Self Moderation of the On-Topic Forum

Exactly. If you are having suicidal thoughts (more than the casual ones that most people have at various points in their lives, I mean), you need professional attention. As official representatives of TV Tropes, we as moderators cannot take a position where we support, tacitly or explicitly, amateur counseling for people who are at imminent risk of self-harm (any more than we'd let forum posters talk someone through applying a tourniquet to an arterial wound). These are medical emergencies.

Our policy in this regard is spelled out in the official rules. If someone expresses the intent to commit suicide or serious self-harm, we remove those posts from view, suspend the user, and recommend professional services on the basis of their geolocation data. We do this both out of concern for the individual's well-being and concern for our site's legal liability.

Users in this situation are welcome to return once they are under professional care.

edited 23rd May '16 7:15:27 AM by Fighteer

I have posted a petition that I hope will get a game onto the Virtual Console that we can legally buy the game from. Is that okay?

Where did you post it?

the better question is Where can I post my petition to get "Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World" onto New Nintendo 3DS and Wii U Virtual Console?

You may not. We don't accept petitions; our users are not here to be solicited. We consider that sort of thing advertising and will ban for it.

edited 8th Jun '16 6:25:27 AM by Fighteer

Technically, we are very selective with petitions. Not a blanket ban, but no spamming regardless.

Thank you. I won't post my petition here.

Did all the threads about suicide turn into 'support for suicide'? Because I figured suicide as a topic could be discussed without becoming a support thread.

I suppose there could be a thread about suicide, but it would have to be one with no personal stories or anything like that. It couldn't be about any given Troper's history or current struggles with it; it would have to be about suicide in the abstract. You know, the reasons (non-specific) people do it, maybe the legal status of suicide, that sort of thing.

Discussion about methods might be a tricky one, because people who are thinking about suicide might actually use a thread like that for inspiration. It's known that suicides occur much more frequently if there's an established and readily accessible method (usually something like a given place where people jump off a bridge, or an appliance that is often used for suicide, or guns, etc). If there's a barrier to access to these easy methods (or rather, methods that are perceived as easy) people will have to think a bit longer about doing it, and very often that's a sufficient deterrence. You wouldn't think that's the case, but it is.

One way to limit someone's access to easy suicide methods is to simply not tell them of any. If you don't think of it yourself and nobody tells you about it, you won't be tempted. If someone is thinking of (say) hanging themself, but put off by the effort required and the risk of pain, the last thing you want to do is tell them of an easier and less painful way to do it. I mean, you might think that at least you're making something that is inevitable less painful; but by not telling them you're forcing them to reconsider, which actually might be enough to save a life. (And chances are, you'll never know it; and neither will the person who would've committed suicide with the easy method you would have suggested.)

So a thread about suicide would also have to avoid discussing specific methods.

Actually, the more I think about it the less I like the idea of having that discussion at all. The risks with something like that are very high. If someone is really determined to find information about this subject, there are other places to look for it.

Well, I simply cannot see how a thread on methods of suicide would be appropriate anywhere on the forum outside of writer's block.

And talking about why people get suicidal is, although interesting, a relatively useless thing to talk about, and not as pointed as most topics on OTC.

The philosophical status of suicide is the hard one. Do we want to discuss the nature of suicide?

Another hard one would be discussing counselling techniques for suicide. But this is something I think only three people on this site are actually interested in.

In the end it comes down to the question: Do you want to have to deal with the responsibility of inspiring someone to harm themselves, whether directly or not? Suicide and depression are serious issues that deserve professional medical attention, not the amateur fumblings of casual forum-goers, however, well-meaning.

I think the question is should the site make it easy to have these conversations? And the answer is no. The site needs to protect itself.

If this were a site built for philosophical discourse, I would have a different answer. No one should be here primarily for OTC, and the site does not have the goal of hosting philosophical discussions. And someone who wants to take the conversation seriously can go to a more appropriate forum.

A reminder I've realized today that some people need to hear: Personal attacks don't stop being personal attacks because you agree with the poster's views. Please try to look out for and holler them regardless, both here in OTC and elsewhere.

(If the mods want to know what brought this on, PM me. I'd like to not publicly call someone out in a thread like this.)

edited 24th Nov '16 3:31:54 PM by TotemicHero

What rules are there regarding bad faith arguments?

I've noticed that in a particular OTC topic, a particular poster only seems to rehash the same argument every time the poster in question shows up, followed by repeatedly moving the goalposts whenever the arguments posted are countered. This has been going on for several months.

I'm fairly certain the troper in question is using an alternate account as well, although I doubt that's especially relevant.

Bad faith simply falls under "being a dick". At least, from what I understand. You should Holler the relevant posts.

edited 7th Feb '17 5:43:28 PM by Irene

There's a difference between a "bad faith" argument and a genuinely held, albeit incorrect belief. It can be subtle, but it falls into an area where we must make a judgment call as to whether the poster is intentionally constructing invalid arguments or is legitimately trying to have a discussion. We can't ban everyone who expresses views we find uncomfortable.

At least in my view, it's not about whether the views are uncomfortable.

It's that every single time the poster in question posts, it's always on the same topic no matter how far detached it is from the topic currently discussed, and effectively derails the thread due to continuously posting the same thing with no regard for counterarguments. There is no attempt to provide anything other than a point refuted a thousand times - in fact the refutations are completely ignored every time.

edited 9th Feb '17 7:14:05 AM by Krieger22

Is it acceptable to make a thread to discuss an article offsite if the topic doesn't consist solely of the link and "Discuss." but also contains my thoughts on what's discussed in the article?

edited 14th Aug '17 5:24:34 AM by InigoMontoya

Include a summary of the article's main points (or at least the ones you consider relevant to whatever you want to say about it) in the OP (Opening Post). It should be enough that people can join the conversation even without clicking on the link. If you do that, it's fine.

Thanks.

I'm kind of curious as to how long it takes to open a thread nowadays.

Because normally, someone writes one, and within a week, it's either open or either Fighteer or Best Of publicly shoots it down.

Is it still okay to post in here or should this thread be locked aside from the occasional mod post?