I'd like to suggest that anyone posting their story on the member's forum feel free to be brief and pithy or the opposite. Personally, I can understand why someone would prefer to be brief and that's fine but I just happen to like the longer posts myself. I'm fascinated by them. Also, it helps me a great deal to connect a back story to a person's post on another board. In each story, there are some common threads and some things that are unique. Every one of them could be a novel or several novels.
I also like the way that responses to people's stories have been posted on various forums. I'm not sure why but it seems to work for me.
It's a way of connecting. I see something similar to my story somewhere in almost everyone's story. In my sharing back, I hope maybe others will see hope (or danger) where their situation is similar to mine.
I do not know what your thinking on this issue is yet.
My impression is that members can discuss stories, can edit their stories endlessly, and also can delete them.
The reasons being:
1. These sordid tales are our lives. Most of us will be discussing our experiences to a greater or lesser degree for the rest of our lives.
2. We may want to add or delete parts. It was really hard to write what I wrote. I left out countless details. I might want to add a fact or an emotional aspect. Or I might want to eliminate one.
3. If the wrong person(s) got on this site and wanted to cause me harm or start personal threats again, I might have to delete a few things....again.
I agree with the last statement especially...perhaps some gentle guidance to address a post to the poster on one of the three "active" forums is all that's needed. Once someone posts his/her story, that's a pretty sure indication that they check the forums...and they would notice a post addressed to them responding to their story post.
I guess part of our commitment to privacy (vs. secrecy) would have to be respecting a change in personal circumstances that necessitates a change or deletion of a personal story.
The onion always has many layers. Sometimes I just look at the outside one.
I do not believe in locks. Locks on threads are a problem all on their own. They make a huge contribution to the atmosphere of the site. I think it's an atmosphere we want to avoid as much as possible. It's an atmosphere some of us left behind.
Sometimes it might be necessary, but I hope it never is.
They made me feel as if I'd been duct taped, and that stifled feeling stuck like duct tape.
I'm not going to suggest that they would NEVER have a place around here, and in thinking about where they might be appropriate, I thought of the Members' Forum. Sometimes I back into "why" by asking myself or others "why not".
I "get" your feelings, and I see the wisdom of your position. There's probably more minuses than plusses to locking the member threads.
Well, I went for the long long version on my story. I wanted to go through it all at once and get it down. As much for my own good as anything else. I left out many details obviously, or it would have turned into a book.
I like the idea of discussions being taken to another forum. I also like being able to refer back to a member's story when reading their posts. The member's forum (IMO) is a good thing.
I also agree about the locked threads being a bad idea most of the time. If we ever think one is needed maybe just posting something that will let us all (most of the oldies) know we should just stop posting to a particular poster would even do the trick? I'm thinking of resilience here :>) But maybe not. If we have new people on the board who don't know about what we've gone thru with some posters they may be more likely to argue????
