Updating of DS forum content and operations

[TheLoveBandit]

This thread is constructed out of bits from various mod threads and staff discussions. I've put these parts into the WORKSHOP in hopes that we can get some more crew participation for ideas and implementation. I have edited content out of several of the posts, if that content was not relevant to this discussion.


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Hey DS mods, from here into the foreseeable future, you've got me and tobala sharing the admin duty here. I will say that I intend to make this forum grow a bit and see what it can do for our site overall (with tobala's help of course). You mods got this off the ground and going reasonably well, but there is the question of 'what more can we do?', and that's where I'm hoping to help out.

(Nuke provided earlier comments, quoted again below) I do intend to respond and explore their ideas, because as the quotes above point out - there is a lot of opportunity, it shouldn't be squeezed out, but instead nurtured to help compliment the ongoing studies and information here.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

I've heard back from nuke, and she agreed to stick around as we take a fresh look at what DS is today, and what it can (and should) be going forward.

Tronica, I hope you don't mind, but I've pulled your quote from this thread - Survey threads - what is our policy?

Sorry I didn't see this thread earlier as it's of great interest to me and to Drug Studies.

We have been consistently getting more and more 'survey' threads over the last 12 months. Usually they don't meet the stricter Drug Studies rules. And we've already had discussions here at TPH about potentially extending the remit of Drug Studies to cover a wider variety of surveys, but that idea tended to be rejected... see Scope of Drug Studies 1 and Scope of Drug Studies 2.

At least the thread in question here has a database interface, meaning the response is not associated with a Bluelight username. That is better than many of the other attempts that simply ask people to admit to all sorts of stuff as part of their reply, that is, associated completely with their username.

On the one hand, I can see why DS should stay as clean as it can - on the other, I want to support more and more people getting out there, using the tools available to them and finding out interesting stuff about drugs - especially if they want to feed back that information to the Bluelight community. I want to encourage this intention; generally I think these people are genuinely interested in their topic and why shouldn't they be? This is exactly how I ended up doing this for a living! I'm hoping we can come up with a good solution - a place that welcomes, maybe even encourages, people to be innovative in this area.

Maybe it is appropriate to have a subsidiary of DS or even a subtype of DS thread specifically devoted to non-official data collection..? However if someone pops up with the 'respond in the thread' line, we can tell them there are much better ways (use google docs, use free survey monkey, etc). I can even advise them to a degree about probs with their survey. Although, many of these folks don't have time or desire to pilot their surveys, so they can often be of poor quality. Some would say we are better off with less data than with poor quality (misleading) data.

Anyway, more discussion needed IMHO

You also referred to two earlier TPH threads:
Scope of Drug Studies
Scope of Drug Studies, part 2


I'll take a few moments to go back through those threads and get my head around things a bit more and be back shortly.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

Not sure when nuke will have a chance to pop her head back in, but here's a blurb from our conversation which ought to help feed the discussion (posted with permission, of course).

Okay. Well, I'd like to stay on then, but I'm going to need someone who can help with the PHP coding to make this happen. What I'd like is for the clinical trials to be separated into a subforum that is filterable via pull-down menus, or just have the forum as it is being able to be filtered via pull-down menus. I don't know the logistics of this. What I want is to have it done by location (Continent -> Country -> State/Province) and drug type (Empathogen, Cocaine, Amphetamines, Heroin, Pharmaceutical narcotic addiction etc.) I actually have a little free time now to dedicate since I've had health problems and have been out of school, though I really need to get a job soon, finances wise.

I'm not totally sure how to advertise this as a resource when it's all up and running, too. Maybe a link from The Dark Side or something.

Christina

 

[TheLoveBandit]

Apologies for an uber long reply here, but I re-read this entire thread, the ones in TPH, and can finally start forming a response. Please keep in mind, some of these quotes are very old, but as they are part of the evolution of this forum, I wanted to revisit them as possible points of discussion now.

• There was the question of organizing the forum so recruiting studies appear at the top of the list. General response was that one can sort the forum by "thread title" but that doesn't reflect the prefixes being used There was also the response that 'Recruiting' type threads are generally the most active and will generally be 'bumped to the top' by replies...an answer, but not wholly satisfactory. This concern is raised again in the PM I quoted by nuke:
  

  for the clinical trials to be separated into a subforum that is filterable via pull-down menus, or just have the forum as it is being able to be filtered via pull-down menus. I don't know the logistics of this. What I want is to have it done by location (Continent -> Country -> State/Province) and drug type (Empathogen, Cocaine, Amphetamines, Heroin, Pharmaceutical narcotic addiction etc.)

  Here's the skinny - the software for our site doesn't allow such pulldown filtering, as much as I can tell, without serious PHP coding - something we are very disinclined to pursue as such custom code work gets scrapped and requires re-writing whenever an upgrade occurs (we expect another one in 2010). That said, we do still have some solutions available via our current software system. We can't sort by prefixes....but you can run a search on them. You can also add a key drug word to the search to get what you're after. I know, I know, I can hear the groaning now It would be a hurdle many people won't bother to attempt should we tell the members this is how it can be done. HOWEVER, in our current system we can offer quick searches FOR them at the touch of a link. For an example, visit AusEvents&Social and look at the top right header of links for events in given regions. I'd have to check the exact coding of it, but it is feasible to have a link available to the members somewhere that automatically searches the forum for any threads in their geography and-or drug of choice.
  
  
  

  Yeah you're right, it organizes them by the thread title ignoring the prefix. I'm going to have a play around, there should be a way for us to create a bunch of links at the top so that someone can filter only threads by a certain prefix or location.
  
  i.e.
  
  Show studies that are:
  - Recruiting
  - Published
  - Writing-up
  
  Show studies in:
  - AUS
  - US
  - EUR
  
  etc.

  
  One key trick to this is getting uniformity on naming conventions (regional names = we have some pretty well established), we just need to agree and be consistent. To the drug naming uniformity, that ought no be restricted to DS, but we ought to seek a uniformity across the site to improve member's ability to find information (don't worry, DS search links can also be limited to look ONLY in DS ).
  
  There is also the option of a sub-forum if that seems to be the best solution - either for certain class of threads (recruitment or concluded studies) if that alleviates some of the noise or traffic issues. I will note, the original 'concluded' sub-forum was killed and merged into here primarily for a lack of traffic and fear of it being ignored.
  
