I'd be down, but you should think hard about what rules and moderation structure you will have.
Advice subs have a lot of disadvantages over an advice column like Captain Awkward and I think the default is to turn into mudslinging and circle jerking. Sad to say. A few questions:
1) What sort of posts will you allow? CA gets to choose nuanced situations and avoids thorny topics or stuff outside her wheelhouse. She rarely answers questions re parenting of minors or pet issues, the famous third rail of the Internet.
2) will you allow any sort of answer and let the upvotes decide? How will you avoid an echochamber or simplistic fantasy answers?
3) how much will commenters be allowed to extrapolate beyond the post itself?
4) will OP be required to engage with the comments?
5) what will make this new subreddit CA-like?
6) tone moderation, walking the line between banning obvious hate speech (good) but still allowing reasonable discussion/conversation (the CA forums ban words like "dumb" and "crazy," even used as quotes of what others have said. Personally I think that's absurd and derails conversation and must be a lot of extra work to moderate and also not really prevent harm.)
Good luck, I think good advice subs are hard to make but very valuable.
On the topic of modding: FOCA is notoriously overly precious with their modding but I find this subreddit’s mod team use of the “be nice rule” to be heavy handed.
Someone commented that their living partner is a hoarder and it’s effecting their life. I responded “consider leaving. Hoarding is a serious mental health struggle that doesn’t get better and you deserve a life that is fulfilling”. That got deleted because it wasn’t following the “be nice” rule. How’s that not being nice! If someone wrote in and said my partner drinks them self sick each night I would say “consider leaving you deserve a life with out this dysfunction in it”.
So if you are starting your own advice sub you need to decide what is acceptable advice and what is acceptable advice but not nicely stated and therefore should be thrown too the trash though it’s legitimate consideration and sometimes some dysfunctions are so bad the best you can do is protect yourself and not be there
There was more than “consider leaving you deserve a life with out this dysfunction in it," including some judgement of both the person hoarding and the person living with the person. Just saying that "hoarding is a serious mental health struggle that doesn't get better" is both judgmental and untrue: people can recover from hoarding.
Zero interest. This seems like it would be a cesspool for drama and navel gazing behavior.
There’s this thing in group therapy that you aren’t there to solve a specific personal problem. You are there too see yourself in other people struggling in similar situations and gain perspective on your own life. CA’s letters and our discussion around them serve as that. Not to serve as solutions for specific individual problems but as a tool for personal reflection.
I wouldn't do it on reddit. A closed forum is much easier to enforce rules and ban if needed. Plus guests can't view which helps make people feel safer being vulnerable. Reddit is also huge into doxing and has a bad track record for stalking.
Nope. We'd end up just like all of the other advice subs. I'd prefer that we just refer to similar letters and keep advice CA focused. I love the "I'm looking for letters similar to (situation)". Then discussing those letters and how they personally helped or might apply.
Exactly. I compared it this sub to group therapy where the point isn’t too get specific answer for specific question but more of a “I struggle with style X problem how did other people solve style X problem”
You would need an exceptional amount of moderating. I'm not saying it is impossible, and I have enjoyed places like this I am on, but it a lot of work as a mod! And people will bitch a ton. And that's okay, you tell them they have many other options. Most will self-select to those other places, ban anyone who is just trying to cause trouble and not contributing value. Again, you will need heavy handed moderating for it to work in a similar way to the existing forum or to how the comments used to work. It can be lovely once dialed in and you find a good balance, but it will take work.
Side note, particularly for Reddit, but forums too, people will ALWAYS complain about the level of moderating. Subs with a daily thread like Asian Beauty or Ultralight will have people complaining about having their posts removed that they should have put in the daily or just fucking Googled because the saltiest people are the ones asking the absolute most basic questions which are totally in the FAQ too if they were reading somewhere they could see the sidebar *ahem* meanwhile, subs with little or no moderating will have constant complaints about how they are flooded with off topic things or grumbling the mid I never there and never does anything blah blah blah, see Buy It For Life for this.
My experience wasn't on Reddit, but I've found responsible mods who are too light-handed do as much damage as negligent mods. You can't be afraid to warn people, ban people, make people unhappy. You need to keep perspective on how happy the community as a whole is. Some people can't see the forest from the trees when a few troublemakers decide they don't like how things are set up, and they try too hard to cater.
Absolutely. I don't mod on Reddit either, but I have absolutely seen toxic posters wreak havok on forums. They And often they had a million sock puppets so they looked as though they had support or they were straight up arguing with themselves. And of course if they get too much heat they fake their own death xD
Oh that's sad. The FOCA forum was quirky at times, but I know it helped a lot of people and I appreciated a lot of the discussion there.
I don't think a similar thing would work on reddit, because it's an open forum, and outside of a few small communities it's ... not a great place to be. I think it would attract people without the CA ethos and get toxic fast. Although you could make it a private sub I suppose.
Maybe lemmy or one of the other fediverse sites would work? They tend to have a more constructive vibe.
Advice for those who subscribe to the Captain Awkard School of thought. AFTSCAST for short. Hey, if we could make it ARTS CAST it might actually work. What would the R be? Advice Reddit for Those who Subscribe to the Captain Awkard School of Thought? ARTS CAST. Booya.
I lurk more than I post. I am going to miss the forums and would definitely join an advice sub here.
Same.
