The Student Room Group

Disabled Student Subforum

Poll

Would you like a Disabled Students Subforum?

Your help is needed to create a Disabled Student's Sub-Forum. Many students will go through their academic careers and find hard parts along the way. Imagine then, if you had a disability on top of that which made studying that bit harder. Support is available but many disabled students feel ashamed, embarrassed, confused or isolated and never find out the help that is available. Please help us to help them and vote YES.

Please do not vote "no" simply because you do not have a disability and this would have no practical benefit for you.

Scroll to see replies

I don't think it's a case of whether I would like one, I don't have a disability so the sub-forum wouldn't be for me to post in and/or read, but if there is a large number of people on here that are disabled then it would be a good addition providing they would use it. :smile:
Reply 2
I'm glad someone without a disability agrees.

This is really important to potentially a large ammount of users, so please support this people.
I have voted for yes, if a large amount of people want it like you say - then I think it should be added. :smile:
Reply 4
I'm undecided. If you look at the Harry Potter subforum it isn't put to use atall, pretty much only for "happy birthday...." threads. Then if you look at extremely successful threads, such as Neighbours Soc and Neighbours *spoilers* they seem to work much better than a whole subforum.
But on the other hand I can't tire all subforums with the same brush...it could work we'd have to see.
Why would it be under university discussion though?

Wait...is everyone allowed to vote in this poll?
Ugh... much as I am in favour of doing anything possible to make life as normal as possible for disabled students, I can't help but thinking it'd be a complete waste of time. Very few disabled students post here anyway and I can't say I think it'd be more of an incentive for them to do so if there was a disabled students forum. Surely the only reason they wouldn't post here is that they think they'd get crap off other members... and yet making a forum specifically for them is only going to make them an easy target for ********s who come along specifically to insult people.

Although, maybe a disabled students soc would be a good idea.
Reply 6
oh, i read this as a forum that was disabled. I was like, what's the point in a forum if you can't see it or post in it? :confused:
Reply 7
I would say no, simply because how much would it really be used? Surely it would be more daunting for a new user to post in an empty forum than in a popular thread where everyone is gathered? I am all for making Uni a less stressful experience (something I can relate to a lot right now :biggrin:), but I don't think there is really a need for it. There is a stickied thread isn't there?
*Imagines rules such as "No txt spk in the dyslexia thread"*

MB
Reply 9
Well lets ask youself this, what kind of threads would go in this section?
Reply 10
Doesn't it have to be :
'ten users with 100 posts'. :confused:
Reply 11
brimstone
Doesn't it have to be :
'ten users with 100 posts'. :confused:

No. That's just for Uni specific subforums. Everything else is at the Admins discretion.
I think it would be a good idea, as it could potentially help disabled students, and even if it isn't used much, it won't do any real harm will it?

I wouldn't use it personally, but I support its creation.
Reply 13
I'm for it in principle, as long as the rest of us get to use the ramp.
Reply 14
Dude
Well lets ask youself this, what kind of threads would go in this section?


Threads regarding disabled student's concerns about uni. It's often easier for a disabled person to discuss their barriers with someone else who has a disability rather than someone who is able bodied because to be honest if you don't have the difficulties you can't actually understand what it is like to have them.

I have a sneaky feeling most of the "no" votes here are from people with no particular issues and so they cannot possibly see the need. That is fair enough, but that doesn't mean those who would use a sub-forum should be denied one especially when we have sub forums for things like Harry Potter
Reply 15
generalebriety
Ugh... much as I am in favour of doing anything possible to make life as normal as possible for disabled students, I can't help but thinking it'd be a complete waste of time. Very few disabled students post here anyway and I can't say I think it'd be more of an incentive for them to do so if there was a disabled students forum. Surely the only reason they wouldn't post here is that they think they'd get crap off other members... and yet making a forum specifically for them is only going to make them an easy target for ********s who come along specifically to insult people.

Although, maybe a disabled students soc would be a good idea.


If you're talking about TSR there are no figures available about disabled/able bodied student usage.

If you're talking about the disabled student soc, I have had people tell me they never realised it was there and they were glad they had eventually found it as it would give them somewhere to post if they need to. I think a sub-forum would stand out to new users more easily and so would increase availability.

The Disabled Students Society is useful, but isn't particularly the best medium for those students who need a logical order. Being able to create threads would give that.
Reply 16
I see no problem with it, though an ultimate Disabled Person's Soc thread probably makes more sense - much like us LGBTers have got, otherwise there would be outcry if a certain group of people were given their own subforum.
Still though, good idea :smile: I think you just need to implement it a little more differently.
Reply 17
darkfairy753
:rofl:

I don't think there needs to be one. For the few disabled students, can't there be a sticky/thread that is totally dedicated instead of a whole forum?


I don't understand this assumption there are a "few disabled students". No one has any statistics to point to that. Surely I can as easily claim "for the few [insert any group you choose here]" and it be equally as valid.
Ethereal
If you're talking about the disabled student soc, I have had people tell me they never realised it was there and they were glad they had eventually found it as it would give them somewhere to post if they need to. I think a sub-forum would stand out to new users more easily and so would increase availability.

The Disabled Students Society is useful, but isn't particularly the best medium for those students who need a logical order. Being able to create threads would give that.

As was evident from my previous post, I didn't know it was there either. :p: Maybe, you know, some form of advertising.

Ethereal
I don't understand this assumption there are a "few disabled students".

Then you're living in a ****ing funny world. There may not be exact statistics produced, but of the total student population of the world, very few are disabled. I would bet a lot of disabled people were turned off student lifestyle (and, let's face it, even when you're able-bodied, uni is a frightening thing), and there's very few disabled people around typical student age anyway. There are generally very few disabled people.

The fact that we're generalising doesn't mean we're automatically wrong, you know.
Reply 19
generalebriety
As was evident from my previous post, I didn't know it was there either. :p: Maybe, you know, some form of advertising.


*places add in The Times :p:.


Then you're living in a ****ing funny world. There may not be exact statistics produced, but of the total student population of the world, very few are disabled. I would bet a lot of disabled people were turned off student lifestyle (and, let's face it, even when you're able-bodied, uni is a frightening thing), and there's very few disabled people around typical student age anyway. There are generally very few disabled people.

The fact that we're generalising doesn't mean we're automatically wrong, you know.


Not really. A lot of disabilities are not obvious to look at someone, so you can't actually say "there are not many disabled people in the student population" as you simply can't tell. Things such as dyslexia affect a student's life in educational terms but do not necessarily affect a night out, so your point about the lifestyle not attracting disabled people is also wrong too.

Saying there are few disabled students does not negate the need for a sub-forum. Are you going to apply the same reasoning to the mature student sub-forum; in that there are few mature students and they face the same problems as everyone else anyway?

Latest