Hi all,
Recently, we have seen an increase in the number of posts related to people’s struggles with mental health and suicide.
The ShanniiWrites Forums are very open about mental health. Most of you know about the stuff I’ve gone through in my life and I share my struggles and updates often on the Forums. So, it would be extremely hypocritical for me to say you aren’t allowed to make posts like this.
Plus, I understand the benefit of venting. It’s cathartic! Talking to others can also help you to find a support network that can help you through this difficult time. If that’s something that could be helpful to you, we would never want to stop it.
However, please be considerate of others. On the ShanniiWrites Forums, we believe that your rights end where another person’s rights begin. So, I have created a few rules surrounding these posts that I would ask you to follow.
-
Please Start Your Post Off With a Trigger Warning. This will warn people who may become distressed by your post, so they can steer clear away from it. We wouldn’t want to hurt someone else in order to help you, after all! With that in mind, please be specific about the triggering content. Don’t just say “this post may trigger.” Please say “this post contains references to suicide and/or self-harm” or whatever the post contains. As you may already know, we are not all triggered by the same things, so transparency will help people to understand if they are able to read on. It also helps our leaders and mods, as some of us (myself included) are triggered by specific topics. So, it helps us to know if we can deal with moderation on that post or if we should pass it on to someone who will be able to cope better.
-
No Triggering or Clickbait Titles. Titles will be the hardest thing to get right on this type of post. Please do not put any triggering content in the title. Also, do not name your title anything like “Omg you have to read this”, as it may prompt people to open it when they really aren’t ready for the content.
-
Please Do Not Post Details about How to Commit Suicide or Self Harm. This goes against our PG-13 guidelines. We do not want anyone on the Forums teaching others how to commit suicide. This is very serious and very important.
-
Please Take the Thread Seriously. This applies to everyone involved. Anyone posting on the thread should not trivialise the topic. I understand that that’s how some of you may cope, but it’s a very serious topic. If you need to have a laugh and a joke, we can find many other topics to make you laugh! Or, I suggest that you keep that kinda dark humour to a close-knit group of friends.
-
One Bump Per Day. I understand that you want as many people to see your mental health post as possible and you may want all of the help you can get. However, this is about being considerate to others again. Imagine if a thread is really distressing you and it keeps popping up in your feed every five mins. That would be very upsetting.
-
Do Not Use Any Unrelated User Tags. Don’t tag @/Announcements or @/Discussions. Don’t tag @/Writers or @/Artists. Leave specific RP tags alone. If you need a group of people who are open and willing to listen to what you have to say, I’m sure we can create a Mental Health tag. Until then, though, the people in the other user tags did not sign up for suicide or mental health threads. It is not fair to them.
I hope these rules make sense. Most of them are covered in the main Forum Rules, anyway, but I wanted to reiterate.