Site Purpose Poll / Forum Feedback Please - How to Improve this Site

This is an opportunity for you to provide feedback on what you think we should cover more of, or less of, on this site. Also - please post suggestions and ideas for how we might improve the site more generally. All input greatly appreciated.


We are trying to create with this website a home for people interested in, and using, the most promising anti-aging drugs and following the best, most current science related to age mitigation and extension of healthy lifespans. While we don’t say it too much, the assumption is that you really want to have a strong base in terms of a good fitness, and nutrition, programs (or habits) and really the longevity drugs and supplements are best viewed as “add-ons” to a good existing health/fitness/nutrition program.

The primary focus is on the use of purported longevity drugs and all the issues related to their use - from benefits and side effects, to optimal dosing strategies, to contra-indications and synergies and other considerations. We are the early adopters in this area, but one of the goals of this site is to help document and provide the implementation details and issues around longevity therapeutics so that the maximum number of people can benefit from them in the future. We want to be a site where people can turn to for good information, where pros and cons of longevity drugs and supplements are discussed openly, where excessive hype is called out and identified so people don’t waste their money on things that are not very effective at increasing longevity. We try to avoid the hype that has too often permeated the longevity market.

Frequently the conversations in the forum diverge from just the longevity drugs - into general health, nutrition and exercise. I generally find this ok and helpful, but some people may feel that this detracts from the focus of the site. This poll is to solicit your thoughts on that issue, and also to get your ideas on how we can improve the site and discussion forums. All input is greatly appreciated.

How are I think we are different from other Longevity sites and forums:
Rapamycin.News We are deeply focused on the personal implementation aspects of longevity drugs. Our mission might be identified as “to make it easier to identify, source, implement and optimize longevity drugs and therapies”
Reddit Longevity is really focused on just the ongoing stream of potentially related longevity news - with only cursory discussions. Link Sharing.
Longecity says their mission is “to conquer the blight of involuntary death”, a Fee-based Non-profit Community.
Lifespan.Io : Longevity science news and advocacy
Longevity Technology: Longevity Industry News
Facebook Longevity Groups: There are tons of longevity oriented facebook groups. I don’t think the format lends itself to deep ongoing discussions with shared images, videos and tweets, etc. Many people don’t like discussing personal health issues on Facebook where friends and family may be reading, lack of anonymity, lots of spam and commercial postings.

Poll On What We Should Focus On At This Website:

What should we cover MORE of (or at the same level) at this site (in terms of news and discussion topics)? (check all that apply)

  • Possible Longevity drugs (rapamycin, metformin, 17-alpha estradiol, acarbose, SGLT2 inhibitors…)
  • Possible Longevity Vitamins and Supplements
  • Possible Longevity Treatments (gene therapy, plasmapheresis, stem cell therapies, etc.)
  • Possible Longevity Eating Protocols (Fasting, Time Restricted Feeding, Caloric Restriction, Keto, Vegan, etc.)
  • Possible Skin/Hair Rejuvenation Drugs/Treatments
  • Longevity Clinics (where they are/ratings/costs)
  • Longevity Drug Doctors and Pharmacies/sources
  • Longevity Startups
  • Longevity Conferences
  • Longevity Venture Capital Funding
  • Alzheimers / Brain Treatments and Brain Health protocols
  • Longevity-optimized Fitness Programs
  • Digital Health Innovations (that help in fitness / longevity)
  • Longevity-oriented Artificial Intelligence news and info
  • Cost Effectiveness / Value of different Longevity Drugs and Treatments
  • Environmental Factors that influence Longevity (pollution/microplastics/harmful food additives, etc.)
  • Interviews of Longevity Researchers and Biotech Founders
  • Alternative Medicine related to Longevity
  • Cancer Prevention / Testing
  • Heart Disease Prevention / Testing

0 voters

1 Like

What should we cover LESS of (or not at all) at this site (in terms of news and discussion topics)? (check all that apply)

  • Possible Longevity drugs (rapamycin, metformin, 17-alpha estradiol, acarbose, SGLT2 inhibitors…)
  • Possible Longevity Vitamins and Supplements
  • Possible Longevity Treatments (gene therapy, plasmapheresis, stem cell therapies, etc.)
  • Possible Longevity Eating Protocols (Fasting, Time Restricted Feeding, Caloric Restriction, Keto, Vegan, etc.)
  • Possible Skin/Hair Rejuvenation Drugs/Treatments
  • Longevity Clinics (where they are/ratings/costs)
  • Longevity Drug Doctors and Pharmacies/sources
  • Longevity Startups
  • Longevity Conferences
  • Longevity Venture Capital Funding
  • Alzheimers / Brain Treatments and Brain Health protocols
  • Longevity-optimized Fitness Programs
  • Digital Health Innovations (that help in fitness / longevity)
  • Longevity-oriented Artificial Intelligence news and info
  • Cost Effectiveness / Value of different Longevity Drugs and Treatments
  • Environmental Factors that influence Longevity (pollution/microplastics/harmful food additives, etc.)
  • Interviews of Longevity Researchers and Biotech Founders
  • Alternative Medicine related to Longevity
  • Cancer Prevention / Testing
  • Heart Disease Prevention / Testing

0 voters

1 Like

Below I’ve drafted up a rough guideline on how we want to make this site as good as possible for our users. Please review these general guidelines and let me know what you think, suggestions for improvement or changes are very much encouraged:

Our focus is on deep discussions and information sharing about our experiences on what is working for us, what isn’t working, and with as much good data we can share as possible, because we think this will help push the science forward and help members and visitors here.

