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forestfortrees
393 Posts |
 Posted - 12/27/2008 : 11:16:39
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Hi, folks,
After over 10 years of struggling with what was originally diagnosed as RSI, I’ve recently been learning an awful lot about TMS and am getting pretty excited about it. I’ve been reading a lot (including books by Sarno, Sopher, and Amir), and have been listening to Dr. Schechter’s tapes and working through his workbook. Sometimes I don’t find the books completely convincing, but one thing I’ve found incredibly convincing has been reading testimonials by other RSI-like TMS sufferers, like those by Alexis, Dannord, Redsandro and Bacchus, along with stories contributed by Rachel and Nate and the Seattle RIST page.
You all were a huge help in getting me to take TMS seriously because I could see SO MUCH of my own story in your stories. You were the only people who I saw who were “like me,” so I really want to thank you guys for putting them up.
Anyway, over the last couple of weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time, surfing, reading, and thinking, and an idea has been bubbling up in the back of my head. This may seem a little weird, but I’ve been getting excited about the idea of seeing if people might be interested in starting a TMS wiki. One way of thinking about this is that it would be like a mini Wikipedia, devoted entirely to TMS (this would be useful given how important education is in accepting and overcoming this syndrome). Another way of thinking about it would be as a really well developed website devoted to TMS, which, instead of being owned by a specific doctor or other individual, is owned by the entire TMS community, because any one of us can edit it.
Here is what I’m envisioning:
1.) A list of TMS-friendly doctors. It could include information about the doctors such as reviews (or links to forum postings that describe interactions with the doctors) and whether the doctor is a TMS patient themselves.
2.) Frequently asked questions for this forum. For example, if you find that new TMS sufferers who have just found this bulletin board often ask the same questions, and you get tired of writing out the same stories and answers a new time for each of them, you can write it out really well one time and just post a link (or continue to rewrite it each time if you find that to be more personal). Wikis make it incredibly easy to make new web pages like that.
3.) Information on specific conditions and diagnoses related to TMS. Perhaps we could have special pages on GERD, Excema, Chronic Fatigue, RSI, Achilles tendonitis, or Plantar Fasciitis, etc., so that new people who have problems in these areas will understand that these are real places where people get TMS.
4.) A definitive and well organized list of links to other resources on the web, with brief comments about what is helpful and what is not.
5.) Each TMS sufferer who wants to make one, could make a page that was their own, which could contain anything TMS related that they wanted to put up… perhaps a link to their success story or favorite posts on this forum, or a review of the various books and other materials that they’ve read (Amazon and BN.com have reviews, but I’d personally find it more helpful to see a review that compared all of the different books that a person has read, talking about their relative strengths and weaknesses).
If a TMS-wiki could get to the point of establishing itself as an important source of information about TMS, my hope is that people who are helped by it will want to give something back and essentially “pay it forward” by fixing any errors or omissions that they notice (we can put our goodist nature to good use! … in moderation  ). I think that that is essentially the model that Wikipedia uses, and it certainly seems to have worked well for them!
I have to confess, that I’m really excited about the idea. I’ll have a lot of free time during the first 2-3 weeks of January, and I’m willing to put about 20 hours into starting the thing up. I’ve started a wiki before, and it’s not at all hard. Ideally, we could get it hosted on Wikia, which would be free and would ensure its democratic nature (Wikia was founded by the main founder of Wikipedia). Editing Wikis is quite easy, and I’d be happy to write a tutorial (posted on the wiki, of course  ) about how to do it.
A wiki is only ever as strong as the community support behind it, so community feedback on the early design would be especially important. I’d be very interested in hearing your ideas about:
1.) What do you think would be the most helpful portions of the website?
2.) What else do you think might be good to include in it?
3.) Or any other ideas that you feel like sharing…
Forest |
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Pd245
58 Posts |
Posted - 12/27/2008 : 20:32:47
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| Amazing idea. I love it! All of your suggestions are excellent. I would be interested in a list of psychotherapists - recommendations, ones who do therapy by phone, etc. Also, I think sections for each condition is an excellent idea. I would love to see this happen. |
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HilaryN
United Kingdom
879 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2008 : 14:58:49
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Yes, I think it would be a great idea!
Hilary N |
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forestfortrees
393 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2008 : 15:26:41
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Woohoo! Glad to hear it. Thanks for the feedback, Pd and Hillary.
