Observations of this site from the "ADHD" Spouse

Interesting observations

Submitted by Clarity on Sun, 01/10/2010 - 19:32

but, challenging to implement I would think. I've been on other sites where I could actually have a bit of a conversation with another member who is on the site at the same time, which I like very much. I'm not always able to keep track of where I left off and remember who is who... and though my personal struggle with ADD can feel overwhelming at times, there's some solace in knowing I'm not alone. Thanks to all involved in creating this space!

This comment made me chuckle

Submitted by Aspen on Sun, 01/10/2010 - 20:44

like something is "wrong" and needs to be "fixed"

Pretty much nails the attitude of most nonADD spouses that I know, and would also nail the attitude of my ADD husband. Not that *he* needs to be fixed, but that bad habits caused by undiagnosed ADD do need to be fixed/changed.

another new visitor here...

Submitted by amyk1971 on Tue, 01/12/2010 - 08:59

I agree with a lot of what you've written. As the ADD spouse, I found myself reading some of the things written and getting a bit defensive as well. I know that's not the intent, but was still the outcome & it would have been great to have found some of the things geared toward the non-ADD spouse AFTER I'd read some of the things geared toward those of us who ARE the ADD spouse. For example, I found the "One Reason ADHD Adults Don't See a Need to Change" article to be totally off-base with how I perceive things to be (which could be ironic or funny, depending on how you look at it. :) ) To the contrary, I think I perceive myself to be INadequate when it comes to just about everything...even though I am presently being treated for my ADD. (...now what was I writing about??) haha Anyway, I just wanted to take a sec to respond & agree that it would be nice to be able to somehow distinguish "the audience" upon browsing the subjects. :)

I know a lot of people

Submitted by Clinging to Life on Tue, 01/12/2010 - 13:51

deleted, see reason at this link.

I read that Do/Don't list over at that other site...

Submitted by Aspen on Thu, 01/14/2010 - 18:37

I absolutely agree that those are things that the family of a person with ADD needs to know. Of course it is also things your family should know about you regardless...ie you are private and don't want anyone knowing your personal business, &/or you don't like having company stop by.

Absolutely the people in your life need to know that, but that type of list (at least as she wrote it) would probably cause some *picking apart* over here mostly because that list doesn't work for many ADDers.

For example, my husband vastly prefers people stopping by to having to go through all the "trouble" of planning a dinner party or an evening for friends to come over. He thinks it's more spontaneous that way.

Also it doesn't work for many nonADD spouses (for example I like people to drop by too and I'd be angry if I knew that my mate was telling people to all stay away), and in my opinion that is why each couple has to work out their own DO/DON'T list that works for them.

It is a good idea for individual couples to talk about, and I intend to do so with my husband at the first opportunity so thanks Clinging to Life.

site issues

Submitted by arwen on Wed, 01/13/2010 - 22:14

Clinging, you and Madenmich offer some interesting comments on the site. Some of your remarks involve the design, or layout, of the site. Others deal with the organization of the information. Yet other remarks involve the writing style of the posters.

Madenmich, you mentioned that you read the Instructions -- maybe you misssed the part at the very end where it says that if you have comments about the site to use a form provided by the site designers -- there is a link to the form in that instruction. Since this has now become a discussion item, however, I'd like to respond with perhaps some different points of view on your comments.

I am not responsible for the site, so I cannot address the reasons why certain things have been set up certain ways -- I don't know the reasons. But since I do know a little about website design and organization in general, I would like to offer the following thoughts on your comments regarding the site construction:

No website design is going to satisfy all the needs of all the users. ClingingToLife finds the navigation tabs at the top of the page too small -- others don't. I find the website doesn't work as well using the Firefox browser I prefer -- visitors who use Internet Explorer to browse the site don't have some of the problems I do. It's very difficult for a site designer to make all the components work perfectly for everyone, and we all have to compromise to some degree.
That said, I think it would be useful if there were a "pinned" forum topic for suggestions to improve the site, rather than a link to a form, buried in the instructions -- I've seen this on other forums and it seems to work well. I think a FAQ could be useful, too.
It sounds like you feel there should be separate sections for ADDers and non-ADDers. I have seen other forums that are set up this way, and I agree that it does make it easier to find information that is specifically from one point of view or the other. However, I must also say that the lack of separation on this website encourages a greater degree of exchange of perspectives between ADDers and non-ADDers, which I think is valuable to both groups. I don't know if it would be possible to keep the present arrangement but have some kind of filter mechanism added to the site so you could select only certain kinds of posts?
It sounds like you find it difficult to figure out which posts you haven't read in a thread that you have previously visited. So do I! I've tried going to the forum home page and clicking on the "new" comments there, but it doesn't seem to bring me to the oldest new comment. I don't know if there's some other way to deal with this that I just haven't figured out yet, but I can't help thinking that there should be some easier way to navigate to the new posts.
I have asked an ADDer I know who is knowledgeable about website design to consider your comments and provide feedback about the feasibility of implementing some of the points you've identified