  I won't pull a cat out of a bag, but an additional tool we can have available is tag clouds, whereby keywords (again, uniformity must exist) can be 'tagged' to a thread and an additional search tool is then available. This is currently not turned on for our site, and we can restrict it so ONLY mods can tag threads, and only tags for a list maintained by staff is selectable. I'll try to get back to our testlight server set up and give you guys an example of this. But for now, consider this a 'later' option, but we can do what is listed above more immediately.
  
  
  
• Nuke raised an option of creating a google map with inpatient study locations, but was reluctant to tie her IP to it. There are IP proxies available (ie, the TOR system suggested) if we'd want the mods accessing it. I don't have such IP concerns at this point and would be happy to start setting up such a map. The thing giving me a bigger smile on this is the pins on google maps can also contain URLs....linking back to the discussion thread Still an idea we can pursue if it makes sense, but we may need to figure out where it fits in priorities. One other concern is cleaning up expired pinpoints
  
  
  
• Nuke commented that there would be way too many studies recruiting in here if she started adding a lot of the North American ones. A subforum could be an option in this regard. However, I don't think so many of us are familiar with nuke's background and approach - meaning where are all these coming from? There was this reply:
  
  

  How many are we talking? Maybe pick your favourite 10 and start with them? Should be fairly easy for the non-US folks to scan the threads for location prefixes and avoid those.
  
  Also I made that thread for Links to drug research projects. Are you getting them from a specific website... you could post it in there too if there is just way too many?

  
  So, I'll pose the question to nuke at this point, but it will stand for any of our members that wish to bring more traffic here - where is it coming from and how can we best present it? It's a fair question, and one we need to tackle to know how to best grow the forum.
  
  
  
• An further discussion was held on perhaps filtering this many, many opportunities, with comments on how we handle getting things on the site. This may be open to re-writing, but it appears the current approach is to contact those conducting the research to 'ask permission' to post it on BL - and while this puts additional work on the moderators, it will somewhat slow down or filter down the amount of new recruitment threads....but I'm seeing the flip side of increased awareness among the research community of who we are and what we can do for them - a key building block in how we hope to grow the site, based on discussions amongst the admin. There was also a comment made to the effect of these researches generally giving consent, but having no real grasp of what forums are like or how we function - there is tremendous opportunity in that regard to help BOTH parties, simply by reaching out to them. But it's on us, not them, in this regard.
  
  
  
• There were remarks on giving priority to web based research over regional studies. I'm not sure how strongly I'd stand to that at this point. The reason being we ARE looking to grow, and these are prime candidates to bring that influx of information. I do agree that prioritizing can be given to studies which benefit the site (ie, monetary donations to support our site), but in general, I'm willing to open our doors in this regard. Though, I will defer to the forum mods in how they best see fit to handle this aspect of the forum, it's growth and direction. There is a preference to web based studies as it reaches more of our site population, but as noted with all the DS links hoptis was kind enough to periodically edit in various forums, we DO have the opportunity to also drop DS links in various regional (and drug) forums to help the cause. My point being, regional does have a place here, but how can we maximize them for the researchers, the site, AND the members?
  
  
  
• Here's an interesting point - threads "where people have put themselves up as objects of study, hoping that if a researcher is watching this board, they might contact them as a case study of drug use or off-the-record treatments, etc." At the point of making the comment, the approach was to shut them down, but there was the alternative to simply create a running thread to collect these types of statements from the membership. I expect most researchers would come to us with a study in mind, but whilst here they can gain additional ideas and use them or pass them along. It would cost us very little to host such a thread, may bring benefit to the members who offer themselves in this regard, and it may help others who come behind them. In any such instance, I'm also looking for the negative effects.....and I'd appreciate your help in identifying more of them. First off, if done in a single thread, such posts don't litter the forum with a dozen threads...they are collected in one spot...but then they are also predisposed to being overlooked, lost in a stream of 'check me out' type replies Though, that too brings an easy opportunity to see 5 pot request, 1 DMT request, and 398 mdma requests...hmmm, which one would be a better study? .

That's it on this shot. Brb. Please comment to any and all of this as you would like.

- Edit, I just moved 27 deleted SPAM threads out of here to TG, so the forum may be a bit more readable for us staff, and more reflective of how the front page of threads appears to the members. For future reference, if you get SPAM threads, please RP (you can indicate you're deleting it in your forum if you like) - this will help me in a) ensuring that persons SPAM is also removed from any other forums they are in; b ) building a better trap for killing them next time before they spam us. Thanks.

 

[nuke]

Apologies for an uber long reply here, but I re-read this entire thread, the ones in TPH, and can finally start forming a response. Please keep in mind, some of these quotes are very old, but as they are part of the evolution of this forum, I wanted to revisit them as possible points of discussion now.

• There was the question of organizing the forum so recruiting studies appear at the top of the list. General response was that one can sort the forum by "thread title" but that doesn't reflect the prefixes being used There was also the response that 'Recruiting' type threads are generally the most active and will generally be 'bumped to the top' by replies...an answer, but not wholly satisfactory. This concern is raised again in the PM I quoted by nuke:
  
  Here's the skinny - the software for our site doesn't allow such pulldown filtering, as much as I can tell, without serious PHP coding - something we are very disinclined to pursue as such custom code work gets scrapped and requires re-writing whenever an upgrade occurs (we expect another one in 2010). That said, we do still have some solutions available via our current software system. We can't sort by prefixes....but you can run a search on them. You can also add a key drug word to the search to get what you're after. I know, I know, I can hear the groaning now It would be a hurdle many people won't bother to attempt should we tell the members this is how it can be done. HOWEVER, in our current system we can offer quick searches FOR them at the touch of a link. For an example, visit AusEvents&Social and look at the top right header of links for events in given regions. I'd have to check the exact coding of it, but it is feasible to have a link available to the members somewhere that automatically searches the forum for any threads in their geography and-or drug of choice.

• 
  That's unfortunate. I could probably write something in java to parse threads based on a code that could be implemented similar to trip reports, and create a database based on that and then do the filtering through that, but right now I'm really busy with another project I've been pouring myself into, so it'd be would need to wait until probably january. Then the interface on the website would work through the java and it could be scheduled to refresh daily for any new threads. My health isn't great either so my productivity is not all that high at the moment.
  
