Snapchat, Twitter

My kids laugh at FB as for older people

Solus, I think DS did lose a lot of members after the re-launch of the site. Things slowed down considerably. I'm not aware of another site that people went to, but I know I increased my use of Facebook groups simply because they are more active. DS is still important to me though, and I appreciate the members that have stayed and continue to provide support to the community as a whole.

I like your suggestions and think they make a lot of sense. Will DS consider them? I'm not sure. Lots of people have made similar suggestions without much of a response. For now, I'm content to have a free support site available.

Yeah, my son laughs at Facebook too. He uses instagram. I feel out of touch. I use Twitter but that's more of place where I comment on, say, a tv show. I dont have anyone I have conversation with on there.

I think that with a few tweaks DS could be much better. I appreciate the support I've found here too. I've met some good people here. I used to be on Facebook, but shut down my account because seeing everyone's action packed, fun filled lives was making me feel lonely and unhappy. I never used it as a source of support. I only had people on my list that I actually knew in physical life. Thinking now should I start a new Facebook account and keep it private for support only.

Quite a few of my friends have left DS when they changed it, I wish they would have left it the way it was...I still check in everyday and check my groups and look for journals but It's not the same :-(

There is a group on FB called Friends from DS on FB bit it's not like this site was and it's a shame

I ditto Solus' questions and suggestions. Maybe DS will take your suggestions.

ds used to have most of the OP's suggestions but one by one removed them. Most of my friends who were left after the continually downward ds spiral that started when Doug sold out in 2009 ended up quitting ds after the "new" relaunch in 2016. This 'new' site is way worse than what we had before in so many ways.

I would never do groups on fb for so many reasons, not the least of which is that fb tracks & keeps records of everything. Maybe ds does too, IDK.

JeanCarlin, I couldn't find the group you mentioned on fb. I did find the ds page and wow, not impressed. There are only two recommendations which are obviously not from current or past users. There are hardly any comments on any of the posts.

ds is nothing but a bare bones shell of its former self. The groups I used to belong to are practically non-existent now. imho, this is because ds has made it harder and harder to give & receive support. But they know that and since they are doing nothing to fix, improve & bring the site into the 21st centure, it appears that's the way they want it. :-((

All the groups that I have been a part of have pretty much died. Pet Bereavement was there for me when I lost my little cat Lucy 10/28/13. I joined the diabetes group when diagnosed over 3 1/2 years ago. When I lost my best friend/partner of over 20 years of a sudden sudden heart attack 02/11/14, I joined the widow/widower support group and also joined Widows/Widowers of Faith and Hopeful Hearts after Loss of a Spouse. Also joined the thyroid group and vertigo group to gain support and knowledge. I check every day and basically everything is dead - maybe after a few days someone may make a post. I liked to check to see how people where doing, etc., but everyone has left. It makes me very sad. What is DS thinking???

@Mid: I respectfully disagree regarding the "feasibility." I'm not buying that the current changes since the last 'launch' were necessary and this is all that's feasible. That's just corp speak for 'we don't want to spend the money.' The options are ONLY as limited and "feasible" as the owners CHOOSE them to be. ALL of the options we had are still feasible. Were improvements needed? Oh yes! But what we got wasn't an improvement. It was a MAJOR DOWNGRADE.

It's not like they've come up w/something better. And all the options we used to have are alive and well on other websites. The 'not feasible' has nothing to do with true feasibility. I suspect the only reason ds is still up and limping along is because its a bridge to the mama site. I mean, seriously, the search feature sucks worse than it ever did! Now there's not even a way to sort by date. And it NEVER comes up in date order.

The owners & investors have more money than they know what to do with. All you have to do is a little research to see how much they spend on buying up other companies in order to make the mama site the only medical site people need.

Here's just one interview that you might find interesting.
https://www.pm360online.com/pm360-q-a-with-jeff-arnold-founder-ceo-of-sharecare/

For someone (the ceo) who's all gung ho on "rapid innovation" & said, "I love technology," I find ds quite contradictory to his words.

It's really sad that the powers that be have completely ignored the original intent of ds & turned it into a ghost town of a site.

Well said MTC!!!

My account from 2009 did not survive the overhaul. I had to rejoin. I had some great public journal entries too that were really helpful. Grrr. I think Facebook has done in most other sites. Sadly, there is little support there because FB hides groups and group posts from group members...and there is FB privacy issues. I think as people tire of FB's shenanigans, sites like this will come back somewhat. I hope so. This site got me through the loss of my sweet man and I'll always be grateful to the people and platform that supported me at that horrible time.

This site had alot of bugs in the beginning and the ones from the other site had trouble just logging in so most gave up and went elsewhere. I stayed in touch with a few on facebook but there are many I miss and have no idea where they are, but oh well. Yes the other site was much more active but things may improve here over time. Hopefully

I don't participate in groups much since the switch. The old site was good. I heard they replaced it because it was slow, outdated, couldn't keep up with technology etc. There are many very old programs still thriving today including the ancient Visual Studio. They could've fixed it.

I saw decline before the switch was made and when it did happen people were outraged. Half of the time it didn't work or members couldn't log on and when they did get in they were errored out. We were promised upgrades and they weren't delivered. They asked for member's opinions and suggestions for the site and no one listened. They've finally fixed the errors but it seems they will leave the site as is, limping along. I would imagine they're waiting for it to hit a magic low number to take it down. I think it's going on three years and no real changes or improvement. I think this is it, folks.

VERY well said MTC. This site is sad. I don't hold it against the people working on it, they are being told what they can and can't do.

Facebook has taken over the world.

Thank you all for your input.

From what I've seen, the members really care about the site, their friends here, and making it the best place it can be.

Now where are the DS staff to answer some questions? I think this is meant to be the support group where they support our issues with the ds site.

@MTC I read the link, interesting. I agree, if he (Jeff) loves technology, strange that he'd have such a clunky version of DS as part of his empire.

@Harper I hope they don't just pull the plug on it if numbers fall to a certain low value. They wouldn't do that would they??

@Solus, you said, "Now where are the DS staff to answer some questions? I think this is meant to be the support group where they support our issues with the ds site."

That may have been the intent of the previous owners, but since it was taken over by the mama site back in 2009, ds' presence in this group has been mostly non-existent. :-((