Number 8 - The New on Pump Thread

Initially, the forum had far fewer sections. This was a deliberate part of the design, so that people would post their queries and other messages chiefly in one place – the General Message board. This way, people are more drawn in to reading about the experiences, problems and successes of people who may have a different take on diabetes, yet are nevertheless all affected by it in one way or another. Some forums are very fragmented, with subdivisions of subdivisions, often making it difficult to know where exactly your own particular post fits in.

We all learn a lot from others, and one of the most important things we learn is about the characters of the people posting – who they are, how diabetes has affected them, whether they are seeking support for some aspect of their life that may not be directly caused by diabetes, but could be something we can share in and empathise with. This is what helps to build the community and from that spring the lasting friendships that have been formed over the past couple of years. New friends appear all the time, and old ones pitch in to help us when we are down.

Sometimes though, there comes a time when a need for a new section becomes obvious. In June 2009 serendipity stepped in and found several of our members about to start pumping at around the same time. There were many separate threads started up detailing peoples’ experiences and the forum became very busy indeed with talk of temporary basal rates, dual waves, bolus wizards and bubbles in your tubing! One such thread was Patricia’s ‘New on Pump’ thread, chronicling her son’s initial experiences on the pump – all the ups and downs, problems and successes and quite a few nervous nights of three am testing! The thread was a huge success running to nearly 300 posts and eventually it was decided to set up a new ‘Pumper’s Thread’ which took the focus off Patricia a bit (and the pressure!) and this too became extremely popular. Eventually, the Pumper’s Thread ran to in excess of 1,300 posts! Posts were still appearing there over a year later!

It was clear, therefore, that this was an extremely important topic that deserved a section of its own so that people would more readily be able to ask new questions or reference pump topics that had been previously discussed. It would prove difficult for new members to browse pump-related topics if they were hidden away amongst everything else on the General Message board, or even to read through the huge threads that the Pumping once mentioned here had become, so we set up the new Pumping section. Still a very busy part of the forum, the section has seen many new people introduce us to their pumps, plus those who had started all those months ago are now giving the others the benefit of their, by now, extensive experience!

Post link: http://www.diabetessupport.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?t=2420