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New Layout - Disappearing Members - Help is starting to FADE
Hi old members and new,
Since the new layout it is extremely hard to differentiate old post and new post. Members that I met on here have all but disappeared. This use to be a place where researchers, doctors and other valuable members of the hep b community came and helped others. I hardly see the same faces and I notice it is so much more harder to surf through post. My question is to the members that were here from before, are you guys still around to help others in need? I notice questions now go unanswered.
Since the new layout it is extremely hard to differentiate old post and new post. Members that I met on here have all but disappeared. This use to be a place where researchers, doctors and other valuable members of the hep b community came and helped others. I hardly see the same faces and I notice it is so much more harder to surf through post. My question is to the members that were here from before, are you guys still around to help others in need? I notice questions now go unanswered.
On this website there should be support to post photos and documents
3 Comments
That would be good and also a mobile app that allows easy uploads.
Hi there, we do have your home page where you can post photos. Does that help at all? Then you could link to that if you needed to have members look at in a post. If you need help finding this, please let us know.
It would help to be able to post in the actual page. I don't think a lot of users are tech savvy enough to know that you can upload pictures and link to them.
I think a lot of users are older and not technical enough, so thats why they proffered the older format. Ease of use needs to be factored in when designing sites. There should also be a mobile app, that gives you alerts when there are posts. And when users access from their mobile devices it should be detected and they should be notified that there is a mobile app. There should be an ad on the side of the page on the desktop version notifying people of the mobile app.
I am a technical architect therefore I know these things.
I think a lot of users are older and not technical enough, so thats why they proffered the older format. Ease of use needs to be factored in when designing sites. There should also be a mobile app, that gives you alerts when there are posts. And when users access from their mobile devices it should be detected and they should be notified that there is a mobile app. There should be an ad on the side of the page on the desktop version notifying people of the mobile app.
I am a technical architect therefore I know these things.
I think the main reason is that more and more people are using mobile devices and Facebook groups. I see a lot of activity on those places, but the discussions are very basic, just people asking for a review of their results from Africa and parts of Asia.
Medhelp is where the best discussions happen, I have learned tons from here. I really hope the old members will consider and come back every now and then.
Medhelp is where the best discussions happen, I have learned tons from here. I really hope the old members will consider and come back every now and then.
4 Comments
I agree the same,request seniors to advice us.Thanks
Yes, Facebook groups have taken a toll on a lot of health sites, unfortunately. :(
In my opinion the toll facebook is having on this group is preventable. When the functionality was taken away from this forum with the new format it really made it no better than a facebook group, what I mean is facebook group has a very similar format, you post something and you can comment on it, very limited. If you implement more useful forum features people will find it more useful to come here.
That is a very good point. The Medhelp forum has become similar to a Facebook page and less like the classic forums. On the Facebook page you can also upload pictures etc.
In some of the traditional forums you can sort by most viewed, most replied, etc.
I stull love this forum. Womdering if we can do anything to keep it alive.
In some of the traditional forums you can sort by most viewed, most replied, etc.
I stull love this forum. Womdering if we can do anything to keep it alive.
The forum is just to messy and its such a shame as there has been a big hbv community in the past I bet other communities have been hit hard with this :(
1 Comments
Can you tell us what you mean by "messy"? Please feel free to send us a "Contact Us" by using the Contact Us link at the bottom of the page.
One issue I am seeing that others have mentioned as well, you have to dig through the posts to see where the latest comment has been added. I don't see this on other forums. The order of the comments is it will show the oldest first then you have to drill down to see the newest, maybe this should be in reverse order.
2 Comments
If you click on the name of the most recent responder, it will take you to that comment. Sometimes, it is harder to find because it's a comment, and not an answer, so if you are just scrolling, it may be harder to find.
What other sites have the oldest first? I'd love to see that, and see how it works.
