsh1te here. Between this case, insulting someone you know has you on "ignore" (and I'm not far off) and many other examples in previous threads, it seems to me you do absolutely nothing but troll in here.

a) The person doesn't have me on ignore.
b) Do you actually use either forum in question here or are you talking through your arse like Ibid there.
c) Why don't you give cloud a ring and have a chat with him about my posting style.
d) I probably said one of the nicest things i've ever said on boards in relation to a user in this thread, and this is the one you pick to call me a troll in. If you are actually able to read I suggest you go back a review all my contributions ( I like to call them little presents) before making your ill founded, poorly backed up and downright ignorance comments.

faceman

Ok here's my 2c. I wasnt too keen on this forum when it was proposed as like when others, the unqualified should not be advising people on diets etc.

However the stickies to me do imply that the mod is going about the forum in the right way. However some borderline threads have been posted asking about gaining weight for example.

I think renaming it to healthy eating might help and leaving it in the food and drink forum is fine. A forum supporting people on diet as well as healthy eating ideas is great, as long as that support doesnt turn into advise without appropriate qualifications.

neuro-praxis

Thanks again for all the opinions and feedback. I'm reading them all and taking note.

I am inclined to agree that maybe Healthy Eating would have been a better name. But we have what we have for now, and it is up to the admins to make changes. I am pretty happy that the forum exists at all and will be happy to comply with the changes the admins see necessary. I'm gonna go have a final look at the charter now.

Peace out.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

faceman wrote:

However some borderline threads have been posted asking about gaining weight for example.

That was me, and it was entitled 'healthy weight gain'. How is that borderline? I'm below the recommended healthy BMI and wanted some advice on getting closer to a healthy BMI. It's not like i said - 'hey dudes, make me a fat bastard'

Also, if you look at the comments in that thread, they are all about having the right dietary balance, so how is that borderline?

Maybe you might think before talking?

Cloud

I'm happy to change the title to Healthy Eating. Perhaps this will remove the concerns over diet fads, which I don't think should be promoted.

As for qualifications, we'd have no mods if everyone had to be a qualified or peer-recognised person in area X. But the most important thing a mod can be is fair, and as well as being balanced and open to opposing ideas, they should know when to step in and when to hold back. boards.ie may be self-policing to some extent, but the mods usually know when some input is needed...

I am also happy to add another moderator or two. G'em, psi have been mentioned - if either of you want to co-moderate either this or a renamed forum, PM me...

neuro-praxis

psi has expressed his opposition to the forum so perhaps g'em would be a more appropriate choice.

Boston

I say let PSI be moderator. He'll have a different slant to the forum given his background.

azezil

As a male prostitute?

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Cloud wrote:

I'm happy to change the title to Healthy Eating. Perhaps this will remove the concerns over diet fads, which I don't think should be promoted.

Cloud, i don't have too strong an opinion on the matter, but the reason why i think it should remain called what it is, is because there are a lot of people on diets and this forum could act as a place where people could go 'i'm thinking of going on the xxx diet - what do you think?', and maybe some of the more dangerous diets could be discouraged.

On the thread on the 'new forum' forum for setting this thing up i posted the following in response to requests that the forum not include the word 'diet', which i think is still a reasonably relevant point:

Roundtower2 wrote:

Why not a diet forum?

Can diets be unhealthy? Yes. Are tens of thousands of people in Ireland currently on, or planning, a diet? Yes.

This forum can provide advice on what is, and isn't a healthy diet. Let's not deny the reality that a lot of people are on diets, and this is primarily to lose weight. Also, that calling it a 'healthy eating forum' would essentially be a pseudynom (sic) for a diet forum.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

p.s. i never thought i'd post so much with regards to a forum about dieting!

neuro-praxis

The lovely g'em has just confirmed that she would be delighted to moderate so yay.

Cloud

Cloud wrote:

I'm happy to change the title to Healthy Eating.

Just in case you're going to leave it as the same area, could you change it from 'Nutritition' to 'Nutrition'? It hurts my eyes!

Terry

PMSL.

Well spotted, Myth.

g'em

The one time I don't visit boards for a few days and all this happens My apologies for not chiming in sooner, I was enjoying a rather extended weekend away.

Thank you *so* much to everyone for all the kind words. Like Dragan said I really do like helping people and I would be delighted to co-mod the forum with neuro-praxis.

Eating healthily is a pretty hot topic these days, and before this forum was created it was a hotly debated suggestion a number of times. But there is a difference between giving medical advice and helping someone to 'eat healthily' and I think a forum name change will help to allude to that. Frankly I've never hidden my feelings about crash or faddy dieting and I have no porblem saying here and now that I wouldn't tolerate it being advocated on a forum I moderated.

The whole issue of qualifications seems to be in question too, and I can see both sides of the argument. However, given that the ethos of the forum is "healthy eating", real-life experience and general knowledge of the subject will count for an awful lot. But for the record I have BA and MSc in Biology, have been heavily involved in the fitness scene for four years now, actively research nutrition and health developments in the relevant journals and am a competitive strength athlete currently in training for World Championships. Needless to say staying on top of healthy eating is of paramount importance to me. But I'm not exclusively talking about eating for fitnss, because as we all know that's not everyone's goal. But I've learnt a lot along the way and hopefully I can pass on some of that information to others who are at the start of the same journey I began a few years ago - irrespective of whehter you're eating to look good nekkid or to become a champion or a better athlete healthy eating is healthy eating.

So anyhoodles, I'd be happy to take on the job, if y'all still want me

Dudess

Great you're on board, G'em! I think the combination of you and neuro-praxis will be perfect.

ali.c

Dudess wrote:

Great you're on board, G'em! I think the combination of you and neuro-praxis will be perfect.

+1