A brainstorming thread

General Discussion
#1

I thought of a way we could get some of the other guys over here who are still using the old forum. I think this forum is great, but lacks that free-for-all…ness of the other forum. LIke everyone throwing ideas around. I was thinking maybe if we added a thread to this one called ANYTHING GOES or similar where all of those guys can just cut loose with ideas and stuff and not worry about putting it under a thread topic.

I dont mean to throw my weight around, I just want the best out of this forum. I think its a great set-up and it looks really good.I would love to see all those guys like Oki and the rest come over here. And when they are brain storming, maybe we can itemise some of it by putting it into the thread topics we have here, but there is no pressure to do so.

What do you think?

#2

This forum is sometimes so slow, that it is a major pain in the ass to use it. Now it is ok, but sometimes I have to wait 5-12 seconds for this forum to response, while Yahoo always works instantly. We could also make this forum better by getting rid of all the extra sections this has. Now this is just too scattered.

My proposal for sections:

-general discussion
-treatments and protocols
-personal profiles
-finasteride studies
-links
-forum FAQ and instructions

And that would be all. I believe it does not serve anyone to have about 20 different sections, and majority does not even post on half of them.

#3

Hmmm I guess this thread IS the anything goes section. Why dont the other guys come over here and use this thread to just post anything they want? Maybe just have one long thread where people can just post whatever they want?

#4

I offered to pay for better forums, but I got no response from the admin. These forums are down far too often.

#5

Maybe we do need a better and quicker forum then? I personally havnt had any problems with this one, but a lot of others have. I would pitch in money (within reason - I have no idea how much a better one would cost).

Whats the point of having a forum, if no-one will use it anyway?

Whats involved and how much would it cost to get a quicker one?

#6

Guys,

I agree this forum has been up and down as of late, however that is beyond my control and since this is a free service we are at the mercy of the free forum host.

They have apologized to their members and have assured that this downtime should not happen again (they were doing major upgrades).

However I agree that sometimes this forum can be slow. Joshcurtz, thank you for your offer to chip in on the forum costs, I did see your message.

Dynaaminen, I agree with you that we should reduce the number of forum areas to make info easier to find, I am just giving things some thought as per your recommednations. Changes will likely be forthcoming to the forum setup.

Now… as for what it would take to move this site somewhere else:

  • $25USD to get access to the backup feature from current Free forum hosts, so I can actually backup the forum.

  • Likely $55CAD to pay for one year’s worth of web hosting

  • Me trying to figure out how to take the backup of the free forum and reinstate it on the new webhost server without breaking things or having to start this forum FROM SCRATCH (god I hope not).

  • Downtime while this takes place

So this is not an easy decision. Personally, I think as it stands right now the forum is decent… besides the slight delay here and there, this is a free service and as such you need to understand there will be glitches… however overall I think this forum is quite good for being free.

I searched high and low to find a Free Forum host that wasn’t complete garbage (there are lots out there) and this one came up tops… it even has the “Attachment” MOD so you guys can upload files to messages…

But really, if more downtime ensues and the banner ads continue to get worse I will seriously look at moving this form to a new, PAID webhost.

Hope you understand… thanks guys.

#7

I like this forum. I haven’t had any problems with it. One of the reasons we stopped using Yahoo was because it was difficult to find information and it was cluttered. I think this website is a huge improvement. We shouldn’t jump from one type of forum to another because everytime we do we lose information and we lose members.

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. :wink:
Josh

#8

I actually like the way the forums are broken out right now, but then again I’ve only been on these forums for 10 months or so. The only thing I have asked for is some subforums for different geographic areas where people can identify themselves so we can network more effectively.

#9

Didnt really know where to put this, so I posted it here.

There is a guy on the hypogonadism2 yahoo group is going to be part of genetic study and is getting a test done to evaluate his androgen
receptors and ability/inability for uptake of T. He says its cutting edge stuff.

The reason is because his TRT is not working even though his numbers are fine.

Has anyone heard of a test like this? I though this might be very usefull for us to see if in fact it is a receptor problem. I am going to try and follow this on Hypo yahoo group if I can remember.

#10

This would be well worth following.

I read a JSM article a few months back, although don’t have the link (anyone got this one?), that studied the effects of oral contraceptives on raising the SHBG levels in women, stating that these levels remained high even after stopping the drugs, and questioning whether this could be on account of ‘gene imprinting’ in the liver !
I think the reason was on the lines that increased estrogen raises SHBG and there was a long-term/ permanent effect of raised SHBG.

If this is the case, is there any evidence that the reverse is possible, i.e.
do AS users with long-term high T levels retain low SHBG levels when coming off the juice??
(When T levels rise, SHBG is supposed to show relative reductions)