  

  One key trick to this is getting uniformity on naming conventions (regional names = we have some pretty well established), we just need to agree and be consistent. To the drug naming uniformity, that ought no be restricted to DS, but we ought to seek a uniformity across the site to improve member's ability to find information (don't worry, DS search links can also be limited to look ONLY in DS ).

  Okay -- if you do some more research as to this let me know what you the the viability would be.
  
  

  There is also the option of a sub-forum if that seems to be the best solution - either for certain class of threads (recruitment or concluded studies) if that alleviates some of the noise or traffic issues. I will note, the original 'concluded' sub-forum was killed and merged into here primarily for a lack of traffic and fear of it being ignored.
  
  I won't pull a cat out of a bag, but an additional tool we can have available is tag clouds, whereby keywords (again, uniformity must exist) can be 'tagged' to a thread and an additional search tool is then available. This is currently not turned on for our site, and we can restrict it so ONLY mods can tag threads, and only tags for a list maintained by staff is selectable. I'll try to get back to our testlight server set up and give you guys an example of this. But for now, consider this a 'later' option, but we can do what is listed above more immediately.

  Alright.
  
  

  [*] Nuke raised an option of creating a google map with inpatient study locations, but was reluctant to tie her IP to it. There are IP proxies available (ie, the TOR system suggested) if we'd want the mods accessing it. I don't have such IP concerns at this point and would be happy to start setting up such a map. The thing giving me a bigger smile on this is the pins on google maps can also contain URLs....linking back to the discussion thread Still an idea we can pursue if it makes sense, but we may need to figure out where it fits in priorities. One other concern is cleaning up expired pinpoints

  It would be nice if this could be implemented automagically in java too, somehow, but that sounds yet more complicated. Probably through monitoring the packets going out to google when you add a location, or through the google maps API.
  
  

  [*] Nuke commented that there would be way too many studies recruiting in here if she started adding a lot of the North American ones. A subforum could be an option in this regard. However, I don't think so many of us are familiar with nuke's background and approach - meaning where are all these coming from? There was this reply:
  
  So, I'll pose the question to nuke at this point, but it will stand for any of our members that wish to bring more traffic here - where is it coming from and how can we best present it? It's a fair question, and one we need to tackle to know how to best grow the forum.

  Most of the trials are listed on clinicaltrials.gov, which seems to be the largest website for Government or Corporately sponsored clinical trials. The clinical trials include over 150 countries so it's not necessarily US-specific, it just seems to be that a bulk of the clinical trials for pharmaceuticals designed to treat addictions has arisen in the US. Clinical trials itself has a fairly good search engine, so the most super easy option would be to either link there or make a script that sends a query to them to retrieve information on trials. That could probably be written easily and quickly. That also paves the way for a script that mines the database and creates threads on bluelight, and the bluelight threads could be linked to the the discussion pages here.
  
  

  [*] An further discussion was held on perhaps filtering this many, many opportunities, with comments on how we handle getting things on the site. This may be open to re-writing, but it appears the current approach is to contact those conducting the research to 'ask permission' to post it on BL - and while this puts additional work on the moderators, it will somewhat slow down or filter down the amount of new recruitment threads....but I'm seeing the flip side of increased awareness among the research community of who we are and what we can do for them - a key building block in how we hope to grow the site, based on discussions amongst the admin. There was also a comment made to the effect of these researches generally giving consent, but having no real grasp of what forums are like or how we function - there is tremendous opportunity in that regard to help BOTH parties, simply by reaching out to them. But it's on us, not them, in this regard.

  Yeah, I haven't contacted any of the researchers involved for most of my threads. Because there are a lot, if we use a mining program through clinical trials we could do automated e-mailing to those involved as well, and see what their input or thoughts are. That would be quite a lot of work, too.
  
  

  [*] There were remarks on giving priority to web based research over regional studies. I'm not sure how strongly I'd stand to that at this point. The reason being we ARE looking to grow, and these are prime candidates to bring that influx of information. I do agree that prioritizing can be given to studies which benefit the site (ie, monetary donations to support our site), but in general, I'm willing to open our doors in this regard. Though, I will defer to the forum mods in how they best see fit to handle this aspect of the forum, it's growth and direction. There is a preference to web based studies as it reaches more of our site population, but as noted with all the DS links hoptis was kind enough to periodically edit in various forums, we DO have the opportunity to also drop DS links in various regional (and drug) forums to help the cause. My point being, regional does have a place here, but how can we maximize them for the researchers, the site, AND the members?

  Yeah. We could add regional stickies linking to a search function or studies that are enrolling, as well as TDS, since most of the clinical trials involve treating drug addiction.
  
  

  [*] Here's an interesting point - threads "where people have put themselves up as objects of study, hoping that if a researcher is watching this board, they might contact them as a case study of drug use or off-the-record treatments, etc." At the point of making the comment, the approach was to shut them down, but there was the alternative to simply create a running thread to collect these types of statements from the membership. I expect most researchers would come to us with a study in mind, but whilst here they can gain additional ideas and use them or pass them along. It would cost us very little to host such a thread, may bring benefit to the members who offer themselves in this regard, and it may help others who come behind them. In any such instance, I'm also looking for the negative effects.....and I'd appreciate your help in identifying more of them. First off, if done in a single thread, such posts don't litter the forum with a dozen threads...they are collected in one spot...but then they are also predisposed to being overlooked, lost in a stream of 'check me out' type replies Though, that too brings an easy opportunity to see 5 pot request, 1 DMT request, and 398 mdma requests...hmmm, which one would be a better study? .

It would probably have to be a thread looking for 'prospective case studies'. But I'm not sure where even most researchers or clinicians would go with it. There would have to be some exceptional characteristic that would encourage further study of the subject.

That's it on this shot. Brb. Please comment to any and all of this as you would like.

- Edit, I just moved 27 deleted SPAM threads out of here to TG, so the forum may be a bit more readable for us staff, and more reflective of how the front page of threads appears to the members. For future reference, if you get SPAM threads, please RP (you can indicate you're deleting it in your forum if you like) - this will help me in a) ensuring that persons SPAM is also removed from any other forums they are in; b ) building a better trap for killing them next time before they spam us. Thanks.

Sure thing.

 

[Tronica]

Hi purplefirefly, welcome! and here's the longest post I've ever written

Hi team

Following is my attempt at summing up where we are at here at Drug Studies, what I believe are the issues that need addressing and some thoughts on the future.

