METACommunity input needed! "Detox From T"

submitted by NutterButterFlutterStill waving into the void[M] from self.LGBDropTheT

We're temporarily hijacking one of our stickies for maximum visibility on this topic. To view our most recent Rules and Announcements thread, click here.

About a week an a half ago, a thread was proposed for a "Detox From T" mega-thread or day on the sub. It seems like everyone was split down the middle, between "yes, lets have a day" and "every day can be that day if we make it happen" ...

Us mods have been talking, and we recognize that dealing with the overwhelming amount of negativity we face can have a detrimental impact on us all. It's important to keep ourselves mentally and emotionally healthy among all of this insanity, and we want to help!

We liked the idea of creating a separate day, so we'd like to propose "Sanity Sundays". During which, in addition to the Sunday Social thread for non-LGB topics, we disallow any-and-all discussion of TQ+ and ONLY allow LGB-focused posts and discussions.

How does that sound to everyone?

HOW IT WOULD WORK

AutoModerator on this site doesn't have a scheduler built-in to it yet, so us mods are going to have to manually start-and-stop Sanity Sundays. We all live in different time zones, so that means the timing will be a little wonky, depending on where you live.

  • USA: Sanity Sunday begins in the afternoon/early evening on Saturday
  • UK/EU: Sanity Sunday begins in the very early hours Sunday morning
  • NZ/AUS/anyone over the international date line: Sanity Sunday begins in the morning on Sunday

There would also be a stickied mod announcement made to alert everyone when Sanity Sundays starts. We're aiming for a full round 24 hours, but if life activities get in our way, it may end up slightly under 24 hours, or bleeding over into 30-ish hours. There will be a stickied mod announcement when Sanity Sunday ends as well.

MORE QUESTIONS

1) Would anyone want a special "Sanity Sunday" flair to be implemented for all posts on that day? If so, do you want all posts to begin with [Sanity Sunday] so the flair can be added automatically, or do you want users to add the flair themselves so that titles are more comprehensive?

2) Where do you, as users, think this intuitively fit into our rules? To us, it feels like it initially fits under Rule 2 "Appropriate Content", since it's about a certain day and what is-and-isn't appropriate. But then it also feels like it can fit under Rule 3 "Off-Topic Posts/Comments", since that rules does call-out more specifically what ISN'T okay when posting in our sub.

3) Anything else you can think of that we missed, or you want us to consider?

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[–]OPPRESSED_REPTILIANIntersex male | GNC | Don't call me "a gay", "twink" or "queen" 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I'm not a fan.

Seems 90% of this sub is "look what the trans have posted it makes me mad!" and telling people they can't post on that day is just going to make the sub inactive for that day. Also, non-trans related but still "LGB" focused posts on here tend to be the same few topics over and over again, and tend to somehow incorporate trans-blaming even in a mild way. Unless posts were also allowed to be off topic, ie, not sexuality focused. Because otherwise we have little to nothing to work with, there's really not much to talk about, especially stuff that isn't negative. I mostly lurk anyway but I can think of a whole 0 "positive" topics relating to my sexuality or the sexuality of others... because it's just a mundane factor at best.

I also generally don't feel like scheduled enforced topics have ever worked out on any sub, Saidit or Reddit, that i've been on, and they generally tend to be the most unpopular threads out of them all. But that's just my opinion.

[–]reluctant_commenter 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

but I can think of a whole 0 "positive" topics relating to my sexuality or the sexuality of others... because it's just a mundane factor at best.

Damn. I mean, I could think of a bunch, myself, but I thought people were just not interested in non-TQ topics.

[–]PeakingPeachEaterfemale♀ | detrans🦎 | eater of peaches 🍑 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ah, I see your point and you've changed my mind on it too. I think a thread would be OK but a blocking it for a day might be concerning/cause people to be upset, since this is the it place for them to turn to, in order to avoid TQ+ in other parts of the internet or even from real life...I know there's the GC sub but there are quite a bit of us that are not politically aligned with that...

Originally, I thought of Detox from T because I was tired/bored of seeing this:

Seems 90% of this sub is "look what the trans have posted it makes me mad!"

I made a comment here with further thoughts here.

In regards to this:

Unless posts were also allowed to be off topic, ie, not sexuality focused. Because otherwise we have little to nothing to work with, there's really not much to talk about, especially stuff that isn't negative. I mostly lurk anyway but I can think of a whole 0 "positive" topics relating to my sexuality or the sexuality of others... because it's just a mundane factor at best.

I'm thinking of posts similar to something like this:

Idk, just thinking of a variety by putting in questions about...life and whatever, memes, articles, music, media, etc so it's not boring. But I see your point that it can become mundane. At one point, I did run out of ideas for s/bisexuals and went AFK for a while when it came to posting topics. Planning on going back there hopefully soon. Curious on what topics people are interested in seeing though. I don't want to post too many memes, for example, if people prefer articles or vice-versa. Nor spam it with DroptheT stuff if they are already subscribed here.

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Sounds good but is there a way to have some forum header change on Sunday to remind people?

[–]NutterButterFlutterStill waving into the void[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Unfortunately, that would be way too labor-intensive for us. Banners/headers are an image that's applied using CSS, so we'd not only have to create a new one, but also update the CSS each time in addition to announcements/stickies.

Plus, it would only benefit PC users. Anyone using the mobile app doesn't see our CSS.

[–]reluctant_commenter 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Us mods have been talking, and we recognize that dealing with the overwhelming amount of negativity we face can have a detrimental impact on us all. It's important to keep ourselves mentally and emotionally healthy among all of this insanity, and we want to help!

