[Brian]

We have 167 registered users on the site and a handful of which are willing to come on line and add or comment on a post every now and again. It's not a lot to ask you'd think but for the majority it seems to be a bit too much.
Some members don't have e-mail addresses which I feel is something that should be required when registering.
At least if all users have a bona fide e-mail contact we can advise them of any changes or updates in relation to the site or the disease itself.
Over the coming weeks I will start going through the registered users without e-mail addresses and try and get an address for the respective person (personal message via the site). If none is forthcoming after a 'period of time' then I feel they should be removed from the site.
It would be better to have 10 members that use the site occassionaly than 110 who don't use it at all.
If anyone has any feedback then please offer it up.

[Judith]

Hi Brian - I agree with you. Some people simply registered when I suggested that unless they did so quickly, we would charge a fee to access the message board. Some are there, I suspect, because it gives them access to the board to post obscene or otherwise inappropriate messages (we used to have a lot of those).

If you look at the statistics for the usage of the site, it has been visited a great deal by cigarette sellers and other characters who have absolutely nothing to offer or to contribute to the understanding of this horrible disease. Russian hot dates?? I think not.
I think on reflection that my attempts to get more traffic coming to the site by posting links (those not connected directly with Degos) was probably not a good thing. Many of them are irrelevant and may have attracted people who have registered and then not posted anything of use to anyone. Please feel free to delete any you think fit this category.

Otherwise, maybe the message board is an irrelevance in itself.

What do other people think? Is it needed?

Judith

[pearly]

Judith

I think the register is needed as it gives comfort to people with the Disease to know that they are not alone. However, you will always get a great number who make no import whatsoever in anything of this nature and just a handful that use the site frequently and make comments occasionally.

Of course you would need to know those who have passed away for any reason, old age as well as from Degos! and eliminate them and anyone who does not appear to have come on line for a number of years. But just because people don't use the forum to write comments, doesn't mean that they don't look at the forum from time to time.

[Brian]

The register is useful but we need to get proper contact names and e-mails for the user. My point is that their are a lot of people that have benefited directly from Judiths advice and compassion and they have simply dissappeared off the site. Judith helped me and the least I can do is interact via the site. In my opinion, that's not too much to ask.