**Start Here - Board Organization/Guidelines**

kschref

Hello all!

*I thought it might be a helpful thing for those ladies who are joining a Birth Month Board for the first time to see the typical guidelines/organization for these things.  I borrowed most of this from the previous boards.  I'm going to post a generic set of guidelines and a thread schedule to get things started and lets please use this thread to discuss and tailor it to what we would like for our November 2017 board.*

Welcome to the Birth Month Board for November 2017!!  We are glad you're here!

If you are new to theBump, here are some links you might find helpful:

• What do all those abbreviations mean?
• I want a ticker on my signature!
• Here's how to insert a GIF in your post!

Here are some typical DOs and DON'Ts:

DO:
-Introduce yourself in the "Introductions!" thread 
-Feel free to start one of the weekly posts listed below: we can talk about assigning daily threads if that is something we want for our board
-Post your own thread if you have a confirmed loss
-Post a thread that would apply to the entire community and doesn't fall into one of the categories for daily threads listed below (Ex: what to pack in your hospital bag, baby gear, etc)
-Comment, share advice and show support for your fellow bumpies; this is a two-way street, to get support, you must show it as well

DON'T:
-Start a thread asking about symptoms; please post this in the current weekly "symptoms thread"
-Ask the community if you are pregnant.  You'll probably get as good an answer here as anywhere:
   Am I pregnant?
-Post pictures of your pregnancy test and ask if it is postive
    There is a place for this - it is here: What does a positive pregnant test look like?
-Post a thread that asks a question only applying to yourself unless you suspect you may be going through a MC
-Get bent out of shape if someone calls you out for not following these guidelines - we can discuss and tailor these for the first few weeks for sure but once we have these agreed upon lets try and follow our guidelines as best we can to keep our board running smoothly and supportively.

**Keeping the board organized just makes it easier for us all to support each other and to easily search for information that may be helpful. **

Daily Threads: 

For Ticker Changes, please add the date to the title.  Example:  Tuesday Ticker Change - 2/28

For Daily threads like the Symptoms thread, and some of the check-ins (PGAL, FTM, STM, etc.) it might be helpful to do something like: Symptoms for the week of 3/4.

• A note on Ticker Changes - Your ticker change day is the day when your weekly progression changes and says something like "5 weeks, 0 days".

MONDAY

• Monday Ticker Change 
• Weekly Appointments
• Weekly Randoms/Spam 
• Meal Plan Monday 
• Monday Bitchfest 
• Mental Health Monday

TUESDAY

• Tuesday Ticker Change 
• Twatwaffle (TW) Tuesday 
• First Time Mom Check-In
• PGAL Check-in

WEDNESDAY

• Wednesday Ticker Change 
• WTF Wednesday 
• HDBD (Hump Day, Bump Day) 
• Second Time Mom+ Check-In 

THURSDAY

• Thursday Ticker Change
• Unpopular Opinion (UO) Thursday 
• What My Pregnant Self is Eating
• GTKY

FRIDAY

• Friday Ticker Change
• Flame Free Friday Confession (FFFC) 
• Why My SO is an A-hole
• Why My Pregnant Self is Crying
• Fitness Friday

SATURDAY

• Saturday Ticker Change
• Why my SO is Awesome
• Symptoms Thread 
• Pregnant after IF Check-In
• Ask a STM+

SUNDAY

• Sunday Ticker Change 
• Silly Question Sunday
• AMA (Advanced Maternal Age) Check-In

*If you are a graduate from the TTGP board, they will be doing check-ins as well so keep an eye out for those ladies.  

Other options:
*Let's keep adding to this list with suggestions and we can decide as we get more members which days would be best for them!

• High Risk Pregnancy Check-in
• Moms of Multiples Check-in

We can also do a themed monthly signature challenge if we want and as we move through the months, we can do pinned threads for things like sex announcements, birth announcements, ultrasounds etc.  

kschref

@BumpTara @BumpAdmin @BumpCaitlin Can we sticky this thread, please.   

mrsorigami

Thanks for posting this!

hldubble

What does TOU mean? it's not in the abbreviations list.  Thanks!

kschref

Terms of Use  I'll see if I can find a link to where those are located.  Thanks for pointing that out!

kschref

@hldubble - So, I went and read the Terms of Use (TOU) and didn't see those things specifically mentioned, though when I did a search I found several forums talking about it and saying it was.  If there are forum guidelines that apply to all forums on TB, I couldn't find them though I did search a little. *shrug*  So I amended those sections above since I didn't read it anywhere official, though I still think they are good guidelines.  I remember several years ago people just randomly dropping into BMBs and trolling with ridiculous "Am I pregnant?" questions just to stir things up so I personally think it's still better to keep those sort of questions out of the specific BMB boards. 

ArtificialRed

These hyper-specific rules are new to me. But I can see how so many of them and the new organization would be very useful. For everything but the daily ticker change posts, are they titled for the week? For example, "PGAL for the week of 2/28" 

kschref

ArtificialRed said:

These hyper-specific rules are new to me. But I can see how so many of them and the new organization would be very useful. For everything but the daily ticker change posts, are they titled for the week? For example, "PGAL for the week of 2/28" 

I also think it would be good say "for the week of 2/28" because threads like that definitely aren't for people to participate in only that specific day.

hldubble

 that totally makes sense! I could not for the life of me figure that one out! lol Thanks

kschref

hldubble said:

 that totally makes sense! I could not for the life of me figure that one out! lol Thanks

Glad it helped!  I did actually go look on other boards and see that where people had posted pictures of pregnancy tests the images had been removed and it said something like *image removed for TOU violation* I just still can't find it actually written in an official document anywhere.

hldubble

kschref I also like the idea of keeping things organized! These threads can get so huge and hard to follow. It will be nice to have a little structure to them! Great ideas

janvier112

@kschref great job setting things up!! I love keeping things organized as we'll

pandawares

I would like to vote in favor of Healthy Habits Check-Ins and Mental Health Check-Ins! If we assign the dailies, I'd be happy to do both Maybe Mental Health Monday and Fitness Friday? I love alliteration.