Regarding the content of the site:

ClingingToLife doesn't like long paragraphs, you get lost. I get it, it's a very valid point. But not everything makes sense as a bullet list, either. Sometimes when a person posts, they are trying to explain how they got from A to Z -- it's more like a story. I personally promise to try to make what I write more readable to ADDers who get lost, whether through bullet lists or other means -- but not everyone is going to be able to manage that. It may be hard to believe, but it can be just as difficult for a non-ADDer to adapt their writing style as an ADDer! Also, again, preferences vary -- personally, I find your posts challenging to read because to me they are *too* broken up! They seem disconnected and hard to follow. Maybe the point is that we *all* need to *work* at this exchange of information if we want to be understood.
Clinging, you seem to be expressing anger about the anger in other posts. Does this seem even a little bit ironic to you? If you want the freedom to express your anger, please extend to other posters the same consideration!
There seems to be a concern that too much is written from the perspective of, or for the benefit of, the non-ADD spouse. I don't know why any other non-ADDers write the way they do, but speaking for myself, I don't feel qualified to address the issues of many ADDers here. While I have experience in dealing with many people with ADD, none of the them have certain problems exhibited by some ADDers -- they aren't hyperactive, they aren't abusive, they aren't substance abusers (or children of abusive parents or substance-abusing parents) -- so I don't know what special problems those kinds of things entail for ADDers who do have those issues who post here. I'm not a professional psychologist; I lack the necessary background to respond to many ADD posters; and I don't want misunderstandings to result from my lack of knowledge -- so I normally feel that it's better if I say nothing. In the meantime, I *do* have experience as an non-ADD spouse, so I offer what I can from that background. The obvious solution to your concern, it seems to me, is to get more ADDers to post here, and I have encouraged the ADDers I know to visit this site to that end, as well as for their own benefit.

As I said, I'm not a website expert. But I do know it takes a *lot* of time and effort to build, monitor, and maintain one. I'm very very grateful to the folks who have created and continue to work to improve this site -- and I think this particular site's approach leads to better communication, more insight, and greater understanding than I have seen on other ADD forums. But if there are ways to make the site easier without vitiating its unique contributions, I'm all for that!

It IS hard to find "new" posts

Submitted by Sueann on Wed, 01/13/2010 - 23:57

I check this site very frequently because if there are more "recent comments" than appear on the right-hand side of the first page, there isn't any way to find them.

Also, threads are hard to follow because the posts often end up in a different order. Someone might start a new forum topic, someone replies and someone else might reply to their comment or to the original forum post, and soon the "thread" is lost and it's hard to tell who is replying to whom. Arwen, whose input I welcome and respect very much, once replied to a post about a timely situation that I had made months before. I never use any other sites like this, so I don't know if this is normal or if there is a way to correct this.

What is the "Captcha" that Clinging complains of? I've never seen it.

George and Melissa work very hard to keep this site operating, and they don't make any money from it. Thank you two for doing it! It is a valuable resource for all of us, both ADD and not.

Observations about the observations

Submitted by pogo on Wed, 01/13/2010 - 22:21

I have ADD. I also am a webmaster for my church website and I work in a software development organization where we design GUIs. My comments are from both the ADD and the semi-educated website administrator points of view.

POST CONTENT:
Many of the above comments are about the posts themselves. Melisa and company can't do much about that. Perhaps some suggestions about more effective presentation would be useful, but the actual words are from the people. The "Instructions for using this site" specifically address the desired tone of the posts:

    Please show compassion for those about whom you are
    writing (including yourself). This is a public forum
    and anyone might read it.

It also seems that there are requests, in the original post and in some of the comments, to split the postings and comments by "who the audience is". I think that this is asking far too much. I believe that I benifit from postings from both points of view. I also can see some posts having both points of view. How do you decide which way to label them? No matter which way you do it there will be some readers who disagree.

