Whenever people in positions of low-level authority start talking like this, and especially as their explanations become more and more long-winded, increasingly I hear it coming out as a single, simple sentence: “our bosses told us to halt anything that looks like it will result in them getting sued.”
I would say it was more of an opinion such as “am I alone here?” IF, and IF it was established that the OP was experiencing something unusual, then I would say it warranted closing.
Jesus, this place is becoming ridiculous.
F thne offend thee pluck t out.
Wow. I thought we were devoted to fighting ignorance, not perpetuating it.
I’m going to love all the shutdown of threads where people have the thought of breaking the rules. I mean, obviously, if you have a bad thought, you must be crazy and might really act on it.
Another retarded closing, with lame post-hoc rationalization. It’s pretty depressing.
Not manic-depressing, mind you (that might get the thread closed), but just regular, “look at the over-reaction”-type depressing.
Agreed. I’m not sure if it’s some sort of attempt by the mods, or even worse, the management to “avoid liability” (laughable at best – if it’s seriously a legal issue, fire your lawyer, because the advice you are getting is the crappiest sort of zero-risk-tolerance idiocy practiced by the worst-qualified fourth tier lawyers, and I’m not saying this to be funny) or, even worse, to try and make the board more “responsible” to the mainstream or some similar goal.
To me, it seems to be a gross overestimation of the importance of the board. Seriously, no one is killing themselves over what they said, nor is anyone going to use the board as a lawyer or doctor or therapist. If they do, they have other problems that aren’t going to be solved by closing a thread.
It is still the site’s motto that it’s been fighting ignorance since whenever. There is nothing more ignorant than undeserved and arrogant paternalism. And every time you close one of these threads, it does nothing but push the board a little closer to the kind of community you find on white power boards or similar sites, where everyone is gently reminded to be on the same page, and discussion is shut down when it goes too far from the approved topics. Yes, that might be a little strong, but seriously, the sort of micromanaging going on is simply inane.
Given the rest of the internet (Gawker, Yahoo, 4chan, Slashdot, etc), which have all avoided being sued for billions of dollars and whom are all much much much bigger, this sort of touchy-feely mommy dearest maintenance of topics is embarrassing. The days where the SDMB was one of the top internet sites have been gone for over a decade, which is about 300 years in real time.
If it’s posters who keep complaining about this shit, ignore them or ban them.
If the mods are getting overzealous, reel them back in.
If management is sitting there quaking in their boots for fear of a lawsuit like a senior citizen driving through a middle class black neighborhood, well, wow. Get over it.
Either way, there seem to be a lot of mostly reasonable adults here who don’t need the board to protect them from bad thoughts or to counsel them in regards to their medical, mental, or legal issues. We don’t need a another mommy, and if some posters are looking for mommy, they should do it somewhere else, instead of dragging the place down to the lowest denominator.
(And again, I say this with complete seriousness, if there are “legal reasons” or a lawyer making some guidelines about what sort of content is appropriate, they are literally incompetent. If there are no lawyers making guidelines, I suggest management reads the many many threads on what kind of idiots pro se/non-lawyers are, and act appropriately by hiring someone who can give an actual estimate of your legal liability – which in my opinion and in a realistic reading of the law is more or less zero – rather than a guideline which is equivalent to wearing a helmet and pads at all times in your anti-microbial bubble.)
ETA: and just because I am still annoyed, who gives a fuck if the OP of that thread actually needs mental help? There is absolutely nothing anyone on this board will be able to do for an anonymous poster, nor should the board or posters feel the need to do anything. It’s just goddamned silly in every way.
I’d have thought a “Get your psychotic musings off your chest” thread would have been akin to a public service?
Better out than in, and that.
Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?
Will someone give me the word to describe the state of mind which produced these utterances?
Do you understand the difference between a fantasy, a compulsion, and an unbidden thought? I don’t think you do. People get weird and sometimes disturbing random thoughts without being even remotely compelled or desirous of completing the action, and being in perfectly normal mental health. Nobody WANTS to pour boiling water on a dog or feels like hidden voices are telling them to.
