Having read the that last thread about ROAD specialties, I thought "why is a pre-med who has no idea if they even WANT to go to med school posting in the RESIDENCY forum?????" Kudos to the move.
Agreed. That thread was a PERFECT example of a thread that is better suited for another board. It's a premed's question. The poster may have hoped for insight from folks beyond the premed years (which s/he got), but the question was posed about a decision point prior to med school, where the OP was pondering med school at all, and as such it really has no business in the general residency forum. And there is really no limitation to you guys following the thread and posting there. I did. Others beyond the pre-med level have as well. This was moved to a board where there is MORE traffic than this board. So come on. This post was appropriately moved. This board is for GENERAL RESIDENCY issues. Posts of interest and import to those of us currently in allo or osteo residencies in the US. Not premeds. Not med students. Not fellows. Not attendings. Everyone is welcome to read posts on any board. Everyone is welcome to post on any board with the caveat that if the mods feel that a post is better suited for another board, it may get moved to that other board. As it should. You can still follow it there and post there -- your speech isn't being abridged in any fashion, just organized into the appropriate forum for that topic of discussion. So come on, a post involving premeds, or a post focusing on NPs, or posts on the business or politics of medicine -- these are all topics covered elsewhere.
If you like this board, post "general residency" posts. But the sense I'm getting from these posts is that you don't in fact care for the general residency topics, just the audience. And sorry, but this board isn't meant to give access to a particular audience, but rather to discuss particular topics. If you want a particular audience, you have to have them come to the appropriate board. We have had this discussion in the premed/med forums a lot. Inevitably premeds post on the allo board asking questions about what they should do as a premed to prepare for med school. These posts get moved back to the premed forum. Why? Because although the target of the question is med students, this isn't a topic largely of interest to med students. And the board is for the group in the heading, not to give access to the group in the heading. Med students are free to wander into the pre-med board to give premeds advice, and they often do, but we on SDN don't force them to by allowing premed posts into their forum. Similarly we aren't allowing premed posts like the one discussed above into the general residency forum just because the premed mentions the ROAD acronym in his question of whether he should go to med school at all. Although the poster's target is perhaps residents, the topic is one of interest to premeds so the premed board is it's home. So that's where you should go to post there. And similarly some of the posts being posted by our two vocal attendings may seek the audience of general residents, but the posts themselves are not topics covered by this forum -- they are better suited to other forums. The posters whine that the audience they seek isn't there but again, the organization of the forums has always been topic specific, not audience specific. If you want to post on residency topics, you post on the residency board. If you want to post on another topic but get residents to read it, tough luck -- people either go to that board or they don't, but if that's where the topic belongs, that's where the topic belongs.
But my biggest issue is still the notion of starting a poll to call out a moderator for moving a topic to a place s/he feels is more appropriate. The mods on here try to do a good job to keep everything in a desirable order so that the forum is useful for those folks who want to find topics of interest to them. So when a resident logs on and looks for topics in the general residency forum, they don't get overwhelmed by topics involving NPs and premed career decisions. It doesn't matter that a few non-residents who frequent this forum want to read that kind of post -- this forum is for GENERAL RESIDENCY topics. And so as a forum, that's what the mods try to preserve. Other posts not violative of the TOS get moved to the more appropriate forum, and the poster is free to follow links to that post and continue the discussion there. The two posters on here who seem to have issues with this primarily seem to have an issue with the fact that there is simply better traffic on certain boards. Well that's sort of because people are interested in reading certain topics, like general residency issues, or pre-allo issues, and log onto boards for those issues. If you aren't interested in posting on such issues, you get the traffic you get. SDN provides a place to post ideas and opinions, but you have to work within the topic organization of the board. SDN isn't guaranteeing you an interested audience for your topic, and you can't force the topic you want to discuss into a forum that really isn't meant for that. You can't create a strained argument that all medicine topics should be of interest to residents, and you can't say -- the traffic is better here, or the audience I want is here. That's not how it works. You post on the topics of the forum, or you go to the more suited forum, or the post will get moved there. The post still exists, and you and interested readers are free to follow links to read it.
There are some relatively unmoderated places on SDN, like the Lounge, and if you just want to post in an unmoderated area, you can do so. If you choose to post in a moderated forum, with a heading "general residency", then you simply have to post on topic, with "on topic" having nothing to do with the audience you want, but rather what the audience itself wants. I simply don't get why this is such an issue. As mentioned, SDNers complain about posts that get moved, and posts that don't. The amount of moderation that currently exists actually is providing a very happy balance and resulting in far fewer complaints. The couple of posters on this thread are the only ones complaining, and given the total SDN traffic, I think that's an all time minimum (meaning the current level of moderation is pleasing the most people). You can please most of the people, but not all, and if your post gets moved, you might have to face the fact that you are in the tiny majority that has to be displeased for the rest of the users to be happy with the way things are going. Life is about such compromises.
This is a masterpiece of hyperbole, self flattery, and ego. Kudos.