What other sites have the oldest first? I'd love to see that, and see how it works.
emily hopefully the comment and post section become easier to organize in the future. after trying to reengage the last week, its just tough and confusing. for example there were hijacks threads from 5 years ago. before at other forums there were mods to prevent hijacking. this plus the comment and response makes it super confusing. dates would be awesome on hijacked threads and sorting comments and responses would be great also.
Thanks for the feedback. :)
What about the old site, and it's "plainness" worked better for you than this design? The more specific you can be.
What is harder to use on the mobile site?
No one in our forums are experts. All of our forums now are patient forums, and this forum has always been a patient forum. Every answer and member on our site is valuable.
I read a study a long time ago that showed that it takes 5 contacts with others on a message board in order for a new user to feel connected enough to stay on average. Even if you are only saying "Hi, I understand", that's a connection.
Thanks again, everyone.
What about the old site, and it's "plainness" worked better for you than this design? The more specific you can be.
What is harder to use on the mobile site?
No one in our forums are experts. All of our forums now are patient forums, and this forum has always been a patient forum. Every answer and member on our site is valuable.
I read a study a long time ago that showed that it takes 5 contacts with others on a message board in order for a new user to feel connected enough to stay on average. Even if you are only saying "Hi, I understand", that's a connection.
Thanks again, everyone.
11 Comments
I don’t know what exactly other members’ preference. One feature of the old site I missed is I can click the last page for the new posts, especially for a thread with hundreds of posts. Now I need to browse through all posts.
We still have that feature on desktop. If you click on the name shown, it will take you to that post. The only difference is that it doesn't show names if the most recent response is more than 6 months old.
You can access that from a mobile device if you tap on the 3 short horizontal bars and choose Full Site.
You can access that from a mobile device if you tap on the 3 short horizontal bars and choose Full Site.
@emily , you must of noticed that once medhelp switched over to the new format, visitors members must of decreased. The truth is even though the new format is GUI friendly it is complicated compared to the old format. The old format listed day and date and response to post. Also old post had a day and date next to it making it more organized. I think as members of this forum the new GUI format just started confusing everyone. We would click in a post and it would be from 2012 when were in 2019. Members would respond to old post but the original poster is now gone. Please tell me you moderators havent noticed the downtrend in users and also old post being resurrected. Lets be honest and look at the numbers of visitors and post and maybe make a decision to make this good community of users a great community again.
Hi -
Of course we have noticed the decrease in traffic, but there are lots of reasons why this happened, not just the site change (although that is definitely a factor).
The main reason for older posts being responded to is that people find them doing Google searches. (The majority of our users don't actually use the community pages to search for older posts. They find us through Google searches.) Someone searches for their medical question and Google gives them our site in the results, and they click on the thread. They don't notice the date, which is shown to them as they aren't landing on the community page, but on the open thread page.
The good news is that people are finding us through Google, and can get their questions answered. If the original poster isn't around anymore, and doesn't respond (if their email is still valid, they will get an email notification that someone has responded to their thread), then another member can gently point out that the member isn't active any longer, and suggest that they start their own thread to get a response to their questions.
The best way to retain members and increase traffic is to respond to them. If you want more traffic, we'd love for you to help generate some. :)
Of course we have noticed the decrease in traffic, but there are lots of reasons why this happened, not just the site change (although that is definitely a factor).
The main reason for older posts being responded to is that people find them doing Google searches. (The majority of our users don't actually use the community pages to search for older posts. They find us through Google searches.) Someone searches for their medical question and Google gives them our site in the results, and they click on the thread. They don't notice the date, which is shown to them as they aren't landing on the community page, but on the open thread page.
The good news is that people are finding us through Google, and can get their questions answered. If the original poster isn't around anymore, and doesn't respond (if their email is still valid, they will get an email notification that someone has responded to their thread), then another member can gently point out that the member isn't active any longer, and suggest that they start their own thread to get a response to their questions.
