Wildminds updating, opinions needed!

[Valeria Franco]

Hi everyone!

We were chatting about the updating of this website, and about the fact there's no "maladaptive daydreaming" in the name.

Changing the website name is not really an option, because it would change its address.

I have updated the tagline though.

What di you think about it? Would it be better "Maladaptive daydreaming support forum" or something like that?

Any other ideas?

I have also cleaned up the home page and put the information in other pages.

Let me know!

[Theaxe]

Suggestion: Can you make this a "Featured Discussion", replacing or removing the old one? 

As you know my opinion on this, the more direct and clear it can be, the better it is for searching. I do like the fact that "Maladaptive Daydreaming" is now in the header. If you like, you have my permission to use the tagline from the Twitter site:

Maladaptive Daydreaming: Where great minds don't think alike

While this topic focuses on the name and branding of the site, will another be created to address other site suggestions, such as the Groups? If not, my other suggestion from the Wildminds is BACK topic about the abandoned Group pages that may want a re-vamp could make things cleaner. It would be too bad if people joined groups and didn't have support or discussion within them with a creator who has long-since been gone who can't accept invites or maintain the group. Or, if there is a manual way that the Admin (Valeria) can transfer a Group's creator/leader to another user, that may work too (if it's even possible).

[Melanie]

Personally, I'm a fan of the tagline "where wild minds come to rest." That's how I feel every time I login :)

[Valeria Franco]

Thank you Melanie, me too I was keen on keeping it somehow.

Thank you Theaxe for sharing your Twitter tagline, but I think this site has its own identity.

Somehow I feel the site title need to be explained.

Another option is to move the old tagline in the homepage, on the beginning of the left coloumn.

I think Cordellia in the beginning left the site opened to other psychological problems, at that time MD wasn't so well known.

We can use this forum to talk about all suggestions (that's why I wrote wm updating).

I checked the groups options, it's possible for me to select a new administrator among the members.

Some of them have only one member and are very old, like the "spirutual enlightment"... I think we should delete them.

So, for every group, is the administator is "missing", let me know! I'll make a blog about it.

[Theaxe]

Hi Valeria, yes I understand about the tagline; no worries. I haven't gone through the groups, but I do know that even though they say something like "last activity 10 hours ago" it doesn't appear that someone has actually posted anything - that I can see. So in that regard, it's a bit misleading. Just when you think you are clicking on a group that is active, it may not actually be truly active.

[Dimmer]

100% support deleting groups.   Like... most of them... there are pages and pages of dead groups and who knows where they original admins are.  I wouldn't mind seeing them all purged and new members creating new ones with a sense of ownership instead of taking over someone's abandoned project.  

I like the new look of the site though I would maybe make the home page less wordy.  Just get rid of the Cordelia part perhaps.  And, if I'm being honest, the Valeria part too (though that may be important for a while longer, so returning members can feel informed about the change in ownership),  imo it would serve us better to have facts about MD and a general welcome to the community in that text area rather than the owners personal qualifications and journey.   Idk tho, that may not be a popular opinion.  

[Theaxe]

Agreed. I think Valeria's post would have been good to be featured, replacing Cordellia's. Remove the old and bring in the new. The whole idea of making this a fresh start and lean toward a more polished look is for the best. Cordellia gave us the foundation of a good forum, but she's quit. (My opinion on anything more can be discussed in a private message.)

About groups, would it be fair to send an email alert to the group creators to tell them of the changes? There are some groups with great information from many users like the ones in Tips & Strategies that would be a shame to lose if the group is deleted. It puzzles me when a group says that the latest activity was Nov 5th, yet when you comb through the discussions and wall comments, there hasn't been anything written since December 2017. 

I myself would like to start a certain group, but with two similar, existing, inactive groups, I'd hate to start a third and confuse members. I would be willing to take one over if one is deleted and the group's creator doesn't respond. (Which one, and any details of this can be determined in a private message.)

One more thing I want to suggest is about the site rules: it was widely criticized on what was allowed to even type on the forum as things were so strict. No swearing? No talking about sex? Most people who MD are expressive with many emotions and in some cases - words. I can understand not directing profanity at a user. I can understand not promoting sex. But what if someone wants to get help or discuss their daydreaming that includes sex? I think the mere mention shouldn't be censored. The site rules have not been updated, and again - just my opinion - it might be time to update and relax some rules. In my experience, relaxing those types of rules do not turn a forum bad. It only allows certain things to be expressed if the need to express it arises. Perhaps a suggestion that swearing and mentioning sex is allowed, but abuse of this will be reviewed, as it should only be used in context of what is being described, not directed toward other users, and certainly not abused otherwise.

