holistic dermatology for eczema

[MarieC]

if anybody who has eczema prefers natural ways to treat eczema instead of drugs.. or if traditional medicine has failed them.. i recommend visitingWebsite link removed..the e-book is $20 (used to be given free on the internet) and educates us on getting to the root causes of eczema as well as external/internal ways on treating E.

my testimony:
this book has been a lifesaver for me...

[DrySkin]

Hi,

It looks like the website link was edited out.  Probably a policy being practiced to prevent spam.  If that is the reason, it is certainly understandable.  However, this forum is meant specifically for links.  Perhaps an exception can be made for this forum?

Fred

[Gobe]

Please refer to our Index.  Under the Heading "Contact" you will see the following:

Links
If you wish to add a site to our Links Page please submit your request to:
 
or by registering your request online in our Link Directory.
All e-mails and link requests will be responded to with 48 hours.

 

[DrySkin]

OK.  Thanks.  Bebxmarie has probably gotten a similar response to the original post, but I'll forward your response to her in case she hasn't.  That is, assuming that I figure out how.  By the way, there wouldn't happen to be a way to forward postings/IM's from within skincell to our personal email address?

Fred

Afternote:  Haven't figure out how to quote the posting content in an email to her, but I did figure out how to forward threads to my email outside of skincell.  Thanks to any would-be respondents anyway.

[Gobe]

I already informed Bexmaire by IM after I modified her post and removed the email link.

I think you are asking whether it is possible to receive notification that you have received IM's on your email account?  Well yes you can.  If you go into your Instant Messages and click on Preferences you can then adjust the settings to receive email notification of your IM's.  

 

[DrySkin]

Actually I just modified my last posting to the effect that I answered my own questions (so we're probably both typing at the same time).  What I meant is that I found the "Send Topic" button, which seems to forward thread contents to my email address outside of SkinCell.  I can archive it in my sprawling folder system for useful tidbits.  Thanks anyway.

fred

[Nick]

Hi Fred,

I'm sorry to be a party-pooper but I'm afraid the removed site is already known to me and in my opinion it does not merit receiving a link from this forum.
Where possible, we try to ensure that the links provided here are of a high quality and we do our best to check out the recipient website to the best of our ability - this particular website falls short of our expected standards.

Many of the links posted in this section of the forum are provided by members, for members and are offered with good intentions . Whilst we cannot obviosly review each one individually, we do try to make sure that we do not inadvertently provide a rich source of customers for products or services that we have no way of being able to verify. The owner of the site in question is know to me and not for the best of reasons, on that basis I feel it would be remiss of me to allow the link to be re-instated.

Please do not mistake the Links section of this forum as a free for all links farm.

[DrySkin]

Oh, well.  Too bad the owner of the website decided to take the information (originally available) off the website.  Apparently, it was due to lack of sponsorship.  I agree it's not possible to assess the merit of the information, now available as a purchasable book, without examining some of it.  I'm not sure how amazon manages to cultivate the credibility of its testimonial reviews, but the website in question seems to have lots of good testimonies about the book.  Amazon's reviews process involves the common user, since anyone can submit a review; this lends to its credibility, since it is not merely the editors' comments.  I guess that the objectivity of the process can be verified, since any user can submit a review, and then check to ensure that it becomes available on the amazon website.  Of course, this process might be vulnerable to abuse, unless the identity of the reviewer is somehow confirmed.

[Nick]

Identity can be easily verified by Amazon by way of IP numbers logged against the "reviewer", on stand-alone sites this is not the case. It's like I could create a page here proclaiming that the world was flat and made from banana skins and support it with 1,000 testimonials from Jane, Fred, Sid etc etc but it would not necessarily make it true. Viewers would have to decide on face value if the testimonials were genuine or not as they could not be independently verified without the co-operation of the webmaster involved.

On the other hand, when a site claims to have membership to a respected body such as Health On the Net but does not actually have that  membership? It kind of makes you wonder about the true motivation behind the site.

I take any e-book site with a large pinch of salt. If I wanted to I could take the masses of information gathered here by the well-meaning and generous members of the forum, wrap it up in a simple "e-book" and sell it, but I don't, we don't. We share the information we have freely and openly for the benefit of all - without a price tag.

It begs the question why sites like the one removed from the opening post feel the need sell such information. If it as a result of lack of sponsorship there are always alternatives such as free-hosted sites, banner ads, Google Ads, corporate sponsorship or click-thru product sales. Some things are worth doing not for profit but for the good of our fellow human beings. That's why we have no sponsorship, no banner ads, no google ads, no subscriptions, no paypal contributions.

I only have one page in my "E-book". It says,

Suffering comes free of charge - so does the support

[DrySkin]

Probably you're right about verification by IP address, but I'm not really a network person.  I have vague notions of address spoofing, or even the fact that IP addresses change with each session in some setups.  Also, a person can use many different PCs on a university campus if they wanted different IP addresses.  In a hypothetical scenario, a book author can even ask legitimate people (friends, family) to give good commentary.

I agree that anything posted on a website could be false.  I guess I was just thinking about various factors by which one could judge the veracity of testimonies.  The first is that they come from common users; these comments are more likely to reflect view of the common user compared to remarks coming from a fringe group or a specialist in the field.  The second is that the identity of the people providing the testimonies are verifiable.  This prevents abuse of the participative feedback process.  The website in question has neither (so we are probably in agreement).

The 2nd factor (verifiability) was, in my nonexpert opinion, hard to implement, even with the cooperation of the website administrator.  The most common way that I've seen is to have users register a username at the website before being allowed to provide commentary.  That simply makes it harder for someone to repeatedly pretend to be different people.  This is a general observation, not necessarily to do with the website in question.

If you meant that the website owner for the book made some false claims, I agree that it would be cause for distrust.  I don't disagree with the general principle of wanting compensation for a book, however, if the author so chooses.  I've seen how much effort it takes to author a book (not from personal experience).  Of course, it's skincell's perogative to not be the advertising forum, especially of the merit of the information can't be assessed, or if the author credibility is in question.

I agree that the issue becomes quite gray if the material is taken from a public forum, or one that is charitably set up.  I guess it depends on the work put into assembling the information, researching and verifying it, organizing and editing it, the copying/binding costs, and the price of the book.  However, my perspective is taken from *engineering* books.  For health books, I agree with you insofar as the ethics are not necessarily the same.  The possible discussions about that can probably take up a book itself.

Ethics aside, the added value from a compilation of public information is subjective.  I prefer searching the web for information for my specific situation, gauging the credibility, formulating questions for my GP or dermatologist, and trying things myself.

About skincell's decision to be free, I think the website created by skincell is awesomely designed.  I'm not sure how skincell is funded to be able to do this.

Fred

[Nick]

About skincell's decision to be free, I think the website created by skincell is awesomely designed.  I'm not sure how skincell is funded to be able to do this.

Fred

Hi Fred,

The bottom line is that the whole site is privately funded by myself but I see it as a small price to pay for all the good that comes out of the site and the benefits the members and guests get from the great info and support given by so many others

[DrySkin]

Wow.  A lot of us owe you a whole lot of thanks.

Fred