The best way to retain members and increase traffic is to respond to them. If you want more traffic, we'd love for you to help generate some. :)
I have reach out about this problem a few times with no acceptable response. You know what is wrong with this forum, just go to any popular forum and see how it is formatted. you will see how much easier it is to find and organize posts to ask and answer questions. Its very difficult to find anything in here, worst forum ever. I rarely come here anymore because it's so annoying. If you want to fix it go find any popular forum and copy their format. Don't tell me you don't know what's wrong with it. In the mean time I will try to create my own solution but won't be coming back to this mess!!
I would say the site change is the number one factor for traffic decrease. I can't find anything I'm looking for in this linear mess, resulting in me scrolling through a few of the posts at the top and getting frustrated and leaving.
Hi Sirius -
From our records, it looks like you didn't join until after we released this format, which was a full year before you joined. Did you use the old format?
To read the thread, which is in chronological order from oldest to newest (with the exception of comments), start at the top, and read down. You may have to expand for comments, using the down arrow, when shown.
Threads are listed in chrono order, from most recent activity to oldest.
If you are on the full site, you can click/tap on the name of a recent responder and it will take you to the response that person made.
Doing a complete redesign is a big job, and we do not have plans for that at this time. We will be making some changes, and we are open to suggestions. Please use the Contact Us link at the bottom of every page to let us know what you'd like to see.
Thanks!
From our records, it looks like you didn't join until after we released this format, which was a full year before you joined. Did you use the old format?
To read the thread, which is in chronological order from oldest to newest (with the exception of comments), start at the top, and read down. You may have to expand for comments, using the down arrow, when shown.
Threads are listed in chrono order, from most recent activity to oldest.
If you are on the full site, you can click/tap on the name of a recent responder and it will take you to the response that person made.
Doing a complete redesign is a big job, and we do not have plans for that at this time. We will be making some changes, and we are open to suggestions. Please use the Contact Us link at the bottom of every page to let us know what you'd like to see.
Thanks!
I have used the old format, and pointing out that this account was created after the new format was already implemented doesn't solve the problem, what exactly are you trying to imply here. Also not sure why you are trying to defend this new format. In many peoples opinions this is not a useful forum in terms of functionality. There are many new and free versions of real forums out there that that would be much more useful. Can you not explore this a little more. Would you like some suggestions? let me know. I have used the contact us link, no one was listening to my concerns, just got the usual defensive explanations about how you need this particular software or the site wont work, or trying to give suggestions on how to make problems more bearable. How are all of the other forums out there able to do it? why design a forum if your not expert in designing a forum, why not just use existing successful software designed by experts and implement it into your website. Just saying, I use many forums and they are very useful source of knowledge, how ever , the way you have this set up doesn't feel like a forum it feels like a facebook post. What is the point in asking questions and posting answers if you can not easily search for great answers to questions that were already asked. People who take the time to write great answers will feel there time is being wasted. Yes I am having difficulty with the search function and its limited functionality here as I am sure many people are, I can not find great posts I remember from the past. A lot of great members here have left because of the unusable format. The people here are what I love about this place, take the people away and you have nothing. I really hope this is a place I can love being part of once again. I used to come here every day, and now I come here much much less. Its just too frustrating. My reason for complaint is not because I want to see you fail, it is because I want to see this place become great. Please listen to what your members are telling you!!!
Oh, the search function - that's not something we changed when we changed the format. I have no defense of that. I can give you a tip, though - use Google.
Type in site:www.medhelp.org and add as much information as you remember about the thread - like "site:www.medhelp.org hepatitis b autoimmune disorder TDF LDN" but without the quotation marks. (I took this from a recent thread you commented in just as an example.)
You can also try Google's advanced search - https://www.google.com/advanced_search and just plug things in. You can do either of these with any site you like. With advanced search, you can narrow the time frame, too, so you aren't seeing posts from 6 years ago if the post was from within the last month.
