Thread Locked in Dental Issues

Hillmanhunter1

HI
I started a thread in Dental Issues where I sought to give information to users of dental services about my positive experiences in Budapest:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=76693781
Prior to posting I read the (revised) Charter carefully and I am fully satisfied that my thread does not breach any provision. Indeed Para 13 of the Charter clearly envisages that the forum can be used by individuals to give details of their experiences.
A couple of posters (including Mods) have asked me to post details of my plan and give pictures. I don't want to do that because I think the conversation will turn to a technical critique of the work done, which I am ill-equipped to participate in (and it is my thread after all!) rather than a conversation, accessible to lay people, that is focused on my experiences.
Just because another poster or posters make demands of me does not impose an obligation on me to meet those demands, and if I chose to ignore those demands that is not grounds to close my thread.

helimachoptor

Hi Hillman, as discussed in PM if you want to post about the great trip to Budapest then DI is not the forum for it.

If you want to post that the quality of the work done in Budapest, NI, USA, Iraq or wherever is fantastic then you need to back this up with either a description of the work you had done and/or (preferably both).

Plenty of people have added pictures/treatment plans when they post (myself included) for comments by the dentists etc.

Unfortunately, I think that you have convinced yourself you have got a quality job done and a great price and are unwilling to allow professionals on Boards to make comment on it because you may like what they say.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Hi there Hilmanhunter.

I agree with helimachopter's decision to close the thread. I think the reason he did so was that you did not want to discuss your dental treatment, its quality or quantity, or provide any evidence or details that your recommendation was sound. If your not equipped to participate in technical discussions you obviously have no idea of the technical quality of your dental work and thus the validity of your recommendation. If I were you, given this admission, I would go easy on the recommendations for irreversible medical procedures.

Remember boards.ie public forums are publishing (PM's are not) and as such a person damaged buy your recommendation could have a claim on boards.ie and yourself. The thread is closed, but people can still read it and PM you for detail if they so wish. Is there anything useful to add to the thread apart from that?

Really your thread is a consumers issues / holiday one as its more of a bargain type thread, than any reasonable discussion about your treatment and its pros and cons. I think they will be happy to have your thread there.

Hillmanhunter1

Gentlemen

I presume, given that neither of you has addressed the point, that you can find no fault with my posts either in terms of compliance with the Charter of the Dental Issues forum (and specifically Para 13) or in terms of the manner in which I have conducted myself on the thread.

The principal sin I'm accused of is not providing evidence to your satisfaction to back up my claim. Please show me where it says that unless Fitzgeme or another Irish dentist can validate my claim that I had a positive experience abroad then the thread should be shut down. Common sense suggests that to require me to do that is, at best, be an abrogation of my right to free speech and at worst blatantly anti-competitive.

With an appreciation of the irony involved I note that the only "evidence" offered by Helimanchopter in support of his/her decision to close my thread appears to be a remarkable capacity to look into my heart and discern my motives.

Fitzgeme seems to suggest that because I am not a dentist I am an unworthy to post on a Dental Issues forum, and that I should keep my pesky opinions to myself. I think that speaks more about Fitzgeme than about me. I have not, would not, and will not recommend irreversible medical procedures nor have I ever suggested that I would (though Para 4 of the Charter clearly envisages that recommendations could be made by PM).

All I wanted to do is give information about a positive experience, from a user’s perspective, in a dental clinic abroad. The Dental Issues forum is the obvious place for that (again I reference Para 13 of the Charter, and the second sentence that "This Forum is for all who are interested in Dental Issues"). I suppose that I could have posted on the general Consumer Issues part of boards.ie, but it seems axiomatic that where there is a forum dedicated to a particular topic then that is the best place to post comments about that topic.

The attempt on the part of both posters to characterise my post as relating to a “holiday” and a “great trip” is nothing more than a straw man fallacy

I don’t have anything in particular to add to what I posted on the thread and, as Fitzgeme noted, people can still read it and PM me if they wish. However the closure of the thread was a sanction, and was intended as such, a deliberate response to my perceived failure to play ball with the dentists. That was unforgivably crass.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

In all fairness from the charter


5) We do not allow requests for pricing/treatment details abroad. Use the search function and you will find all the information you require.

and also

This is a scientific forum, and therefore evidence based.
It is good to have a scientific discussion on new research and clinical trials papers and links are strongly encouraged. Posters will be held to a higher standard of debate on all scientific forums on boards.ie.

