Self Moderation of the On-Topic Forum

Meh. Fine. (duct tapes OCD tendencies til its fixed)

Another question: When did we stop being allowed to write on other people's profiles?

Somewhere last year. It happened after a rash of userpage vandalism. Also, I don't think this is terribly pertinent to what this thread is for.

edited 7th Sep '14 1:07:06 AM by SeptimusHeap

Sorry. Didn't know where else to ask. Thanks for answering anyway though.

edited 7th Sep '14 9:34:35 AM by FFShinra

Would it be an idea to make a post explaining how the forum seems to dislike links from certain websites, such as Slate, Salon, and Foreign Policy?

That's a tech thing (usually long URLs with internal spaces or commas), or the way the outside site handles things. TinyUrl the link and they usually work. It doesn't need a dedicated thread.

I realize that, but perhaps it could be edited into the forum guidelines as a heads-up for new posters?

Hello. I wasn't really sure where to introduce myself, so, I guess, here I am.

Greetings.

This thread is a much better place for introductions, though.

Ah. Thank you very much.

New Rule Proposal

Some once-vibrant threads have been essentially killed by link-dumping, that is, people just dumping links to news items, sometimes with no context, then doing another dump post before any discussion takes place. Essentially turning the thread into a news feed.

This is a discussion forum, so it seems like this practice should be discouraged. This is a proposal is to put in place a policy that no link dump post^note  Video embeds count as external links, especially since not everybody can view them should be within two posts of another link dump and that there should always, always be a line or two of context provided with the link. How say you?

edited 4th Jan '16 8:57:54 AM by eyebones

For the record, we're generally in agreement with this as staff, and there's a fair bit of anecdotal support from forumgoers. The question is whether some topics that are basically link dumps, like the General Science thread, could survive the new rule.

edited 4th Jan '16 3:26:50 PM by Fighteer

If they can't, they'll sink to the bottom. If people aren't interested enough to talk about them, are they really useful?

That's a question, actually. DO people find them useful as a news feed? The complaint, though, is that that posting pattern seems to choke off discussion. A guy posts a link, someone says something about it, then here comes the guy again, with a different link. He isn't talking to anyone, he's just the newspaper boy riding by, chucking out papers.

It is sometimes annoying but on one hand some broad spectrum threads kind of set themselves up for such a thing to happen. They cover everything. It is kind of like being in a crowded room with a dozen conversations on the same general topic going on at once it kind of encourages quick simple posts to get something in edgewise. A more focused set of discussions would possibly encourage more discussion and permit folks to focus on specific topics.

Impose a rule similar to "No link Discuss" to posts. Namely a post must have some sort of context to provide a possible start point for any discussion as well as give a brief view of what the link is and why it belongs for any linked content. You could also add a limit on how many links in your posts you can drop in at a time and how frequently you can make a post with links in it. Sort of like the rule for images in thread posts. That is one per post and no double/multi posting to try and end run around the rule.

This way you at least get some context for the link and a possible opener for discussion and room for a conversation to start in terms of successive posts.

The only possible caveat I can think of is where a second link adds some possibly needed clarification or pertinent information to other link but even then it should follow the same general guidelines as if it was just a single link. It should be uncommon for the most part.

Another possible option is an "Article Dump" like thread for OTC where folks can drop news links they think others might like to look at and possibly take to other threads for more detailed discussion. It could possibly redirect some of the link spam as some of the linked articles are of interest to their various threads. There is already an "Article Dump" in Yack fest but it has fairly low visibility and very low use. So maybe pinning such a thread so it doesn't vanish. I have seen a couple posts from a mod suggesting blind linking posts be taken there.

Another alternative is to turn the overly broad topic threads into link dumps for the general topic and have some of the ongoing or commonly brought up discussions turned into threads with a bit more narrow focus. Like for science. Have a thread that is focused on regenerative medicine, another for physics etc.

A third option is any combination of the above.

edited 4th Jan '16 8:30:06 PM by TuefelHundenIV

So I evidently just pissed the moderators off. Is there any non hostile way I can ask what I did? I'm looking through the guidelines and I don't see where I ever denegrated someone, tried to demean anyone or crush an opponent.

You went off topic and were directed to the proper thread for the topic you were on. No one was pissed. This is On Topic conversations so the mods are a bit more picky about staying on topic than the rest of the forums.

Dude? What the hell? White people aren't considered victims/outsiders is an extreme position for the lulz?

edited 1st May '16 8:14:35 AM by garridob

Concerning the locking of the suicide discussion thread suicide=selfish.

The recent posts had nothing to do with telling suicidal people what to do. It was discussing the issue of suicide in general.

I do think it should have been closed because saying suicide is always selfish is a ridiculously inflammatory thing to say and makes absolutely everyone want to say exactly why not in their own way. As evidenced by the fact that the necroing post was about as tangentially related to the topic as possible but all the follow up posts were attacking the topic.