ANGER:
ADD problems in relationships generate lots of anger. It is just a fact. This site is a great place to vent some of that anger to folks who may
just understand where it comes from and be able to respond usefully. Expecting to find "NO ANGER" is unrealistic.

Site Navigation:
Figuring out where to point the Read Next link is puzzling me. What you "Read Next" depends on who you are and what your interests or problems are. This is no different from other blogs I read. I just take a look at the different posts and read them or skip them. How else do you figure out a web site?

SPAM Protection:
CAPTCHA: It is annoying but a product of our times. Perhaps it could be placed in a better place. Perhaps some other readers LIKE it
where it is. We are a diverse bunch.

Site Analysis:
1. first page IS very busy and can be a little overwhelming. The middle of the home page is pretty much the same as the Blog page.

   Possible remedy: Perhaps the central section of the home page could be replaced by a more informative introduction to the Blog Categories with a list of some of the more recent blog entries included. Right now the list of recent blogs does not identify to which category it belongs.

2. blogs seem to be on separate topics but don't seem to be separated on the home page.

3. there is a list of blog categories in the right side panel. But when you look at the individual blog entries (in the middle panel), you
   can't really tell to which category they belong. And for others you can. (see 1 above)

   When you click on one of the Blog Categories, the top of the page lists the category, but that scrolls off the page as you go down. The page
   title does also show the category, but it is small fonts and :) distracting to look up there all the time.

   To be fair, there are links there to the new comments.

This is not a full analysis, nor am I any kind of expert. I think that Melissa and company have done a wonderful job of making a place where we can get outside input, ask questions, share knowledge that was REALLY HARD to acquire and hang out with folks who know what our problems are.

Thank you adhdmarriage.com!!

-Pogo

Questions and comments about this site

Submitted by george on Wed, 10/27/2010 - 21:45

Hello to all. I am the "george" (also known as "admin"), husband of Melissa, and the sole architect, designer, programmer and administrator of this site. I do this as a labor of love (100% unpaid, and all expenses coming out of my pocket), as just one way I can give back to my fabulous wife for putting up with me in our 20 years of marriage. I even built and administer my own UNIX server upon which all of this runs (why? because I know it will be reliable and REALLY, REALLY secure, a topic about which I care deeply).

Melissa also does this not for money (believe me, while she is working on her book, the purpose of that book is to help the community of those who are in an ADHD marriage, not to make money - even if the book became a best seller, she would make more money per hour flipping burgers). Oh, and I have a 60-80hr/wk job that sometimes interferes with my making all the optimizations to this site that I would like.

Please note that we have NO ADVERTISING of any kind on this site. None. Even though we had a Google Page Rank of 5 (now dropped to 4 since Melissa has been posting less often), which would bring in a reasonable amount of advertising revenue. We really do this for you, not for us.

I do appreciate your comments - all of them. I have been struggling with how to make this site more helpful to all of you.

I actually had a link on the menu that solicited input on how to make the site better. That got immediately filled with many off-topic comments, such that it became less than useful. (see http://www.adhdmarriage.com/new_site_features)
I added voting/rating system as a way for the blog readers to recommend the post that were the most helpful. After a few months and two votes, I took that down.
I have tried to make the reading of comments as flexible to the readers' styles as possible, allowing for threaded and flat comment presentations, sorted by date up or down (see the widget at the bottom of the posts for that option).
I added automatic email notification of comments to posts to which you have posted a comment (sign up when posting your comment).
I have developed (but not yet put into production) a set of tabbed blocks that provide the most recent / most read / most commented blogs and forums. I have some work left to do on getting the theme correct. They will let you go back in order several months.
I have thought of many ways to segregate those posts that are useful for ADHD spouse and the non-ADHD spouse, but that is harder than you think (it is in the eyes of the beholder). Voting might work, but the previous experiment was a failure due to lack of participation. You detailed thoughts on this would be helpful.
I did add the block at the center top of the front page a few months ago (the "there is hope / you are not alone), that hopefully provides some guidance on where to go on the site.

Comment SPAM has been an extreme problem that has consumed more time than I would like to talk about. The CAPTCHA that "clinging to life" dislikes comes in only when a comment might look like spam. We had a time last month when the site was getting several hundred spam comments a day (yes, that many), and so I put in place four different technology layers that have prevented most of the spam, but with minimal inconvenience to our users. So please bear with me. You will note that we have no nasty spam comments anywhere on the site. That takes a lot of work to keep the site clean.