If others are interested in seeing the wiki made, please post in this thread. Even if you can't contribute to the construction of the wiki, it would be very helpful if you could post just about any sort of feedback. I'm happy to do an awful lot of the work on my own, but I need to see that other people are interested in it as well, or it will be hard to gather enthusiasm. Also, when I do the application to Wikia, I will need to provide evidence that there is some interest in the project. Otherwise, they just won't provide the wiki. In the last wiki that I founded, the fact that I could link to a long forum thread with many participants was a big part of the reason that they approved the application. Let's use this forum thread to demonstrate that there is a large and active community of TMSers out there who would benefit from this project.
Feedback on what you think would be most helpful to include in the wiki would be especially helpful.
Speaking of things to include, I had another idea of my own earlier today. I find it hard to "think emotionally" rather than thinking in terms of damage, so I think that I have a long process of "brain reprogramming" in front of me. I sometimes find that rereading the books can be quite tedious, because there is a huge amount of repetition of information that I have already internalized. Along with this repetition, I often find little diamonds of facts that I didn't know, or perspectives that I wouldn't have thought of. The same is true of forum posts, and I'm starting to make a document of links to and snippets from the posts I find most interesting or thought provoking. I think that this might be very helpful for reminding myself of these ideas 6 months or a year from now as part of the "brain reprogramming," without having to wade through pages and pages of posts that resonate less with my particular situation. This is another example of the type of thing that people could post on their personal pages on the wiki, in hopes that other might find them as useful as they do. I certainly would like to see other people's favorite posts as well.
Forest
My profile/homepage at the TMS Wiki now has a way to chat (aka IM) with me in real time. Check it out! |
Edited by - forestfortrees on 01/10/2009 10:48:48 |
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skizzik
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2008 : 19:32:52
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I'm in support
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Edited by - skizzik on 01/04/2009 05:36:22 |
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carbar
USA
227 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2009 : 20:25:46
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Cool idea! I also enjoy thinking big...
I personally do not use wikipedia that much, and i've tried looking at wikis for other topics and they often confuse me. That just might be my level of internet skills, though.
If you haven't allready, I recommend poking around on the forum for pages that other members have started, they may have some good content/tech expertise to lend to the project, even if they don't read the board much any more.
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stefan
56 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2009 : 23:21:14
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Great idea!!! You've got to start somewhere and the kinks will work themselves out. This forum is awesome but I had to search long and hard to find it, a wiki will not detract from it but will add to it. Thanks.
Ars Longa Vita Brevis |
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tcherie
72 Posts |
Posted - 01/02/2009 : 14:06:29
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I think the idea is great. I like the idea of having an area explaining the various TMS equivalents and specific individuals who are dealing with those issues and their success stories.
I think sometimes the belief in TMS is finding someone who is dealing with your specific issue and how they overcame it. I know for myself I am not dealing with severe back pain. So while I find those threads inspiring, I have a hard time relating it to my specific issue. I also like the idea about having a section on FAQ. |
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campbell28
80 Posts |
Posted - 01/03/2009 : 03:29:14
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| sounds like a good plan! would be happy to contribute. |
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jim08
1 Posts |
Posted - 01/03/2009 : 09:57:30
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I would also support this project!
_________________
"...whenever you try to be all things to all people, you end up being nothing to nobody." |
Edited by - jim08 on 01/03/2009 09:58:54 |
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forestfortrees
393 Posts |
Posted - 01/03/2009 : 14:34:45
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Hi, skizzik, carbar, stefan, tcherie, campbell28, and jim08,
Thank you so much for your feedback and support. I'm so glad that people are interested in the project, since the community of people that read, contribute to, and refer people to a wiki are its heart and soul.
I'm envisioning a really big project and need somewhere to start, so I've decided to start with the parts of the project that people have expressed an interest in. Pd245 was the first person to respond with specific suggestions, so the the work I've done up to now has been primarily focused on the subjects that pd245 mentioned. The first thing is making a list of TMS-aware psychotherapists. I've made a first list and am hoping to send an email and/or paper mail out to each of them soon to collect some more data to include on the page (such as whether they do therapy by phone, as per Pd245's advice).
Since Tcherie and PD245 both said that they thought that an area on each of the ways that TMS can manifest itself (RSI, chronic back pain, etc.) would be helpful, I'm planning on putting some effort into that as well. I'm thinking of going through the TMSHelp success stories forum and categorizing the stories there based on symptom categories, and then including links to exemplary success stories for each TMS equivalent. That way, people could easily find a success story for someone who is "like them," without the daunting task of having to read through all of the postings.
I'll be submitting an application for a TMS wiki soon, and will keep you folks updated.
