Request: New Forum Category - Health/Medical/Well-Being

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  GnarlyKnuckles on 10/06/2014 - 23:45

  +1

  It seems a bit broad, particularly due to the inclusion of 'well-being'. That would render the appropriateness of squillions of posts highly subjective. You'd get everything from bogun-beefcakes discussing protein-shakes, to hapless-hippies debating the merits of having their shakras aligned or their furniture arrangement assessed for 'Feng-Shui' (please forgive spelling).
  I'd be all for a clearly named category that did not include the overly general and often misused term 'well-being'. Something like 'Medical', or 'Medical and Health Services'.

  • 

    ryanhunt on 11/06/2014 - 00:33

    I'd be happy exclude well-being, as long as I had a home to discuss the other needs above…

    • 

      scrimshaw on 11/06/2014 - 00:45

      "Health and Fitness"

      Specific enough? It's three words, but still.

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  Moderatorneil on 11/06/2014 - 01:18

  A couple of points with creating forum categories.

  Generally, subforums mirror deal categories. So your section would mostly fall under health & beauty with the last thing you mention under Sports & Outdoors.

  The general rule of thumb for creating subforums here and most other forums (e.g. Whirlpool) on the web is only create them once there is too much discussion in another forum. So in this case, if there were many discussion in the General Forum about Health & Beauty, then a new subforum should be created. You don't want to start subforums that remain empty and stagnant.

  It also goes the other way. We removed the CIA, Starthere/moneybackco, and Rebates/Cashback due to inactivity. There are some more that we probably need to cull as well.

  So looking at the past 100 threads in General discussion:

  7 threads would fall under Health & Beauty
  3 threads would fall under Sports & Outdoors

  The question is whether 7 threads is considered enough to warrant another sub-forum?

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    Holysmoke on 11/06/2014 - 22:42

    There are also a few private health fund discussion threads under the Financial category so I think a Health sub-category is a good idea.

    • 

      Moderatorneil on 11/06/2014 - 23:31

      Good point. Of the last 100 threads in financial, 3 have been about health (health funds).

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  GnarlyKnuckles on 11/06/2014 - 01:59

  I don't mean to complicate things, but does anyone agree that 'health' and 'beauty' are actually quite different things? To the extent that it actually makes no sense to lump them together as a forum category? For example, botox, cosmetic surgery (non-reconstructive), tanning-salons, etc. are considered 'beauty' procedures by many, but there's not a (qualified) doctor in the land that would consider them 'healthy' procedures…
  Botox may or may not be relatively risk-free compared to the other two, but cosmetic surgery has definitely ruined the health of many, and tanning salons have essentially resulted in numerous deaths by melanoma.
  Then there's the more obvious fact that they are simply two very different life-aspirations; many extremely healthy peeps are not what mainstream society considers 'beautiful', and many 'beautiful' peeps are not what MSS considers 'healthy'.
  So I personally think it is silly to lump 'health' together with 'beauty' as though they are in any way closely related. Because they are not. I reckon the H&B forum should be split into two; one called 'Health', and the other called 'Cosmetics'.
  Any thoughts anyone?

  • 

    scotty on 11/06/2014 - 09:30

    Good question to ask. The category was there like from the way back and it was meant to cover items you usually buy from stores such as Priceline, Chemist Warehouse, etc. "Sports & Outdoor" was a newer category that we added.

    As neil has already mentioned, the forums are usually created to map to deal categories. However it's a good idea to use this opportunity to think about whether the current categories are sufficient — whether we should add more, or merge existing ones.

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    Moderatorneil on 11/06/2014 - 10:52

    Good point.

    I can't quite recall where Health & Beauty came from. Possibly modeled on Amazon.com?

    They have

    • Beauty, Health & Grocery
    • Sports & Outdoors

    However, I think you are thinking healthy instead of health. I would consider any kind of surgery would probably be health. That's the problem with categories, everyone has a different interpretation of what something should be categorized as.

    HotUKDeals doesn't have health/beauty. Neither does Slickdeals Guess home would be closest?

    Dealnews has a health and beauty section.

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  GnarlyKnuckles on 11/06/2014 - 14:29

  Re 'I would consider any kind of surgery would probably be health', that is not so. It could all be considered 'medical', but not health. Cosmetic surgery is essentially surgery that is not required (i.e., has nothing to do with health), but like any surgery, entails risks of ill-health. So therefore, it is the opposite of 'health'; it puts your health at risk, for no actual health benefit. Think breast enlargement, collagen injections, facelifts, botox, etc.
  I would exclude reconstructive 'cosmetic' surgery, i.e. surgery that is done to rebuild parts of the body that are for example horrifically damaged in a car accident; in one sense this should perhaps be called 'restorative' surgery or something, rather than 'cosmetic'.