But the topic of suicide as separate from counselling is appropriate for on topic conversations. If even Fighteer cannot resist saying something about it, it clearly needs a discussion outlet somewhere.

I hope this is the right place to post this query.

I think that the mods are weary about suicide being discussed in any way, it can come up occasionally in the psychology topic or such but that's as part of a wider topic, once it is the topic it's a lot harder to control and is a much bigger thing.

In the end the forum seems to draw a number of people in very bad emotional positions and the mods don't want anyone seeing this place as somewhere that can solve their problems or could be held responsible for them not managing to get help with their problems.

Why it's always framed as a legal liability thing I'm not sure, maybe it's just a handy shorthand for the mods, maybe it's just how it came up, maybe it's a background thing that someone mentioned once, maybe somewhere has weird laws or it's possible that there was once an issue/almost an issue made legally about something.

edited 20th May '16 7:18:37 PM by Silasw

It's also a moral issue, IMO. (What I'm going to say will be from me, and not the staff in general.)

Amateur "counsel" can be better than no help at all; but it can also be worse. Just about any idea or message that would help one patient might drive another towards (or over) the edge. Professionals in this field have the sort of training and expertise that they need to (usually) find a good way to approach someone, and to guide them towards recovery. An amateur might try that, for instance by repeating something that helped them, and take things in entirely the wrong direction.

An online forum, with its anonymity and (for most users) helpful gap between posts - allowing one to review posts and to compose and recompose a reply before sending it - can sometimes be a good place to have a discussion about one's suicidal thoughts. Then again, it can be the opposite. You can have feedback loops or situations where people with very strong opinions will make someone seeking help feel worse, and even attacked. In some cases people might be too accommodating, or accommodating in the wrong way, towards someone who needs guidance.

What I'm trying to say is, something like depression is too complex a subject to reliably handle in an online forum. The correct course of action is to encourage a depressed person to seek professional help, and if the threat of suicide seems imminent, inform the staff so that they (we) can see if there's an appropriate authority to inform about the situation.

There's also a much more mundane perspective: a personal crisis occurring during a conversation will entirely destroy that conversation, possibly even for a long period after the crisis is resolved. This, of course, is nowhere near as important as someone hurting themselves, but it's the one part of this that every participant (and especially the staff, of course) can influence. A person who feels the need to discuss their suicidal thoughts everywhere will end up sabotaging any number of conversations. Every thread they enter will become about them.

That would be a very easy price to pay, if it was true that those conversations with (and about) that person were actually reliably helpful. They're not, though. They are as likely to push that person into doing something stupid. Often the best case scenario is that they refrain from seeking professional help because they feel that the help from the forum is adequate, and that, already, is a very bad outcome.

Rather than have a forum permanently on standby to become someone's situation room, with potentially disastrous results, it is better to simply shut down any slide into that, and direct the person seeking help to somewhere they can get real help.

I predict that some people will disagree with the thoughts I've tried to express in this post. There are of course, various points here where someone else's (equally) subjective points of view might point to a different conclusion and a different response. That is often why the staff anywhere - including here - will prefer to give the more objective or generally accepted points. If I think that something is morally wrong and I know that it's against the law, as a member of staff I would feel more comfortable telling someone that what they're doing is against the law than I would be with giving them my moral position. Taking a more neutral, objective, and general point on which to base a decision is a reasonable policy because it (hopefully) has most people agreeing with the decision or at least accepting it, rather than going into a larger philosophical debate. It's more convenient for everyone involved.

What I seem to be getting from that rather long post is.

Discussions of suicide inevitably lead to advise on depression and how to deal with, people getting that advise online is a bad idea, as beyond "speak to a professional" the advise recive online is highly likely to either make things worse or maybe keep things from improving.

And the mods fall back on the legal because it's the easier to explain of the two reasons for not allowing such discussion.

edited 20th May '16 7:25:11 PM by Silasw

I see. Other than the fact that not all suicides are depression related, I understand that position.

That and only suicidal depression is banned from the site as an issue to discuss. And suicide is the only form of self harm banned from discussion.

What I get from this is you only have a straight knife to deal with a curvy issue. You have to draw a line somewhere.

I think that is an incorrect read. For one thing, additional support is never a bad thing. It can be a bad thing if it prevents a person from getting professional support. Simply cutting a person off from support itself can trigger a suicide. The above post does not imply that this is untrue as far as I can tell.

The legal situation on the other hand is a genuine risk. It is not just an excuse to avoid a difficult situation.

Support in the form of general friendship sure, but specific advise, there's a reason that all the professionals on here are cosntnstly falling back on "speak to a professional in meat space", because giving advise online to someone suffering with depression or suicidal desires is playing with fire.

Where do you draw the line between support and advice? Thinking about it, I don't think anyone should be giving advice, professional or otherwise. That would violate a lot of rules of psychological counselling.

And that's why the subject is banned. Because giving advise is a bad idea and the mods don't want people doing it.