Thought help: How Many Posts on Help .COM are of Lasting Value? - Help.com

I chose other because all posts are of lasting value to the poster and some are of lasting value to everyone, and some are of no value!

Some posts are worthwhile for a short time, e.g. when somebody faces depression and gets help out of it.
Other posts have longlasting values, like being philosophical gemstones.
Then some posts are more or less ranting, but could be socially enjoyable.
And yet some posts should never have been made.

Consequently, my answer is:

Yes! …or njaeee…maybe

Some posts are really helpful and are worth keeping in my opinion. I voted #2.

most-wanted-websites wrote:
Yes, I think we all agree — and that is why I created http://help-find.org/ratings

What I don’t understand is: why is there so little participation?!? :S

I have mad a new post, I was the only other person to vote for yours I think it is because it is a new thing and people are afraid of new things!

Made sorry and thank you for voting MWW!

No, to be honest I believe that it is because you make so many posts. I think most people simply jumps some invitations.

i think posts are as helpful as they are because they are real, “face-to-face” interactions with the person who needs the help. we can post great advice on a website all day long, there are billions of websites that do that, that’s not what makes help.com as helpful as it is. the beauty of this site is the personal attention we give to the people who come here for help. i think a fave-post webpage is pretty useless.

perhaps that’s just the artist in me speaking, however. i like to think of help.com as performance art. the things said here aren’t meant to last, they’re written down here to prove a point at a single moment, the reflect an emotion, mood, or passion, and that’s when they are at their utmost potential. sure, you can try to record it or preserve it, but it doesn’t have the same effect anymore. it’s meant to disappear along with the way the people here and the interactions within this site change.

For sure, that was an artist speaking.
Nicely put!
:-)

I’ve read some posts that are worthwhile for a long time. I have also started to read some posts that were not worth starting to read. And there are some that should be outlawed period.

most-wanted-websites wrote:

iamozy wrote:
it’s meant to disappear along with the way the people here and the interactions within this site change.

hmmm — why?do you mean that if 100 people were in the same situation over the past 100 weeks, then all of the “wisdom” that went into solving 99 people’s problem would be discarded before the 100th showed up?again: Why?

because the reason why these post show up again and again is because they can’t be solved with some sort of stock advice. they NEED the one-on-one interaction. the NEED to have a person working on THEIR problem. otherwise the advice, while wise, has no meaning behind it.

I don’t know exactly what you are trying to find out.

But I find many posts useful. Just last night, I had a 3 year old in the ER; and I was trembling with nerves over him being there and me stuck at home b/c I had to stay with our 6 and 7 year old.

I remember thinking how long the night would be. Then I spied my computer. And when I got on, I was literally shaking and trembling and crying. And to have people respond to me and “hang out” with me while I had to play the waiting game…..

That made me a fan of “help,” AS-IS for a lifetime.

I have seen in a more abstract sense how it is helpful to people; I have seen posters who are not really wanting help; only attention….etc. But when a situation comes along that is sincere and legitimate, it is awesome to have people “there for you.”

Yes, a lot of posts are worthwhile for a long time and many replies as well!

most-wanted-websites wrote:
… then all of the “wisdom” that went into solving 99 people’s problem would be discarded before the 100th showed up?

There is something in this, too. I mentioned it somewhere else, that there should be a possibility to download “previous posts” in a more efficient way than copy-past each one into bits and pieces.

The site is a philosophical treasure, and it would be nice to have parts of it saved off-line.

No, I also think so. But I cannot find an easy way of doing it.
Like if I want to save my own 2.500 replies with a few clicks rather than with two days of work.

most-wanted-websites wrote:
I doubt you mean like the answer to something like “how to prevent pregnancy” or something like that…

actually i do. there are hundred of thousands of websites that can provide youth with this information, but they don’t LISTEN and it doesn’t sink in. the problem is that these kids don’t have a PERSON to tell them what they need to hear. it’s easy to ignore an anti-pregnancy column some distant stranger types up and posts. it really makes a difference when you are there TALKING to the young man or woman about what to and what not to do.

JellyBelly wrote:
I don’t know exactly what you are trying to find out.

But I find many posts useful. Just last night, I had a 3 year old in the ER; and I was trembling with nerves over him being there and me stuck at home b/c I had to stay with our 6 and 7 year old.

I remember thinking how long the night would be. Then I spied my computer. And when I got on, I was literally shaking and trembling and crying. And to have people respond to me and “hang out” with me while I had to play the waiting game…..

That made me a fan of “help,” AS-IS for a lifetime.