*Aims of forum*

I want Drug Studies to be a forum that aims to promote dialogue between forum users and researchers about drugs and drug use research. For this to be a reality, I think the forum needs to be moved into another level of activity. At the moment, DS serves as a way of researchers recruiting participants and for forum users to participate in research. Rarely do the researchers come back with results, although some have done so. Occasionally I have been aware of a publication related to a research project advertised here and have linked the two up so people can get a sense of what their participation is leading to.

I think that, in order to get the dialogue happening, we need to promote DS to both researchers and forum users. And we should probably ask ourselves how much both of these groups care about this kind of dialogue. Do researchers want to bother with it? Do forum users actually care? I think the answer, for both groups, is that some do and some don't. If we can make this place the right environment to facilitate such discussion among those that *do* care, then we would be on the right track, in my opinion.

Promoting the forum to researchers:
I wrote (one year ago):

Once the forum rules and structure have been updated, I'll send off an email to the local (Australian) research networks to let them know about it (if they don't already). I do know some non-Aussie researchers in the field so can also send it to them and ask them to disseminate it widely.

I've not done this yet. In a way, I'm glad that it's been left as we can review the forum structure now - and when we are happy, I can invite others to the forum.

Promoting the forum to forum users:
Not sure on the best way to do this but I think we should discuss it.

*Structure of forum*

Survey threads

I think the survey threads are coming along ok - but could be improved. The process has been evolving for me as a moderator. There are different scenarios in the creation of the survey threads:
1. Researcher creates thread.
2. Moderator sees survey elsewhere, contacts researcher to gain their permission, then either the researcher or the moderator posts the thread
3. Moderator sees survey advertised in a public online forum similar to BL and reposts the thread here (without seeking permission)
4. Forum users sees survey somewhere and posts it in DS (or elsewhere on BL and it gets moved to DS - this is more common).

Regarding the quality of the recruitment post, I have been attempting to add in full names and affiliations so we have some chance of contacting the researchers in the future (to get results). Early in the mod thread, tambourine-man suggested that we ask researchers for their research proposal. This is something I think we should think about doing.

Usually, the researchers are fine with us putting their full name and details on the recruitment post. However a few months ago, one of them was unhappy with the thread being on Bluelight should his name be publicly associated with it as he was trying to keep the forums who participated anonymous. He requested I remove the thread, which I did.

Perhaps there is a point we are missing - that researchers may be fine about giving out details for contact or even their research proposals to us, but not to make them public & searchable. It might work better if we had an ongoing survey of our own which fed into a database that gathers basic information about each project that we have a thread about - so we can stay in touch with the researchers?

On this point, I quote 5HT2 from 2 years ago in the moderator thread:

I'm in favor of making the researchers do as little additional work as possible in order to use BL as a resource. A copy of either their research proposal, or their ethics/governance submissions, should be sufficient for our purposes. If at a later point, there is a need to develop a standardized pro forma, it should be kept as simple as possible.

Clinical trial threads

These threads have generally not done as well - however I think we should pursue nuke's ideas about getting a clinical trial thread for different localities and posting the available studies there.

There is the issue of 'permission' again - it would be hard work to contact all of these researchers before reposting their studies, but do we think it is ethical to do so without their permission? and maybe contacting the researchers will assist in determine which one's to add - that is, the one's that actually reply and begin a relationship with Bluelight.

The point was also made earlier in the mods thread that we should separate or mark those research projects / organisations that are working with us, versus though who we just happen to know about but don't have a working relationship with us. This is something we never did - but I think it is a good idea - we should do this. It helps get the focus back on research partnerships rather than just 'recruitment'. This would apply to all recruitment threads.

So, I'll pose the question to nuke at this point, but it will stand for any of our members that wish to bring more traffic here - where is it coming from and how can we best present it? It's a fair question, and one we need to tackle to know how to best grow the forum.

My answer - I think the map idea is great but I have no idea how to implement it. Equally, we could choose to label studies that we have simply copied across from other sites (ie. clinical trials) differently to those we are partnered with. Or, we could only post those studies where we have had a dialogue with the researcher and gained their consent. I can't comment on the map idea, but can see that the consent option will be more time consuming and result in less studies than the former 'take-them-all' option - but with the consent option, we will be actively informing researchers to the existence of Bluelight. This could have strong positive implications for us into the future.

Misc threads
I'm all for there being one thread for all people who think they should be the object of drug research. Who knows where that might lead? It can't hurt in my opinion.

*Scope of forum*

There has been some discussion about whether DS should include threads about research that is less official - eg. an undergraduate / college student who is writing an assignment about drugs and wants to get some data on a particular topic (who usually has not sought ethics approval / generally has a low level of research expertise). These sorts of threads, often with the keyword 'survey' in their title, have been moved here by mods from other forums who may not fully understand what we do here. Fair enough; I'm hazy on the function of every other forum too! However we still don't really know where such threads should live.

I would like to suggest an idea regarding 'student' research. Perhaps we should have such threads here in DS. The positives would be these: the moderators with research experience could provide guidance to the student about how to improve their thread, the student could potentially have a more positive experience with their early work in this field (maybe they will continue with it, like I have), it would bring more traffic to the forum. Negatives: it would dilute the quality of the research as a whole. However, if they were labelled differently - clearly as student research - perhaps it could work. Remember that quite a few of the threads we currently host are post grad students (with ethics approval) - but not all of these projects are 'perfect'. Even with established researchers, I often find fault with their work. Although we say there is a sharp line between ethics approved and not, in terms of the quality of the research, it's more of a continuum than a sharp divide.

To quote myself from the mods thread:

I think if someone posts a school/college project that is more than just a threaded conversation that the poster wants to use for the project - then it would make sense to have it in here. But if it's just more casual research a person is doing through having online conversations, then it's no different to most of the content on BL really.

*Partners? or anonymous contributors?*

Something we have not discussed as a moderator team is how Bluelight is represented by our research 'partners'. Eg. in the case of Inflexxion, do we know whether they will actually acknowledge their partnership with Bluelight in their journal article publications? have the upper echelons of BL been in dialogue with Inflexxion about when we will see publications based on the data collected through the DS threads?

