There are a wide variety of users here, no doubt. We come from all walks of life, been through all sorts of different things. This is the common ground that all of our experiences have led us to.
There are a few things I want to say, in hopes of maybe bettering interactions between users who have different opinions
1. Pro-choice does not automally mean you do not value life. It means you agree people have a choice. If you choose to indenfity as pro-choice, you are also choosing to be supportive of people who have recovered and chose life. If you think all life is meaningless, and you think everyone on earth should be dead as a kindness, you are more pro-death then pro-choice anyway.
I'm not saying anybody here wouldn't support recovery, but I see a lot of people's opinions being present as "the way it is". You can express your own opinion, but you are not entitled to include the rest of us in them. If you feel a certain way about something, PLEASE share it with everyone! but DONT word it in a way that implies any conflicting opinion as being "wrong". Nobody should be censored, but you should still have to be delicate when choosing your words. Facts are facts, but how you feel about something is personal.
2. Concerning graphic images and links, I think they should not be allowed to be posted without a warning, and hidden behind a spoiler tag that you have to click to see. Not everyone is ok with seeing dead bodies and people dying. I am, but I still think it's inappropriate to assume everyone here is ok with seeing pictures of gore and death. I haven't seen any recently, but I've seen it before, so I figured i would mention that.
3. Not everything has to be negative, and not everything has to be positive. I would love to see a yin yang relationship between the two. If everything was all rainbows and sunshine here, then the people trapped in the darkness have less to relate to. There is a benefit to knowing you are not alone in your feelings. This also applies for positivity. If everything was all dark and morbid here, I personally wouldn't want to keep coming back. I like to escape those feelings sometimes, spending every moment in anguish is exhausting. Keep in mind though, when you see people smiling and laughing, they are still in pain. Everyone deals with their emotions differently, so please don't ever feel out of place because you think you're not "negative" or "postive" enough. This is a safe place for all of us.
4. I've been trying to think of ways we could maybe bring a bit of structure. As in, a scheduled thread on a specific day/week/whatever that we all can look forward to. The introduce yourself thread is a good example of this. Maybe on mondays, have a thread that encourages people to share their weekend. Maybe on Tuesday, do a snow&tell thread. Ideas can be worked out and agreed upon later...but I think this would help create and strengthen bonds between users. I've seen it done in many other forums and sites and groups I've been apart of, and it adds layers to the community. It can be easy to forget we all have so much in common when you only see one side of a person. I've seen this in the game threads here, you see a side of users that humanize their username a little more. This is obviously a huge work load for the mods, one they may not be staffed for, so it's up to them. There is nothing stopping us from doing this ourselves, but making it official would be best. If I'm the only one who cares or has interest in stuff like this, sorry for making you read this last point LOL
At the end of the day, we are all here for the same reason. Don't concern yourself with trying to appease the majority opinion here, concern yourself with the users themselves. The potential this site has is nearly unlimited, I only wish to start exploring some of its possibilities.
There are a few things I want to say, in hopes of maybe bettering interactions between users who have different opinions
1. Pro-choice does not automally mean you do not value life. It means you agree people have a choice. If you choose to indenfity as pro-choice, you are also choosing to be supportive of people who have recovered and chose life. If you think all life is meaningless, and you think everyone on earth should be dead as a kindness, you are more pro-death then pro-choice anyway.
I'm not saying anybody here wouldn't support recovery, but I see a lot of people's opinions being present as "the way it is". You can express your own opinion, but you are not entitled to include the rest of us in them. If you feel a certain way about something, PLEASE share it with everyone! but DONT word it in a way that implies any conflicting opinion as being "wrong". Nobody should be censored, but you should still have to be delicate when choosing your words. Facts are facts, but how you feel about something is personal.
2. Concerning graphic images and links, I think they should not be allowed to be posted without a warning, and hidden behind a spoiler tag that you have to click to see. Not everyone is ok with seeing dead bodies and people dying. I am, but I still think it's inappropriate to assume everyone here is ok with seeing pictures of gore and death. I haven't seen any recently, but I've seen it before, so I figured i would mention that.
3. Not everything has to be negative, and not everything has to be positive. I would love to see a yin yang relationship between the two. If everything was all rainbows and sunshine here, then the people trapped in the darkness have less to relate to. There is a benefit to knowing you are not alone in your feelings. This also applies for positivity. If everything was all dark and morbid here, I personally wouldn't want to keep coming back. I like to escape those feelings sometimes, spending every moment in anguish is exhausting. Keep in mind though, when you see people smiling and laughing, they are still in pain. Everyone deals with their emotions differently, so please don't ever feel out of place because you think you're not "negative" or "postive" enough. This is a safe place for all of us.
4. I've been trying to think of ways we could maybe bring a bit of structure. As in, a scheduled thread on a specific day/week/whatever that we all can look forward to. The introduce yourself thread is a good example of this. Maybe on mondays, have a thread that encourages people to share their weekend. Maybe on Tuesday, do a snow&tell thread. Ideas can be worked out and agreed upon later...but I think this would help create and strengthen bonds between users. I've seen it done in many other forums and sites and groups I've been apart of, and it adds layers to the community. It can be easy to forget we all have so much in common when you only see one side of a person. I've seen this in the game threads here, you see a side of users that humanize their username a little more. This is obviously a huge work load for the mods, one they may not be staffed for, so it's up to them. There is nothing stopping us from doing this ourselves, but making it official would be best. If I'm the only one who cares or has interest in stuff like this, sorry for making you read this last point LOL
At the end of the day, we are all here for the same reason. Don't concern yourself with trying to appease the majority opinion here, concern yourself with the users themselves. The potential this site has is nearly unlimited, I only wish to start exploring some of its possibilities.
