Don't mean to go off-topic... but...
I don't visit the "cpapcough" forum at all hardly, unless I'm trying to find info for someone through a Google search and one of their threads pops up in the search. I think I posted something there once or twice a year or two ago and that's only because someone asked me to respond to something.
From what I understand, the issues over there are caused by a very small subset of narcissistic members who are allowed to continue unfettered. The vast majority seem to be good, solid, helpful folk. But the issue seems to be that not much is done about the small subset of trouble-makers.
I've heard complaints from newbies here about the general tenor of rudeness over there by a small handful of these determined jerks. I do take it personally, because a couple of those jerks have come over here and tried to attack Apnea Board. One has over the course of about a year, set up numerous accounts here in order to PM newbie members here advising them to leave this forum, and go over there. Another one hacked into our server and shut us down for an hour a few months ago. When the owners of that site don't bother to have trained moderators, (allowing those idiots to continue), that feeds their narcissistic egos and empowers them to expand their narcissistic behavior to other forums like ours. They don't like it when they come here and find that we have
real forum moderation.
Of course, there are a lot of very experienced and knowledgeable members over there, and many of them are active here as well. But I'm not talking about the
knowledgeable "
good folk" over there - I'm talking about the trouble-makers and narcissists that seem to be allowed continued free-reign over there. That "rat-pack" seems to feed off of each other and the lack of official moderation gives rise to a haughty attitude by those longer-term idiots who revel in their ability to stir things up. I know established longer-term members can delete abusive posts and such. But there's a subset over there of prolific posters who are allowed to remain, even though they are clearly narcissists. If that forum is truly operated by "the community" as the owner claims, then why isn't "the community" doing something about the longer-term abusive members there?
(07-17-2014, 02:21 PM)archangle Wrote: You have to learn which idiots to ignore on both forums.
That's fine for established web-savvy members who know what the score is, how to use the ignore button etc., but when an older, non-technical newbie comes on a forum and gets shot down by one of cpapcough's narcissistic character assassins, they just leave and never come back. And judging from some of the more cat-fighting type threads over there, that sort of thing isn't stopped much by the community over there.
I believe the "cpapcough" forum is probably okay for web-savvy, technically-oriented, experienced CPAP users who concentrate on the more in-depth threads over there. But for newbies to sleep apnea, I believe Apnea Board is the best place for them to participate and the more welcoming of the two forums.
When comparing the two I think it's important to realize that:
1. Apnea Board is truly operated by the members here. Not only in moderation, but in adaptability to meet the needs of the community here. Sort of an open-source style of forum. When we have members suggest a new feature or a better way to do things here, we have a system in place to address those suggestions and implement the good ones pretty darn fast. Try asking the owners of the "cpapcough" forum to add a new section to the forum, or to implement some idea to make the forum better... you'll probably hear...
crickets....
2. The "cpapcough" forum is operated by a commercial DME. It was not started by sleep apnea patients like this one was. Over there, the owners really have no personal commitment to any individual forum members, unless they happen to be a customer of the DME. They do take a hands-off approach in the forum, I realize. But that hands-off approach, again, empowers a handful of jerks to continue their jerkiness. Here on Apnea Board, our main concern is the well-being of our members, since we have no DME business to run - it's all just an educational forum designed so that sleep apnea patients can help one another.
3. We openly and officially distribute copyrighted CPAP Clinician Setup manuals here. Apnea Board is really the only forum that I know of that does this openly. On other forums, it's either completely disallowed, discouraged or done "under-the-table" via private PMs between two members. Here, because of our forum's educational status and our limiting of commercial links and such on the forum, we have legal protection under the "Fair Use" sections of U.S. Copyright Law that allow us to continue distributing these manuals freely.
Of course, I'm completely biased towards this forum, obviously. But I do truly believe that what we have here is a positive, flexible structure in place to ultimately serve sleep apnea patients on the web much better than any non-responsive commercial DME could ever do.
As always, just my opinion, of course!