What I would like to see into the future is actual partnership between Bluelight and research groups. We each have unique things to offer each other. In fact, I've been thinking that I'd like to put together a grant for a project with myself working as a researcher / investigator partnering with Bluelight - once I get my PhD sorted and the next part of my research career together. Something like this would need to be fleshed out with BLers from the start. Eg. BL may want to conduct its own research with the BL community that it has right here. There is huge potential for international large-scale survey research and probably heaps of ideas from the minds of the moderating team that we have built over 10 years of existence. see below...

TLB wrote:

Slightly off topic, but still to plant the seeds of thought. jb and I discussed the opportunity to implement software by which we can run our own surveys on the site - allowing us to create the questions and retain the data collection. This could be done for our own purposes, or as a service for researchers. I've asked jb to help us focus on getting this forum up and running first, and we'll address those survey hacks later - but knowledge of such 'bigger plans' may serve us well in shaping this forum from the beginning. Thanks.

I think these 'bigger plans' are possible (when is another story). Once I have my 'Dr', I want to put together a general plan of the kind of research work I would like pursue and that would lead on well from the thesis. This would be *ideal*, as my thesis covers drug use in a networked world as well as engaging drug use participants more fully in the whole of the research process (as an ethical imperative).

Of course it would be dependent on securing funding. It's not your standard work and I imagine getting funding would not be easy, but it is definitely worth trying. There are clear research and practice benefits - for any funding organisation that appreciates the value of harm reduction and research.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

That's unfortunate. I could probably write something in java to parse threads based on a code that could be implemented similar to trip reports, and create a database based on that and then do the filtering through that, but right now I'm really busy with another project I've been pouring myself into, so it'd be would need to wait until probably january. Then the interface on the website would work through the java and it could be scheduled to refresh daily for any new threads. My health isn't great either so my productivity is not all that high at the moment.

Health, and personal life, come first and foremost. We can wait until January without too much trouble, at least for implementation, but I would like us to keep kicking ideas here in the meantime to find our best opportunities to explore. Even if you can't put time into it now, I can find out what's feasible and what isn't. I'll admit zero knowledge of java style programming, but am open to the possibilities.

There may still be a way to do it, however, within the site - as hoptis has been showing me how some html pages can be generated live by using the existing site database. I'll explore this option with him a little deeper.

Still, take care of yourself. Do what you need for your project, and more importantly your health. We'll be here

<tagging, searchability, TLB needs to check some more things out>

Do you realize that the system in TR was a manual implementation by Xorkoth? If you look at their dynamic link thread - The Trip Reports Directory - you'll see each link is simply a constructed search function that focuses to their forum, for the keywords they've manually embedded into the threads worth finding. Likewise, the nifty links atop the AusEvents forum are manually constructed searches that pick up on keywords in the titles that the mods have manually added (perhaps members can as well, now). In both cases, the links are search functions, so they will always pick up all the latest threads with the proper 'searched for' terms. Anywho, I've asked Xorkoth to stop in and comment, since he's climbed this hill before (and was keen on the kind of pulldown arrangement you were thinking of). I've also asked hoptis to drop in and stay aware of any techical issues or opportunities.

Pending Xork's comments, I will lauch a discussion in TPH to compile site-wide accepted terms for particular drugs (to be used in tags or search functions).




Regarding clinicaltrials.gov, it is great to know it isn't restricted to the US, though I'm sure there are a LOT of trials that are of little to no value to our site and members (foot fungus? ). I agree the super easy method is to link to them, but if possible I'd also like to explore what you mention of building a script that will query them....hrm, I'm torn between something customized for us and something that will save us the most work but still get the information to the members. May have to think a bit. "That also paves the way for a script that mines the database and creates threads on bluelight, and the bluelight threads could be linked to the the discussion pages here." is an excellent point worth keeping in mind = how can we build things now that will benefit us even more in the future! As is "if we use a mining program through clinical trials we could do automated e-mailing to those involved as well, and see what their input or thoughts are."


Tronica, I'll have to come back and read your replies in a bit.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

In response to Tronica's post:

*Aims of forum*
We definitely need to take things to the next level, do a better job of bringing the results of the participation back to the members so as to encourage them more. This is two fold, IMO - in part for the findings you reference, and in part fo the financial benefits it brings for the site (something I will pick up and start putting in here). I do have one issue with this concept of *Aims of the forum* which is....I can't sit here confidently and say I have a picture of where exactly we ought to be....but that's more of a scope question we can get into below.

Promoting the forum to researchers:
I would also agree we need to promote the forum (and site) better to researchers. I can help with Inflexxion a bit (if I can't get SG in here) to ensure we get some kind of credit for our help on their research (and I know SG can help insure we get the results posted back here). For others....it's a damn good question of "how to get the word out" which, right now, appears to fall back into a lot of leg work for those of us running the forum = contacting them for permission (or not), contacting them for results, asking them to get some credit on their research. I'm open to ideas on how to improve this, and nuke's concept of a somewhat automated system to notify researchers that we wish to advertise their study on here is a good starting point. I wouldn't be against a manual effort to get us to some sort of standardized submission on these 'contact a researcher' emails, and part of me still wants to cling to the level of personal interaction (rather than a form letter to them), but the workload involved is intimidating.


Promoting the forum to forum users:
I've no issue using targeted links atop specific forums as hoptis started employing earlier. I'm also not against site-wide ANNOUNCEMENTS or NOTICES to try and get the message across, or to create a specific banner add to put in the rotation (it would need to be updated periodically to avoid getting stale or overlooked, and there is nothing against running several at once). What we would most likely NOT do is to use the site's member database to mass email or PM everyone about such things. It'd be too close to SPAM and would turn off a lot of our members. Though.....before I shut down that concept altogether, let me fly it past the admin group for how bad it really might be, since we may choose to employ these methods for other things as well (donation drive fund raising, planned shutdowns, etc).

 

[TheLoveBandit]

Oh, another avenue is to get the results from a study or trial in which our members have participated, and make our own DitM type front page article extolling the study AND how well we've done for the field, the drug, and ourselves by having members participate (somewhat shine a light on the success our member participation can bring for all). That's all I have for now, but will keep thinking on it.


