I say keep it in. I understand wanting to eliminate unhelpful posts, but the meanies will find you regardless.

The benefit of recent topics is that if something is unusual more likely someone will see it who doesn't frequent this forum.

But honestly, I don't care either way.

I agree. I accidentally came into this forum through the Recent Topics prior to my finding out my son's SN. I had no idea this forum was not part of the general parenting discussion. I found the posted responses sort of bizarre. When I found out DS's issue, I always came to this forum through the dedicated link, not the Most Recent Topic.

In my personal opinion, including SN topics in the Most Recent Topics do not serve either SN parents or NT parents.

Just to clarify the providence of this thread. The suggestion to remove this forum from Recent Posts was made in another thread which I was not reading. Probably anticipating that, someone emailed me the suggestion and drew my attention to that thread I suggested that this thread should be created to discuss the idea and get feedback from forum members. Frankly, I don't really care what people who don't normally participate in this forum think about the idea. If you don't normally participate in this forum and are for some reason outraged by the suggestion, please contact me and I will refer you to a number of issues much more worthy of your anger. For those who do participate in this forum, I appreciate your input regardless of where you come down on keeping the forum in Recent Posts.

Never heard of Recent Topics before it was mentioned here. I see it now. If you think it is a problem, remove it. I have one SN child. Yes I see the occasional troll in SN but it wasn't a problem for me. I just roll my eyes and more on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I think the over the top OP of the other two threads and possibly this one is now just drawing in the crazies and negative attention to the SN forum and is making it worse.

I do not understand why she does not STOP. Its getting ridiculous now.

OP again. Jeff was the one who suggested this thread.

No one suggested restricting this section only to parents of SN and no one suggested limiting anyone's speech or the flow of information. Its a logistics suggestion, thats all.

OP you have successfully drawn tons of negative attention the the SN forum by creating now multiple threads about the same issue.

Rather than leave it alone and ignore the rude posters you have only created more drama. Congrats! You are awesome! Now maybe you can stop drama and let people get on with their posts...or is that too difficult for you?

This. OP has created multiple threads within days, on the same one issue. Give it a rest already.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I think the over the top OP of the other two threads and possibly this one is now just drawing in the crazies and negative attention to the SN forum and is making it worse.

I do not understand why she does not STOP. Its getting ridiculous now.

OP again. Jeff was the one who suggested this thread.

No one suggested restricting this section only to parents of SN and no one suggested limiting anyone's speech or the flow of information. Its a logistics suggestion, thats all.

OP you have successfully drawn tons of negative attention the the SN forum by creating now multiple threads about the same issue.

Rather than leave it alone and ignore the rude posters you have only created more drama. Congrats! You are awesome! Now maybe you can stop drama and let people get on with their posts...or is that too difficult for you?

Anonymous wrote:I've got SN kids and I'm fine with it appearing in Recent Topics. I actually love when some jerk spews their conventional wisdom and the SN group rallies around a response. I love that we can ignore posts that appear to be trolls looking for a reaction. Recently, someone demanded citations of published research regarding the use of the work 'neurotypical', then a follow up indicating the requester was 'still waiting'. Some witty SN mom responded 'better get a Snickers'. I thought that was hilarious and was pleased that no one sought to engage that person further. Talk about great restraint! That's so typical of the SN forum. I get pissed about some of the ignorant and vicious posts but I don't think we should remove the SN threads from recent topics.

OP again. This is the best defense of the status quo. Thank you for this.

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I think the over the top OP of the other two threads and possibly this one is now just drawing in the crazies and negative attention to the SN forum and is making it worse.

I do not understand why she does not STOP. Its getting ridiculous now.

OP again. Jeff was the one who suggested this thread.

No one suggested restricting this section only to parents of SN and no one suggested limiting anyone's speech or the flow of information. Its a logistics suggestion, thats all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps changing the title to Special Needs - Support would help. That way it is more clear since this forum operates more like a support board than a debate board. That way it is more clear that this is not the appropriate place to debate the efficacy of medication, but a place to discuss what solutions with and without medication people have found. Just like it is not appropriate to debate in vitro fertilization on the TTC board.

Perhaps you can just open a private Yahoo Group or similar and don't try to work around the fact that a public discussion forum is, well, a public discussion forum.

Perhaps private groups don't really work for families that are just starting on the journey or reach new ages since they generally stagnant over time. Since "new" families cannot ask to be in them if they do not know they exist. This is a fantastic forum because it is accessible and local and there is quite a bit of historical knowledge about "the way things work".

Plus, for my DC, there are not enough of us to sustain a forum over time.

You can find a private group if you do a search on google or yahoo. I have a very rare condition, probably less than 100 people in the whole world, and found a private support group on the internet 10+ yrs ago.

This is a SN discussion board discussing all different kinds of SNs. I don't know why you want to limit it to "parents of SN kids" when there are plenty of boards that provide exactly what you are looking for.

I don't want to limit to parents of SN children only, I would like the nasty mean spirited posts to stop. I have not been so lucky in finding private support boards despite on and off googling for 6-7 years. They just do not have the activity that this board has and they do not know about the local schools systems and local medical personnel.

The mean spirited nasty comments are a given on a public discussion board. Report it. Removing this forum from the Recent Topics is not going to stop them and if you are going to continue on any public forum and as the parent of a child with SN, you need to grow a thicker skin and not let the idiots get to you for your own well being.

