Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Nomogram - Calculating Recurrence Probabilities

NewDay said:

Suggestions for CSN

Hi Tex,

 I finally got a chance to read through that thread with all of your suggestions and they are really good ideas.  I guess the problem is finding someone with the time to devote to the effort.  

 On that suggestion I made that you make it a routine to reply  when newbies first join and give them a standard welcome message with suggestions.  Do you like how I delegated that?  I actually would be glad to take on that task but am not so good at wording things and despite my prior comments, you are very talented at it.  If you would be willing to draft a nice welcome message with instructions and explain that following some suggestions helps make the forum a better place for all, I will save the text and, when a newbie first posts, I will copy/paste it.  The other option would be (and I can't believe I'm suggesting this to you of all people) for you to create a new thread that has all of this information and I will just take on the task of replying to their first post and including a link to that thread.  That way you can edit it yourself any time instead of having to filter updates through me.  I would suggest though that you be sure to put the most important information at the beginning in case they just get overwhelmed and dont finish reading it.

Just a suggestion,

Kathy

Suggestions

Kathy, as you know, what I would like is a much more throrough and informative, friendly welcome for newcomers that would obviate the need for tedious endless repetition of the same old phrases and advice.  Better that it were all set up on a permanent basis, with modification along the way, as required by changing knowledge and useful tips, and that it was always there to greet a newbie, together with some guidance on searching our threads.

In addition, I would like to see better organisation to help everyone, new and old, in unearthing info they need - as outlined in the thread I referred to above and which you've just read.

Recently, Greta offered to arrange a "sticky" for us - i.e. a thread which would sit permanently at the top of the lists and would therefore be the earliest item many newcomers would come across so it could take care of the greeting to newbies and wouldn't need us to avail ourselves of your generous offer to copy and constantly paste, that greeting.  Greta appreciated that this was a compromise notion, as compared with my vision of a better overall structure, details of which she had passed on to the developers some time before the upgrade was conceived.  As an interim part-solution, she asked me what I felt about the idea and I've had some private discussion with another member here about the merit of the idea. 

It's been overtaken by the upgrade problems and Greta is, perhaps, awaiting seeing how the upgrade beds down.   I haven't heard from her for a little while.

Unless/until a more thorough-going solution looks possible, maybe we should think of asking for Greta's offer to be implemented.  It has been done to good effect on the Head and Neck Cancer forum.  I think that instance can be improved upon but I have little doubt that it has proved to be a boon there.

Have a look and let me know what you think - the "HNC SUPERTHREAD" can be found at

http://csn.cancer.org/forum/164

 

 

 

todd121 said:

I like the idea

A welcome message at the top that's a sticky would be great. Many other discussion forums have this. In addition, many types of websites have a FAQ link for those questions that get asked often and answered often in the same way to cut down on this type of traffic.

I've been away for many days. Took a trip to Palm Springs prior to returning to work. I did read much of the thread you suggested, but I did not complete it. What I saw all looked like great ideas to me, the issue really seems to be getting these ideas implemented. As a software engineer, I understand sometimes when you start with something and want to modify it to be something else, it's often easier to throw the whole thing out and redesign it from scratch. It's never an easy decision to make, but software really isn't that different than hardware in that respect. If you've a five bedroom house and decide you want one extra bedroom, it might not be a problem based on hallway access of the current design. However, if you decide you want to move the kitchen and bathrooms, you've got a big problem since none of the plumbing supports the new layout and depending on how major the change is, you might really have to demolish the house and start over.

A sticky problem

Quite right, Todd, the mapping function between the requirements capture and the s/w architecture implementation  is anything but transparent!  You'll be very familiar with the s/w engineering principle 'If you don't have time to do it right first time, when are you going to have time to do it over?'  I fear there may be a bit of that in issue in the current Drupal upgrade exercise here.

I'm glad you like the idea of the possible halfway-house solution to be getting on with meantime.  I trust I'll get some feedback from CSN's Greta ere too long.