*Structure of forum*

Survey threads

For the way these are coming in, I wish we could alleviate the workload you describe for the mods. However, two areas I can see opportunity for improvement would be: 1,2,3) Have a thread similar to what the MWEvents (in NA region) have, where anyone can post to a mod controlled thread, and the mods have one place to review, approve and split out, or decline and indicate why. This would funnel researchers to one point, and hopefully encourage members to bring things forth (with some thought and preparation) as well; and for 4) I think you had the right approach in TPH by flagging the staff's attention and hopefully get them to see what the forum was wanting or not wanting....I'd look to make a hard statement (as an admin) in there on DS going forward both in ANNOUNCEMENTS and a mod specific thread in TPH when we sort ourselves out here. Then follow up with PM nudges for mods who blindly send things over to encourage more understanding from then on.

I also very much like your inclusion of contact info in the thread, but as you note, some may only wish to share it with us and not the public at large. As a workable solution, can I suggest having the initial post with what the researcher wants, but then have a second moderated (hidden) post with the details we need for contacting them? It will keep it from public view, but still with the relevant thread and discussion rather than having us look elsewhere (like the mod thread or something). If we can get their proposals or equivalent, then GREAT! and we can attach them within the hidden reply.

I'm a bit confused on your next point of using our own database, as it almost sounds like you're considering us having a survey software database on site (which I do hope to employ) and using that for our purposes AND to gather then researcher's data - then feeding the results back out to them. Am I misreading something here? Or are you simply suggesting we keep a listing of the studies we've worked with?


Clinical trial threads

As for the ethics of pulling trials without contacting the researcher....I'm fine with it. If it is on a public site where anyone could get it, what's different from me reading about a measles trial and telling my cousin who I know could participate versus us posting it on here? I don't have qualms about bringing such things here, but would like very much to still pursue the 'permission' aspect, if only for the reason you cite of building relationships.

Designating which projects we're actively working with versus passively advertising, there are a few things we can do. For one, we could have a sticky thread in here with links to those 'key partners'. For another, we can provide links via forum headers and-or banners (which I expect we'll do anyways). I don't expect it to 'shame' others into wanting to be a partner, but they can see what extra steps we do for people willing to work with us. This again speaks back to showing some kind of record of the impact we've had on these studies (for example, one recent one SG brought us indicated we were the only site that generated participants out of all the sites they were in contact with ...hence, they are providing us more money, but we still don't know how many people they got because of us, or what percentage of their study was done on BLers ). This type of information needs to become available and shown publicly, both to encourage more participation (particularly with partners) and to give a better idea to researchers on what we really can offer besides electronic promises. Hrm, perhaps for a start, I can try to work with hoptis on reviewing some site statistics for how many living bodies visit our site from various regions, to better reflect the pool of participants we have....a bit census information that many would find interesting, but can actually be useful in this case.

Tying the map proposal back into this....again, a major time investment, and as nuke pointed out there is a security issue as well for those maintaining it. Honestly, at this point, I'd be willing to take a list of 10-20 of these clinical trials and such from nuke, make a map myself, and start a thread in here announcing it's creation and purpose, then bump it with updates. Anything to simply get us started. If it fizzles, it fizzles, but I am very inclined to simply give it a go and see where it leads us. Maybe along the way we'll find somethings which can improve our operation and maintenance of it, but it has to start somewhere.

Misc threads
Again, a concept I'm ready to simply kick out and 'give it a go' to see where it leads. If anything, it will give the members a chance to feel like they've expressed their needs or offering to someone...anyone...even if nobody picks up on it. If nobody objects, I'll launch such a thread using the 'Forum Moderator' account early next week.

*Scope of forum*

While I am not keen on bringing down the quality of the content in this forum with HS and college homework type studies, I am willing to give them a try to see if it picks up forum traffic at all. One concern is the less than professional image it conveys to true researchers, but again....I'm willing to give it a shot. It would need to be under a tight watch, so that bullshit chattering gets pushed to another forum, and real information gathering can remain. (Please note, I will take up a way of handling such surveys - most likely bouncing them thru the proper Drug Discussion forum, and depositing them in either Drug Culture, or the respective regional drug discussion...but I'd like to get to a standard answer that ALL staff can follow).

The concern I have with bringing in that content is that we either spread the information by creating a subforum and throwing things in various areas that are less likely to be looked in....or we add another prefix to denote which ones are simply "Student requests" or somesuch which adds a bunch more threads in here to sift thru. Neither solution is all that appealing, but again, we have to start somewhere, so I'd be willing to start with the prefix solution, and if it becomes too much I can mass move them all to a subforum if we decide that is better.

My last comment to *scope* is that I don't have a real good idea of what we should look like in the long term This bothers me, not in that I have to have all the answers, but in that it is hard to ever define when you have gotten to the finish line. I understand there is no real 'completion point' as we will most likely continue to evolve over time, but I have trouble getting a complete picture of what we should be 6, 12, or even 18 months out from now. We're throwing out some great ideas and looking to try a lot of stuff....and I realize I'm relying on you mods for a lot of 'is this the right thing to do', it just bugs me there is no real answer to what is right I'll get over it, but I wanted to share that in case any frustration or confusion appears in my words.

*Partners? or anonymous contributors?*

I spoke to it above, and admit right now we have no idea what recognition Inflexxion or others give for our assistance, just as we have no idea of the impact we've really made for them that we can beat our chests over and share as a good deed done well. As noted above, I'll look into this with SG, but we do need better practice going forward.

Heh, to your PHD...finish it!! And once that's done, I'd still like to read what you indicated earlier. We do hope to have a survey system in place next year, and I've got a few pet projects to start it off, but ultimately it is NOT intended for social crap (thread polls can suffice for that), and it IS intended for the kind of research you are alluding to - which will make us even more valuable to researchers everywhere. I encourage anyone to remind me of this promise of survey software, should it appear I'm dragging my feat (not what I read insinuated from your post - just a nod to my general knack of procrastination). I want this done, even if I have to be embarrassed into completing it.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

OK, tambourine-man has indicated he's fine with me using his words...but he didn't speak to my moving this discussion to the WORKSHOP. Would you mods be opposed to that? I'd prefer to get some more heads in on this, and hopefully a little more people behind putting some of the muscle into what we're describing (either the code work, or the communications with researchers). I'll hold off until I hear back for each of you. In the meantime, here's the PMs between t-m and myself:

Pt 1 of 1

Reed,

A little slower to reply than I'd hoped... but the essay was more demanding than I'd anticipated.

