Hello everyone,
I’m Steph from the Community team, I hope you don’t mind me posting here today. I’m hoping to gather your thoughts and opinions on developing the ‘living with incurable cancer group’.
We’d like to make it easier for new members to write that first post, whilst retaining a safe space for members to continue expressing their emotions and most difficult thoughts. We know that some of you also want a space to chat more generally and give and get support around everyday life.
Firstly, I’ll be explaining a little more about the changes we could make in the group and what those changes mean for you. Following this information, there will be a poll where you’ll have a chance to have your say. We’d also welcome any thoughts or comments in reply to this post below.
We have been developing some groups across the Community to have two or three separate sections, or forums, within each group. Many of our groups now look a little more like this:
Underneath the new sections, we still show ‘all discussions’ from the whole group in a combined feed, just like you see now.
When we add forums to a group, you can still start a discussion in the same way. The only real difference is the option of which forum to post in (see below). Everything else works exactly as it does now.
If you would like to take a look at this group structure, why not take a look at the breast cancer or bladder cancer groups, where you'll be able to see this group structure working.
We expect to see benefits to new members in providing a dedicated space for them to introduce themselves. Existing members should be able to more easily find discussions around diagnosis and treatment, whilst enjoying a space to continue longer chats and discuss everyday life, and give and get support.
We understand that change can be difficult, so we wanted to find out what you, the existing members of the group, thought about developing the group in a similar way.
We're constantly working on the user experience on the site, as making the Community the best place for peer-to-peer cancer support is at the heart of everything we do. We are continually listening to feedback and making changes to the site which will improve the experience for all our members and make sure everyone can access the right support for them, when they need it.
If you have any questions or comments about the new group structure, we would love to hear from you. You can vote in the poll, reply below or contact us by email at community@macmillan.org.uk
Hi everyone, it's Steph from the Community team here.
I just wanted to thank everyone for voting and/or commenting and to let you all know that we will let you know shortly how, when and if the group will be developed to look and work slightly differently.
From the feedback shared, it sounds like you might benefit from having a dedicated area (like your very own 'the room') where you can 'vent' and say how you really feel. Although we don't want to censor such conversations or ask you to take them into a different area of the Community, I hope you understand that we also want to protect members who are feeling vulnerable and not quite in the right place to read or join in, or those who feel uncomfortable with very strong language/swear words.By adding 'a room' to the group, you can start and join in those kind of discussions within the Living with incurable cancer group.
We're not looking to stifle conversations and you can continue chatting across the whole group if the discussion develops. You might also see some benefits in a separate general chat forum, allowing general everyday conversations to be started away from discussions around diagnosis, treatment and other questions about cancer.
We've now developed the majority of the groups across the Community and the new structure seems to be working really well.
If you have any questions, or comments, we'd love to hear from you. We hope to consider all your thoughts when making a final decision about improving the group for everyone.
Thanks again for all your help.
Hi tvman
Thank you so much for your comment.
I hope you managed to get your bank issue sorted, that sounds like it might have been a bit of a nightmare for you. I imagine it involved contacting lots of different places and confirming security questions multiple times :( It's frustrating when it happens to you, but I find it helps to remember that these processes are put in place to protect the customer, especially when online fraud can be rife.
Please do feel that you can talk about anything you want in the group as it is. But I think you have a good point there, tvman, as I feel a separate chat group may make members to feel comfortable chatting with forum friends about anything and everything.
Especially when many more of us are physically isolated from others, I hope it's a comfort to be able to come and chat about your day.
If anyone has any further comments or feedback, we're still listening and would love to hear your thoughts.