There are lots of other features and functions about which I have thought (many of which Melissa has vetoed, in part because of concerns over your privacy), but I do want your input. And I will try to implement those features that will help you (consistent with our concern for your privacy) as soon as I get the time.

A special note to "Clinging to Life" - please know that we appreciate your input and perspective on the site. People who come to this site do so (on both sides) because they are emotionally raw. I don't care about your spelling or your grammar (but if you use Firefox or Safari, it will show you any spelling mistakes in your posts). But do note that sometimes people with ADHD communicate in ways that are perceived as shouting or angry, even though they don't realize it. That is one of our issues with which we need to come to grips, and realize how our actions impact others, even though we don't mean it or even realize it. You will see that issue described in many places on the site.

George

Spelling

Submitted by brooks30 on Thu, 01/14/2010 - 23:37

Clinging brought up a good point...this is the only website I visit that doesn't show my incorrect spelling and subsequently, will not let me just right click the word and fix it.

EDIT: Sorry George I just saw you post above this...I use FireFox and my spelling is not corrected.

Thoughts?

and THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH George and Melissa for all of your help. I don't know what I would have done without this site. I unfortunately left my ADHD fiance in July and I still come here. Actually, THANK YOU everybody for all that you do here!!!

fix your Firefox spellchecker

Submitted by pogo on Sat, 01/16/2010 - 13:44

I just discovered a way to get your spelling checked (and I just verified it by entering wy and speling and then correcting them).

First make sure that your options are set to "check my spelling as I type" (the setting is in the edit->preferences->advanced->general tab)
Then make sure that you have a dictionary installed (open a text box and right click. If you get a menu entry that says "Add Dictionary" click it and add a dictionary.
If you have a dictionary and still don't get spellchecking, again right click the box and in the context menu that pops up, see if you can click on a "Check Spelling" check box.

That is what I did to enable the Firefox spell checker.

Enjoy,
-Pogo

Thank you so much, George and

Submitted by newfdogswife on Sat, 01/16/2010 - 06:43

Thank you so much, George and Melissa, for all of your hard work and dedication. If the majority of the readers knew just how time consuming administering a website is, "full time", let alone just as a "labor of love", I believe they would change their tune. Stop complaining and just be thankful we have a site to go to. Some of it is hard and some of it is easy. Gee!!!!!! That's life, isn't it???????

Thanks for comments on forum format

Submitted by MelissaOrlov on Wed, 02/10/2010 - 13:35

Thanks to everyone for their input on the format of this blog and forum. I agree that there is lots here and it is sometimes hard to get around. I just wanted to let you all know that we do hear you, but I have made the executive decision not to change much until after my book manuscript is at the publisher in May. This is a conscious "pruning" type of decision on my part - something has to "go" if I'm going to make this book as good as it can be. Thanks for your understanding!

The threads of attention....

Submitted by Madenmich on Tue, 06/22/2010 - 12:47

I took the time to post this thread back in Jan. Ive not been back since. Here it is....June....and I simply did a google search for my screen name and it brought me back here. I've read through the many responses...and Im pleased that there was care and feedback.

Perhaps there is an article out there about this....but it seems that there could be so many missed opportunities in life when finding your way back to something that previously held you attention seems more like winning the lottery rather than managing whats on the radar.

I honestly feel.. good, bad,

Submitted by SherriW13 on Thu, 10/28/2010 - 09:22

I honestly feel.. good, bad, and ugly..the site is extremely helpful and effective at doing what I think you guys set out to do. If someone says something that is hurtful, we're all adults, we'll point it out. If it's toxic, it can be deleted. I hate to see the site come under so much scrutiny lately for the many diverse opinions about adults with ADD/ADHD. It would be like putting up a site about politics or religion and not expecting a diverse range of opinions and the occasional 'extremist'.

I TRULY feel we learn just as much from the 'ugly' part of life as we do all of the 'pretty' even if sometimes it makes us mad or hurt. If nothng else it teaches us what we DON'T want to be like. Just my opinion.

I love the site..it has been extemely helpful for me. Not only to understand that I wasn't dreaming the last 13 years of my life, but to be able to help others who are struggling as well. Very therapeutic. Thank you guys! Please...don't change a thing.

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