Firstly, DS is much more active as a forum than it was when I was modding it... which is great! When I've stopped in over the past few months my impressions have been thus:

• Tronica seems to give a hell of a lot of effort in engaging each and every new thread posted. The forum needs that energy to maintain a degree of inertia.
• The userbase of the forum seems to have increased and, looking at the types of contributors, it also appears to have broadened as well.
• The merging of concluded studies into the main forum is particularly welcome. I think I mentioned ages ago that the separation of the two was an artificial barrier that was preventing the critique/exchange of ideas between forum members and researchers - forum members didn't know to look there and so researchers had no reason to stick around.

On a similar note, the use of tagging for "writing up" / "recruiting" / "published" makes sense (although you might want to colour-code them). How is that managed? Does that require Tronica or other mods to remain in contact with the researchers, or do we assume the status based on the recruitment dates in the OP? If not, this might be a way to get greater ties with individual researchers (just needs someone to do the donkey-work of maintaining contact).

Tronica is a workhorse, but has been limited to the DS content she would participate with. We're trying to expand the forum content, and she is also trying to help us broaden it....but you're point of her level of enthusiasm and engagement being critical is a very keen one. nuke is returning under promises to try and incorporate her ideas as well. Anywho, you're right, and a lot of what we're talking about is labor intensive. We're still struggling with how to get information FROM researchers and out to our public with minimal effort by all involved. A lot of it gets pointed back to 'someone doing some coding' or 'someone doing a lot of emails' and such But we're trying to work with/around that, and will remain open to ideas or suggestions.

On the colour coding, I had the same thought earlier today (great minds :D) and have updated it (also open to suggestions, as I must be colour blind or simply have horrible taste - color theme of the Festivus Forum for example 8) ). It is a manual update, and I don't know if it is done based on OP dates or ongoing correspondence. I'm not even sure if Tronica has standardized her practice based on this, or if it depends on how much response we can get from researchers.

Also, thank you for your review of the forum's content and membership. I'm honestly at a loss to comprehend such things, having not read the forum earlier, and thereby losing a base for comparison. It's heartening to know the growth is there, and that it is a good kind of growth. But it still leads us to:

For me, the question is about what is DS supposed to be?

And to a large degree, that question remains on the table. We have the Tronica type content, and nuke is looking to bring a lot of the active content from clinicaltrials.gov (global trials listed, not just American), and some way to tie that back to our members (perhaps even offering an interactive map...but again, the labour involved). We are even considering allowing "Assignments" as a fourth prefix, to allow high school and college student projects to be held. This is not decided, but discussed to this point is that it would encourage those doing the research to better consider how they approach and execute their studies (right now, such threads get bounced to BDD, ADD, OD, and several other Ds before dying somewhere). There is the downside of lowering the 'quality' of the forum by doing this, even though any non-study threads that digressed into chatter would be scuttled off to an appropriate D forum for a proper death discussion.

Additionally, there is the opportunity to bring in more research for discusssion, not just trials and surveys, but published work. This may indeed tread on DitM a bit, but I think the two can co-exist, and raise DS content a bit.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

Pt 2 of 2

========================
IDEA 1: Targeting users
========================

You allude to the concept of DS being a money-spinner for the site. Well, in order to do that, you have to provide a reliable service and one that is useful. The biggest asset that the site has is its users... or, more bluntly, its database of users. Bear with me... this is real pie in the sky shit, yo...

As a researcher, I want to know two things about my sample: one, that it's representative and generalisable; and two, that it's big enough to satisfy power and effect size calculations. Now, recruiting from the web kinda skews the representativeness, but I may well wish to ensure that I get more than my fair share of people from the UK (if I'm doing a UK study). I may also be interested in people who take specific substances, or people in particular age ranges or a specific gender.

What if as part of the sign up process to Bluelight, every new member was asked if they would be willing to take part in online studies and, if so, could they please provide some demographic details which would allow us to 'tailor' which studies were relevent to them? (bear with me some more). What if these options were built into the "User CP" so they could be altered at a later date? What if, when this was implemented, existing members were sent a global PM to instruct them to update this setting?

Now, what if every time I (as a researcher) submitted a thread (using the thread example in the DS guidelines) a mod/admin read it, then issued a board-wide PM to all members who fit into the specified categories? Better yet, what if the creation of a thread triggered an automated PM (temporarily held in escrow for mod approval to prevent abuse) based on a template that the researcher completed when starting a thread in DS?

What if members were sent a PM every three months to update their preferences/drug usage details?

What if?

What if somebody had the technical skills in both databases and vB to make that happen?

It'd help the targetted delivery of members for studies, while maximising uptake. I might even be prepared to pay for that kind of service.

Agreed, and already in my mind a bit. We (I) are seriously wanting to pursue a survey software package that will ride on top of the site, allowing us to run our own surveys and analysis (not to bring in the thread-poll type content, but real data we can harvest, sell, offer to employ for those seeking research help perhaps). In part this was envisioned to help build a better profile of our userbase, but your approach is a lot better, IMO. I know we can incorporate a lot of this into the userCP profile section, and as hoptis and I maintain server access we can run queries against the information therein (perhaps limited to radio choices, rather than text fields for the sake of uniformity).

This would indeed provide us a much better representation of our userbase for prospective researchers (as well as our own growth measurement, which we also need to develop). It would only be a small bit of work for the type of targetting marketing you allude to, which would indeed yield better results than our header links do today.

========================
IDEA 2: Improving awareness
========================

I'd still like to see more advertising of studies in regional forums. The Australian forums usually have a couple mentioned. I'm surprised they don't crop up in other regions. Any chance that can be made more automated?

I'll have to talk to hoptis about any possible automation, but for now, there have been so few it hasn't been a burden to the admin group to edit as needed. As to the 'other regions', YES, and this falls back to primarily nuke and her resources which are more American than Australian in nature. Though, that still leaves a bit of a hole in EU We also wish to start blasting similar links to all relevant forums for non-region specific studies

========================
IDEA 3: Improving research
========================

What makes good research? What makes good research into drugs and drug use? There's plenty of critical acedemic literature that summarises the problems with existing drug-related research and why it tends to be biased. Do we have a responsibility to our users and researchers to point these issues out?

More so, do we want DS to become a place where such discussions are had? Do we want to allow a greater degree of flexibility in what is an acceptable DS topic? When DS was set up, we were at pains to ensure that it didn't tread on DiTM's toes. Quite correctly so. But what if the latest piece of academic research was "spotlighted" and discussion was encouraged? Not only from regular members, but also passing researchers? Let's give researchers a reason to stick around and engage with the peasants.

