# Another forum? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [November 9, 2001, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-forum/92394 "2001-11-09T08:42:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2001, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-forum/92394/1 "2001-11-09T08:42:59Z")
This is just a suggestion. Maybe there could be a forum for in-depth discussion of personal problems. Divorce, death in the family, intervention and so on, are not always subjects for the Pit, but they’re not M&P either. Call it Group Therapy or Hearts and Hands or something? ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2001, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-forum/92394/2 "2001-11-09T11:57:47Z")
Speaking only for myself, I really don’t think we want to encourage that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2001, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-forum/92394/3 "2001-11-09T12:45:13Z")
Not arguing, but why not? ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2001, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-forum/92394/4 "2001-11-09T13:46:42Z")
Seems to me that a forum like you described would be legally and ethically questionable, since it’s pitched as a “group therapy” or “counseling” forum. Psychologists, social workers, and counselors need to be licensed, and there’s a reason for that. The Teeming Millions are, in general, untrained and unlicensed. I realize that you could make a good argument that a Group Therapy Forum is equivalent to friends talking over personal problems, and NOT equivalent to counseling in a professional setting (but, on the other hand, one could also make the opposite argument). However, at the very least you’d have to be very careful about how the forum is set up and what kind of discussion/advice is kosher and what is not. Since this could lead to some very sticky ethical hairsplitting (to mix my metaphors), it seems to me it’d be better to err on the side of caution and “not encourage that sort of thing.” Just MHO, of course. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2001, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-forum/92394/5 "2001-11-09T14:00:43Z")
Oh, and another thought: Were such a forum started, any bets on how long it would take before someone to registers as **depressed\_guy** and posts something like this? > [@](#): > > i’m so depressed i think i will kill myself. > i don’t want to live > i have the razor blade in my hand now > just a little bit farther and i will die > look at the pretty drops of blood Is he trolling? A forum like that would be ideal troll territory. Is he serious? Maybe so; isn’t that what a forum like that is for? I don’t even want to _think_ about potential consequences here. Again, you could argue that things like this could happen anyway in MPSIMS, and the benefits of having a “Group Therapy” forum outweigh the disadvantages, but I’m envisioning a really bad worst-case scenario here. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2001, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-forum/92394/6 "2001-11-09T15:12:30Z")
Another reason I don’t like people posting personal information at the SDMB is that we’ve had several requests in the past of the type “oh no, someone I know is going to start reading here, could you please remove all my posts where I discuss subject X?” ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2001, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-forum/92394/7 "2001-11-09T22:15:40Z")
All right, I accept that. It was just an idea that came to me late at night. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2001, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-forum/92394/8 "2001-11-09T22:19:56Z")
Occasionally we have people who decide to air their dirty laundry, so to speak, in our existing fora. It almost always gets ugly. Let’s leave it at that. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2001, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-forum/92394/9 "2001-11-09T22:47:13Z")
[sub]actually, that’s the reason I was suggesting it…so discussions of that type wouldn’t clog up MPSIMS or go immediately to the ground in the Pit…but you’re the mods…[/sub]