HealthBoards
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
HealthBoards is a long-running support group website consisting of over 150 Internet message boards for peer to peer health support (also referred to as a virtual community or online health community). The site is unique in that it is purely a health community site, unlike other established health communities on the Web which have generally been part of large web portals (WebMD, Yahoo, iVillage, etc.). Yet HealthBoard's membership base and level of support have outdistanced many of its web portal rivals. As of June 2006 the site received over 2.3 million messages posted by over 250,000 registered members. The effectiveness and growth of HealthBoards attracted the attention of industry leader WebMD, which in 2004 established a partnership with HealthBoards to provide additional health content and advertising support for the site. In 2005 HealthBoards received the distinguished honor of being ranked as one of the top 20 health information websites by Consumer Reports HealthRatings.org. HealthBoards is currently ranked in the top 5,000 websites worldwide in terms of traffic by Alexa.
[edit] History
HealthBoards was founded by site owner and current President/CEO Chuck Simmons. In 1997, after experiencing a variety of symptoms for which doctors had no explanation, Simmons turned to the Web for answers and support. But sadly there were no support groups online in the areas he needed. That's when he decided to develop a one-stop health support site covering a wide range of health topics. After a year of development, the site launched with 70 message boards. By 2000, the site had grown to over 90 boards, and had reached a critical mass of participants on many of the boards. Since then, the site has experienced significant and steady growth, and is now one of the largest health communities on the Web. An important indicator of the maturity of the community, rarely does a question posted on one of the boards go unanswered.
[edit] Operation
On HealthBoards all health topics are given individual message boards. Each message board typically contains thousands of discussion threads, each relating to a specific question or comment initiated by a HealthBoards user. Participation on HealthBoards requires free registration. Users who register must supply an email address and login name. Users who are not registered may still view all the contents of the message boards, but cannot post messages. Anonymous posting is not allowed. The boards are moderated by a large staff of mostly volunteers. Users who violate the participation policy are temporarily banned from using the site. Repeat violations usually result in a permanent ban. Due to the tight control that the moderators keep over the board content, discussions are almost always on topic, relevant, and useful. This has been one of the keys to the sites success.
