Feedback please!

Sleepy

I'd agree with Ludo. As a dad of a 1 1/2 year old and step-dad to a 4 year old, I'm interested in the toddler areas but it's great to read the threads on older kids and teens to get a 'heads up' as to what I've in front of me and perhaps see potential results of certain parenting styles.

One other point - could we append the txtspk part of the charter to include the silly acronyms that sometimes pop up in here from the more frivolous parenting sites? E.g. DD, DS, DH etc.? Maybe it's just me but such vapid language depreciates the points being made.

Nevyn

It is in included as text speak if you see it report, I often warn people about it and edit posts.

The new born threads were happening in the pregnancy forum which is why there is a new subforum for those and who have created a community in the pregnancy forum to
move into that forum.

The forum keeps growning and new threads were getting knocked off the front page very quickly even at 40 a page. You can you know subscribe to the subforums the same way as you do the main forum.

Khannie

On the sub-forum. I'm not married to it. I think we should give it a bit longer though.

Ludo

Thaedydal wrote: »

The new born threads were happening in the pregnancy forum which is why there is a new subforum for those and who have created a community in the pregnancy forum to
move into that forum.

And now newborn threads are happening in both main and newborn sub-forum.
Look at the main forum...loads of threads there which should not be anymore.
If they were taken away and moved to correct new forum you would see the tumbleweeds rolling through it.

Thaedydal wrote: »

The forum keeps growning and new threads were getting knocked off the front page very quickly even at 40 a page. You can you know subscribe to the subforums the same way as you do the main forum.

Again, look at the main forum...20 threads (including stickies) going back 6 days...not exactly manic is it?
Yes, I know you can subscribe to subforums ( although there is a nice bug in that which I must mention in the site dev forum ). I just cannot understand the logic behind the split. It make more work for users and moderators. The reason given here almost makes the forum sound like it is a "born in Q1 2010" forum from RC or something.

Anyway, just having my say now as I didn't realise it was being seriously considered until it happened given there was no mention of it happening in this thread.

caprilicious

Thaedydal wrote: »

I am vehemently opposed to them.
They exclude newcomers, they have never been allowed here even if they are the standard else where.
The point of this forum was that it was not like those other sites.

I agree, its the one thing I find a major turn off in other parenting forums. Nothing worse than having to decipher abbreviations & text speak!

I have to say I love the new forum (Newborns/toddlers), maybe its just me - I found that I loved the pregnancy forum, but once I had baby there wasn't a similar forum here with the same banter.
The Parenting forum had multiple threads relevant to much older children so not relevant to me (yet!).

The Newborn & toddler thread allows the continuation of the banter from the pregnancy forum & a way to keep in touch with the mums & dads from there which would otherwise be diluted I think in the larger parenting forum

Ludo

But what about the next batch of pregnancy forum people over the next few months...will they get a new one of their own also as the old one is too large or will they have to join the now diluted the newborn/toddler forum which, to be honest, is beginning to sound a little cliquey from what I am reading here.
I'm sure it is not cliquey by they way but the reasoning behind its creation makes it sound like it is.

caprilicious

I would imagine it being a case that the people that have just had babies/moved to the newborn & toddlers forum would use that as per title til their little one's are toddlers then move to the next forum?

It possibly is 'cliquey' but not in a negative way, its not a case that anyone is excluded. In fact I loved how friendly the atmosphere was in the forum throughout my pregnancy, everyone was very forthcoming with advice and support.
I haven't found anything similar on other pregnancy/parenting website, possibly because they're so big?
There is something a bit more personal and friendly about the forums here.

Thats just my humble opinion anyhoo but each to their own

cbyrd

Ludo wrote: »

But what about the next batch of pregnancy forum people over the next few months...will they get a new one of their own also as the old one is too large or will they have to join the now diluted the newborn/toddler forum which, to be honest, is beginning to sound a little cliquey from what I am reading here.
I'm sure it is not cliquey by they way but the reasoning behind its creation makes it sound like it is.

i know i still keep an eye in the pregnancy forum and i'd love the new mums there to feel like they could jump in anytime into the newborn/toddler forum.. i like to hop around them all as i think we all have something to offer each other even if it's only a listening ear.. it's very important site i think especially once the baby's born and you can't or don't feel like getting out much... and before you tear your hair out you can get experienced info fairly quickly..;)
i'm loving the new forum

Ludo

cbyrd wrote: »

i know i still keep an eye in the pregnancy forum and i'd love the new mums there to feel like they could jump in anytime into the newborn/toddler forum..

Did people feel they couldn't jump anytime into the original parenting forum??? That is what is confusing me. Everything you say about the new forum applies to the original one so what exactly was the problem with it?

Taking the posts in the main forum today:
10 threads posted to (9 if you exclude this one as it doesn't really count)
Not exactly hopping is it.
Of those 9 threads, 6 at least should be in the newborn/toddler forum by rights.
That leaves 3 active threads today. Yesterday was the same. It reflects very badly to be honest and makes the place look dead.
Now people have to visit 2 forums to see all threads which a lot of new people wont may bother doing or may not even notice the forum.