I'm "defending" the "new" format because it's not new anymore. We made quite a few changes that people asked for. I'm sorry, but our company ownership has changed twice since we changed this format and you joined, so we no longer have access to your suggestions. Please feel free to reach out to us again. That is for everyone - we always want to hear from you if you have feedback.
We hope you understand that nothing anyone does here is a "waste of time". Please know that even if there aren't a lot of responses, that we have hundreds of thousands of people who visit the site each day and never comment. Your answers are helping them, too. Even if there are dozens of questions about the same thing, your question or response may be the one that resonates with someone who searches for it on Google, and may really help someone.
We are working on different things to bring the site back, too. Back in August, Google did an algorithm change that hit a lot of health sites really hard, including us. We have made some changes, and are working on more. We are open to all suggestions, and appreciate how invested and passionate you all are about MedHelp. :) Please use the Contact Us feature so we can respond individually and track the suggestions.
Thanks!
Type in site:www.medhelp.org and add as much information as you remember about the thread - like "site:www.medhelp.org hepatitis b autoimmune disorder TDF LDN" but without the quotation marks. (I took this from a recent thread you commented in just as an example.)
You can also try Google's advanced search - https://www.google.com/advanced_search and just plug things in. You can do either of these with any site you like. With advanced search, you can narrow the time frame, too, so you aren't seeing posts from 6 years ago if the post was from within the last month.
I'm "defending" the "new" format because it's not new anymore. We made quite a few changes that people asked for. I'm sorry, but our company ownership has changed twice since we changed this format and you joined, so we no longer have access to your suggestions. Please feel free to reach out to us again. That is for everyone - we always want to hear from you if you have feedback.
We hope you understand that nothing anyone does here is a "waste of time". Please know that even if there aren't a lot of responses, that we have hundreds of thousands of people who visit the site each day and never comment. Your answers are helping them, too. Even if there are dozens of questions about the same thing, your question or response may be the one that resonates with someone who searches for it on Google, and may really help someone.
We are working on different things to bring the site back, too. Back in August, Google did an algorithm change that hit a lot of health sites really hard, including us. We have made some changes, and are working on more. We are open to all suggestions, and appreciate how invested and passionate you all are about MedHelp. :) Please use the Contact Us feature so we can respond individually and track the suggestions.
Thanks!
You do realise that using google to search for answers on your website is a band-aid solution right? What I mean by waste of time is that new people here will find it difficult to find great well thought out answers that members have spent time writing, and because they will not find these answers unless they comb through more posts than possible, they will ask the question again, hence wasting the time of the person who originally answered the question. Especially if the need to remember things about a post they have never seen and search for it on google. google algorithm should not effect the accessibility of the information on your site through internal organisation and search function.
You admit your search function is bad and that people should use google instead, How is a forum functional if you can not find the things you are looking for. As I said before, there are successful forums out there using professional software, why not try it?
I wont be using the contact us feature anymore as it didn't serve useful in the past, I would prefer my suggestions be public as I feel they are more useful when expressing them in this way.
You admit your search function is bad and that people should use google instead, How is a forum functional if you can not find the things you are looking for. As I said before, there are successful forums out there using professional software, why not try it?
I wont be using the contact us feature anymore as it didn't serve useful in the past, I would prefer my suggestions be public as I feel they are more useful when expressing them in this way.
Yes, I'm aware it's a bandaid.
Fixing search is a big wish of mine. Other things take priority, which not that many people use it. Most people find us from Google, and search for health questions via Google. I totally get what you are saying, but I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying.
Our priority right now is traffic. In August, Google released the Medic Update. It hurt us. Our focus right now is getting traffic back, getting people back on our site. Since the #1 way people find us is from Google, that's what we are working on. It doesn't matter what search does if no one is here to search. It doesn't affect the way people find info on our site, but it does affect the way people find our site in the first place.