ArtificialRed

I think Mental health Monday and Fitness Friday sound great!

pandawares

ArtificialRed said:

I think Mental health Monday and Fitness Friday sound great!

Woot woot!

kschref

Amanda H. said:

I would like to vote in favor of Healthy Habits Check-Ins and Mental Health Check-Ins! If we assign the dailies, I'd be happy to do both Maybe Mental Health Monday and Fitness Friday? I love alliteration.

These are great!  I'll add them.  I'm fine with assigning people to do them - What I've seen on other Birth Month Boards that I think is a good idea because sometimes our days just get crazy and get away from us is that if a thread hasn't been started by late morning by the person to whom it is assigned, then somebody else can go ahead and start it.  If we assign threads, I think it might be a good idea to have some sort of caveat like that as well.

adirat

I am also a strong supporter of organization rather than one-off posts! It's the best way to build community. Drive-bys get serious side eye from me. 

If there are enough people in this category -- we'll see how it goes -- it may be nice to have a PAIF thread. 

kschref

@adirat - Absolutely!  I threw this up mostly as a starting point for discussion so that we could shape something unique for our group.  I think we're getting enough people to do an AMA check-in as well (will be first pregnancy for me in that category).

heatherdubrow

I second a PAIF thread @adirat!

kschref

@adirat and @heatherdubrow - Any preference for any particular day?  Just trying to keep things spread out but really doesn't matter.  

adirat

@kschref No preference for day. Whatever works. 

heatherdubrow

@kschref no preference either! 

kschref

@heatherdubrow and @adirat - Cool.  The weekends are looking skimpy so I'll add the PAIF check-in for Sat and an AMA check-in for Sunday.

bpietronicco

@kschref thanks for adding PAIF

av2323

@kschref  You are a gal after my own heart with the organization of this board 

slaven

Is everyone okay with a FTM questions for STMs? The STM thread on what y'all are getting for your new baby is great to read but it made me think that there is a source for some good advice here haha. 

Like what is RH- stuff? DH and I are both A+ btw, if that matters at all. 
Suggestions on bras? Is my idea of buying nursing bras now good or bad, like I have no clue. 

No need to answer those here, but I think we can have a thread where FTMs post questions for STMs since they're not necessarily symptom related, so I wouldn't put them in the symptom thread. 

av2323

@slaven. That sounds like a great idea!

janvier112

@slaven could we add that to the FTM check in thread? I don't think one was started yet, but maybe for next weeks thread...

kschref

I've been thinking about that too and wondering if it would be better to do it as a separate thread or part of the FTM or the STM check-in. Don't have a preference though it may just be easier to have it be its own thread so it's easy for people to find those specific questions instead of reading through an entire check-in thread. 

kschref

Might even be a good thing to add to Saturday as it is still relatively light and more people may be around on the weekend?

slaven

@kschref I don't think it'll be too busy of a thread however I think if we put it in either the FTM or STM check ins, the other group may not see it. Like I may not necessarily read all the STM check ins. I think doing it on weekends is good since it's not likely to be a super involved thread but may help prevent one off posts about everyone's questions. 

kschref

Sounds good. Let's go ahead and add it to Saturdays.

deeerfauxm

Can I ask a tech question here? I'm using the iPhone app (which is different app than 3 years ago). Where will I see notifications, like a reply on the board or message? Mommy brain can't recall from the changes last time (and back then I was on the computer mostly, which had a place in the corner.) also do tickets show up on the app? I don't see any. 

NYTino24

@deerfauxm I only get notifications when I'm on the board web via my iPhone and not the app, and only if the window is open and active when the alert pops up. On the laptop, I just click and see them.

deeerfauxm

Thanks, @NYTino24. This ap seems just as quirky as the old one! I'll try the mobile web version. Maybe that's why I deleted it!! 

pawcall

No tickers on the app (boooo!)

pawcall

At some point as we get further along and more comfortable, it would be nice to have a shared spreadsheet so we can share due dates, whether we have other kiddos, the state we're from, that kind of thing - as people are comfortable sharing, obviously.

hedgepig

@pandawares @kschref I'm looking at the suggestion for a Healthy Habits Check-In and wondering if you ladies think there's room for a healthy recipes/meals/snacks thread? I know that there's already What My Pregnant Self is Eating, but that seems to be mostly all the bad stuff that we can't help but crave/eat, and Meal Plan Mondays, so maybe there's too much crossover. Or, maybe it would be a onetime thread instead of weekly? I would love to get inspiration for really healthy recipes

heatherdubrow

@lahansen we currently have a meal planning thread

hedgepig

@heatherdubrow Yep, I've checked it out and it isn't exactly what I was looking for, but I knew that there was a lot of crossover, which is why I posted here instead of just starting a thread.... I figured if there were a bunch of ladies who were interested, then great, and if not, then no worries  

bcashaw

Is anyone else having a hard time quitting smoking? Can we start a discussion about this?