What about a separate section for other mental illnesses?

[pinkwafer]

Comorbidity is obviously common with Social Anxiety, depression, generalised anxiety are the common ones, but would it be helpful for a specific section for members to discuss each? at the moment, people just post it in the Social Anxiety section...

[David K]

I think it's better this way. The more sections we have, the fewer people visit each one. You end up with a dead 'bipolar' room where only people with bipolar bother to go, and which is so quiet they never get any replies, and feel terrible and lonely. Having everyone together is much nicer I think.

[MLP James]

^ I agree with this, but maybe there could be a section for other issues in general? Ones that don't specifically relate to SA, physical or mental.

[David K]

The description reads 'This is the main area for Social Anxiety and health-related topics and help' which I think is good. Maybe we should add the word 'other' between 'and' and 'health' to make it clearer. I really dislike the idea of splitting the room.

[David K]

Originally Posted by Amatus

You could start a thread for other mental illnesses?

I think it's helpful when people read about issues that they don't personally have, it makes us all more empathic. Why voluntarily segregate ourselves?

[MLP James]

^^ Yeah, that makes sense, but it's just the fact that it's called 'The Social Anxiety Room' means that people may not feel like they can post about other things, especially newcomers.

I think this forum is fine the way it is by the way. I think we'd be okay without the addition of another section, I, at least, have never felt like I can't post about something not relating to SA.

[Amber Fyre]

Originally Posted by David K

The more sections we have, the fewer people visit each one. You end up with a dead 'bipolar' room where only people with bipolar bother to go, and which is so quiet they never get any replies

This is the main problem with the suggestion. If there were thousands more posters on the forum perhaps you could justify splitting it and all sections would still get lots of attention. But this is a relatively small community so I think if there are too many sections certain ones end up getting ignored.

When people post in the SA room about other problems they usually get replies and it isn't an 'SA only' section (although perhaps this can be made clearer). I don't know if there is a need to divide different problems up, especially as different disorders often overlap and one can impact another.

[Duke of Prunes]

Megathreads suck (they always turn into off-topic circlejerks between 3-4 people, and anything remotely on-topic just gets buried under the cliquey shite), and separate sub-forums for everything suck (they just go neglected, because people don't bother going into sections that aren't relevant to them, and in this case, with the exception of other anxiety disorders and depression, there's maybe a handful of people for each disorder at most).

The best way to go is either to just leave things the way they are, or make a separate sub-forum that covers all non-SA problems (you could call it ‘other disorders’ or something).

[black_mamba]

Cliquey shite = socialising. No need to have that attitude.

[Duke of Prunes]

Originally Posted by black_mamba

Cliquey shite = socialising. No need to have that attitude.

But does it really belong outside of The Lounge (or other non-SA areas)?

[black_mamba]

You can't curtail SA people doing the very thing they crave just because the joke happens to be triggered off by a non-lounge topic. Makes no sense to me.

[Duke of Prunes]

Originally Posted by black_mamba

You can't curtail SA people doing the very thing they crave just because the joke happens to be triggered off by a non-lounge topic. Makes no sense to me.

I don't think anybody minds a joke, but pages and pages of inane chatter after it just serve to derail the thread. Even without said circlejerking, megathreads are still a pain to navigate.

[black_mamba]

Wow.

Calling other people's socialising a circle jerk is rude. That's all I'm saying.

[Duke of Prunes]

No more rude than burying an on-topic post with a barrage of completely off-topic ones. The mods here seem to split/merge threads all the time because of that, and megathreads in the SA section would just lead to more of that (more annoyance for the majority of people trying to read the threads, more work for the mods, etc).

[MLP James]

In a way, threads going off topic all the time can be a positive thing, it makes the forum feel much more casual and friendly. If the moderators got really uppity about off topic discussion it might make people nervous about posting certain things. Considering how many people on this forum have trouble socialising, (that is to say all of them) disallowing any discussion that's off topic could make things worse. People could get a lot more nervous if they always had to abide by overly strict rules and are made to feel like the mods are always watching them.

I'm a member of another forum (not SA related) where the mods are very strict, there's even a character limit for posts, and while it's members are generally very friendly and the forum has an overall positive mood, I just don't feel the same posting there as I do here. It really feels to me like SAUK is an easy-going kind of forum, which makes it a lot easier for me to feel comfortable posting here.

[David K]

I'm often the one instigating the 'circle jerk'. I probably need to have a word with myself.

[Duke of Prunes]

Banning all off-topicness would do more harm than good in general, but sometimes it really does get out of control, and while that might be okay in The Lounge, it would just get in the way if it happened in a serious, on-topic megathread.

Say we had a thread called ‘ALL DEPRESSION POSTS HERE’ in the SA section – would it really be a good thing for it to be constantly derailed by completely unrelated chatter, while the posts that actually have something to do with depression (potentially from people who are in distress) keep getting pushed back to the previous page to make way for said chatter?

With real threads, at least any off-topic stuff is on a small enough scale that you can still keep track of the thread.

[David K]

^ Agreed. Megathreads aren't very user-friendly. I think the system we have now works well, and think that it could be made clearer that all health-related posts are acceptable in the SA room.

[MLP James]

^^ You're talking about something that never happens on this forum. I've never seen a thread about serious personal problems get really badly derailed. Name one where that happened. It only happens on the less serious threads, where people really don't care all that much if the topic changes.

I for one enjoy circle jerking. (And threads going off topic.)

[pinkwafer]

The only reason I thought it be helpful is this...


Pretend I have problems starting fights with random people. This post will quickly get shifted away from page one on the SAUK discussion bit, because no one will reply. I figured more chance of replies if in a sub-section bit.

I am unsure how many people exactly use this forum, but it does seem quite popular?

[David K]

^ Why do you think that no one would reply? I'm sure that people would. If that post was in a quiet sub-section it would be seen by fewer people.