What’s new at Breastcancer.org

The relaunch of the Breastcancer.org community forums is the start of a new day for our members who have been coming together for more than 20 years to learn, find connections, and support one another. The community is at the heart of our organization, and we’d like to thank the generous donors who have made this long-overdue upgrade possible.

What you’ll find on the new forums:

• improved technology to keep the site running smoothly

• more features to help you connect, share, and learn

• better tools to help our moderators to support you

Upgrading the technology that powers our forums is an essential part of providing a good experience for our members, and it will create a foundation that allows us to build even more beneficial features for our members in the future. 

New features help members to engage on a modern, secure platform. As a member you are now able to:

• quote a member’s comment

• use reactions such as “like,” “care,” and “lol”

• use a full emoji menu

• tag discussions with keywords

• use @mentions to reference and notify a member

• group private message up to five members at a time

• use improved search functionality

• view recent community-wide activity 

• post on a member’s profile wall

• save drafts of your posts for further editing

• participate in polls

New administration tools and analytics within the forum help our professional team of moderators to identify where they most need to welcome and onboard new members, facilitate discussions, answer timely questions, and connect members to resources. 

We know getting used to anything new takes some time. So, we’ve created helpful tips to get started and guides to using the new forum. And of course, our moderation team is here to help with individual and group support.

The trust of our community means everything to us, so choosing a new discussion forum platform was not a decision we made lightly. It took time to plan, build, and migrate 20 years of discussions to a new site. We’re appreciative of our members’ patience throughout this process.

After careful consideration and review, we selected the Higher Logic Vanilla platform as the foundation. This approach offers a more turnkey tech solution so we can prioritize our time and attention toward delivering a great experience and addressing the needs of our members.

We soft-launched the new forum experience with a small group of members who were graciously able to take time from their busy lives to test experience and features with us. We’ve incorporated their feedback into the live site, and continue to fine-tune now that the forum has relaunched.

There’s always more we want to do for our community members. Our dedicated team of product developers, engineers, and community moderators are evaluating and developing added features and enhancements to follow in releases throughout the year. 

 

For more than 22 years, Breastcancer.org has been a lifeline for people facing the complex challenges of a breast cancer diagnosis. It’s critical to have trusted information and guidance when considering life-changing choices about your treatment and care, especially when urgent decisions need to be made. In relaunching the site and the discussion forums, our goals have centered on improving the technology, performance, design, and features that make Breastcancer.org the most comprehensive breast cancer resource for people seeking answers and help. We’re excited to deliver on our mission by offering more ways to find information and many new engagement features so people can easily connect with others for friendship and support when it’s needed most.

Hope Wohl

CEO, Breastcancer.org

Read the Community User Guide.