Why delete my post for being angry

[ArraDreaming]

I didn’t even do anything anger is a feeling 

[Dreamy]

@ArraDreaming still here for you and sitting with you. 

[Ru-bee]

Hey @ArraDreaming we're going to check in with you about this on email

[Jlol]

I agree with you. I've had a number of my posts deleted. The last one was locked for raising concerns about how organisations are no longer accepting blocked calls. I asked why, and never got a response that answered the question.

I'm sorry in advance to the SANE staff, but the email correspondances do nothing as they people corresponding with you purposely avoid answering questions. EG: they will say "We've deleted your post because it violates the forums terms and conditions". You'll say "I didn't think it did. Which part exactly?" and you wont get a response. So you might ask again "Hello, just checking: which rule did I break?" and you'll get a reply along the lines of "We've already told you".

I get it's SANE's forum and they can do whatever they like, but from a user perspective its kind of frustrating not knowing what is acceptable to post about and what's not.

[Ru-bee]

Hey @Jlol I know it can be frustrating and upsetting to have your posts moderated, it's fair to feel this way and to need to talk about it. I just wanted to offer a bit of clarification if you feel like that's been missing:

Regarding your post about the helpline, SANE is very receptive to this sort of feedback, however posting on the forums about the helpline is not a direct way to have this message heard, and it is likely that it will be lost as the forum is a space to primarily connect with peers, not with the organisation. This is why we always try to redirect to the feedback and complaints section so ensure that messages like yours are heard by those who can properly address this.

I'm really sorry to hear that you've had times when you haven't felt that there has been proper explanations or clarity around the moderation of your posts. This is something that we always strive to offer, as transparency is important to us, so if you have any specific instances where this has happened please feel welcomed to send it through to us at team@saneforums.org so we can look into it further.

[Jlol]

Hey @Ru-bee,

Thanks for your reply, but, and I'm very sorry and with all due respect, I do not believe it is true that SANE is receptive to this kind of feedback.
Before I made that post (which was in the Updates space BTW) I had already emailed SANE with the same concerns and a few questions about it. Whilst I did get a generic answer to one of the questions all the others were ignored. Similarly when the CEO posted about the changes I asked a similar round of questions and they too were never responded to.
In all honesty, the only times I've felt that the concerns I have have been acknowledged and discussed was in that post (I also sent an email off via the channels you mentioned asking why the post was locked but never got a reply).

In short, the team who replies to those emails seem to pick and choose which parts of the correspondence to address and which to ignore and that's very frustrating. I'm sure no one at SANE is doing this on purpose, but in Communication Studies this is called Selective Responding (in comms this is used to draw attention away from undesirable topics).

You also mention transparency. How is it transparent when a discussion about a concerned is moved from a public place to a private space? Isn't that the opposite?

I'm not trying to have a go at SANE - like I said it's their website and they can run it how ever they want - but I just share OP's frustrations with how difficult it is to know what is acceptable and isn't acceptable to say. (I said it before, but its a weird situation we're in where users of these forums feel they must censor the word "s***ide" on a MH forum that literally has a Space for discussions around it.)

Anyway, I truly do mean this with respect. And thank you for your time.

PS: It may sound sometimes like I am holding SANE to a high standard. And well, I kind of am. As I understand it SANE is the main if not only arm the Federal Government has in regards to mental health. I would like there to be more involvement, I would like SANE to have more funding, and I would like the Federal and State governments to realise the MH is a absolutely massive issue affecting many millions of Australians. It is clear that the Federal Government has comparatively minimal interest in mental health and if SANE is the proxy of the Federal Governments in the matter then, I'm sorry, I feel the need to raise concerns about transparency, honesty, and censorship when I can, if only to not have the ugly side of mental health not swept under the carper. Again sorry if this is offensive to anyone - that's not my intent.

[Ru-bee]

Thank you for being open about your experience @Jlol and I'll respect your feelings about SANE's handling of these situations if you feel they haven't been receptive.

I'm sorry that you didn't receive a clear explanation at the time of why your post was locked. I wrote out an explanation here, but feel it's best put as an email as it became quite long, and I'd rather not shorten it so to address your concerns raised, though don't want to completely take over this thread. I'll send that through to you shortly.

Something you've raised that I absolutely do want to address is members feeling that they need to censor the word suicide. I know I've spoken on this previously, but SANE does not require or encourage members to censor themselves in this way. We can absolutely use the word suicide here on the forums- as you mentioned, we have a space to discuss suicide and self-harm. While we do have guides around posting safely about suicide this has never included any censoring of the word. I know that the internet has increasingly become a place where we're needing to censor ourselves like this, but I want to assure you an other community members that SANE isn't one of those places.

I appreciate the high standards you hold for SANE, and agree that it should be held to high standards and we should be striving to meet them.

[Jlol]

Thanks @Ru-bee. I'll look forward to your email, but do want to highlight that this private emails are not transparent.

Also just a note: I think you missed my point when I was talking about using the word "suicide". Yes, you're right that people don't necessarily have to censor the word here, but my point is that such is the atmosphere of confusion and misunderstanding on the forums that people are now deferring to censor the word by default, rather than write out a whole post and risk it being removed.

To be more explicit, the point I was making is, that to many of us, the rules of what can and cant' be posted are so confusing people are voluntarily censoring themselves.

The obvious follow on concern from that is if there are people who are wanting to engage with the Forums but feel they must censor themselves, then, given the nature of the subject, there must be many people who want to engage in the forums but simply dont for fear or rule breaking or rejection. Again, considering SANE is a Federal initiative, I strongly feel the services and support it provides must be open and accessible to everyone and that creating and atmosphere of uncertainty is counter to this.

[Ru-bee]

I hear you @Jlol and wanted to make sure I was maybe overly clear on that point, but I do hear your point there about this being a sign of people being unsure of the guidelines.

I also wanted to include the condensed version of why your post was locked here, for transparency as you noted. Apologies if it sounds blunt at all, brevity is not my strong suit!

That particular post was locked:

- To encourage further discussion to be directed to the right channels and get in front of the right eyes, this is how we try to manage all complaints or feedback about our service, or others that are mentioned here on the forums

- To ensure that the forums are primarily a space for peer-to-peer connection, rather than a space to address SANE 

- The post remains visible here and is still very much public, it was only moved to a section that moderators felt was more suitable, though still remained public

I agree, we can always be trying for more clarity around our guidelines and our service if it can help at all to anyone who may see this, here are our current guidelines, and as we've been specifically talking about mentions of suicide, here's our guide to safely posting about this.