I get that the mod culture is so paranoid of litigation that actions are sometimes knee-jerk, but really, if you took off your mod hat and read this as a normal poster, it would seem like any other random didjaever idiosyncrasy thread. You just let Cesario run around justifying child sex for months, but people can’t talk about weird thoughts of things that they’d never want to do?
It’d be one thing if the mods were genuinely solicitous of that OP’s well being: expressing concern but apologizing that this forum isn’t the right place; offering some links to mental health resources in that thread or even as a sticky; and perhaps even PM’ing her to that effect.
Instead we have a bureaucratic slamming down of the little window trellis, with a mumbled “you’ve got problems, lady, we can’t help ya here, why doncha go bother someone else.”
Comes across as a really ignorant approach toward mental health, if nothing else: we can discuss (with myriad disclaimers) oozing carbuncles, vaginal discharges and distended rectums. But a possible worry over one’s mental health? Now that’s just icky: go 'way!
It’s not even mental health; it’s completely normal for people to have occasional bizarre thoughts that they know they’d never act upon & never feel compelled to. It would only be abnormal if they occurred so often that they started doubting whether they were right or wrong. This was not not one of those situations or threads. 30 seconds of reading would have demonstrated that.
<nevermind>
I just don’t know how you can read the OP in that thread and take it seriously. What about the thread where we are burning people at the stake? Or buggering them with a burnt stick?
Perhaps EmAnJ can enlighten us as to her intention. That is if she isn’t in jail for animal cruelty or spousal abuse.
While I do see where the SDMB is coming from, I think they are over reading and overreacting. How many times has 4chan been sued?
As I said in a PM to Czarcasm, not only are the kinds of thoughts that were being discussed in that thread normal, but closing the thread and telling the OP to get psychiatric help perpetuates the stigmatization of people struggling with anxiety disorders. Thanks, Czarcasm. People dealing with anxiety disorders need more help feeling weird and awful.
“I am not programmed to respond in that area!”
http://vampjac.com/lj/pulchritude/2008/Trek_TOS/TOS_Alyce_Andrece.jpg
First cousin to those “guards” a while back who let an assault take place right in front of them, precisely because of such fears. Eventually we’ll all be restricted to our own domiciles, fearful to even step out our own front doors because we might squash a bug and then have an attorney appear (in a puff of black smoke) and serve us with a lawsuit on behalf of his dependents (all 10,000 of them, back in the ant hill).
I am seriously considering starting a thread on my experiences of mental illness and the ways of controlling psychotic thoughts/impulses that I use - should I bother? I am really keen on demystifying mental illness - ya know fighting ignorance and all - but there is a chance that someone my post about needing help. Would my thread be closed if that happens? personally I think the best way to deal with that eventuality would be to offer support and perhaps assist in the direction they need to look for medical help (It is amazing how few people are aware of what psychiatric services are available). Would “here is a list of crisis line numbers and a link to page of mental health services in your state” type of information pass?
Having read the OP in question, it does not seem to me like she is talking about mere “goofy” or “irrational” thoughts that we all get sometimes. She is discussing thoughts that genuinely disturb her. I further think that she is serious in asking whether she should have herself committed.
And how do we know the Mods didn’t pm her with something caring and helpful? The last time I got a thread closed because of insanity , they did indeed send a kind, caring e-mail suggesting I seek professional help.
Yes, the irrational thoughts that are part of an anxiety disorder do indeed scare the person having them, but as people said in the thread before it was prematurely locked, that is common in anxiety disorders and doesn’t indicate that the person having them is psychotic or crazy. It’s a symptom of anxiety disorders like a clenched stomach or pounding heart. Czarcasm and the Powers That Be here are displaying a distressing lack of understanding of how excessive anxiety works (although I shouldn’t be surprised - the stigma persists). I really did expect better from a board that makes claims about fighting ignorance - it would do a lot of good and no bad for people who suffer from irrational thoughts to know that it is common and not psychotic.
The OP and the following discussion seemed pretty lighthearted to me. I honestly do not see why the thread had to be shut down. Talk about an overreaction.
I’ll just chime in to agree with the majority here - as far as I can tell, these irrational thoughts are a pretty common thing for quite normal people. Please just disclaim responsibility, warn people not to give or expect specific medical advice, and re-open the thread.