You are offering details without evidence. Having a thread closed is not a human rights issue. Start a new thread in consumer issues, or wait until people PM you to share the good word. There is nothing more to add to the thread apart from flaming.

Hillmanhunter1

Let me try to bring some more clarity to what I can or cannot post, perhaps I've been over-cautious, though I think that's a little understandable given that on the one hand mods are demanding some types of information while on the other hand warning of the dire consequences of giving other rtypes of information.

So, can I post:

• details of my treatment plan?
• details of the price that I paid? and
• details of the name and address of the clinic that I used?

I don't have any pictures or x-rays to post, but if I can post all of the above then I will.

helimachoptor

Comments in bold.

Hillmanhunter1 wrote: »

Let me try to bring some more clarity to what I can or cannot post, perhaps I've been over-cautious, though I think that's a little understandable given that on the one hand mods are demanding some types of information while on the other hand warning of the dire consequences of giving other rtypes of information.

So, can I post:

• details of my treatment plan? Yes
• details of the price that I paid? and I'd prefer relatives, i.e. 60% of the Irish price I was quoted but no actual figures.
• details of the name and address of the clinic that I used? No only by PM

I don't have any pictures or x-rays to post, but if I can post all of the above then I will. Do you not have before and after pics? I would think this is fairly standard for most treatments

Hillmanhunter1

I note that details of the treatment plan is OK and that details of the name/address of the clinic is not, but I'm confused about the middle point. You say that you would prefer relatives, but the Charter forbids it (Point 3). Which is it?
I assume you will need to reopen the thread or should I start a new one?

helimachoptor

Hillmanhunter1 wrote: »

I note that details of the treatment plan is OK and that details of the name/address of the clinic is not, but I'm confused about the middle point. You say that you would prefer relatives, but the Charter forbids it (Point 3). Which is it?
I assume you will need to reopen the thread or should I start a new one?

You are not allowed say I was charged X for a filling, but if you say the price was 50% of the Irish price, but you aren't allowed give the Irish price. Frankly it's not gonna be hard to estimate the price range you are talking about.
I'll re-open it. I don't think the other mods will have a problem with that approach as unless we allow it there isn't a whole lot of point in opening the thread again.

Hillmanhunter1

I'm sorry, but your answer causes more rather than less confusion.
There's no rule in the Charter against saying that I can't say the price that I paid (the rule you may be thinking of, rule 5, prohibits requesting prices), but you're telling me, as a mod, that I can't do that.
There is a rule in the Charter saying that I cant discuss the relative cost of dental treatment, but you're telling me, again as a mod, that this is what I should do.
How does that work? Is the Charter the operating rules of the forum or not?

Also, I don't know the exact the prices that Irish dentists charge for specific procedures. I mean there must be a big variation between the prices in a rural town and those in a swish Dublin suburb. How am I supposed to find these prices and which should I use? For example, assume a particular treatment cost me 10 in Budapest, costs 20 in Ennis and 40 in Ballsbridge. Should I say that the Budapest clinic cost 25% or 50% of Irish prices? I don't think that it's meaningful to say either, its far more informative and simple to say that I paid 10 for procedure x.

helimachoptor

Apologies Hillman, you are right you cant discuss relative treatment costs. I'm happy to move your post to the consumer issues forum, but I think that we aren't going to get any further with this in the dental forum.

I'll lock the thread. As Fitz has said people can still read the thread and PM you.

Sorry for the confusion, it's been a long day.

Heli

Hillmanhunter1

Thanks for the reply Heli, but I'm still far from happy.
I want to post my treatment plan and the prices that I paid in the Dental Issues forum which is the obvious place for a post like that. I note that there is no prohibition on this in the Charter.
I will not post the name of the clinic that I attended, but I will offer to give that information via PM to anyone who is interested.
Anyone else who is interested on commenting on the treatment and the prices will have all the information they need.
A reading of other posts on the forum, including several that you and Fitzgeme participated in, suggests that there's no problem posting prices paid to Irish dentists. For example, all of the following threads are on the first page of the forum:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056381867
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055854573
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056256982
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056525020
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056410043
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056372327
Am I being unfair in suspecting that quoting prices paid to Irish dentists is fine but quoting prices paid to foreign dentists is not?

Hillmanhunter1

I don't know why there's been no response to this thread - not much I can do about that I guess.
Unless a mod objects, and gives a reason for that objection, I'm going to post details of my treatment plan and the price that I paid on the Dental Issuers forum later today.