Tuesday 23 December 2008

Save the Archwired 1!

Did you see that the forum on archwired.com has been locked? Seems that the moderator has been getting so much stick recently from board users that she's had enough and shut it all down. I'm really gutted about this as it played a huge role in my decision to go ahead with braces and surgery. It helped me discover that orthognathic surgery wasn't some weird rare procedure to be feared, and that there are so many people out there going through the same thing. I was just getting into posting, and was planning to make the most of it throughout my entire journey, so to find it now disabled is very sad. Why can't some people just behave? If someone is giving up their time to run a forum like that they shouldn't have to put up with hassles from idiots so I don't blame the poor woman for dumping it, though I hope something can be worked out at some point in the future to get it back up and running. Can anyone suggest another similar forum? I've yet to find one that that matches the quality and content of archwired....


In other brace news, the lead up to Christmas day is proving most interesting as i'm still discovering what, and how, I can eat. My front teeth continue to be hyper sensitive so they're all but useless for the time being, but it hasn't stopped me putting away two roast dinners already. I do have to eat with my mouth open a little when I chew tougher food though to get some leverage from the back teeth, which is a little embarrassing in company or out in public. I've been dealing with this by raising my fingers to my mouth and looking away or down a little whenever I need to chew property. It seems to work and is not too obvious, or was until I was spotted by a colleague at our departmental Christmas lunch last week who hollered across the table "IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE FOOD? YOU LOOK LIKE YOU WANT TO SPIT IT OUT!". Thanks, you arse!


Otherwise A has been much amused to see me eating mince pies with a knife and fork (much too sticky to rip apart), and hesitating at the point of biting into a huge turkey and stuffing sandwich, suddenly remembering I cannot eat that way any more - bugger bugger bugger!


Have a peaceful Christmas everyone :)

8 comments:

Katherine (Kate) said...

I KNOW!!!! I am extremely disappointed in how things have turned out on the forum and a real shame that a couple have made a muck for everyone; overall it has been such a wonderful place to hang out.

I don't find the other forums anywhere near as comprehensive, but now that archwired is closed they just might pick up in activity.
There are a few Yahoo! Orthognathic surgery forums, though IMHO they are not the same as AW. They tend to be a lot more negative and full of a handful of people with worst case scenarious. A couple of folks ARE incredibly helpful there, and like I said, it could improve now that AW is gone.

Another site, which is much more friendly (though also quite quiet up to this point) is the I Got Braces site
www.igotbraces.com.

It was started up by a couple of previous ortho bloggers (Cary and Amy on my 'no word in a while' list) and is most likely where I'll be headed.

Haha! I'd read of your experiences with co-worker a$$ and his uninspired comment... twit.

Sounds like you're figuring out the eating thing; it's amazing how quickly we learn to modify our approach to all things oral, and before long it's just habit and requires no thought. :)

Anonymous said...

There was one member who was on that message board practically from the beginning and constantly answered a lot of people's questions. If you were on that board for a while, you know who I'm talking about. Many other members thought that this member was the "benevolent helpful god" of that message board, when in fact the person was nothing more than an egocentric bully who often offended people with callus offhand remarks. I know I'm not the only person who was fed up with that member and complained to the owner about it. The response I got was that the owner knew about the situation and was trying to handle it, but I guess it was really hard to deal with this person and make them behave.

I think the owner just had enough of the person. I wish the owner of the board could have found a way to just kick this bully off instead of shutting the whole thing down, but it sounds like the situaion really got out of hand a few days ago. I can't say that I blame the owner. It's right before Christmas and who needs that sort of aggrivation right before the holidays? You probably weren't on the message board last year when another big situation happened right before the holidays with another difficult member. It was a huge scandal, and the owner handled it really well, but I bet it was really hard and took up a lot of time. Imagine that happening two years in a row and maybe you can begin to understand why the message board was shut down at this point in time. The owner was probably thinking, "Not again!"

Anyways, it was a really helpful web site. Who knows maybe it will start up again after the holidays when everyone cools off. And anyway, AW isn't totally gone, only its message board is frozen. The rest of the website is still the same as before.

It seems that message boards tend to bring out the worst in people. So even if it does start up again, there's probably some egocentric moron waiting in the wings to fill the void left by the departed bully and give the owner a belly full of new grief.

Katherine (Kate) said...

I know exactly of whom you speak, Anonymous, and am just generally disappointed all around. But people are people and where lots of them are put together, you're going to get differences of opinion, personality clashes and the odd fight with 'uncle Joe' over world politics and religion (metaphoricly speaking, of course :) )

I don't find this person to be a 'benevolent god', but she has been extremely helpful to many people. Yes, there are times I found responses to be a bit harsh and cringe a little, but also know it can be hard reading something in print that could be perceived in more than one way.... it is SO easy to be misread in any forum, without writing a novel in each post to explain your emotion and intent, complete with legal disclaimer.

What disappointed the most was the reparte that would follow any questionable comment; instanly jumping down each others' throats. Perhaps intent is misread in the replies of those who felt bullied as well, but these responses sometimes felt more harsh than the original offending statement. I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt to both sides and choose to ignore threads that have gone inflammatory.

If indeed there was any intent to be a bully, "poking the bear" just escalated things. How about asking for clarification before assuming?
As far as I'm concerned there is fault on both sides. *shrug* This is just a personal observation & is meant in no way ill towards anyone who comes across it.

Discantus, it might take longer to get responses, but most of the veteran 'jaw bloggers' will get back to you and answer questions for you too, so asking them through their blogs is another option. :)

Discantus said...

Hi Kate,

Thanks for your comments, I will check out the forums you mentioned as they might pick up a little with refugees from Archwired. It's definitely good to have somewhere to go to speak to others in the same boat as personally I don't know a single person in 'real life' who's in braces. So i'll definitely be staying in touch on other people's blogs.

Hi Anonymous, I've only been on the archwired boards a few months really but it didn't take long to sense that there were 'politics' going on in some sections, and I did come across references to certain 'incidents' etc. Personally, I was happy to stay away from all that stuff and just share insights and a few laughs with others in similar situ's, so it's a shame for all of us. You're right of course that things like that are bound to happen of forums, shame there's no easy way to deal with it....

SinxDesigns said...

Hi,
I just recently had my braces fitted after a two year wait on the NHS and was quite looking forward to posting on the Archwired forum when I saw that to my horror it has become a read only board! Typical, I try jumping on a bandwagon only for it to breakdown ;-)
Anyway I look forward to reading your blog, and I'll try updating my own. I'm having surgery as well (otherwise you can't get it on the NHS)

Anonymous said...

I miss it too! I haven't read all of the threads on a regular basis, so I don't really know anything about any of this. I guess the threads where the drama happened were deleted. But I hope it all comes back too, and I'm disappointed about whatever transpired also.

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to say "hi" and let you know that I have the sme problem as you. I have un underbite open bite and a slight crossbite I was not aware of till I saw the OS. I just found the site archewired not too long ago, and I tried to post to find out that you cant....I still read the threads but I wish that you could post. Maybe someone will open a new forum

Anonymous said...

Hey there - All users from Archwired are now going to the popular forum Braces Review

There are a great group of people along with a great blogging system.

The surgery forums is there too...

The blogging system is great too with prizes awarded.. I'm still trying to win :)