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Your ideal hearing aid forum?

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Agree with you on that !! I think it may be a feature of the particular browser (Chrome ??). But it’s great to have it, so that you don’t have to open the browser itself & then navigate to a bookmark etc. Hope the upgrade will preserve this functionality.

That said, I’m happy with the present forum; but enhanced functionality is always welcome..:smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

@hearingMac said:

Structured member profiles. Members could optionally list their hearing aids, audiogram, word-recognition scores, receivers, domes or molds, phone, fitting software, and relevant hearing issues such as recruitment or asymmetric speech understanding. That would eliminate ten preliminary questions every time someone asks for help.

As others have stated, this is already a great forum. It’s the best forum that I frequent.

As for changes, I love the suggestion for “structured member profiles”. Ideally, the profile would be easy to create and update as well as wording as to why a profile is helpful for all members.

Thanks for asking. Reading thru responses so far brought out my most frequent frustration. It’s really hard to separate a) replying to a single comment , or b) adding to the general thread.

I appreciate both newbie questions and technical discussions, so I hope the revision still supports both.

It would be nice to have a search function, so if I want to look for a specific response, I can. For example, long ago a frequent commenter in Cochlear implants posted a list of rehab resources. I’d love to find it, but I suspect it’s now several years old and lost.

In reply to @AbramBaileyAuD

@AbramBaileyAuD said:

Behind the scenes, Brian (my dev partner) and I have been very frustrated with Discourse for a very long time.

@AbramBaileyAuD said:

extending the functionality of discourse is such a pain for us.

@AbramBaileyAuD, you posted this a few days ago as the main reason for change.

I do firmware development, not web development - I have no clue about Discourse. However, I do see that Discourse is an open source project that has matured over many years.

It’s usually very hard to create something new that’s even better - I hope you are taking this into account! Plus, if you create your own solution, you have to maintain it as well: keeping up-to-date with new browsers releases, security fixes, etc. All that sounds like a big job to me!

But I also don’t know how much frustration you had with Discourse already. I’m just hoping you are making the right decision!

and a fine home screen it is! If you use Chrome on an Android phone you can download the site onto the phone. It looks and behaves like an actual app. The HearingTracker icon appears on the home screen. You tap it to enter the forum. I’m using it now while I have coffee in my car parked by the local estuary. Happy Saturday. :grinning_face:

Thank you for the feedback guys. Still a ways away, but this is what I have so far in my local testing. Hopefully it can give you guys a little more confidence in what I’m doing :slight_smile:

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No requirement to log in to read the threads. Obviously log in to say something. And maybe also user information could need to be logged in for.
Show all the replies in chronological order, not nested under the post you’re specifically replying to. Some forums I read do that.
Your sample above - in reply to #4 - is good. Could be the username I suppose rather than just the post number.
Keep the edit history like here.
Shall I assume that that in reply to is a link that goes back to that post?

Maybe show posters’ locations with each post? Otherwise, don’t change much. I like it as it is.

I likely will not add custom signatures because it becomes a lot of repetition, but tell me what you’d want in your signature and we’ll bake it in somehow (as a button to view a pop up, etc)

It would probably just say I self programme, and maybe list some of the I have. To be fair, your suggestions already cover that in the biography

Edited

Or, don’t let the number of read views count unless logged in. On another forum I sometimes visit, I see wild numbers like 14 replies and 493,000 views due to web crawlers or bots I suppose. Of course this idea won’t lessen traffic load on a server though.

Snip

I wouldn’t mind being able to hover my mouse over a post title and get a pop up balloon of a few lines of the post to see if I want to click open to read the full post.

I fully agree and understand your desire to move away from Discourse. Spiceworks Community used to have their own community forum and then moved to Discourse. They belatedly discovered that it was very difficult to get Discourse to work for their forum and they lost a lot of functionality that they used to have. In addition, while I have a new and high end phone now, I can testify that an old budget phone, Discourse is dog slow! No argument there.

I will also add that I like the pub atmosphere or concept of forums in that the conversation can amble along in any direction as you can have some very interesting discussions.

I would like the following options to be included in the new forum.

  1. Give users the ability to delete their own topic, especially if the topic has no replies.
  2. I would like the topic to have a solved by option to give credit to the person who answered the question and also to indicate that the topic has been resolved.
  3. I agree with others, that we need better categorisation breaking it into diy (self programming), specific hearing aids, help with audiologists etc etc. Other people have raised this point and I agree. Discourse are very limited with this and this was the biggest failing of the new discourse format for Spiceworks Community. Categorisation makes management of data far more effective. I would rank categorisation as the most important thing to fix.
  4. I agree with others that diy - self programming - should not be hidden away like Cinderella in the attic. It should be very visible.
  5. I think a FAQ guide would be extremely useful as I consistently see the same question raised again and again i.e. my audio does not do , my audio does not allow me to return my aids, how long can I trial my aids for as well as what should I look for in an audio. Instead of answering FAQ questions like this repeatedly all the time, the forum should have an FAQ that covers things that almost everyone new to hearing aids ask.
  6. I also feel that the audiologists on this forum offer a lot of their time and expertise. I think that they should be more fully recognised beyond just a line next to their name that says registered audiologist. I would highly recommend that the forum includes a list of all the audiologists on the forum - which area they provide services for so that people using the forum can see who is local, when they last posted etc. They do give a lot to this forum and they think should benefit from more business as result. I wish I had thought of that when I was looking for a new audiologist although I am very happy with my new audiologist. But in hindsight I realise that the lack of a proper register of audiologists on this forum and where they are located means that they miss out on a lot of potential business. Their expertise and time makes this forum very valuable, so in turn, I think the forum should thank them by promoting them in a way that is not blatant advertising as it were. Just a link pointing to audiologists that people can view if they wish. I hope that you will consider this particular request as the forum would not have anywhere near the value it has without the expertise of these audiologists.
  7. One more feature request. Discourse doesn’t allow me to enter a space or paragraph break between each bullet point. Even when I do shift enter it always saves me post with no line breaks after each bullet point. No-one likes to battle a wall of text - so I would love to get this forum deficiency fixed.

Abram, there may be a need for a better marketplace for hearing aids now that eBay is no longer accepting listings for prescription devices. This could also be an opportunity for marketplace fees to help fund hearingtracker.

I would agree. I have noticed quite an uptick in the number of classified listings for hearing aids. I also think what is required is a sellers and buyers guide to help them price a device more appropriately as I think some sellers have unrealistic pricing expectations.

Building an ebay like system is possible, but I’m not sure I want to get involved in the sales of second hand health tech. I’m guessing this may be a highly regulated area, and as I’ve said in the past, there are some risks involved (newbies overamplifying and damaging their ears, etc)…

You should consult with qualified attorneys on your liability if and when things go wrong.

Just my opinion.

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