I have seen in a more abstract sense how it is helpful to people; I have seen posters who are not really wanting help; only attention….etc. But when a situation comes along that is sincere and legitimate, it is awesome to have people “there for you.”

this is exactly my point here. the reason why this site was so helpful was because you knew there were PEOPLE on the other side of the computer screen who were putting thought into your problem and CARED about whether or not you were ok.

bww, a list of helpful information wouldn’t have done JellyBelly any good here. there are so many cases like this.

molotok wrote:
No, I also think so. But I cannot find an easy way of doing it.
Like if I want to save my own 2.500 replies with a few clicks rather than with two days of work.

i suppose this does sound like a helpful idea. i actually just manually go back and sort through my replies for this sort of thing.

what i worry about is that i don’t want help.com to lose its personal touch. i don’t want people who really need help coming to this site, looking for a person to care and then only get some person’s link to an advice column that can solve their problem.

i personally would rather repeat the same information over and over a thousand unique times to every person who came here rather than let it resort to this.

I agree with iamozy.
Basically because she is cute, but I think she is right also.

Every person seeking help is unique.
Even if you gave a similar advise to somebody in a similar situation last week, your answer should still be a unique answer to a unique person’s unique problem.

ha ha thank you molotok. ;)

mww, are you suggesting that i go start another service that provides counseling? no. that is why i am HERE. i am here because i like the peer-counseling. that is what this site is for. that is why people stay here. if this became another stock “good advice for you young people written by people who know better than you and know what’s good for you” webpage i would HAVE to leave. because then it wouldn’t be the same help.com anymore. this site is so effective because there are people like us who really don’t mind the sacrifice it takes to help these people individually.

i don’t want to be paid, either. to me, that would lessen the value of the advice. i wouldn’t even want to come here to ask for help if i knew half the people here were only here so they could pay next month’s rent.

you haven’t seen a post that required a person to actually communicate and help someone? what about all those suicidal and depressed posts? if you are suggesting that these can be solved by a handy “motivational speech” webpage, then i think you are sorely mistaken. you have told me that you have studied sociology and psychology, i would think you would have better ideas than that.

and it’s not only those. some posts just want to promote happiness, other want the ask for advice that would only be applicable to them and their situation. all the post i’ve made and severely dependent upon human interaction and response, as are yours.

and really, your poll is probably not as accurate as you think. the question you asked is extremely biased towards one option and it is likely that the people who disagree with you do not feel the need to vote on the issue.

i am not only repeating the academics of the information i give out when i help people with problems i have helped other people deal with it before. even though the information covered is the same, there is that personal touch that i give that lets that person know that they are not alone, they are not the only person who needs help, and that they mean enough for me to actually write out a thoughtful response, not just hit *copy* and *paste*.

ok! but i’ve gotta go to work now and i think you deserve a well thought-out response instead a hastily typed-out one, so i’ll give you a thoughtful reply when i return! adios! :)

Experience shows that depressed people seldom seek professional help by themselves, but are more likely to talk anonymously. There are already professional help sites.
The reason for why they don’t work better than they do, is that those who need it will not go there.

mww, i said:

iamozy wrote:
this is exactly my point here. the reason why this site was so helpful was because you knew there were PEOPLE on the other side of the computer screen who were putting thought into your problem and CARED about whether or not you were ok.
bww, a list of helpful information wouldn’t have done JellyBelly any good here. there are so many cases like this.

to which you responded:

most-wanted-websites wrote:
I haven’t seen so many (could you name one?)

so maybe i misinterpreted what you said, but your word choice make it seem like you are saying that you can’t see any posts that need the personal touch of someone reading and discussing their problem in real time, not just sending them a link to a block of advice text. to which i responded with the example of suicidal posts. they’re coming here because nothing else is helping. they need someone to give them that personal attention.

as for your poll, your words choice deters people from voting against you by suggesting that if they do vote for the opposing option, against you and against your idea of a favorite post page, then they don’t think the posts are worthwhile, or that they don’t appreciate the advice posts enough. it’s a small but noticeable suggestion, which is why i abstained from voting in the first place.

that, and the fact that the opinions of that poll and the approval rating of whether a favorite posts page is necessary don’t exactly correlate. i would vote that yes, posts are worthwhile for a long time, but no to your favorite posts page.

to me, i can see posts being worthwhile for a long time if they are still pertinent to people’s needs. if that is the case then people would continue replying to it, and it would reappear in people’s notices tab and therefore be kept around long enough to serve its purpose. once that is done, people can move on. it seems useless to have a favorite posts page because 1) it would become severely cluttered with responses that would slow down the server and take forever to load, and 2) no new issues that demanded a quick response would get a timely solution because people would be responding to the original post and the posts of other people, and the request of the person in need of help would more than likely get lost among the random comments.

most-wanted-websites wrote:
BTW: What do you think would happen if someone committed suicide because of the way someone treated them on help.com? Do you suppose that perhaps there might be a law suit? From what I have seen, I don’t feel such a scenario is too far-fetched. Have you considered this in your thinking? Do you feel some people should be prevented from offering advice to other people? Perhaps only from offering advice to other people who are depressed or perhaps suicidal? Who should decide? Are you willing to make such decisions — and take the responsibility for it in case something goes wrong?

well, legally speaking, a lawsuit would not be able to harm any of the users here. this has happened before, to a Google web group that actually promotes suicide, giving advice on the best way to kill yourself, why and how you should do it, etc. a death made the newspapers of a young girl who got ideas from that group and yet if i wanted to, i could join that group now if the whim struck me. it hasn’t been banned or censored in any way.

