Gotta a suggestion for a new feature or maybe a change within the group? Post it here!

Even if you're not leaving a suggestion, leave an upvote or a downvote to one of the replies below to let me know if you liked an idea too!

2010163 While I understand that the purpose of this group is to help others ourselves, if I were you, I'd still provide links to things like suicide hotlines and the likes.

2010163

Feature story? Or images?

2010163
An introduction thread might not be a bad idea...

2010185
I second that.

Maybe it would help the group to have structured activities.

2010163 I would suggest taking some measures to ensure the group remains active because a group can die out really fast if your not careful.

2010163
I hereby demand No Pants Tuesdays.

2010301

This shall be so.

And I understand the level of sacrifice you must be placing yourself on Officer Hot-Pants, I mean, you define yourself by your hot pants! Without them you are just an officer.

2010423
You have no idea. To be left with nothing to my name save a desire to enforce the sexy law and my trusty nightstick is a trial and a half, but I don't do this for me. I do this for all of you. For society.

And for sexual gratification.

2010163 Weekly motivational story/quote?

2010163
I got a few.

2010177
Off of this one . . . Make it front and center, first page, in relatively big letters. Right off the bat, people see it.

2010227
Off of this one . . . Make some thread series, a contest, and/or a weekly quote (2013103). Something interactive, keeps reminding people about the group & makes them come back.

2010177>>2013853

The tricky thing about placing a suicide hotline right on the middle of the front page is that it could backfire entirely. People thinking about suicide might feel patronized by the "don't do suicide" link. In addition, people who come here to check out the group might get the wrong idea about this place, thinking it a "don't do suicide because reasons" instead of a "we're here to make you feel happy and loved again" place.

I can make it as a thread though. Not now though, group's too young for bringing up such morbid topics.

2013103

On Sunday!

2010178
When this group is bigger!

2010242
As of now, my plan is to add more group content gradually and slowly, such as contests, cute pictures, music projects, etc. Hopefully this will ensure the group's survival.

2015545 Salubrious Sundays!

2015663

2015545 En Domingo!

2015688 I don't know what I'm looking at!

Suggestion
-Hugs thread (pictures of ponies hugging)
-Pinkie Pie thread (proven to cure depression)
-Motivation thread (what 2013103 said is good too.)
-

2010163

How about Roleplay?

2010163
I've recently started a thread titled "[Talk] What brings you here?", and I'm wondering if it warrants a pin to the front page of the forums. It seems like a good way to introduce oneself to the group, but part of me just feels like it's not important enough to warrant one of the front spaces.

Thoughts?

2663115

Actually had a thread like that a long time ago.

I'll figure something out once frontpage buttons get developed.

2010163

My feedback is that Smiles is awesome.

2010163
My suggestion would be as follows:

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but it seems that the other admins are hesitant to make massive decisions because they seem to fear of dishonoring and upsetting you. But you're not around often enough, so I suggest you encourage them to not worry about your opinion all the time and to do whatever it takes to make this group safe to post in, even if you are absent.

For example, let the other admins have a low-tolerance policy on rather poor behavior that simply will not help problems with depression. They seem hesitant to do so because they care what you think. But if this isn't fixed, then it's not "Anti-Depression Ponies" anymore; it would be more like "Insecurity Ponies", "Trolling Ponies", or "Immaturity Ponies". We can't let that happen.

3384480

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but it seems that the other admins are hesitant to make massive decisions because they seem to fear of dishonoring and upsetting you.

Luminary locked two threads this morning, without Smiles' input. I think they're not as indecisive as you make them out to be

3384543
I didn't think they were as indecisive as they were just hesitant to do anything without Smiles because of fear of disrespecting his wishes and because there's almost an unwritten rule that Smiles is still far above the other admins; nonetheless, the fact it was done without a dose of input from Smiles is fantastic information to hear! Let's be honest; sh** happens here all the time, but Smiles isn't here all the time. So some decisions without his input are necessary.

It's true Smiles should be Top Dog, able to overrule another admin's decision if he's there to stop it, as he IS the founder of this group, but there's a difference between granting Smiles veto power and not making any tough-love decisions whatsoever without his input or his presence. We can't wait until each time he logs in to do something about things going wrong.