On the support forum that I belonged to there was a similar issue except that some of the members wanted to throw out the parents of kids who had the diagnosis, give them a separate forum since the parents did not have the diagnosis themselves (yeah, all five families as I recall): The kids got a separate forum too. It got ridiculous and the main reason I don't belong.

I've got SN kids and I'm fine with it appearing in Recent Topics. I actually love when some jerk spews their conventional wisdom and the SN group rallies around a response. I love that we can ignore posts that appear to be trolls looking for a reaction. Recently, someone demanded citations of published research regarding the use of the work 'neurotypical', then a follow up indicating the requester was 'still waiting'. Some witty SN mom responded 'better get a Snickers'. I thought that was hilarious and was pleased that no one sought to engage that person further. Talk about great restraint! That's so typical of the SN forum. I get pissed about some of the ignorant and vicious posts but I don't think we should remove the SN threads from recent topics.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps changing the title to Special Needs - Support would help. That way it is more clear since this forum operates more like a support board than a debate board. That way it is more clear that this is not the appropriate place to debate the efficacy of medication, but a place to discuss what solutions with and without medication people have found. Just like it is not appropriate to debate in vitro fertilization on the TTC board.

Perhaps you can just open a private Yahoo Group or similar and don't try to work around the fact that a public discussion forum is, well, a public discussion forum.

Perhaps private groups don't really work for families that are just starting on the journey or reach new ages since they generally stagnant over time. Since "new" families cannot ask to be in them if they do not know they exist. This is a fantastic forum because it is accessible and local and there is quite a bit of historical knowledge about "the way things work".

Plus, for my DC, there are not enough of us to sustain a forum over time.

You can find a private group if you do a search on google or yahoo. I have a very rare condition, probably less than 100 people in the whole world, and found a private support group on the internet 10+ yrs ago.

This is a SN discussion board discussing all different kinds of SNs. I don't know why you want to limit it to "parents of SN kids" when there are plenty of boards that provide exactly what you are looking for.

I don't want to limit to parents of SN children only, I would like the nasty mean spirited posts to stop. I have not been so lucky in finding private support boards despite on and off googling for 6-7 years. They just do not have the activity that this board has and they do not know about the local schools systems and local medical personnel.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I vote against removing it. There are obnoxious people everywhere and removing this from the Recent Topics list won't change that. I want people to read this forum to try and gain a glimmer of understanding about what our lives are like. Even the threads that devolve into nonsense are worthwhile in that they shed light on the perspective of SN parents vs. non SN parents.

+1

I am still expecting my first and don't know if I'm a SN parent. I read almost entirely via Recent Topics and have been exposed to SN topics that way which I'd never have sought out directly, and it's educated me about some issues. I quite understand that some SN parents may want the space to be a bit safer than it is, but a more liberal use of the "report" button by SN readers would seem to be a healthier way to handle trolls than isolation from the larger community. From what I gather about Jeff, he would support such a use, i.e. he would follow the will of the group in moderating what people complain about.

I personally think the column defining the forum is perfectly clear but if people are concerned about Recent Topics readers ignoring it, perhaps those who are concerned could begin voluntarily tagging their subject lines with [Special Needs] or [SN] or something. Even a truly oblivious person would notice the difference between "How can I get my child to work on his hygeine" and "[special needs] How can I get my child to work on his hygeine." (I hope)

I have 2 kids with SN. I think the board should stay on Recent Topics for this reason.

I'm totally comfortable smacking someone who is rude and reporting it. Jeff responds quickly to reports from the SN board.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps changing the title to Special Needs - Support would help. That way it is more clear since this forum operates more like a support board than a debate board. That way it is more clear that this is not the appropriate place to debate the efficacy of medication, but a place to discuss what solutions with and without medication people have found. Just like it is not appropriate to debate in vitro fertilization on the TTC board.

Perhaps you can just open a private Yahoo Group or similar and don't try to work around the fact that a public discussion forum is, well, a public discussion forum.

I've been on Ivillage public discussion forums as well as three or four others for more than ten years. They have separate boards (all public) for discussion/debate and support. Just because a board in in the public domain, doesn't mean it it always a debate type board. The support boards there are good for general stuff, but here there is local knowledge that can be extremely helpful.

Anonymous wrote:
This is a SN discussion board discussing all different kinds of SNs. I don't know why you want to limit it to "parents of SN kids" when there are plenty of boards that provide exactly what you are looking for.

+100000000

This discussion is getting ridiculous. And to the poster whose kid is not SN but is accusing us of being "politically correct'' or whatever -- i remember your post. I dont think you are seeing the nuance of why your post was offensive. You said you were looking for information, but then when information was provided, you used it as a springboard to complain about how these diagnoseses and professionals were bogus -- kind of like you wanted to rant about the pervasiveness of the special needs industry, which is kind of offensive to us parents who have kids who truly are struggling.

But im not upset about the offensive posts. Im upset that my child struggles so much, which is why im come on this forum a lot -- i always get some information that is helps me help him. I could care less about the offensive posts from people i don't know. I'm much more wounded by the offensive posts by people i do know, and there are plenty of those.

And to those who accuse us of being martyrs -- you don't get it. I have a NT child and a SN child and the experience of raising a SN is just much more challenging. It just is. That doesn't make me a martyr. I wish it wasnt this way but it is. I can empathize with parents who are strurggling with their NT chilren, but id rather seek advice from parents in my shoes since they may have an experience that would be helpful