By the way, an especially big thanks to campbell28 for offering to help with the wiki. There may not be much to do at this point until we get an official wiki, but I'd definitely be interested in hearing from others who might be willing to help. Editing a wiki is incredibly easy (given how intimidating most people find computers, they must be, if wikis are to be successful) and I'm glad to "hold people's hands," to show them how. Alternatively, people can just post text on these forums, and I can paste it in to the wiki.
Any other ideas for what would be most helpful/what should be included?
Forest |
Edited by - forestfortrees on 01/03/2009 16:08:41 |
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leshelly
2 Posts |
Posted - 01/04/2009 : 06:32:01
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Not sure what a wiki is, but anything that helps sounds good to
me. Lorrie O
Lorrie |
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forestfortrees
393 Posts |
Posted - 01/04/2009 : 09:09:00
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LOL, I should have explained what a wiki is. Thanks for the reminder.
A wiki is just a collection of web pages that anyone can edit. The name comes from the Hawaiian word for "fast" because it is a really fast way to make a good website. The way that it works is that every page on a wiki has a little button on it that says, "edit this page." If you click on that button you will go to a web page that allows you to edit the text on the original web page. When you are done, you just click on a button that says, "Save Changes," and the original web page is updated to reflect your changes! It's pretty cool.
Mechanically, it works a lot like the TMSHelp forum works. If you think about it, these forums are just a collection of web pages as well. This web page (the one that you are reading right now) contains a conversation. When you decided that you wanted to add your 2 cents to the conversation (thanks again for that), you clicked on a link that said "Reply to topic." This brought you to a special web page that allowed you to write your reply. You wrote,
quote:
Not sure what a wiki is, but anything that helps sounds good to
me. Lorrie O
Lorrie
and pressed "Post New Reply." Suddenly, your new post was a part of the original web page. When I read the web page, I noticed your post and wrote my own little addition to the original web page (i.e. what you are reading now).
The difference between a wiki and a forum is that while you can only add your own reply on a forum, on a wiki, you can change anything that anyone has written. That might seem like it would lead to chaos, but it usually doesn't. I think the reason for this is that human nature is basically good, so that there are more people who want the wiki to have good stuff on it than want it to be messed up. It also helps that if someone makes a change that is just vandalism, the wiki allows you to press a button that automatically undoes the vandalism.
The most famous example of a wiki is Wikipedia. Back in 2001, a guy named Jimmy Wales, decided that it would be a good idea to have an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. He set it up and announced it. People from several small internet communities loved the idea, so they contributed articles on many different subjects. By the end of the year, there were 20,000 different articles in it. It continued to grow explosively, and 8 years later, it now has 2.6 million articles in English and 9.4 million articles in 261 other languages! This incredible success that the wikipedia community has had at building the biggest encyclopedia in the world was one of the reasons that Time magazine named "You" the person of the year for 2006. (By the way, I find that the reports of inaccuracies in wikipedia to be hugely overblown. I have a masters degree and in my subject, the quality of wikipedia's information is truly terrific.)
I think that just as Wikipedia has a great community of editors that has allowed it to become so successful, I believe that the online TMS community has the potential to make a terrific wiki as well. The community that I've seen on this forum seems very interested in helping each other out, and I think that that same enthusiasm could easily be turned to making a wiki that is the best and most authoritative web site on TMS on the internet.
This "TMS wiki" would not in any way be a competitor to the TMSHelp forums or the other online communities of TMS sufferers. On the contrary, it would direct people to those communities and be a great resource for people in those communities, in the same way that the web pages that often get referenced here are a great resource for the community (I know the RSI-like ones the best because that's the type of symptoms I have, but Rachel's homage to Dr. Sarno and the Harvard and Seattle RSI action pages come to mind as examples). If anything, the TMS wiki would make it easier for people to find TMS communities like TMSHelp by having an excellent, up to date and comprehensive page of links.
If you are still not sure what a wiki is, another example might be helpful. A couple of years ago, someone (I don't know who) decided that cooks like exchanging recipes, so they applied to a company called Wikia, and Wikia set up a free wiki for them. Whoever this founder was started posting recipes up on this new wiki, and invited other people to join the wiki. More and more people started adding more and more recipes, to the point where the recipe.wikia.com now has over 10 thousand recipes. Check it out:
http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Recipes_Wiki
Another example would be the Star Wars wiki, called "Wookiepedia." It has over 60,000 articles and is the definitive source on Star Wars trivia:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
This is not to say that there aren't challenges with starting Wikis. When I just went to the recipes wiki, I noticed that someone had vandalized the page, so I "reverted" it to fix it (it took less than 5 seconds because I have a Wikia account and was already logged in). Also, we will have to set up some community standards. For example, we will probably have to decide that TMS doctors and TMS authors must clearly identify themselves if they make any edits on the TMS Wiki, so that they don't use it for advertising. This shouldn't be hard to do in a tight community, because no doctor or author will want to be known as the one who was dishonest enough to try to advertise on the wiki when doing so is prohibited. It might seem like it would be hard to enforce this, but Wikipedia does it successfully, and I think that we can, too.
