Your Top Two Pieces Of Advice

[Marilyn R]

Hmm...what I was hoping to do was go through and summarize one entry per line all the top two. Then I wanted to edit my first post to keep the list there and I'd update it periodically. That way the list would be easily findable without a newbie having to wade through tons of replies. But since I can't edit the top post anymore, I'm not sure how to proceed. I don't really want to keep starting a new thread. I'd like to keep it in the forum where it is searchable and indexable. Any ideas anybody?

I apologize. Adding to your thread was meant to be positive...sorry it wasn't what you wanted.

[Coinkey]

1. If you pretend the center aisles don't exist, shopping can actually be extremely easy. Meat, Produce, rice aisle, dairy section, spice section and household items aisle. That's instead of being a detective and getting frustrated with everything you put your hands on.

"What? I can't eat one pot KD? You mean I ACTUALLY have to COOK a meal? With separate pots, seasonings and get creative? WHAT?? What a shame! How TERRIBLE! Whatever will I do! Having to eat things like steak and baked potatoes or honey chicken and rice ? Oh, what a world!" - That's what I say to people who say it must be sooo hard and boring for me.

2. If you are still experiencing trouble, chances are you need to look at other culprits like soy (EVIL EVIL EVIL SOY), dairy, eggs etc.

I like the idea of using a stick and beating people like pinatas.

[GFinDC]

Hmm...what I was hoping to do was go through and summarize one entry per line all the top two. Then I wanted to edit my first post to keep the list there and I'd update it periodically. That way the list would be easily findable without a newbie having to wade through tons of replies. But since I can't edit the top post anymore, I'm not sure how to proceed. I don't really want to keep starting a new thread. I'd like to keep it in the forum where it is searchable and indexable. Any ideas anybody?

Hi Korwyn,

I have wondered about stickies for the forum also.

Seems like a good thing to do. I think I read once that the thinking was it would discorage new people from asking questions and getting involved. I don't know if that is true or not.

I have a couple ideas though.

We could edit our profiles signatures and add thread links to them. So perhaps a tips thread like this could be in our sigs. Or threads on cooking tips, casein intolerance or other topics. I haven't tried that so I don't know if it works.

ANother thing I had thought about was setting up tags for threads. We could tag threads with a code for certain topics when we think the are especially helpful threads. Then people could search for that tag to find related threads. It could BE something simple like ***+=casein, or ***+=testing, or ***+=getting started.

People could search on those tags to find threads on the topic. The forum search tols works, but sometiems it gives so many results, most of ehich are unimortant thjreads or even old threads that new peope might find it hard to wade through all that to find the good info. So tags could help I think.

[psawyer]

I sent a note to the "Boss" that you all are asking about this. I don't know if its doable or desired.

The real boss is Scott (admin), but I am looking into this. Some things happen instantly--this is not one of them.

[Korwyn]

Gee, and here I've been beating them with a stick like a pinata until the gluten all falls out!!

We didn't I think of that!!? My family didn't listen to me either. a niece did start on the gluten free diet because she was in so much pain nd miserable.

:lol: Now you have gluten floating EVERYWHERE!

[Korwyn]

I apologize. Adding to your thread was meant to be positive...sorry it wasn't what you wanted.

No you didn't misunderstand! It was positive and was what I was hoping for! I just didn't realize that this particular forum software wouldn't allow me to edit my top post after 30 minutes.

I wanted to keep the discussion going, but have the very first entry (my original one) be a 'summary' of all the top two (or three) pieces of advices that everybody had given. I would then update that periodically so that it wouldn't get stale so that new visitors could review the thread, but they wouldn't have to read through all the chit-chat to glean the tidbits unless they really wanted to.

[GlutenFreeManna]

No you didn't misunderstand! It was positive and was what I was hoping for! I just didn't realize that this particular forum software wouldn't allow me to edit my top post after 30 minutes.

I wanted to keep the discussion going, but have the very first entry (my original one) be a 'summary' of all the top two (or three) pieces of advices that everybody had given. I would then update that periodically so that it wouldn't get stale so that new visitors could review the thread, but they wouldn't have to read through all the chit-chat to glean the tidbits unless they really wanted to.

Maybe instead of editing the top post you could just make a new post with all the answers given and ask the mods to make it a sticky? Or if they can't do a sticky, you can just post a reply everyday to keep it bumped up to the top. I've seen many forums where they do that by just posting "bump" as a reply. I know that's a lot of work for you to keep track of it but maybe if you do it long enough and enough peopel like it, they would make it a sticky for you.

[Korwyn]

Well (as a former board op) the bump thing gets annoying for people after a while because they don't know if it is just a 'bump' or if it's new useful content. Plus it starts to tick off moderators after a while. And if you have one thread that does it, pretty soon some people start doing it to all their threads because they are sure their thread is worthy of being at the top. =) Some threads just need to die though!

Also the bottom post summary is workable to a degree, except that if people go to the 'newest post' and the newest post isn't the most current summary (and it is two or three pages back), they spend more time looking for the content than I was hoping for.

I know when I started on this journey, I was afraid, frustrated, relieved, overwhelmed, and inundated with more information than I could handle processing. I was mentally not in a good place from the gluten and soy and in some ways I just wanted reassurance and sage advice. I could google and find things out, but what I needed/wanted to know was exactly what I'm trying to put together here. I wanted to be able to ask, "You've been here, what is the most important thing I need to know?"

I was so very blessed that a friend with which I went to high school, who's husband and son have celiac disease gave me gluten-free Living for Dummies, and got me to our local GiG meeting and I was able to ask those questions face to face. But many people aren't that fortunate. And for a lot of us, it seems that by the time we get here we need reassurance and simple things to hang onto to get us through those first overwhelming days and then the ups and downs.

That was why I was looking for the top post idea. Simple and easy to look at.