How do you know if your conditon is rare enough to be included without going to the site and checking their index of communities?
When the site first opened I requested them to include a separate community for RSI/carpal tunnel syndrome although it is not exactly rare since it affects about 10% of the US population. Although I never received a response I now see a general "Nerve Entrapment" community which includes other disorders similar to RSI. That community has a single member. Instead, had they allowed this, I might have pointed people there from other RSI forums on the web.
I thought the idea behind rareshare had the potential for much greater growth than they have seen - with only 2000 monthly uniques currently. And I think making editorial decisions about which groups should exist and which ones should not indicates that the spirit in which the site was created is more of a throwback to old media rather than enacting the web 2.0 idea about the individual taking control of the medium.
When the site first opened I requested them to include a separate community for RSI/carpal tunnel syndrome although it is not exactly rare since it affects about 10% of the US population. Although I never received a response I now see a general "Nerve Entrapment" community which includes other disorders similar to RSI. That community has a single member. Instead, had they allowed this, I might have pointed people there from other RSI forums on the web.
I thought the idea behind rareshare had the potential for much greater growth than they have seen - with only 2000 monthly uniques currently. And I think making editorial decisions about which groups should exist and which ones should not indicates that the spirit in which the site was created is more of a throwback to old media rather than enacting the web 2.0 idea about the individual taking control of the medium.