Dimmer said:

...I wouldn't mind seeing them all purged and new members creating new ones with a sense of ownership instead of taking over someone's abandoned project.  

I like the new look of the site though I would maybe make the home page less wordy.  Just get rid of the Cordelia part perhaps.  And, if I'm being honest, the Valeria part too (though that may be important for a while longer, so returning members can feel informed about the change in ownership),  imo it would serve us better to have facts about MD and a general welcome to the community in that text area rather than the owners personal qualifications and journey.   Idk tho, that may not be a popular opinion.  

[Valeria Franco]

That was really helpful, It too me a while to understand how they worked, I was actually confused by all those "last activity" so recent.

Theaxe said:

Hi Valeria, yes I understand about the tagline; no worries. I haven't gone through the groups, but I do know that even though they say something like "last activity 10 hours ago" it doesn't appear that someone has actually posted anything - that I can see. So in that regard, it's a bit misleading. Just when you think you are clicking on a group that is active, it may not actually be truly active.

[Valeria Franco]

I like a clean and basic style too, but I was a bit concerned about deleting Cordellia's introduction, as I thought maybe people liked it as it was. Nobody knew me, so I thought I'd better come in with some respect and introduce myself.  I'll put everything in a secondary page, so we don't lose our "history", but we move forward at the same time.

My introduction was meant to stay just for a while, that space is good information and news. So, I'll leave it for some weeks then it will be useless.

Now I have reduced all groups to one single page, deleting most of them. The ones which stays, are they of some interest for you? Shall I put you as administrators to some of them? We can give some time to them, there's no hurry.

Dimmer said:

100% support deleting groups.   Like... most of them... there are pages and pages of dead groups and who knows where they original admins are.  I wouldn't mind seeing them all purged and new members creating new ones with a sense of ownership instead of taking over someone's abandoned project.  

I like the new look of the site though I would maybe make the home page less wordy.  Just get rid of the Cordelia part perhaps.  And, if I'm being honest, the Valeria part too (though that may be important for a while longer, so returning members can feel informed about the change in ownership),  imo it would serve us better to have facts about MD and a general welcome to the community in that text area rather than the owners personal qualifications and journey.   Idk tho, that may not be a popular opinion.  

[Valeria Franco]

I totally agree on the rules revision. For two reasons: you can be very offensive and aggressive without swearing or the opposite, just use "profanities" just to stress your emotions. And because sexuality is important and we should stop to fake it isn't. Even if you decide not to have an active sexual life, that decision is something important. Let's just talk about it, freely and respectfully. We should definitly create a group for that.

Theaxe said:

Agreed. I think Valeria's post would have been good to be featured, replacing Cordellia's. Remove the old and bring in the new. The whole idea of making this a fresh start and lean toward a more polished look is for the best. Cordellia gave us the foundation of a good forum, but she's quit. (My opinion on anything more can be discussed in a private message.)

About groups, would it be fair to send an email alert to the group creators to tell them of the changes? There are some groups with great information from many users like the ones in Tips & Strategies that would be a shame to lose if the group is deleted. It puzzles me when a group says that the latest activity was Nov 5th, yet when you comb through the discussions and wall comments, there hasn't been anything written since December 2017. 

I myself would like to start a certain group, but with two similar, existing, inactive groups, I'd hate to start a third and confuse members. I would be willing to take one over if one is deleted and the group's creator doesn't respond. (Which one, and any details of this can be determined in a private message.)

One more thing I want to suggest is about the site rules: it was widely criticized on what was allowed to even type on the forum as things were so strict. No swearing? No talking about sex? Most people who MD are expressive with many emotions and in some cases - words. I can understand not directing profanity at a user. I can understand not promoting sex. But what if someone wants to get help or discuss their daydreaming that includes sex? I think the mere mention shouldn't be censored. The site rules have not been updated, and again - just my opinion - it might be time to update and relax some rules. In my experience, relaxing those types of rules do not turn a forum bad. It only allows certain things to be expressed if the need to express it arises. Perhaps a suggestion that swearing and mentioning sex is allowed, but abuse of this will be reviewed, as it should only be used in context of what is being described, not directed toward other users, and certainly not abused otherwise.