Does this help?
Forest |
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forestfortrees
393 Posts |
Posted - 01/04/2009 : 12:05:52
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I just submitted an application to Wikia for a TMS wiki. The application is here:
http://requests.wikia.com/index.php?title=Tms&action=purge
I think that I remember reading that it can take them from 2-10 days to evaluate an application for a wikia.com wiki, but I wouldn't be surprised if we get a response back by, say, Thursday.
Forest |
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forestfortrees
393 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2009 : 17:01:08
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Well, folks, I ended up getting the wikia wiki, but had a very surprising change of heart. As I started to build up the wikia wiki, I was a little turned off by how the wiki was filled with all sorts of crazy controls. I kept on thinking back on what carbar had said about wikis being confusing, and decided that if I was going to put a lot of effort into making it, I wanted everybody to be able to enjoy and update it, not just the computer geeks.
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Edited by - forestfortrees on 01/10/2009 10:56:19 |
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tpunk
USA
22 Posts |
Posted - 01/08/2009 : 09:31:19
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Hi Forest, I tried to access the links you provided and they did not work :( I am anxious to read and contribute whatever I can to make the wiki a success.
Thanks,
Floss |
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forestfortrees
393 Posts |
Posted - 01/08/2009 : 13:00:49
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Wooohoo! Woohooo! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
I've been getting really nervous recently because I've been putting so much time into this and have been worrying about whether people will actually help out... So your interest is truly gratefully appreciated.
Because I've been worried about people contributing, I moved it to WetPaint.com, which makes it incredibly easy to edit. You just click the "Easy Edit" button on the top of each page and then edit it like you would in a word processor like Microsoft Word (For those who didn't grow up with Microsoft Word or a similar word processor, email me and I'll put up a tutorial with illustrations and step by step directions). There are buttons to make text bold, etc., and you don't have to worry about any sort of codes.
The URL is:
tmswiki . wetpaint . com
Because I just moved it, it's still pretty basic. Because I'm hoping that this will be a long term project, I'm hoping to work together with other people to develop a coherent look and organization for the website. I haven't gotten around to writing about all of that stuff yet, but will try to do that tonight and/or tomorrow.
By the way, if anyone has any questions about the wiki (or other TMS stuff), feel free to IM (Instant Message) me. My username for AIM, Yahoo IM, and msn IM is Forest For Trees @ ymail . com (I've put some extra spaces in there because I've heard that spammers search forums like this to get addresses to send spam to. Please remove the extra spaces if you want to contact me). For Google Talk it's Forest For Trees TMS at gmail . com.
One terrific thing you could do is just make a username an put up a profile, perhaps including a pic. It would be great to start building up the community. Also, the So You Think You Might Have TMS page is a little pathetic right now and could use a lot of work. My goal is to make into something that takes the reader by the hand and leads them through everything they need to do to get the best treatment possible.
FFT |
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RageSootheRatio
Canada
430 Posts |
Posted - 01/08/2009 : 15:30:56
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| Thanks for starting this, FFT. Very quick reply for now: I just tried adding something to your Resources page .. hope that's OK. RSR |
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Cee
USA
71 Posts |
Posted - 01/08/2009 : 15:58:26
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As a Teacher I think this is a great educational idea!
Cee |
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forestfortrees
393 Posts |
Posted - 01/08/2009 : 17:29:24
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@RageSootheRatio: Woohoo!
Thanks for the terrific link!
@Cee: You're not the only one: the have a whole website about using it in education:
http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/
It's so easy to use that I think it's great for education. |
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HilaryN
United Kingdom
879 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2009 : 12:15:48
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Many thanks for your work, fft. I hope to get time to go on there soon.
I'd like to second PD245's excellent suggestion about TMS psychotherapists as I think that's badly needed. (Also an up-to-date list of TMS doctors is needed as the tarpityoga one is out-of-date - I believe the author is very busy and doesn't have time to update it.)
Hilary N |
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Hi and TMS Wiki