Wherever possible, we want people to try to share concrete measurable information. Its not enough just to say “I’m feeling much more energetic with rapamycin”, we’d much rather see “My sleep as measured by my fitness tracker shows that my sleep has improved to 6 hours of REM per night on average, and my activity count has gone from 5,000 steps average per day to 15,000 steps”…

We have many researchers who visit the site, and we work with researchers in the longevity field, and we want to help them by sharing factual data. We have many people here who have started threads on their “rapamycin journey” and are sharing all the details as they progress in time from the point when they make the decision to try it, to the purchase, and pre-testing and then on to experience benefits, side effects and complications. These are great - and we really appreciate them. They allow people to see some typical examples of what people are experiencing.

Key Considerations when posting messages about news/papers/videos here:

  1. Check to see if (if its a news item/new paper) if its already been posted. We get a fair number of duplications now and its easy to miss a previous post. Search on the compound mentioned.

  2. Choose the best story: Whenever news breaks you’ll see a dozen or more publications cover it. Look to find the best news story done on the topic - don’t just grab the first story you see.

  3. Check the Science/Authors/Institution: The objective for the site is to try to stick, as much as possible, to good science (while understanding that there are not yet, and may never be, good double-blind, phase 3 or 4 human clinical trials for longevity drugs). So, if you’re posting research papers and news stories, try to think whether this is something people can use today, and whether it is coming from a good source.

  4. Make it Valuable for People. Try to make the post valuable for people by reviewing the key information - and identify for all the issues or key take homes of the news or research paper. Instead of just posting a link, take it to the next level - for example, I saw a new paper on Gemfibrozil this week. Rather than just posting a link to the research, I remembered the Brian Kennedy has talked about it on video interviews so I searched that out, found some other resources (wikipedia is always a good link for new compounds), and posted all the information so people could get a more complete picture of the topic: https://www.rapamycin.news/t/gemfibrozil-a-lipid-lowering-drug-improves-damage-in-a-mouse-model-of-aging/49714.

  5. Make it Actionable (if possible). We try to go Deeper into the science and implementation of things. For example, Instead of just posting a news story about “rapamycin study suggests it may help reverse skin aging” (which is a start), we like situations where people go the extra step and add the link to the original research paper, perhaps some links to similar research, and in the best case - someone tries to take action from all the information in the study and create something - for example this great DIY Rapamycin Skin Cream post by @methuselah here: DIY Rapamycin skin cream
    This is great because it allows people to “take action” if they want.

The focus here is also very much on “actionable information” - news, information and research that we can use immediately (or very soon) to improve our lives, and longevity. So, the closer any news or information is to being something people can use immediately, the better.

If the news/information isn’t something we can use right now to improve our longevity - then ideally its something thats important for the broader longevity field. An example is the $3 Billion funding of Altos Labs last year. This is important information that we’ll probably want to discuss whether or not there is anything we can do in the short term with the information.

9 Likes

This is the current site title:
Rapamycin News - Anti-aging drug users’ group discussion forum and News

This site works well for me, we have active administrator and many active members, that’s great. For the people who think some topics are too far from Rapamycin, I have a little suggestion, maybe the order of the site title can be changed as:

  • Anti-aging drugs News - Rapamycin and related Anti-aging drug users’ group discussion forum and News
    Or
  • Anti-aging therapy News - Rapamycin and related Anti-aging drug users’ group discussion forum and News
    Or
  • Rapamycin and Anti-aging drugs News - Rapamycin and related Anti-aging drug users’ group discussion forum and News
4 Likes

I think the balance is right. It is helpful to have a well moderated site with well informed participants generally discussing healthspan/lifespan issues.

5 Likes

This is a great site just like it is. Your interest in improving it highlights the attitude that made it so. The absence of rules may have helped.

8 Likes

I was going to suggest the same thing. By having different sections, you probably can keep the site more organized

1 Like

I like the site just as it is. If there is some topic I don’t like or am not interested in I just don’t view it and move on to something I like.

Yes, sometimes the ship gets a little off course, but soon rights itself.

I am personally very grateful for this site and the viewpoints of members even if I don’t always agree with them.

I just want to express my appreciation for the work you put into this site.

