This site has changed my life for the better, for the short period i have left on this planet. I love this place, and i love this community - mods and the users. However, everyone has their grievances and I figure this is something that might resonate with other users.
One of my frustrations sometimes with the forum layout is how often the "Suicide Discussion" subforum is kind of a catch-all for both emotional support AND actual planning for CTB. I am just shooting the shit here, but what if:
1. Suicide Discussion gets a subforum called "Methods". This would be a method specific discussion subforum. Everyone has access to methods from the start of their account but
2. only users who have been on the site for 1 week or longer get to post in Methods. The presumption being that they would have had enough time to READ enough of Methods subforum to answer many of the commonly asked questions.
3. Methods has the stickied resource threads still, juts like the Suicide Discussion forum does now. Maybe all the other threads within (night-night, hanging, etc.) are also stickied for easier access.
The intended results:
1. As above, there won't be redundant comments that clog up the megathreads, or redundant new threads that are repeated ad nauseum
2. Methods-specific discussions will be more focused, hopefully will generate more high quality content since people will be able to pay attention more easily to what is in there.
3. Everyone still gets access to reading everything, but we get to more selectively curate what goes in the methods discussion.
4. Searches that are for method specific info will now be contained in a method specific domain. This leads to higher quality results.
Some obvious pitfalls i can identify are that
1. People can just point to the methods discussion and say "see, these people are encouraging suicide by teaching folks how to do it and get the materials and etc." My counter to this is that the suicide discussion would become much more of a venting and emotional support type of discussion, and you could easily point to that instead. People here obviously have good intentions and it shows up every time someone comes on and starts talking about the problems they are facing in their life.
2. People might just post their method questions in "suicide discussion". Or they might accidentally start doing it in comment sections of threads in suicide discussion while they're juts talking about the subject matter at hand. For the former, i would say just report those threads and delete them, and explain the reasoning. For the latter, i think its no worse of a situation than the redundant questions we have in method megathreads or in the suicide discussion subforum generally. I think people who are method focused will ultimately find it more useful to have that part of SS more curated than it currently is.
Im sure there are more problems but my post is long enough and i can't think of anything else at the moment. Hopefully we get some lively discussion about this, because ofc i think this idea is kind of interesting.
One of my frustrations sometimes with the forum layout is how often the "Suicide Discussion" subforum is kind of a catch-all for both emotional support AND actual planning for CTB. I am just shooting the shit here, but what if:
1. Suicide Discussion gets a subforum called "Methods". This would be a method specific discussion subforum. Everyone has access to methods from the start of their account but
2. only users who have been on the site for 1 week or longer get to post in Methods. The presumption being that they would have had enough time to READ enough of Methods subforum to answer many of the commonly asked questions.
3. Methods has the stickied resource threads still, juts like the Suicide Discussion forum does now. Maybe all the other threads within (night-night, hanging, etc.) are also stickied for easier access.
The intended results:
1. As above, there won't be redundant comments that clog up the megathreads, or redundant new threads that are repeated ad nauseum
2. Methods-specific discussions will be more focused, hopefully will generate more high quality content since people will be able to pay attention more easily to what is in there.
3. Everyone still gets access to reading everything, but we get to more selectively curate what goes in the methods discussion.
4. Searches that are for method specific info will now be contained in a method specific domain. This leads to higher quality results.
Some obvious pitfalls i can identify are that
1. People can just point to the methods discussion and say "see, these people are encouraging suicide by teaching folks how to do it and get the materials and etc." My counter to this is that the suicide discussion would become much more of a venting and emotional support type of discussion, and you could easily point to that instead. People here obviously have good intentions and it shows up every time someone comes on and starts talking about the problems they are facing in their life.
2. People might just post their method questions in "suicide discussion". Or they might accidentally start doing it in comment sections of threads in suicide discussion while they're juts talking about the subject matter at hand. For the former, i would say just report those threads and delete them, and explain the reasoning. For the latter, i think its no worse of a situation than the redundant questions we have in method megathreads or in the suicide discussion subforum generally. I think people who are method focused will ultimately find it more useful to have that part of SS more curated than it currently is.
Im sure there are more problems but my post is long enough and i can't think of anything else at the moment. Hopefully we get some lively discussion about this, because ofc i think this idea is kind of interesting.