As noted above, the table is open for DS to grow to whatever we see as our best future. So any and all of these ideas can be brought to the table. I greatly appreciate the time you've put into this, it is a great help....(he waits for the 'and' or the 'but')...(AND) can I share this with the DS mods directly or at least paraphrase? (BUT) can I bring this discussion to the WORKSHOP so I can get you (hopefully Sebastians Ghost, possibly a few people from ADD, and anyone else with knowledge and-or ability to help) to contribute to this discussion? I'm terribly afraid of asking more of you than you've provided ...(AND) you know I'll always keep a soft spot for you to return to staff should your life ever permit it . But as crew, this is a great contribution and I'd like to keep you with it as much as you can muster. Holla back when you get time, and if that isn't for another few weeks, please enjoy your holidays to the fullest and know that you have my warmest wishes.

Thank you.

- Reed, TLB of BL

 

[Tronica]

I just wanted to record my pleasure at reading tambourine man's comments - yes, researchers want a known sampling frame and here we are with a potential opportunity to develop one... if it could be done with minimal effort from the user base.

Yes we should go to Workshop for this - would be good to get more input from across the staff and ex-staff base. I'm all for that.

Also fine with the colour coding. It hadn't occurred to me personally, but may assist people. I'm interested in all types of threads at the moment, but I envisage the forum users mainly going towards Recruiting threads.

Have just noticed that a Writing-up thread is collecting comments that indicate that the survey is still live, so have asked the researcher what is happening. I know in my survey I mistakenly put the survey live again after I had closed it, with the unfortunate consequence of collecting some responses that I could not include. This situation also indicates that some people aren't taking much notice of the tags, and are entering a 'writing up' thread and clicking on the survey link, and doing the survey. It makes me wonder whether the tags don't have obvious meaning to our users!

Anyway so much more to be said. I will return!

 

[5-HT2]

Here are my thoughts on the ideas being thrown around:

I absolutely tambo's idea of asking new users about participating in a database for study recruitment as part of the signup process, and then sending out mass PMs to users who might fit the profile for studies that are posted. This will require important revisions to the BLUA to ensure that we get it right. What I would like to know is whether we can rope existing users into this en masse in a convenient way, for instance, as part of the upgrade that will be taking place in 2010? I also like TLB’s idea of getting a survey package to ride on top of the forums.

I also very much like your inclusion of contact info in the thread, but as you note, some may only wish to share it with us and not the public at large. As a workable solution, can I suggest having the initial post with what the researcher wants, but then have a second moderated (hidden) post with the details we need for contacting them? It will keep it from public view, but still with the relevant thread and discussion rather than having us look elsewhere (like the mod thread or something). If we can get their proposals or equivalent, then GREAT! and we can attach them within the hidden reply.

This seems like a great solution; let’s do it.

While I am not keen on bringing down the quality of the content in this forum with HS and college homework type studies, I am willing to give them a try to see if it picks up forum traffic at all. One concern is the less than professional image it conveys to true researchers, but again....I'm willing to give it a shot. It would need to be under a tight watch, so that bullshit chattering gets pushed to another forum, and real information gathering can remain. (Please note, I will take up a way of handling such surveys - most likely bouncing them thru the proper Drug Discussion forum, and depositing them in either Drug Culture, or the respective regional drug discussion...but I'd like to get to a standard answer that ALL staff can follow).

The concern I have with bringing in that content is that we either spread the information by creating a subforum and throwing things in various areas that are less likely to be looked in....or we add another prefix to denote which ones are simply "Student requests" or somesuch which adds a bunch more threads in here to sift thru. Neither solution is all that appealing, but again, we have to start somewhere, so I'd be willing to start with the prefix solution, and if it becomes too much I can mass move them all to a subforum if we decide that is better.

We are even considering allowing "Assignments" as a fourth prefix, to allow high school and college student projects to be held. This is not decided, but discussed to this point is that it would encourage those doing the research to better consider how they approach and execute their studies (right now, such threads get bounced to BDD, ADD, OD, and several other Ds before dying somewhere). There is the downside of lowering the 'quality' of the forum by doing this, even though any non-study threads that digressed into chatter would be scuttled off to an appropriate D forum for a proper death discussion.

I fully agree with the quality control concerns about including student projects that are unaffiliated with a higher-level research program, but on the other hand, we should encourage and mentor people who could become part of the next generation of drug researchers. Thus, I agree with the prefixing solution rather than bouncing the threads around the drug discussion forums. When traffic gets higher, all of these will probably have to go to a subforum.

As for the case study issue, I think that having one consolidated running thread for this will do nicely without clogging up the forum. However, this thread would only serve the intended purpose if tapped by researchers, and it would be nice to have some kind of metric to determine whether they are looking at it.

Effective advertising seems to be the crux of a lot of the problems related to expanding this forum. On one hand, I think it is completely ethically acceptable for us to post anything that is publicly advertised, but on the other hand, researchers may not be aware of potential sampling bias introduced by our doing so. However, I feel that most of them would either welcome or not care about their advertising propagating to BL, as a lot of recruitment notices are already forwarded to various e-mail lists. That is just what happens when you publicly advertise something. However, posting all drug studies would increase the thread volume dramatically, so I think nuke’s searchable database idea is the best way we have thought of to address this issue.

A lot of the intra-BL advertising problems raised in this discussion could be greatly ameliorated by thread mirroring (same thread being present in multiple forums at the same time). Does the 2010 vb update provide for that?

 

[TheLoveBandit]

This thread has been built from various parts, and is now being pushed thru TPH and over to WORKSHOP.

 

[nuke]

I'll have a read over of all this soon, busy with holiday times.

 

[Tronica]

me too nuke ... merry christmas folks!

 

[Tronica]

I hope everyone had a lovely christmas and new year. I did!

I just re-read this thread. It really is full of great ideas! I'm not quite sure where I should start in terms of the leg work. I just emailed a few more researchers to ask about the progress of their studies and hoping to locate some publications or results.

I'm very keen on the research ideas expressed here. I also think there may be a set of researchers and research students right here at BL that could band together to make it happen.

I might just keep doing my thing modding, try to complete my phd writing, and think big about future research projects that eminate directly from BL (rather than involving BL from the side).