Nevyn

Ludo opinion noted, if you wish to report the threads you think should be in the newborns section then do so.

cbyrd

Ludo wrote: »

Did people feel they couldn't jump anytime into the original parenting forum??? That is what is confusing me. Everything you say about the new forum applies to the original one so what exactly was the problem with it?

sorry you mis-understood what i was quoting.. i was refering to the new batch of mums that weren't there when i was or das kitty or crazy cat lady.. we were pregnant at the same time.. just as there were ladies there before us.. now we've moved out to the new forum.. when the current ladies that are pregnant move on to being new mums i hope they won't feel like there's a 'clique'

i felt too that the parenting forum was too expansive and the new one is, like the pregnancy one, more specific to the group we're in..as in being a new mum and not being in a clique.. i felt that in the pregnant forum there was no specific thread for one of us that had just had a baby and the threads were getting lost on the parenting one it just makes sense to have them together to save time looking for them..

Khannie

cbyrd wrote: »

sorry you mis-understood what i was quoting.. i was refering to the new batch of mums that weren't there when i was or das kitty or crazy cat lady.. we were pregnant at the same time.. just as there were ladies there before us.. now we've moved out to the new forum.. when the current ladies that are pregnant move on to being new mums i hope they won't feel like there's a 'clique'

i felt too that the parenting forum was too expansive and the new one is, like the pregnancy one, more specific to the group we're in..as in being a new mum and not being in a clique.. i felt that in the pregnant forum there was no specific thread for one of us that had just had a baby and the threads were getting lost on the parenting one it just makes sense to have them together to save time looking for them..

That more or less sums up what I felt about it. I felt like I was part of a little community in the pregnancy forum, then after baby came it was like "well....there's no pregnancy going on so I suppose I should move to the main forum" but it felt a bit....well...broad.

An example of this kind of half-way feeling that I'm talking about is that I posted the "baby arrived" thread in the pregnancy forum though I felt it was probably more appropriate in the main forum it didn't feel right.

I appreciate your point though Ludo. And I appreciate that you care. My suggestion would be that we leave it run for a while, then if there are a few people unhappy about it we maybe consider a vote or similar.

Sleepy

Ludo wrote: »

This balance of male/female input is also another reason why I feel the newborn/toddler subforum is not helpful. The pregnancy forum is female oriented by its very nature (just a guess there as I have never read it to be honest). The new sub-forum seems to have been created for active posters there to have a place to keep their group together instead of integrating with the existing forum and it will therefore become a lot more female oriented than the main forum. Sorry about continuing this topic here but I do feel it is relevant to the discussion.

I can't remember the last time I looked at RC it has been so long. But I visit here multiple times a day and I would prefer not to see it lose its nice balance. There is a strong risk of this happening now however.

I do think this will discourage me, and other men, from posting here tbh.

While it's great to see a community has sprung up from the Trying to conceive and Pregnancy forums, I don't think the parenting forum should be split in two in order to isolate that community rather than having it's members 'graduate' (horrible term but I can't think of one better) to the main parenting forum when they become parents.

A quick look at the new babies and toddlers sub-forum shows me very little that doesn't fit within the paramaters of the main parenting forum. If some of the posters coming from the pregnancy and trying to conceive forums feel that they'd like an area for discussion of female post-pregnancy personal issues (like the recent 'post pregnancy body bits and complaints' ) maybe a sub-forum for dealing with this, rather than the age of their children would be better? Even at that, I think there may be a fair bit of work for mods initially in moving threads out of that 'safe zone' into the main forum when they're to do with parenting rather than mammys issues (posibly a good name for such a forum?).

As it stands, I just see the men being pushed out of discussion of their newborns and toddlers.

Nevyn

This forum was set up to be inclusive of all types of parents and those invovled with rearing kids.

Dads to be post in the pregnancy forum and Dads are more then welcome to post in the newborn and toddlers forum as well.

I am aware of the blanance and that certain parts of the site as a whole are now having more female posters but I do not want the parenting forum to be seen as a 'female preserve'.

The pregnancy forum seems to have been a good sucess and now we are having a lot of posts about new borns which is good but those threads will push a lot of the other htreads off the main forums page and so they have been put in a subforum of it's own.
It will either work or not, I haven't see any of the regulars who post in pregnany or newborns be exclusionary to new posters or male posters and if it was to happen it would be stamped out.

littlebug

I thought the subforums was a good idea but I'll admit that I don't really look in either of them very much. I nearly posted something on the breastfeeding thread and then backed away as I felt that since I don't have a newborn or toddler I didn't really have a place in there. The thread seemed like more of a support for and by other new mothers as opposed to looking for advice from parents of older children who've been through it. Actually I think I've apologised in a few posts I made in the pregnancy forum. That's probably just a me thing though (excuse my existence )... there's nothing about the subforum or any individual threads that is blatently exclusive or anything. I just feel like I'm being a bit nosy when I go in there when I don't really belong there. Does that make sense?

I suppose my point is that parents who aren't pregnant or have newborns and toddlers might not even look into those subforums so by default there could an automatic split between parents of very small children and parents of older children.

Nevyn

littlebug my youngest is nearly 10 but that is not going to put me off posting in the new borns section if I think it will be helpful. Not currently having a newborn shouldn't stop you the more help, advice and encouragement we can give new parents the better, we've all been in those trenches.