3384548
It's painfully obvious that you're trying to push organizational changes in order to punish parasprite and others for posting things and threads that you don't like.

It's passive-aggressive at best, and disingenuous.

3384480
3384548
Im a little confused on where you're at right now.

Where did you get the idea that my admins where insecure? I'm not scary, am I?

As on trolling, there's a lot of definitions for that. What do you mean precisely by 'trolling?'

3385722
Actually, that's not my biggest priority; behavior here has gone downhill in general, which you observed yourself. Smiles is already addressing the problem of fake suicide claims, which is good, fake claims for attention are not good for helping people. However, another problem is how the fakes are responded to; if someone's made it clear he or she is a fake, don't feed them by direct responses or anger. That's still giving them attention, as they want to be directly responded to because they thrive from attention, and until banned or ignored direct responses will only make them stronger. I know how tempting it is to do so, I used to do it all the time until not long ago, but the best way to defeat losers is not to feed them. And hostility and tensions tend to escalate until things become more depressing than anti-depressing, for me, and for others. We have to take the feelings of all into account, not just our own. Of course, that has to mean being rather frank about these things in non-venomous ways, but hopefully, we can all work out a general method of approaching people.

Where do the admins come in? Frankly, too many have been going miles when given inches. I say, why give us inches? And why not enforce the rules by means of temp-banning? Why not lock more threads more often? Why not crack down on behavior that will only make everyone else feel worse, unless it's simple, non-hostile honesty? Hostility, Lying, Bullying, Trolling, Flaming, that won't help us at all. It should be more than just discouraged. It should be stopped.

3385738
I do believe I read a post of an admin stating that he or she didn't want to make a decision without you. Can't remember which thread it was or if it's still here, I'll look around. However, if my memory serves me, that was an intense day, so perhaps I misinterpreted it.

However, it seems that all of your admins are lately deciding to make some necessary decisions to contain the negativity, so perhaps I was mistaken all along. Plum pointed out, for example, that Luminary is containing some minor negative trolling, and Unparched is actively trying to improve the attitudes here, so that's good.

3385816

that's not my only priority

Nothing else you said is relevant to the organizational problems you claim exist, so I will take your advice and not feed it.

3385816
>editing in whole additional paragraphs after the other person has already replied

3385878
It had to be; it didn't fully express my thoughts on the subject, and you pointed out some legitimate flaws to the actual statement.

3385816
Can you just reply again instead of editting? I don't get notified on edits.

What do you mean by "necessary decisions" or "massive decisions"? Are you talking about banning/thread-locking?

3385880

It had to be; it didn't fully express my thoughts on the subject, and you pointed out some legitimate flaws to the actual statement.

This, and what Smiles said, is what replies are for.

3385884
That, and just leaving firm comments discouraging flaming, and other things. Unparched and Luminary are already doing some of that though.

Let's be honest, I don't often feel happier when coming here, and in fact, sometimes I don't even feel 100% safe. And I'm sure that there are others who feel the same.

However, it seems like your admins are already doing things to contain this problem; it seems like some want to do more, to make this place even safer to post in, but don't do everything they want to make it calm, out of a respect for you and uncomfortability with doing things you may not ask for, which I don't blame them for, but you're not always here, and I'd like to be assured that more strong actions take place in your absence. I think they're beginning to do more and more to make casual posters and people who actually are trying to help others feel better, but I want to be assured that this is so.

3385901
I can see that now; good point.

3385902

Can you name some examples in what admins are 'doing more and more' and some examples where admins are uncomfortable in taking action?

3385930
Unparched asks people to look at the bright side of things when they get ugly, such as when one user turned out to be most probably a fake, for the most obvious example. I admit even I at first was pointing out why said was probably a fake, but Unparched was firm and frank, pointing out at least he's not dead and probably not going to make much of a ruckus again (and who knows? We can't see over screens, so maybe he really was telling the truth, but that's a dubious assumption).

Luminary is locking troll threads and keeping them quiet, and making sure that people behave themselves (we are an anti-depression group, so acting like adults is critical).

I like that, I just wasn't sure if it was enough to contain the trouble. When I posted earlier this morning, I was so sure that the answer was no, though Plum made a nice observation, so maybe I was wrong. We might have to see what the other admins have to say about this. But just so you know, this is a group where people shouldn't be immature or hostile and shouldn't deliberately go out of their way to make others feel uncomfortable or upset.