9 Likes

For now, I like the site the way it is. There’s only so much the average Joe-rapa wants to know about rapamycin, and if you want people coming back to the site, you have to expand the topics. Still, many new topics today are on rapamycin, and the number of new topics per day is in no way overwhelming, so it’s all good: I can easily pick and choose what I want to look at.

What I don’t want to see is a huge number of posts on marginal or bogus topics, but we aren’t there yet. For instance, if someone were really into keto (like me) and posts a lot about keto (unlike me), perhaps we can suggest they visit more relevant forums.

I like your suggestions about how to improve post quality, but we can’t expect most people to follow most of them most of the time–it’s too time consuming.

2 Likes

I agree that detailed guidelines, however sensible they might be, will either be onerous to those who tend to comply, or ignored by those who don’t. If we end up with guidelines that aren’t followed, that just provides one more thing for people to fight about. :smiley:

So, bottom line: keep it simple.

Personally, my biggest issue isn’t the subject matter–I can skip topics-- it’s interesting topics with posts that go off-topic into the weeds and don’t come back. That is, people posting whatever occurs to them instead of staying on the topic.

But some people like this free-flow discussion.

Whatever you decide, keep it simple, or people won’t do it, requiring increased moderation work, which can be a lot of work.

5 Likes

I think the forum works very well the way it is.

However, there is so much information and educated analysis here, if only the search engine could find that half remembered comment that I saw a while back. That’s item number one on my wish list.

Here is item number 2: Sometimes an off-topic post, valuable as it may be, might be better addressed or “also addressed” in another thread. I wonder if a prompt could be built in to recognize such an incident and ask if the author would like the post cross-referenced to that other thread.

3 Likes

Its funny. In the past year we’ve been on this forum i have really begun to understand how circuitous the typical conversation is. We digress from digressions… All the time. Its rare that any thread stays entirely on topic. I think its just human nature. One thought stimulates and question and off we go. I sometimes move groups of posts around but probably miss most of these issues.

We can encourage people to start new threads for new topics but i know it won’t always happen.

4 Likes

No, the software doesn’t allow any of this type of thing. We have what we have i am afraid.

I will plan to create categories in the near future. That will help promote a little more structure to the different topic areas.

And i will post some guidelines to help encourage behavior that i think is helpful. But fundamentally it sounds like most people are generally happy with the direction the site is going right now, with some adjustments. And i am in agreement with this.

It has been helpful, i think, to see what areas people are more interested in. And which are of less interest.

3 Likes

The website is impressive the way it is. If someone from bogus supplement companies start using fake profiles to comment and push sales then it will quickly become like most facebook groups that is infiltrated with these guys, if this happens I hope admin will take action and just ban them straight away.
I am impressed on how much knowledge there is amongst the members here, and the critical views there is on papers that are being linked to when they come out. We need this.

6 Likes

People have been pretty good about flagging suspicious activity so i think we have that covered!

2 Likes

It’s possible to implement Google Search and give it as an option for users with this forum software.
I agree that search engine could be better. Maybe some type of AI implementation will be the standard in the future? “ChatGPT, what was the comment that had something to do with this, around this time …?”

3 Likes

You can use google to search for something in a particular site eg:

https://www.google.com/search?q=chatgpt+site%3Arapamycin.news&oq=chatgpt+site%3Arapamycin.news&aqs=chrome..69i57.9949j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

2 Likes

Its funny. In the past year we’ve been on this forum i have really begun to understand how circuitous the typical conversation is. We digress from digressions… All the time. Its rare that any thread stays entirely on topic. I think its just human nature. One thought stimulates and question and off we go. I sometimes move groups of posts around but probably miss most of these issues.

We can encourage people to start new threads for new topics but i know it won’t always happen.

Wisdom, this. You have created something here, @RapAdmin , but you can’t really control it. As one of my long-ago teachers once said, “ride the horse in the direction it’s going.” Maybe nudge it once in a while, but don’t get caught up in trying to steer. It’s frustrating to you and annoys the horse. :smile:

3 Likes

If someone from bogus supplement companies start using fake profiles to comment and push sales then it will quickly become like most facebook groups that is infiltrated with these guys, if this happens I hope admin will take action and just ban them straight away.

This is what the FLAG option is for. If you see this, report it. That cues the moderator to take a look. This is a community effort, to keep the space clear.

3 Likes

I will be creating a number of categories to help divide threads up a bit. I will solicit feedback on the categories from everyone here before I implement them.

I am unlikely to create a vendor category just because i don’t want commercial spam to burden the site and my moderation time.

I only created the rapamycin doctor and pharmacy threads because it was so hard to find those groups in the past.

There isn’t much, in my view, other than the ITP validated drugs that warrant much attention yet in the longevity field from a vendor standpoint. Most supplements marketed for longevity likely just impact disease risk at best., and are easily found on Amazon etc. No need to clog our discussion areas with vendor posts. I generally think the community forum is functioning relatively well and dont want to change things too much too quickly. Please remember, this is just a hobby / side project site.

8 Likes