Hi All,
As part of our review process we are looking at the Forum and HealthUnlocked and how you use them. We think there is room to keep both services as we like to offer a choice of which to use (and some people like to use both), but have had a few comments that perhaps just the one site might be better.
Any comments or thoughts on this would be very welcome!
PS. link to forum is here: forum.pspeur.org/
In my opinion it makes sense to have a single site where all members & other visitors can get the maximum benefit from the posted discussions, blogs, questions. and comments both past and present.
To have more than one site causes unnecessary duplication, uncertainty and dilutes the benefits as the audience is split.
This can be seen quite clearly as subjects are now regularly being posted on Healthunlocked that have already been addressed on the forum and vice versa.
What is desperately needed is a single forum that combines the good features of both current sites and with a good indexing and search facility so users can search for all previous discussions etc that relate to a particular subject ie Sinemet. before they make their posting.
I would be interested to know the usage stats for each site. and costs to PSPA for the two forum sites including software, maintainence, develpoment & duplication of PSPA staff effort costs for posting Admin type information.
Roger
P.S. This is a good example of duplicated effort as I have now posted my comments on both sites and PSPA have also duplicated their blog above on to the two sites!!!
I only access the Health Unlocked PSP site and the benefit I see for this site is that anyone browsing the Health Unlocked general website can access this site and read the posts that are open to all. This acts as an awareness raiser and that can only be positive.
If you go to the home page of Health Unlocked you can see that a number of organisations have their own pages and it would be interesting to know how many, if any, of those also have discussion forums elsewhere.
In terms of duplication, with the ability to 'cut and paste' and the possibility to link comments posted on one site with another (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook) is it really too much effort?
Perhaps the two sites could have different purposes with the forum taking care of medical questions and the Health Unlocked site providing the outlet for carers and those with PSP to express their thoughts and feelings?
Hi hmfsi
The fact that you only use Healthunlocked and not the forum supports my argument for a single site. Those who do the opposite and only use the forum are denied the benefits of your postings and vice versa.
Dear HelenP
Whatever is agreed I hope we will continue to benefit from the email alerts to posts .... simply and selfishly because I find this element hugely valuable.
Regards
Lily
Hi Helen
I do mainly use use the Health Unlocked site but realise there may be other items being posted on the other site which I don't see but could possibly offer some help on. For me therefore I think it it would be helpful to have one site that everyone can access and as Lily retain the ability to receive the alerts and links to the posts.
Thanks
Lesley
Hi
I only use the health u site gave up on the forum some time ago.
And I agree with the above comments duplication is a waste of time and resources .lol Jill
The issues I had with the psp forum is that it was notoriously unreliable and you could often "lose" or duplicate posts. It also seemed to get "hacked" quite regularly with all sorts of obscene and offensive material.
The Healthunlocked forum (so far) doesn't seem to have these problems and the layout is bright, cheerful and , most importantly, user friendly.
Like the previous poster I also like the email updates.
If you are going to keep both you seriously need to look at the security aspect, try to solve the issues with lost or duplicated posts and make it possible to add links between the 2 sites.
Both the Healthunlocked site and the PSP site are useful resources - I particularly find the "professionals" section on the PSP site a good place to signpost people to.
Keep up the good work!
I believe that a single site is the best choice,i agree with the comments above,one site would erase duplication and confusion.I mainly use the healthunlocked site and i 've noticed that most people do the same.Whatever the decision will be,i am grateful to PSPA and the members of this community for the big support.
Perhaps PSPA would like to reply to my comment of 09/05/12 and advise usage stats and costs associated with both sites.
Roger
Yes they do tend to duplicate material and sometimes I do not know whether to start a thread in the forum or post here. It should be possible to display the forum posts links automatically within the healthunlock homepage if you so wish. I taught myself web programming a few years ago but have not done it for while since having to look after my mum, but it should be relatively straight forward to do. Anyway if you decide to stop either service you should keep either of them up for archiving purposes because both are very useful for people searching for information.
I have had a reply from Fergus Logan regarding stats and costs.
He commented "Regarding your enquiry about statistics, posted on the Forum, I am sorry it has taken so long to reply. The stats (such as we have them) show that the Website had 8,923 visits in the last month (6,619 unique users) Specific Forum visits are listed on the welcome page, but are harder to establish with accuracy because visits and comments are counted from the date of first posting, not on a monthly basis. HealthUnlocked received 3,571 visits from 1,941 unique users during the same period. As to cost, there is none attached to HealthUnlocked, and the Forum carries only its share of the (pretty small) maintenance costs of the Website overall. Staff costs are minimal."
My original comments at the head of this discussion still apply -- only one forum site please etc etc.
Most of the comments received to date are in favour of a single forum site , no duplication , an easy to use and comprehensive search facility and a site that is secure with no unwelcome postings etc
More views are obviously welcome -- "the more the merrier" and the more likely that a considered decision is made that satisfies the majority.
Roger
Can someone,anyone, please please help me with the vexed question of constipation.
I know it goes with the territory of PSP but my husband
Please Help - Home care on NHS
Reality check ... Kim, and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day ;-) 
WHY DOES THIS STUPID SITE PUT THE RESONSES TO THE COMMENTS AT THE END AND NOT UNDRNEATH WHERE THEY USED TO GO /
Feeding ideas