3385973
Those things are what Unparched and Luminary have been doing from the get-go before they were even admins here. It's why I approved them.

Can you name some examples where admins are uncomfortable in taking action or where users are being hostile towards other users?

3386017
Ah, I see; good!

There was a thread, I do believe it may have been a Zeta dragon thread, but I'm not sure, I'll have to investigate this, in which I do believe an admin was saying he or she was waiting for you to arrive to make a firm decision based on your opinion. There has also been some flaming that was not properly contained until much later than needed. Also, I noticed that while the admins here are good and do their jobs well, that they become more aggressive about containing anything counter-productive to our anti-depressive cause when you are present. This gave me an impression that there's an unwritten rule of a sort that some decisions absolutely cannot be made without your approval, which is not convenient in desperate times. Then again, that could just be a coincidence because come to think about it, you have been logging in more lately, and so have more of the admins, and the largest number of firm actions had to be taken as of late.

3384480
You're mistaking a little game for reality, Grant.

It just makes me giggle to talk about Smiles as if they were the best thing since sliced bread (They are, of course, but that's neither here nor there). I make jokes that we're their fanclub and such purely out of (abundant) fondness.

In terms of slapping people on the wrist, that has historically mostly been me and Elric. And lately unparched now.

Smiles has many virtues. But they aren't really a disciplinarian.

I think I'm officially ADP's big clubby ogre. I've probably deleted more threads/posts and warned or banned more people (temporarily) than everyone else put together.
I can't abide the idea of people trolling or attacking in a help group. T'all. It just seems so sleazy.

Certainly, however, Smiles is the head admin here. And if you're talking about organizational changes, Smiles is certainly someone we get the okay from. But I've never felt the need to contact Smiles when someone needs a slap on the wrist. The whole point of having multiple admins is to keep that from being necessary. If it was required then just having contributors would do the same thing.

And when I promoted Unparched, I think I was pretty clear to him that keeping watch and taking action when it seems wise was one of the big parts of the job. And I think he's done wonderfully.

that they become more aggressive about containing anything counter-productive to our anti-depressive cause when you are present

It's probably the opposite for me. Since I don't want to seem mean in front of my waifu.

The recent Para thing was a mistake on my part, I admit. I'm human, I do make them. I knew the Para thread was going to go badly. But... I'm not entirely immune to peer pressure. My friends were less than pleased with me about playing 'moralfag' on Para in other groups. And Para is Smiles' friend, so I didn't come down on her until it became an attack on you. And that sort of thing I can't ignore.

I think I've shut down threads and warned people off for similar reasons before.

But mind, we aren't always there to catch it immediately. It's not like we're sitting in front of the computer, refreshing the ADP page 24/7.

And if you feel like there's something wrong, feel free to PM myself/Elric/unparched/Smiles. We'll look into it.

Preferably when it happens. Not, like, here. Where it's months later and nobody remembers clearly what happened, and thus can't do anything about it.

3387587

I can't abide the idea of people trolling or attacking in a help group. T'all. It just seems so sleazy.

Which I can't abide either. The problem is that it happens too often for my personal comfort.

The recent Para thing was a mistake on my part, I admit. I'm human, I do make them. I knew the Para thread was going to go badly. But... I'm not entirely immune to peer pressure. My friends were less than pleased with me about playing 'moralfag' on Para in other groups. And Para is Smiles' friend, so I didn't come down on her until it became an attack on you. And that sort of thing I can't ignore.

To be honest, I didn't see anything wrong with any of that. It seemed necessary.

However, I am assured that things work differently here than I initially assumed, and if I have problems, I'll talk to you and others about them.

3387755
That's 'cause I deleted Para's last message 'fore you could see it.

3387797
I know, and I'm actually thankful for that; that wasn't a mistake, to delete it as soon as possible. Frankly, I think you're doing fine.

2010163 Um, Smiles? May I feature you as a reference to my upcoming group? It's called Agents of Elements, and it's for spreading nice surprises for everyone on the site! I wanted to ask your permission, since it's your group and all.

3551784
Oh, sure! I'd be honored!

Unstickying this thread, as it is already featured on the front page.