Is there place on everypony to actually get proper advice for depression? Like...I know there's support and stuff but I'm tired of this and I want to just get rid of it...where do I go?
You might try starting a thread here: http://www.everypony.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?119-Pinkie-s-Friends-in-Need
Weird... That's supposed to be a link to the "Pinkie's Friends in Need" section. It's working for me. Where is it taking you?
As long as your thread doesn't go into thoughts/threats of suicide, depression threads and coping threads are allowed in the Community Help section, of course.
No suicidal thoughts...I'm just really really unhappy...and that link has people talking about pleasures and t shirts...at the top of the page the title says merchandise
Link works for me. You could just find it the hard way, browse through the forum categories to find it. Should be listed under the community help and support or just under Pinkie's friends in need.
What's in my mind right now? Does the girlfriend want to get take-out this Friday before I go back home?
There's nothing really annoying me right now. What's in my mind is I hope the supervisor giving me the interview at the new job I'm applying for will allow me to show up on Wednesday instead of Tuesday, since I have a study group for my Japanese language exam that day! Fingers crossed for that and the interview itself, as well as my finals!
SO GLAD TO BE BACK!!! They replaced our water line on Friday and accidentally severed our phone line. I have been without phone or internet all weekend!:ahh:
I think if I tried to speak what's in my mind, I'd probably rip a whole through the fabrics of time and space. Or, at least, I'd give myself an aneurysm.
The community manager at my previous forums is a cold and distant person. She's stubborn and doesn't let anyone question her, and seems to hate me because I would do so. I never intended to ever be rude about it, but her attitude just would bring out the worst in me. Surely my fault for allowing it to get to me, but still quite an irritation when I can't complain about her because she's the damned community moderator and very people seem to have any issues with her. Maybe I'm at fault for ever trying to be friends with her. The fact that she remains in her position despite all the difficulties she's gone through in her life over the past year is astounding, she clearly doesn't need the stress of being a moderator on some forums on top of losing a family member or two, uncertainty about keeping her job or being able to find another one, and being in a long-distance relationship with someone and having difficulty getting their plans figured out. She actually recently broke off that long-distance relationship, which I can only imagine brings about as much stress to herself as with the guy she broke up with, and seeing her act like she's perfectly fine and happy in the shoutbox just makes me feel like she's putting on an act to try to get people to like her. Being so distant and not really talking to anyone one-on-one (as far as I can tell, at least - by asking people whom I know are friends with her) makes me believe this even more. That entire site is really on the decline. I get a feeling that most mods don't really care about the community so much as they think their job is to "babysit" and keep an eye on the site. Each person that I see become a mod grows somewhat more distant and it's really difficult to want to continue to be part of a community with that happening, particularly when I myself have had some ambitions to be a moderator. So maybe it's the realization that I'd never reach that ambition that really drove me away, maybe I don't truly care enough about the community to maybe try to fight things, maybe it's just the fact that any time you do disagree with a mod, nobody is on your side... I don't really know what drove me away... maybe I'm not even really driven away, more just in need of somewhere else to go for a while... to take a little vacation from a place that just brings disappointment. Whatever it all is, I'm here now, and I like what I see.
Something similar too what Xalder was saying. I am going to keep out all hate and untruthfulness about this and I will just talk about the site I came from, nothing about me. Basically, when I got banned on the other site. The site declined immensely with multiple members leaving and multiple members being banned. The staff team like Xalder said seem distant except for one of them. Anyways, it seems when you are a moderator or a administrator on that site, you seem to become very closed in and seem like a robot with no emotions instead of moderating. It seems that life of these people have taken away from them and there left as shell of there former selves. I am very glad this is not this way here. This is all I have to say for now.
From personal experience, that's just becoming a moderator in general. A lot of things instantly become expected of you, and it's a lot of responsibility with a lot of effort, and it seems like 90% of the time your work goes unnoticed, or people dwell on mistakes made in the past instead of focusing on what's happening now. A lot of people tend to get stuck in the past, or tend to think they can't ever make a difference because they feel that everyone is against them, even their co-workers/moderators. In the Moderating world, sometimes, it really does seem like it's kill or be killed out there. Whether it's an obligation, or a job, or just something you do for fun, it's a changing experience for anyone involved. Things happen that you don't expect, you lose staff members, you lose friends, sometimes things just go plain wrong; but that's just change. There's always something good coming around the horizon, especially when it comes to moderation in general. There are a lot of people out there who let things get to their head, or take things personally, or just do all manner of things. I think 2 or 3 people, one of which is still here today, can tell you just how bad Staff could get here, and how much it changed things for the site and for their own personal enjoyment. Moderating became a job. It wasn't as fun as it used to be. It felt more like a chore. Etc. It's unfortunate that your moderation team grew that distant. I am thankful that ours still keeps a relative audience here. It's very easy to step into the wrong territory. Keep in mind though, that it may be that they're getting distant because they are unsure of the direction they wish to take. They are afraid of making changes because they don't want negative backlash. They may be afraid to experiment or get opinions. Or, some of them could just be really distant for no reason. Either way, it can change, but only if people step up to change it. Some mods stand on pedestals, some mods help users stand on pedestals, some mods think pedestals shouldn't be there, and nobody really truly knows what everyone on the site wants. To say you know exactly what the community wants is entirely faulty... so it's better to be safe, than to be sorry, especially when it comes to a whole website. I had quickly changed for the worse when I was a staff member. I became increasingly paranoid that something I said could be taken directly as an insult, for a variety of reasons. (Mainly because my wording was, and still sort of is, pisspoor when it comes to criticism and ideas. I mean, for instance, there's an admin on here that refuses to even acknowledge my existence. Why? Because I criticized him poorly. Very poorly.) I sort of had the reverse effect though. I grew distant from my fellow staff members rather than the forum itself. I always said that we should keep active on there, and try to make the users comfortable, but I saw problems that in truth did not exist; the users were already happy. Regardless, I kept going, until I screwed up majorly. I resigned then. It's better to let yourself go of the whole moderating thing if you feel you're changing for the worse. Especially when it's a detriment to the community. I am still, however, an avid believer in taking preemptive measures against events that could harm the site in the future. I always grew angry that the staff would say 'We can handle this, it'll be okay' and then blame other people (Mainly me, though I will admit some of that was justified... though it was heavily exaggerated.) when things go horribly, horribly wrong. If you are too prideful, or lazy, to step up to the plate and say 'This is how things are going to be' as staff, then really, there's no point in having them. Sometimes staff just have to put their foot down, but they just think 'Oh what if we insult someone/make someone uncomfortable' I can guarantee those people that nobody here will think negatively of the staff if they take good look at what needs fixing (Which is surprisingly little) and just... fix them. tl;dr never be afraid to make changes if they're going to be good changes. Don't let it get to your head, lest you become as distant as the mods on the other site as well.
If the site you're talking about is the one I'm thinking of, all I can say is that the moderators are most certainly not robots. Theirs is a case of "don't hate the player, hate the game" - they're only doing their jobs according to what has been set forth by the admins. I'll be the first to admit that the system by which they operate is broken beyond belief (and is in dire need of reexamination), but that's more something to blame the site's developers for than the mods. Plenty of them do indeed reach out to and take an interest in the members, just as the mods here do. But when the system requires them to be hardasses, they really have no choice but to comply. Proof of this is the fact that I'm pretty tight with some mods who have handed me warnings before, despite our friendship. In all honesty, they don't play favorites as much as many like to claim.
