The FastDay Forum

Moogie, I'd like to see some age-specific forums. My children are grown and gone and I'm retiring soon so my issues are not related to my period or keeping up with or chasing my children. I'd like to meet people who are like me and face the same issues I do. Thanks for considering. And regarding posting my stats . . . NO WAY! I'm embarrassed!

[Moogie]

Thanks - I wonder if perhaps a more simple adjustment for now is needed, the combining of the FAQ forum with the general health, diet & fitness forum - since both seem to end up full of questions. That said, so does the newbie forum.

I'm quite happy with things as they are but I've had numerous requests for things to be 'better organised'. I think there'll be topic category overlap whatever we do, just as there currently is.

Perhaps something more like this:

New to the 5:2 Fast Diet Forum

• Introduce Yourself
• Forum & Progress Tracker Help
• Inspirational Stories

Questions & Discussion - primarily an amalgamation of the FAQ forum and the general diet, health & fitness chat

• General 5:2 Questions & Discussion
• Weight Maintenance
• Other forms of Intermittent Fasting
• Fasting Today?

5:2 Food

• Fast Day Recipes
• Feed Day Recipes (is this necessary, or can these be shared elsewhere? maybe this should be in a forum in the off topic area?)
• 5:2 Cookery Discussion, Tips & Ideas (to keep recipes & general cooking stuff seperate)

5:2 In Depth

• Resources & Links
• Nerdy Talk (questions & discussion about the science of IF)
  
  • Nerdy News (for the posting of relevant new research)
• Progress Reports (with subforums as below)
  
  • Less than 1 month 5:2 progress
  • Newbie Progress (1-3 months)
  • (what's a good word for here?!) Progress (3-6 months)
  • Longer Term Progress (6+ months)

Off Topic Discussion

• Non-Diet Chat
• Suggestion Box

[carorees]

Seems good...its just the inspirational stories that seem to be hard to place now. I'm not sure they fit in the newbies section as lots of oldies want to read them too. I guess they fit more with progress reports but perhaps they need to be more visible for newbies so that brings them back to the newbies section. OK, that's not much help is it?

[Moogie]

I think up near the top in the newbies area it will get a bit more attention - and there's nothing to stop existing members from asking for help in the help forum (also in that section) or reading the inspirational stories

[Betsysgr8]

When I first joined, I was a bit overwhelmed at first. For me there are a ton of unread posts, so I started with "view new posts". Now that I've been here awhile and have posted a few times, I start by viewing my posts and seeing which posts have received replies, then swith to "view new posts". I do use the "search" box frequently and search posts of specific users when looking for a link to include in a reply or for information for myself.

[Moogie]

Still not sure how progress reports move from, say, 1-3 months to 4-6 months? Are there enough threads to justify more than, say, a forum for newbies up to 1 month and then move to a forum for progress over 1 month?

Folks would just post in the relevant forum to their current time on the diet when they're posting a report. I've had quite a few members saying they want to be able to easily find progress reports from users who have been doing the diet a similar amount of time to them, or that they get tired of all the threads from new 5:2ers posting progress from their first couple of weeks and all the longer term things getting buried beneath that.

I don't follow the progress reports forum very much so should take a bit more of a look around in case there's a better way of doing this. Do folks just keep updating one thread with their progress or do they tend to post a new thread for each new report?

Hi Moogie
I love reading the progress section and find it very motivational. As Kencc said, most of us continue updating the one thread. I too am intrigued as to how they would move up the bands. I tend to update mine every time I achieve another goal rather than every day/week.
I would also like to add my thanks to you and everyone involved in the running of this forum.
Thank you.
Lesley

OMG my head is spinning after reading all the comments and suggestions so I can only sympathise with how you're feeling- reeling I should think. You have done such a great job until now so I would go with what your gut instinct tells you to. Be ruthless and pare it down as much as you can is my feeling as it will probably be more manageable that way? This is my first venture into forums and to be honest I have found it all very accessible. I just enter any particular interest I have into the search box and hey presto. BTW one less forum could be 3-6 months .After 3 months I would imagine that most of us will do this in one form or another for life.

I definitely agree that one thread per person in the progress reports bit should be the rule. Any whoop-whoop posts where someone is bursting to share a milestone or something can go in the general chit-chat section. Another forum I belong to has a diet and exercise forum (needless to say I've been promoting 5:2 on there) and we all have a single thread each that just continues. Some of them go back many years We then create new topics only for new subjects, or for example if a fresh start is wanted. It makes it a lot simpler to browse through.

