A suggestion for a forum / subforum

[elevan]

I think that the emergency forum is a good idea, I'd like to add the suggestion that once they are resolved, the thread becomes locked or after 24 hours of no update..........I think this would help prevent unwarranted " chatter" on the threads.

My thought would be that after the emergency is over that the thread be moved to the appropriate animal species forum under diseases. That way members can still talk about it but it wouldn't be confused as an emergency any longer.

But of course that's only if we add the section. Keep the input coming - it's great!

 

[20kidsonhill]

I think that the emergency forum is a good idea, I'd like to add the suggestion that once they are resolved, the thread becomes locked or after 24 hours of no update..........I think this would help prevent unwarranted " chatter" on the threads.

My thought would be that after the emergency is over that the thread be moved to the appropriate animal species forum under diseases. That way members can still talk about it but it wouldn't be confused as an emergency any longer.

But of course that's only if we add the section. Keep the input coming - it's great!

I like the fact that the thread would be continued under the specific animal section for further discussion.

 

[20kidsonhill]

I am slow on getting onboard. Partly because, I often just click on the same couple of forum boards or sections and check out what is new on those.
So for me an emergency section would be helpful.

 

[Nifty]

Thanks for the fantastic discussion!

Sorry if I missed the details, but here is what I understand so far and my questions / thoughts on adding "getting started" and "emergencies" to each animal's section:

"Getting started" is pretty vague. What we might find is that a lot of new topics that should go into existing sections will end up into this section because it is very general. For example: If someone wants to post about "getting started raising horses" or "Getting started feeding goats" or "getting started breeding rabbits" which sections do those go into? Do they go into "getting started" or into the raising, feeding, or breeding sections?

When BYC first started we had a "General Questions About Raising Chickens" at the top of the forum and we learned that this became the default for most new topics.


"Emergencies" A similar concern: On BYC we had an emergencies section and a diseases / injuries section. The problem: 98.4% of the time when someone's animal had a disease or an injury it was considered an "emergency". So, we saw that a lot of diseases / injury posts got put into the emergency section and vice versa. Imagine if we had an emergencies section for each animal... "I have an emergency, how do I birth my xxyyy!?!?" or "I have an emergency, what do I feed my new xxxyyy!?!?!"

Imagine the above cases but with just one general "Emergency" section... the vast majority of disease and injury posts for every type of animal would be put into this one section. Emergency birthing issue with cows would be mixed with emergency llama disease questions.

So, what we found on BYC was the moderators were spending a TON of time moving topics from section to section and members were struggling to know where their topics should be posted.

I'm not shooting down these ideas, but we definitely want to make sure that the flow, navigation, and intuitive use of the forum is as good as possible. We've learned over the past 10 years of running forums that two things need to be super easy:

1) When you have a question, it is very clear which section it should go into.
2) When looking for an answer, it is very clear which section to start browsing / searching.

What we've learned in the past is if there is a great deal of overlap or high-level generality in the sections, it causes a bit of confusion.

Again, we appreciate the great suggestion, ideas, and discussion!

 

[elevan]

The thing about different species and emergencies Nifty is that a lot of the treatments and action plans will cross species. So having them in one general forum together wouldn't be a problem. And this would allow members who have goats but don't browse the sheep section to assist with sheep emergencies...cattle are also a ruminant animal and so share problems / solutions with goats and sheep. A lot of treatments that apply to those animals can also apply to llamas (with different dosing on meds). Also a cut is a cut regardless of the animal species.

Putting an emergency section in each animal forum would be pretty useless as these already go in diseases and that is the place that most members start when they only have a few minutes right now. And most of those are true emergencies.

 

[SmallFarmGirl]

I like it too. It makes you know if it's urgent or not. for it!

 

[ThreeBoysChicks]

Nifty - I hear you with regard to Emergencies that are not real emergencies. Although, I would hope that people on BYH would be more controlled in what they consider an emergency. I don't want offend anyone, but I have to tell you having a chick that has pipped but not zipped for 48 hours (although to some an emegency) is not the same as having a doe that you spent $XX to pruchase in the first place, paid $X to have bred to a nice quality buck that is now having difficult labor and your large animial vet is not reachable.

