The purpose of this thread is to discuss ideas for changing the forum to make it a better place.
"Better" could mean several things, including but not necessarily limited to...
- More on topic. More focused on helping people do the AA&D program.
- More welcoming to everybody. If you are doing the program or interested in helping people through the program you should feel welcome here regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, hair or lack of it, etc.
- Less subject to conflicts.
The forum currently has it's good points, but it also suffers from many problems that all forums have when they have a large and diverse membership. It may have some unique problems too because of the whole anxiety thing. Carolyn and Tammy try, but I get the distinct feeling they aren't real savvy when it comes to running an internet forum (sorry ladies).
This thread isn't meant for to bash the forum, but to suggest real, practical changes (probably using the current forum software) that would make it better serve it's intended purpose.
I'll start. I have three suggestions (I know they aren't original) that I think would help considerably ...
1) Make a separate section called
"Off Topic". This would be for all topics that are not directly related to anxiety/depression and doing the AA&D program. Currently we use the
"General Comments/Inquiries about Attacking Anxiety & Depression" section for this stuff, but that's obviously not what that section was intended for.
2) Expand and clarify the forum rules and put a link to them at or near the top of the list of forum sections.
2a) One of the rules should be something like "Threads are expected to be placed in the proper section of the forum. Out of place threads shall be moved to the correct section by the moderators.".
3) Enlist volunteer moderators to apply the forum rules consistently.
Stress Center Community 