Dimmer said:

...I wouldn't mind seeing them all purged and new members creating new ones with a sense of ownership instead of taking over someone's abandoned project.  

I like the new look of the site though I would maybe make the home page less wordy.  Just get rid of the Cordelia part perhaps.  And, if I'm being honest, the Valeria part too (though that may be important for a while longer, so returning members can feel informed about the change in ownership),  imo it would serve us better to have facts about MD and a general welcome to the community in that text area rather than the owners personal qualifications and journey.   Idk tho, that may not be a popular opinion.  

[Dimmer]

I didn't even consider the rules until Theaxe posted this XD...  but yes, I agree, they need an overhaul. Almost all of them are awful in some way.  In addition to what Theaxe pointed out I see no reason to require posts to be "positive" in nature.  No reason to disallow posting a new discussion in favor of an old one. And no reason to require members to speak solely in English.

Valeria Franco said:

I totally agree on the rules revision. For two reasons: you can be very offensive and aggressive without swearing or the opposite, just use "profanities" just to stress your emotions. And because sexuality is important and we should stop to fake it isn't. Even if you decide not to have an active sexual life, that decision is something important. Let's just talk about it, freely and respectfully. We should definitly create a group for that.

Theaxe said:

Agreed. I think Valeria's post would have been good to be featured, replacing Cordellia's. Remove the old and bring in the new. The whole idea of making this a fresh start and lean toward a more polished look is for the best. Cordellia gave us the foundation of a good forum, but she's quit. (My opinion on anything more can be discussed in a private message.)

About groups, would it be fair to send an email alert to the group creators to tell them of the changes? There are some groups with great information from many users like the ones in Tips & Strategies that would be a shame to lose if the group is deleted. It puzzles me when a group says that the latest activity was Nov 5th, yet when you comb through the discussions and wall comments, there hasn't been anything written since December 2017. 

I myself would like to start a certain group, but with two similar, existing, inactive groups, I'd hate to start a third and confuse members. I would be willing to take one over if one is deleted and the group's creator doesn't respond. (Which one, and any details of this can be determined in a private message.)

One more thing I want to suggest is about the site rules: it was widely criticized on what was allowed to even type on the forum as things were so strict. No swearing? No talking about sex? Most people who MD are expressive with many emotions and in some cases - words. I can understand not directing profanity at a user. I can understand not promoting sex. But what if someone wants to get help or discuss their daydreaming that includes sex? I think the mere mention shouldn't be censored. The site rules have not been updated, and again - just my opinion - it might be time to update and relax some rules. In my experience, relaxing those types of rules do not turn a forum bad. It only allows certain things to be expressed if the need to express it arises. Perhaps a suggestion that swearing and mentioning sex is allowed, but abuse of this will be reviewed, as it should only be used in context of what is being described, not directed toward other users, and certainly not abused otherwise.

Dimmer said:

...I wouldn't mind seeing them all purged and new members creating new ones with a sense of ownership instead of taking over someone's abandoned project.  

I like the new look of the site though I would maybe make the home page less wordy.  Just get rid of the Cordelia part perhaps.  And, if I'm being honest, the Valeria part too (though that may be important for a while longer, so returning members can feel informed about the change in ownership),  imo it would serve us better to have facts about MD and a general welcome to the community in that text area rather than the owners personal qualifications and journey.   Idk tho, that may not be a popular opinion.  

[Theaxe]

I think the rules should be short and sweet. Eliminate any personal feelings about things. It's a forum for many people who may want to express themselves in different ways. There are a lot of people who struggle with dark thoughts or expressing themselves in dark ways that shouldn't be suppressed. The point of the group is to help, and sometimes, in some cases, censoring is not the answer.

But back to short and sweet. People are smarter than this. They usually know why something isn't allowed, they don't need the back up dialogue to reinforce why something isn't allowed.

I also agree that the home page should be less text, after a period of time when Valeria has made the administration transfer known to all. 

More about the groups are in this blog: Site and groups I think it's important that everyone sees what our groups are against right now as the site freshens up.

[Valeria Franco]

Positiveness could not be always...positive, people need to be able to express their feelings.

I left the English as main language, actually it is the only way to know if others are following the rules.I thik in the past I did write in Italian sometimes, but actually if we want to be a community we need to understand each other.