You'll never please all of the people all of the time Moogie. As I said before, I definitely feel less is more, particularly when is comes to the more general stuff. I agree with a lot of what Ken has said really.

Good luck Hun!

Have to say that I've been reading this with interest and wondering how I can express what I want to say...and then I find that kencc has done it all for me, and far more eloquently than I ever could.

I particularly agree regarding the Progress board. People should be encouraged to have only 1 topic and to update it rather than to start new topics every week. One of the car fourms I belong to has a Journal board where each member is allowed one topic only to show the history and modifications to their car and this works very well.

In my personal opinion you should think about amalgamating the 5:2 and IF board - possibly 'General 5:2 and IF Questions and Discussion'.

Also, the recipes boards might be confusing. What is a 600kcal non-fast day meal for someone who eats 3 meals a day every day might be a 600kcal fast day meal for someone else who only eats one meal on their fast day. If you feel you must split the recipes, maybe have an under 600kcal and an over 600kcal board?

These are just my personal suggestions and I'm happy to go with whatever is decided. I can't imagine how complicated it must be trying to keep everyone happy!!

I'm sure you'll get it right, you normally do!

I am new to the board, but it new to forums in general. From my experience, this board has been pretty well organised and very wl oming. Great community of folks here.

I am not sure you are going to gain a heck of a lot subdividing into more categories, as we all think slightly differently and will tend to pace ur posts on where we think dis best, not neccessarily by the administrator's description. People tend to chaotic like that but also, the more the subdivisions/categories, the more chances the forums cross over in scope and hence more incorrect posting.

The nature of the drum, with the focus being a new diet, there are going to be a lot of new members who tend not to follow instructions well, jumping in all guns blazing with new found fervour. This tends to mean not reading all the instructions all the time. It also means a tendency to repeat similar questions or similar posts. Whie a FAQ ow wiki will help reduce it, it will always be a factor.

Thankfully, the moderators and community by and large are very tolerant understanding ad supportive, making the forum warm and welcoming. Please do not lose that. I have been on other forums on other topics where there were more read the FAQ responses than welcomes, which leads to a boring read.

Finally, I agree to the one thread per user in the progress report section. Separating those by time in diet makes for confusing stories ad just more threads

Good points, dude. No matter how tidy mum makes it, the kids will still mess it up!

Can I pretend to be a newbie for a moment and ask what is the difference between 'View new posts' and 'View active topics'? No, I really don't know.

As I think I have said before, I don't really take any notice of the forums, I just follow the links on the left and then use the search facilities if I want to find an old post - usually (but not always) the google custom search.

My frustration is that good topics get lost and until someone revives them they languish in limbo. But OTOH the forum is about an immediate experience for members new and old, and the library function is secondary.

Moogie, can you see from the server data how many people are accessing posts via the individual forum lists? If not many are, then how posts are divided into forums is a bit irrelevant. Just a thought.

Then again, there may be some of using the links on the left because at the moment some of the forums are cluttered. I do still like the Health and the Exercise splits from the general forums - particularly if they're not just 5:2 related. What exercise we can/should do in a week might not just relate to fast days and it would keep those themes grouped which might lead to fewer repeat posts.

I haven't read all the comments so far, but I would say I agree with the less is more approach. I don't just mean that with respect to the number of subfora (?), but also merging announcements of "I'm new here" into a single thread.

The other forum I spend time on is the Piano World forum. There are only a handful of subfora there (one for techs, one for teachers, one for experts, one for adult beginners, etc.). Each subforum has a zillion threads. It's alot of fun to go clicking through the later pages of old threads. People there seem a bit better than here about searching for existing threads on a particular topic. Is there some way to encourage that here, I wonder?

Having said all of that, this place is great as is, and I've never had trouble finding anything. These days I find myself looking at the threads that come up on the home page (I guess where people have most recently posted). That's a nice feature. It's a good way to catch questions as they come up, and to give people some encouragement when they need it...

[Moogie]

Looks good to me, but I'd add in the recipes/cookery section somewhere.

This will keep the main list nice and clean, but with the option of adding sub-forums if needed, such as Science Watch (or whatever it's going to be called) within Nerdy stuff etc.


I'm sure there will still be some crossover areas but it's the nature of the beast, when a place is this large there's going to be a bit of difficulty in keeping everything in its place!