I think there's some general subjects we all agree are triggering such as abuse and rape. No one's asking for people to not post about their specific, obscure trigger in the box, just some general, fairly universal triggers
I would like the front page to at least be mostly free of explicitly triggery statements. Thread titles are usually a lot less triggery than thread content, but profile posts are "content", and tend to actually contain the stuff that would set people off. I mean, I think my default is to just say "the existence of forums with trigger warning things does in fact imply a request to try to keep such content in such forums, in general".
That said, if anyone can find out the name of that one dinosaur-themed TV show that was apparently playing a lot during one poster's abuse, we should totally make an explicit forum rule against mentioning it in the chat box just because it would be a humorously ridiculous special case.
I know. But what counts? Is mentioning the existence them of okay? Is mentioning media containing them okay? Is mentioning that one of those things happened to you okay? Is mentioning that you feel fucked up by some discussion of those things okay? These aren't gotcha hypotheticals, these are things that I would genuinely feel was violating the policy by mentioning. Also, I still don't know what kinds of posts you are talking about.
Why does any of that need to be happening in the specific area of the forum where people can't avoid it if they need to for their own health and safety? That's literally the only part of the forum where things are unavoidable. I would think that given the unavoidable nature of the status box, the number of topics that are okay to post about in it will be (lightly) restricted.
And I would think all of those could possibly be against (the media one is a bit more ambiguos, depends on if you're actually talking about the abuse in the thing imo) that sort of policy and all of those could have either vent or discussion threads where they could be warned for and/or spoilered Personally, I can recall seeing users vent about being suicidal in the chatbox and occasional discussion of abuse, both of which could be put in threads and then linked in the box. I don't think anyone's going to be overly strict about this so there's not really a need to go over every hypothetical scenario. But as a general policy, it would be nice
Alright, the specific post I was thinking about was one about the sexualization of children, and observation about how creepy it was parents do that. I don't remember who posted it. I read extremely quickly. I was taught to scan in uni, so my eyes drift over a page and pick out strong phrases. The second kintsugi loads, I scan the chatbox to see if anyone is sad or needs a boosting message, and from there evaluate whether I've got the spoons to do that. What I was thinking is that there are some times when people post thoughts about really triggering things on the front page, where they can't be avoided, and it would be far better served to make a thread to discuss it. Like it might be nicknamed kintwitter, but unlike twitter you don't pick whose stuff you see.
I don't see much point in having Designated Spaces if we can't say "hey, can we make an effort to contain these things to these spaces?" See also: when people start going on about fandoms in the shoutbox, sometimes someone will make a thread to keep from clogging the chat. There are a handful of users I know of that explicitly ask to be banned from forums where they get triggered because they don't want to stifle people, so it doesn't seem unreasonable to me for the return to be "can we please try and avoid posting triggering stuff in the shoutbox." Otherwise, what's the point of having subforums in the first place? It's not just a comfort issue, it is an organizational one. Spoiler: abuse mention (As a hypothetical, someone going "hey I think my mom might be abusive, should I make a thread?" is well within the range of 'okay to shoutbox' to me. Compare that to "I love being told I'm a stupid waste of space" or "I really wish my parents would stop yelling and hitting me", which are both explicit descriptions of abuse in action. The first one could probably be avoided entirely by making a thread and then posting the link.)
Because the short-post style and more immediate response is a lot easier for a lot of people in terms of spoons, effort and feeling like it's okay to post/not wasting other people's time/just screaming into the void without wanting or expecting a response. Yes, I know, you said that, what about it? Does this status count? This one? This one? (edit: i think this may be the one kathy was talking about) These still aren't gotchas, they're still things I would feel like I was violating such a guideline by posting. Yeah, and I do want to be clear that that is a suck thing and I don't want that to happen to you, and that i'm not blaming you for being triggered or anything. I'm just more in favor of something like spoilerboxing the status posts so they're not right there in your face and you have to click to reveal, or an opt in/opt out button.
I think part of the problem is the way I've sometimes been using that status box is a bit like how I used to use my personal tumblr, to just vent something in one or two sentences so I can get the feeling that it's being seen by somebody in the world. I don't have a dedicated general vent thread (I've tried, but it doesn't really work, because threads I make feel directionless without a specific topic to me, and also it feels like people don't see that stuff as often). That said, that's probably my bad, and not really how the status box should be used. Personal vent threads are probably the alternative; or, also, suggestion: a dedicated community vent thread, where anyone can post anything they want to vent about, which they don't feel deserves its own thread. Because it would be a community thread, then it would be read by the community (or at least those parts of it that are okay with seeing venting), and could be avoided by people who aren't prepared for the triggering venty-content it could contain. So it'd sort of be like a forum version of the After Dark skype group, or else, a sort of badfeels general thread. A way to get your voice out to the community without it going straight to the front page.
Okay, I think the basic idea here is, we want to distinguish between "this forum is not in general a safe space" and "this forum completely disregards any reference to the concept of triggers or trigger warnings". We have a number of forums which are specifically intended to cover potentially-triggery topics, and we want to encourage people to, in general, try to keep those topics in those places. It's not an absolute thing, but in particular, profile posts have no capacity for spoiler blocks or trigger warnings or the like, so. They should maybe be aimed at being fluffier.
A general vent/gripe thread sounds like a really good idea, I like that. It would help accommodate people who don't want to post their stuff in its own thread.
It's a lot easier for a lot of other people to avoid stuff that will trigger them and drain them of spoons for the rest of the day/week. There are no resources for avoiding the chat box. There are many resources for people expressing themselves in other places on this forum. Literally anything about it. That's why I said it. I mean, obviously it's up to the discretion of the poster and if someone makes a mistake then they make a mistake.
I know. That's why I am in favor of resources to avoid the chat box, if possible. Having a community vent thread stickied somewhere might also work if that's not possible/too labor intensive. So, for clarity, none of those linked posts would be okay? Also just generally, I'm not okay with being expected to be "fluffy" and that's why I'm worried about this proposal. I am obviously going to try to avoid explicit obvious triggering stuff, but i feel like this is unintentionally sounding more like "you can't be visibly not okay except in certain areas"
Oh my god I didn't mean to start a fucking controversy I just thought that a request to keep discussion of triggering shit off the unavoidable area of the front page wouldn't be unreasonable I have nothing against people being Not Okay on the front page.
I think the vent thread idea does a good job of addressing the biggest concern with not posting such messages in the profile/status thing. I don't really see any easy way to make that thing optional or avoidable in the core software. I think I could turn it off entirely, but I don't think I want to do that, because then people can't use it for anything.