I wish they would have given us more of a warning before closing it, because it does feel like we've been silenced, and as some people have said, sometimes it feels better to post something where people can actually read it and respond to you with support rather than just typing out something for Oatmeal, which doesn't get saved. But there were some things that made me uncomfortable, and I agree with there being a rule about having to include content warnings for certain things. And I'll admit I'm guilty of venting about a few users here even if I did try to keep them anonymous.
I guess it comes down to what you're venting about. They probably thought it would be unfair if they didn't allow venting about certain things but did allow it about others, so that's why they decided to close the thread instead. It's just that sometimes you want to vent to specific people in a specific online place, now if you want to vent to someone on Subeta you either have to use another website you know them on, or just vaugley mention somehting and hope someone asks you more about it so you feel invited to talk to them about it privately.
quote=They probably thought it would be unfair if they didn't allow venting about certain things but did allow it about others, so that's why they decided to close the thread instead.(...)[/quote]
This was a big part of the decision for closing it. While we don't enjoy shutting down discussion, some of the posts were unsafe on several levels to a point where even content warnings would likely not be enough. It would require active curation to leave it up, and the act of removing some posts and not others would require judgement calls and emotionally impact potentially troubled people further.
Y'all have been great in this thread about discussing really respectfully with each other and putting your feelings out there, and we really do appreciate you. We know this isn't ideal and we promise we weren't judging people for having feelings about stuff. We just have to take an overview and weigh a lot of different factors, and unfortunately closing the thread was the safest way to do it. We also are going to close this one down, not to silence anyone we promise, but we'd rather end this thread on the high note of everyone's well-written feedback and meeting of minds so far.
Thank you, everyone, for weighing in and reading this. Please stay safe, and find joy!
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