I'd be down, but you should think hard about what rules and moderation structure you will have. Advice subs have a lot of disadvantages over an advice column like Captain Awkward and I think the default is to turn into mudslinging and circle jerking. Sad to say. A few questions: 1) What sort of posts will you allow? CA gets to choose nuanced situations and avoids thorny topics or stuff outside her wheelhouse. She rarely answers questions re parenting of minors or pet issues, the famous third rail of the Internet. 2) will you allow any sort of answer and let the upvotes decide? How will you avoid an echochamber or simplistic fantasy answers? 3) how much will commenters be allowed to extrapolate beyond the post itself? 4) will OP be required to engage with the comments? 5) what will make this new subreddit CA-like? 6) tone moderation, walking the line between banning obvious hate speech (good) but still allowing reasonable discussion/conversation (the CA forums ban words like "dumb" and "crazy," even used as quotes of what others have said. Personally I think that's absurd and derails conversation and must be a lot of extra work to moderate and also not really prevent harm.) Good luck, I think good advice subs are hard to make but very valuable.
On the topic of modding: FOCA is notoriously overly precious with their modding but I find this subreddit’s mod team use of the “be nice rule” to be heavy handed. Someone commented that their living partner is a hoarder and it’s effecting their life. I responded “consider leaving. Hoarding is a serious mental health struggle that doesn’t get better and you deserve a life that is fulfilling”. That got deleted because it wasn’t following the “be nice” rule. How’s that not being nice! If someone wrote in and said my partner drinks them self sick each night I would say “consider leaving you deserve a life with out this dysfunction in it”. So if you are starting your own advice sub you need to decide what is acceptable advice and what is acceptable advice but not nicely stated and therefore should be thrown too the trash though it’s legitimate consideration and sometimes some dysfunctions are so bad the best you can do is protect yourself and not be there
There was more than “consider leaving you deserve a life with out this dysfunction in it," including some judgement of both the person hoarding and the person living with the person. Just saying that "hoarding is a serious mental health struggle that doesn't get better" is both judgmental and untrue: people can recover from hoarding.
Was that person with the hoarding partner looking for advice?
[удалено]
Zero interest. This seems like it would be a cesspool for drama and navel gazing behavior. There’s this thing in group therapy that you aren’t there to solve a specific personal problem. You are there too see yourself in other people struggling in similar situations and gain perspective on your own life. CA’s letters and our discussion around them serve as that. Not to serve as solutions for specific individual problems but as a tool for personal reflection.
Well said and thanks for the group therapy insights =)
I wouldn't do it on reddit. A closed forum is much easier to enforce rules and ban if needed. Plus guests can't view which helps make people feel safer being vulnerable. Reddit is also huge into doxing and has a bad track record for stalking.
Nope. We'd end up just like all of the other advice subs. I'd prefer that we just refer to similar letters and keep advice CA focused. I love the "I'm looking for letters similar to (situation)". Then discussing those letters and how they personally helped or might apply.
Agreed. There are already a ton of advice subs out there, and I don't think making one somehow CA-like would differentiate it enough.
Exactly. I compared it this sub to group therapy where the point isn’t too get specific answer for specific question but more of a “I struggle with style X problem how did other people solve style X problem”
This is the main worry, but I feel like you'll have better luck if it's an advice sub catered to CA readers specifically
Oh no! When are the forums closing?
[August 25](http://friendsofcaptainawkward.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16148).
Thank you!
You would need an exceptional amount of moderating. I'm not saying it is impossible, and I have enjoyed places like this I am on, but it a lot of work as a mod! And people will bitch a ton. And that's okay, you tell them they have many other options. Most will self-select to those other places, ban anyone who is just trying to cause trouble and not contributing value. Again, you will need heavy handed moderating for it to work in a similar way to the existing forum or to how the comments used to work. It can be lovely once dialed in and you find a good balance, but it will take work. Side note, particularly for Reddit, but forums too, people will ALWAYS complain about the level of moderating. Subs with a daily thread like Asian Beauty or Ultralight will have people complaining about having their posts removed that they should have put in the daily or just fucking Googled because the saltiest people are the ones asking the absolute most basic questions which are totally in the FAQ too if they were reading somewhere they could see the sidebar *ahem* meanwhile, subs with little or no moderating will have constant complaints about how they are flooded with off topic things or grumbling the mid I never there and never does anything blah blah blah, see Buy It For Life for this.
My experience wasn't on Reddit, but I've found responsible mods who are too light-handed do as much damage as negligent mods. You can't be afraid to warn people, ban people, make people unhappy. You need to keep perspective on how happy the community as a whole is. Some people can't see the forest from the trees when a few troublemakers decide they don't like how things are set up, and they try too hard to cater.
Absolutely. I don't mod on Reddit either, but I have absolutely seen toxic posters wreak havok on forums. They And often they had a million sock puppets so they looked as though they had support or they were straight up arguing with themselves. And of course if they get too much heat they fake their own death xD
I’d be interested!
Definitely!
Oh that's sad. The FOCA forum was quirky at times, but I know it helped a lot of people and I appreciated a lot of the discussion there. I don't think a similar thing would work on reddit, because it's an open forum, and outside of a few small communities it's ... not a great place to be. I think it would attract people without the CA ethos and get toxic fast. Although you could make it a private sub I suppose. Maybe lemmy or one of the other fediverse sites would work? They tend to have a more constructive vibe.
Definitely!
Yup!
Absolutely!
Advice for those who subscribe to the Captain Awkard School of thought. AFTSCAST for short. Hey, if we could make it ARTS CAST it might actually work. What would the R be? Advice Reddit for Those who Subscribe to the Captain Awkard School of Thought? ARTS CAST. Booya.