Contact buttons When we had these on this site - in effect users who wished to were setting up their own support groups with those that they felt were in a similar position or at the same stage or had a similar outlook.
I think this is the best way forward personally.
PS I am 56 so could be considered an “older” user and I have no problem accessing the interent - in fact I consider it a wonderful resource for finding out about all kinds of things, not just BC.
LindaAnn
Contact Buttons I think it’s a good that people have raised the question of contact buttons and I think BCC should respond to requests to have them back before doing anything more on telephone support groups.
It’s noticeable that many people now post regularly on the other site,where they can send private messages to each other, and they either don’t post here any more or, if they do, much less than they used to. BCC isn’t protecting those people by the no contact button policy, rather, they seem to have been driven away.
The private messages facility on the other forum seems to work very well and I see no reason why BCC can’t look at developing something similar. People don’t get emails from someone sending them a private message (unless they agree to exhange email addresses) . They get an email from the site telling them there’s a message waiting for them and then they can go in to the site to view their private messages. If they have any nuisance private messages, all they have to do is delete them without reading them. The same applies to nuisance emails, but I suppose it’s less of a “violation” if you can go onto the forum website and view your messages there rather than receive them into your personal email.
The impression I get from BCC’s no contact buttons policy is that it is primarily determined by legal and bad publicity concerns rather than because it is believed to be detrimental to BCC’s role to support people with breast cancer. As the personal contact facility on the other site seems to be working very well, I think it’s time for BCC to look at this again otherwise people will continue to go to the other site, which is thriving, rather than here.
Contact buttons I am just adding my voice in favour of the reinstatement of contact buttons. Hundreds of women who used to use this site now use the ‘other’ site for its ease of communicating. I have secondaries and I am a member of a private email group set up when we had the ability to communicate from within the BCC site. This private haven is an absolute Godsend for some of us, who do not wish to publicise our position to the world at large and I know our group could benefit more women, if we had some means of contacting them.
I too, would not be very interested in TSGs, though I do use the BCC Live Chat facilities (and most informative and fun they are).
Jenny
Private messages Spreaking as one of the many who now use the other site much more than this one (for all the reasons given) I’d like to add that if anyone were to misuse the the private messaging facility on that site, they would simply be blocked from sending further messages. I’ve found that the system is so easy to use that even where I know a member’s private email address, I’m more likely to send a private message via the site than to send an email.
Like many others I would be very unlikely to use a telephone support system, but hugely value the ability to correspond privately with individuals. Contact buttons to me are a top priority.
Kathy
How does a TSG work? I’ve never used one, so before I could comment on whether these would be useful, I would appreciate an explanation as to how they are organised.