Completely agree. I think this is one of the most neglected topics on this sub. A lot of us face homophobia offline in our lives as well as the onslaught of homophobia found online. I have seen multiple people comment that they get tired/stressed from how depressing this material can be, even though the material is valuable to talk about.

I'm still thinking about implementation. Not sold but not against. Perhaps calling it "LGB-only Sunday" or something might be more accurate since we often have "sanity" posts during the week that are about the TQ. Couple thoughts:

1) I'd prefer users (or mods if you prefer) flair the posts, but that's minor.

2) Hmm, idk. I'd lean towards Rule 3 but it does kinda seem like both.

3)

  • It's harder to find wholesome content to share with this sub because it gets censored off other social media platforms before we can save and share it. Take wholesome memes, for example. I saved a bunch of wholesome memes made by LB women from Reddit but they all got deleted shortly after posting because it is "transphobic" to talk about about women being into vaginas. I think part of the reason that wholesome content isn't posted as much on this subsaidit is because it is just harder to find, period, you know? Whereas it's extremely easy to find incidents of LGB people being discriminated against.

  • Positivity flair - I think some sort of flair for "Sanity" or "Wholesome" or "Positivity" would be nice, in general, regardless of whether or not there is a designated Sanity Sunday. Sometimes there are uplifting/supportive posts that don't get tagged as anything so they might be harder to find. Or sometimes I make a post and I'm like, "Ok, this is a good thing but I'm not sure I'd flair it as 'LGB Victory' because it's too minor to be called a real victory, or because it happened like 8 years ago," or whatever. And having that flair option might make people more inclined to post that content.

edit: This comment's too damn long already but I also wanted to add:

  • I feel like there are a bunch of "mundane" LGB topics that I would love to ask about since this is the only non-TQ, majority-LGB group I know of, but have been kind of hesitant about doing so. E.g. asking about people's experiences with dealing with homophobia from the religious people? (U.S.) what was the atmosphere like before gay marriage was legalized vs. after? what non-TQ health resources would you recommend a young LGB person know about? I can't ask "LGBTQ+" people about these topics. Because many believe that religious homophobia is not a big deal in the US and have no idea how to talk with me about it, and their suggestions for sexual health articles are riddled with "lesbian sex involving dicks!" and gender identity ideology.

[–]MarkJeffersonRaga Shave 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

This sounds a lot like the LGB sub which was talked about previously. Is that general idea going to be used in this sub instead?

[–]NutterButterFlutterStill waving into the void[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

We do still plan to re-open s/LGB ... two of our head mods are MIA for an undetermined amount of time due to personal issues, so it's slow-going for me to figure out the details. Honestly, I've been considering just re-opening it and dealing with any fallout later, but haven't committed myself to that decision yet, lol

Sunday Sanity here, this is due to the community asking for it. Now that the info is stickied and seems to be getting more traction, we're seeing some people who aren't in favor of it, so it's not set-in-stone yet.

[–]MarkJeffersonRaga Shave 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

We do still plan to re-open s/LGB ... two of our head mods are MIA for an undetermined amount of time due to personal issues, so it's slow-going for me to figure out the details.

Oh, I see. Maybe not the best time for it then.

Maybe Sunday Sanity(or something similiar in scope) would be useful to fill a need in the meantime.

[–]PeakingPeachEaterfemale♀ | detrans🦎 | eater of peaches 🍑 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ohhh!! I would be very excited to see s/LGB opened. It would be a nice vacay to DroptheT occasionally. :-)

[–]wafflegaffWoman. SuperBi. 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'd vote for waiting until s/LGB is up and running and then make regular mentions of that as the counterpart to this sub.

I'm concerned that some of us who find and post and archive the things we are trying to preserve for the sake of history and our future may be affected by taking away a day when we might have time for this ongoing effort. I know my weeks tend to be busy, and if I were posting things (I tend to be an archivist) I would want to get that done then and there, when I had time, not have to put it on my to-do list.

I don't think undermining our ability to thoroughly document what we're going through is a consequence we should inadvertently bring upon ourselves, and I see that as a definite risk, here. The last thing I want to do is put the T on my to-do list. I handle archiving things here when I have time. I imagine those finding and posting things have similar situations. If you tell us we can't, then we will likely lose ground with preservation efforts.

When I need some self-care I just take it, which is why I sometimes am quiet here for a week or more at a time. I don't need that enforced for me. I completely agree that we need ways to detox, I just don't think that halting one of this sub's primary missions for an entire day every week is the best way to go about it. Those who want to work on Sundays should be allowed to continue.

[–]reluctant_commenter 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't think undermining our ability to thoroughly document what we're going through is a consequence we should inadvertently bring upon ourselves, and I see that as a definite risk, here. The last thing I want to do is put the T on my to-do list.

That's a great point.

[–]PeakingPeachEaterfemale♀ | detrans🦎 | eater of peaches 🍑 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Hi, I am late to this thread and reading everyone's concerns now.

I've slightly changed my mind---I think for now, perhaps we make a "Sanity Sunday" thread instead of a whole day to block off T-related content? People use this sub to vent their concerns/issues with the T and don't really have another place to turn to, whereas I have the choice to just take breaks in between.

OR maybe refer them to sister subs on Sanity Sundays---so even though TQ+ topics are disallowed this day, they can always check the s/ThereAreOnlyTwoGenders (I forgot the name) subsaidit or other equivalents so they do not feel devoided?

I'd also be interested in the s/LGB sub too! I don't have experience in modding reddit-esque platforms(only old school forums), but I can help in a sense of posting and generating content. I used to post a lot to the s/bisexuals sub to generate discussions, it's fun to do lol. I've been a bit AFK with posting but will try and come up with new ideas.

Thanks for taking the idea into consideration! I love seeing the different perspectives we all have.

I'll edit post later to answer those other questions you posed in the post.