I think of people like Rolls and others, who I greatly appreciate and respect. It would be nice that if they only have 10 minutes to hop on, they could look at this one area and see if there is anyone needing advice. I have not lived this experience yet, but if I was someone whose large animal vet is not available and I had a goat down, it would be nice to be able to get the alert in front of the right people ASAP.

If people abuse the Emergency section, then we can have EM or other moderators notify them to not do that. If that does not work, we will send "ALL MALE (BUCK / BULL / RAM) vibes their way.

Hope this helps..

 

[daisychick]

I totally agree with ThreeBoysChicks, A general warning could be given at the top of the Emergency section to only post true emergencies in that section.

I have seen a lot of posts that say things like "HELP! Which goat do I choose??" or "EMERGENCY! My goat fell and got it's knee dirty. " Posters will have to be careful and make sure what they are posting is a true Emergency. I can see this possibly causing a few problems for moderators who have to keep up with it.

 

[Nifty]

I definitely see the reasoning... that's why when BYC was started we first opted to go with similar ideas.

Again, I'm not shooting down the ideas, but I also want to make sure we don't duplicate things we did in the past that we found weren't as good for the community and then we had to spend a lot of time fixing in the future.

I do know this: We can't base our decision on what we expect, hope, or want members to do... we need to base the decisions on what we think the average internet user will do.

Based on my experience with all the 5 forums I run, it will be hard for the average user to clearly know which items should go into a animal level diseases section or into a general section.

Let's play with some real world examples:

If a cow has a broken leg, is it treated the same as a horse, donkey, goat, rabbit, pig? What if the treatment applies to 4/5 of the animals here or 1/5? At what point should it go into a general vs. animal specific?

What about an animal that has ticks, fleas, lice, etc. Is the treatment the same for all animals?

The main point I'm trying to make: It is relatively easy for the long-term members with lots of various species experience to know if a treatment applies to one species or more. The problem is this: Will the average user, who is not an expert, know if their emergency is applicable to one or more animals? IMO we can't expect that average user to know where to post their questions.

We also can't rely on a system that requires a moderator (or group of moderators / members) to report and move posts from section to section. Not only is that process not sustainable or scalable, but it causes a lot of confusion to new members who wonder where their post went (even if we use redirecting link).

This is a good discussion, but I want to make sure that we're making decisions that are based on what will probably happen based on past experience vs. what we hope will happen.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[elevan]

Let's play with some real world examples:

If a cow has a broken leg, is it treated the same as a horse, donkey, goat, rabbit, pig? What if the treatment applies to 4/5 of the animals here or 1/5? At what point should it go into a general vs. animal specific?

For the most part a break is a break...just of a different size. So instead of using a popcicle stick as a splint one might have to use something larger on a larger animal as opposed to a small one.

Using SubQ fluids to assist in reviving a downed animal applies across all species as well.

I can think of no examples where one animal would need exclusive information from another animal....can anyone else?

What about an animal that has ticks, fleas, lice, etc. Is the treatment the same for all animals?

What applies for one can mostly be applied for all with very few exceptions...ie: cannot give certain dog breeds ivermectin.
But ticks, fleas, lice are not an emergency and should go into the diseases section unless Emergencies were combined with the Injuries and Cures forum as they are on BYC.

The main point I'm trying to make: It is relatively easy for the long-term members with lots of various species experience to know if a treatment applies to one species or more. The problem is this: Will the average user, who is not an expert, know if their emergency is applicable to one or more animals? IMO we can't expect that average user to know where to post their questions.

We also can't rely on a system that requires a moderator (or group of moderators / members) to report and move posts from section to section. Not only is that process not sustainable or scalable, but it causes a lot of confusion to new members who wonder where their post went (even if we use redirecting link).

I think potentially moving the Herds General - Applicable to Most Herd Animals section to the top above goats would help with this and then adding the Emergency section into that forum section.