so yes, i have considered this in my thinking.

but, help.com never claimed it was a professional therapy site. the people here are merely people, with their own thoughts and opinions. it’s simply like talking face-to-face with a group of strangers. hopefully you’ll be met with a helpful person, but there is a chance you’ll run into some bitter people.

with the moderators, there ARE people who are prevented from helping people, that’s why we have the flag-a-comment feature.

the mods decide what stays and what goes, not i. but neither are they responsible for the results of what happens in the real world as a result of the interaction here. we can only do what is according to our best judgement and from then on, the person must help themselves, which is true in every case of counseling. the users here are NOT professionals, this is simply a networking site for people trying to help out others. people can convince others to commit suicide through any communication medium, whether it’s face-to-face, though texting, over the phone, through email, myspace, facebook, or help.com. you are taking a risk whenever you expose your problems to ANY person, whether its an individual or a group of people, someone you know or a complete stranger, over the internet or face-to-face. as a person asking for help, you must keep that in mind.

most-wanted-websites wrote:

molotok wrote:
The reason for why they don’t work better than they do, is that those who need it will not go there.

I would be a lot more willing to go along with something like “perhaps one reason” then simply “the reason is”.

I recall one example of a woman who was raped, and I was unable to get help for her because she refused to confide the information to someone who might be able to help her (such as a help center for domestic violence issues). The full reasons are indeed much more complex, but the basic idea is that she was not helped — and I doubt she would have even *considered* raising such issues on a site like help.com (since she feels that people who participate in such communities as help.com would not know how to deal with such issues and/or are unable and/or unwilling to help).

OTOH: I also know of many cases (as I said above) in which people who come here asking for help are actually verbally abused — and sometimes in a very direct and insensitive manner. That is why I asked iamozy whether she would be willing to take responsibility for such cases or not. I surely would *not*.

if that woman was seeking professional help, she would have gone there first, or she would have gone there after it was suggested by a person here. as it is, we cannot force her to release information about her whereabouts - we can only help her as most we can. and at that time of need, the most we could provide for her was an ear to listen, because most likely she’s never had that. she’s never had a person to confide in, to tell her secrets to, to tell her that she can be strong and she can make it. to me, THAT was what she wanted from us. perhaps in the future she will obtain the courage to take legal action against her attacker, but at the time we can only provide the help we are capable of.

and i do not understand why you think anyone should take responsibility for something another person says. of course not, that really doesn’t make any sense to me. people in real life can be very verbally abusive, to which i do my best to get them to shut the hell up and fix the damage they have caused. if i am too late and the damage is irreparable, then i do my best, as much as i can. that’s all i CAN do, and that’s all that can be expected out of a person.

but that would have gone against my principle of not voting in biased polls. :/

did you consider the other responses i gave you? i don’t want them to be lost under a relatively insignificant point i covered there. :P

ah, well the “favorites post page” that i keep on referring to really was the impression that i got of what you were describing. i see that it’s a bit different. it’s an interesting idea, i simply worry that it might lessen the value of people’s responses to when people come to this site for help. i have a feeling that instead of long, thought-out conversations, they would get “helpful links” and copied and pasted paragraphs written for someone else. i suppose it all depends on how you implement it into the current website. :)

i am obviously not promoting the same mentality that supports book-burning. book were written so then can last in the future. that is the intention of their creation. that is not the same intention as the posts written here on help.com. i’d just like to point out the difference there! :)

yes, i don’t think the blame issue will be resolved anytime soon, it’s the same issue that’s trying to decide whether guns kill people or people kill people. who is to blame, the criminal or the medium through which the crime was enacted? personally, i think the only people who are responsible for the crime are the criminals themselves. the medium (or the moderators here on help.com have accepted the duty to keep this site as clean and safe as possible to the best of their abilities) needs to uphold the law of course, and any promises that it has made upon the creation of the medium or acceptance of that position. other than that, people need to learn to regulate themselves. :|

i think it would be an intelligent idea to allow users to bookmark their favorite posts on their profile page. that would help with the archiving, yet it would also keep it personal.

i realized that, but that’s sort of what i disliked about the whole idea.

if this bookmarking idea was on the front page or something obvious in a communal manner, people would be less inclined to give personal answers and instead answer questions with links and such instead of writing out responses. that’s my main concern.

i did like the idea of bookmarking on user’s personal profiles for the sake of easily referencing your favorite posts that might help you in the future. this lessens the probability that the abovementioned would take place.

I just got another piece of bad news. Do you realize that the US government, its armed forces and intelligence (bah, what a word for a**es) monitor ‘Help’ and actually censors the site?

There was a post about the US engagement in Iraq, and the discussion included the armed forces’ behavior there, with rapes and murders.

Guess if the post was removed? That removal included also the replies in my own list of replies!

It is a pity that ‘help’ cannot be a FREE site!
This is Pinochet-like censorship!