How are you ensuring the Mods follow this automatic bannishment when some of them appear to find it ok for members to say statements like these in arguments?

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-Fetish Group - 'The one I love, I hate, but the sex is great'

I can't say that I believe cutting, for example, is a good idea, as such, but if I were a cutter at this point (which, to an extent, I am), I might take offence to people who supported my way of dealing with stress being banned, warned, whatever.

Can we still support the cause, without supporting the action. I mean, look at the Sticky in TD&EI, there are pages upon pages of stories of why people cut. Many cite simple stress relief as one of, if not the only reason they perform such an act. So, while we are here, on LW, we're still allowed to cut, but we aren't allowed to say it was a good thing?

Having said that, I can see where you're coming from, David. We hardly want to have a forum that supports suicide. If a comment of the aforementioned nature was posted in the depression forum, then certainly, I would support the member's banning. But in, for example, DT&RM, where the atmosphere is a little more 'relaxed', the issue becomes fuzzy.

It'll be interesting to see where this goes. And if it does go anywhere, it will be interesting to see how well it is upheld. I've seen members call people "fucking idiots" because they cut. The greatest punishment they got was a topic full of angry, but nice people taking them up on the issue. I can safely say that the member in question did not care.

All I can say, really, is "Sure. Sounds like a good idea. Nice to see that someone is laying down the law." All that I would wish for now is that that law is properly upheld by the mods, and such.

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Routinely sucking the cosmic fugue off our fingers.

(Edited by sexy dean at 6:34 pm on July 13, 2005)

is someone trying to hide something?

here is a recent topic i found myself in, i replied and had my reply removed by the mods.

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Quote: from Kareh at 8:31 pm on June 20, 2005

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 I know you're all probably fed up of me but oh well. I tried to commit suicide but I couldnt do it. Once I stopped breathing my friends walked into my room to see me because I was off school today they wanted to check I was ok.  I'm going to try again. They've just left. Im scared they'll tell my mum. Im trying again. Now.

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Thats nice, stop typing and get on with it then.

i think that if you want to you should go kill yourself, its far from me to want to stop you, the quuestiong is do you want to, if you do then hurry along and get it over with. if you dont then listen up.

this is your metaphorical kick in the butt. LIFE IS sh*t!!, there is no changing it, it gets better and it gets worse, what your going though now is tiny conpared to what somepeople have been though and what you are likly  to go though in the future. you can accept this or you can go on bitching about it. in the end there are only a few facts that will provide you with any comfort at all.
1) what you are feeling now, will go away
2) if you was gonna kill yourself you would have done it already and not come on here talking about it
3) what you have is most likly not clinical depression and more just teenages hormonal imbalance

Other than that, wake up this is life, get on with it or get it over with, dont sit arond moaning.

P.S. if you had posted a topic asking for help with your problems rather than asking if you should kill yourself, i may have been a lil nicer.

ManicD  

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As you can clearly see, my original words encouraged them to do what they were saying they wanted to do. but i belive i justified my words well. a post like that did not ask for help yet stated they were going to do it. no matter what anyone said. this type of post is clearly attention seeking, and the poster had no intentions of commiting suicide at that point. if they did want to they would be doing the act and not hanging around to read the replys to their topic.

my words were designed to put across the point that nobody can stop her and nobody really wants to stop her. i certainly would not drive across the country to stop her and i doubt anyone else hear would put themselves out to stop her. my words enforced this and gave her a real veiw of life (which can be tough sometimes), i also said that life will get better. and finished by advising that the girl should post her problems rather than trying to draw attention to herself by meaning less posts like that.

futher more i followed up on that topic and still currently do so, i make sure that my whole point is understood and that the person knows that life gets better.

now tell me that what i said is detremental to the well being of the girl in question.

ManicD

EDIT: one of the questions in the LW Mod exam is about how a mod would moderate on LW's seemingly
'Black and white' rules.... David, arent you enforcing black and white moderating by tighting up the rules so much? i agree something needed to be done but i belive that you and the mods may have gone a little bit too far.

(Edited by ManicDepressant at 4:07 am on July 15, 2005)

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This is the internet,Where men are men,Women are men and 15 Yr old girls are the FBI
The Friends Guide to Understanding and Helping Self Harmers

a) as far as censorship in this topic goes, it is either because people were spamming and not taking the topic seriously as it is, or people were banned, we arent going around deleting replies of people who disagree.

b) As far as that example you posted that is really grey area.  I know what you mean about saying things like that in some instaces, like "Maybe you should kill yourself but if you do you wont be able to....blah blah blah" and I wouldnt delete something like that.  However I can see why yours was.  "I think you should kill yourself" is just woah.  And its really not necessary to make your point.  I would have just edited that line out, however.

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Classified.

Because the fact that they are posting here means that they are actually looking for support, seeking it out. They might not have the faculties or confidence to seek it out in the real world, so they come here, desperately clinging to the hope that someone, somewhere, is going to tell them that everything is going to be alright, that somehow, someway, they'll find a reason to keep going.

Then you go in and say "I think you should kill yourself because your stupid and will never accomplish anything in life anyway."

The site is about supporting these people, not judging them and deciding for yourself that you're doing them a favor by calling them worthless shits who not only shouldn't hope for better things, but that they should slit their own throats. I don't see any contest justifying this behavior as valid.

This policy will be enforced by the moderators, especially if I see it. I'll make damn sure that someone isn't getting 'off' because they aren't "that bad" or because they are "popular" or even because it will make the mods look bad to ban them. People have been saying that the forum needs to be cleaned up, that the forum is going to hell, that spamming fucks are one hundred times more prevalent than useful contributing members, and so I hope you all aren't really going to complain so much when a reasonable effort to fix these percieved problems finally comes around.

If you're not creative enough to get shits and giggles through tactics outside of telling depressed people to kill themselves or to kill other people, then that's an issue you'll have to deal with and perhaps you should leave. It's not like I want singleminded idiots who can't find any better way to entertain themselves here than to harass and make the members here that are most in need of help feel even worse off to stay around, anyway.

Manic, I don't believe that your post should have been deleted. Don't assume that all mod actions are unanimously agreed on, we aren't the borg. We have differences of opinion, we have differences in the way we view constructive vs. destructive posts. I really don't think David has gone too far. He could disallow negativity or something equally outrageous. The simple fact of the matter is he is trying to prevent what I described earlier in my post, and that this is pretty much the only way to do that.

Edit: This is not to say that replies have to be happy go lucky and "everything will be better" corny stuff, I thought your reply was good and straightforward to be honest, and I'm not the only moderator of that opinion. I can see why it'd be mistaken for something worse, but I really thought your reply was appropriate.

(Edited by medjai at 10:36 pm on July 14, 2005)

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Who dares wins. - Special Air Service

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Telling someone to go self-harm is quite different than talking about self-harming in a supportive manner, myystic.

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True. My intent was to state that it's certainly a fuzzy line, though.

Id est:
People cut for various reasons. I believe it to be a very valid coping mechanism. I guess I just have trouble trying to enforce the attitude of 'You Need Help' whilst trying to remain a friendly figure. I can't say "Please don't cut" to someone whose best option for stress relief is cutting. And as I know little of them personally, I feel it fair to trust their judgement.

But, granted, I do know where the line comes. We shouldn't be telling people to cut, and we certainly shouldn't be doing so if they haven't even raised the possibility themselves.

Although, I've been skirting that fuzzy line. I realise that this topic is directed at people using "go kill yourself" as an argumentative feature. That I want to see stop, and I will support it all the way.

Just expressing my thoughts on the matter...

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Routinely sucking the cosmic fugue off our fingers.