Board Thread:2015 - A Year of Community/@comment-4050367-20150305234225

So the Support Group is official, but nothing else has been really said about it. I want to address that.

When: So the first meeting of the support group will be Saturday at 1 PM EDT (for all you who don't understand that, it's 42 hours and 40 minutes from when this message is posted. Subtract how many hours its been since it was posted and when you saw it, and you have when it'll happen. It'll last two hours (at least that's what's planned).

Where: Here, obviously. We're going to do a trial on here, and see if this chatroom can be the one that handles the group. If not, we'll find somewhere else.

What: So you may ask, what's going to happen? What are we talking about? Well to answer that second question, what's going on in our lives, what problems we face, etc. As for the first question, here's what's going to happen. The meeting is going to be planned for two hours, but even with that, we may not be able to get to everyone. If we can, we can try to fit everyone in, but that's not going to always work, so I just want you to expect that may happen. So here's how it's going to work.

I was thinking about doing something like this: "Just like Fanon Con, we're going to sign up to talk. If you want to be the one talking about what's going on in your life, in your reply to this, you'll say "I'd like to talk". You'll be added to a list of users who are going to talk, and when we have the meeting, we'll go alphabeticlly A-Z through the list, and allow them to talk about them for a while". However, I realized that this somewhat defeats the purpose of the support group, which is supposed to be a place where you can just say "hey I've got some stuff going on", and talk about it. So for our first meeting, we're just going to be like this: "Okay so who wants to go first. (User A says me). Okay User A, tell us what's going on". If it doesn't work, then that's okay, it's a learning process.

I want to make something clear though. This group can only survive by doing the following things. First of all, you have to be willing to listen and have empathy for other users. You have to be willing to understand their problems. The goal is that by talking, we can get stuff off our chest, and maybe even feel better about yourselves, maybe even fix a problem or two. Second of all, this group is going to allow users to talk about what they feel like talking about, regardless of sex, race, nationality, sexual orienation, religious beliefs, political beliefs, etc. Third, this is not a place to argue or fight. It's also not a place to bash, criticize, or discriminate users about their issues. Finally, what is said on chat stays on chat. If it floods onto the wiki, if what is discussed is abused, there will be consquences. If you do either of these things on the last three sentences, '''I will ban you from chat for a minimum of one week, potentially longer if bad enough. '''

Warning: I also need to address this. No one is an expert on psychology. This is not a replacement from speaking with an experienced adult, like a school counselor, a parent, a teacher, etc. Yes, we're here to be your friend, and if we can, help you as you deal with these issues. Please, if you are going through something, find someone else that isn't online to talk to.

If you have any questions, please just ask. - Sci.  