I feel your frustration. I get it. I'm trying to prioritize everything, and change the things that will make the most impact to the most people in the shortest amount of time. It would really be helpful if you have suggestions, that you let me know exactly what you'd like done, and how it will improve the site for you.
I can't guarantee that by letting us know it will change, but I can promise it won't change if we aren't aware of it. We really need you to work with us on this.
Fixing search is a big wish of mine. Other things take priority, which not that many people use it. Most people find us from Google, and search for health questions via Google. I totally get what you are saying, but I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying.
Our priority right now is traffic. In August, Google released the Medic Update. It hurt us. Our focus right now is getting traffic back, getting people back on our site. Since the #1 way people find us is from Google, that's what we are working on. It doesn't matter what search does if no one is here to search. It doesn't affect the way people find info on our site, but it does affect the way people find our site in the first place.
I feel your frustration. I get it. I'm trying to prioritize everything, and change the things that will make the most impact to the most people in the shortest amount of time. It would really be helpful if you have suggestions, that you let me know exactly what you'd like done, and how it will improve the site for you.
I can't guarantee that by letting us know it will change, but I can promise it won't change if we aren't aware of it. We really need you to work with us on this.
Hi everyone -
We had to update the site in 2015 because we had to update the software we used, or things would stop working. A lot of time has passed since then, and we've made some changes to that design, but we are always evolving, as a company and as a site.
What would you like to see to make things better? We are always open to suggestions. Let us know here, send me a private message, or click on Contact Us at the bottom of ever page on the full site. (https://medhelp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new)
We rely on all of our members to keep our forums active and thriving. All of you are valuable members, and we'd love for you to answer some questions, too.
We appreciate your concern, and hope you'll work with us to improve MedHelp. :)
We had to update the site in 2015 because we had to update the software we used, or things would stop working. A lot of time has passed since then, and we've made some changes to that design, but we are always evolving, as a company and as a site.
What would you like to see to make things better? We are always open to suggestions. Let us know here, send me a private message, or click on Contact Us at the bottom of ever page on the full site. (https://medhelp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new)
We rely on all of our members to keep our forums active and thriving. All of you are valuable members, and we'd love for you to answer some questions, too.
We appreciate your concern, and hope you'll work with us to improve MedHelp. :)
4 Comments
People just like the plain look of this site nanny years ago. The “new” page look has pissed many old members off. They have moved to other sites. Stef moved to an European site. I am wondering what European site and want to move there.
cam4930 good to see you post. I remember your username from years ago. I liked the structure of the site many years ago, it was easier from a mobile phone also. I wish you could have a preference and choose.
I check the forum regularly. I am never an expert, so didn’t post often.
Hi cam4930, could you tell me the European site where I can find Stef? Thanks!
Similar thing happened years ago in 2011. There were group members such as HepatitisResearcher, cajim, stevenNYer, zellfy they stopped posting.
But then it was amazing we got studyforhope, stef2011, StephenCastlecrag and a many others.
It was nice to see that over thears of 2012 to 2017 the group was really active and lot of great insight was shared.
I used to just check in every few months. But now I am very active on the Hep B Mail List and a Facebook page. (both need support)
This group has been the best most informative discussions. I often share stuff from here to other places.
But then it was amazing we got studyforhope, stef2011, StephenCastlecrag and a many others.
It was nice to see that over thears of 2012 to 2017 the group was really active and lot of great insight was shared.
I used to just check in every few months. But now I am very active on the Hep B Mail List and a Facebook page. (both need support)
This group has been the best most informative discussions. I often share stuff from here to other places.
Yes u r right, many pro answerers are no more on this site. I remember some like Steff and others. I too now infrequently visit here. It's disappointing without them.
Dear All, Request seniors, please actively involve to support the community interms of your valuable suggeststions/ advice's/feedback to clarify our requests.Thanks
I was wondering the same question. I was thinking maybe the have moved to a different forum now?
Im still here. I didnt post much in the past 5 years. Hopefully the old members come back.
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