Thought help: Look, I wouldn’t be on here unless I needed help - Help.com

1.What are some problems with Help.com?
There are too many people who get on this site for the wrong reasons…
Three I can think of are a) treating the site as a dating site!
b) Nigerian-esque scammers
c) People asking for instructions on how to go about commiting suicide

2.How could they be improved?
Perhaps some keyword filters that automatically alert the mods so that posts like Nigerian money scams are easily recognised and such posts are taken down quickly!

3.What is the greatest strength of social networking sites?
The question kind of answers itself. Networking socially. Personally I find sites like this in particular a nice place to find like-minded souls, to talk about common experiences, and most of the time its a nice mature forum for ideas and discussion!

4.The greatest weakness?
It can be exploited easily by stalkers, scammers, trolls, and paedophiles posing as kids.

5.Do you use any other social networking sites? If so, how many and what are they?
Facebook for connecting with friends old and new!

6.What makes other social networking sites better or worse than Help.com?
This site provides a place where issues such as depression can be discussed openly without fear of judgement, also anonymous posting allows for people to speak their thoughts without worrying that they can be identified.

7.Do you like Help.com more than any other social networking site? Why or why not?
Yes, for all the positive reasons I have already mentioned. Also it is nice to know that people are people are people everywhere in the world.

8.Why did you join Help.com?
I had a question that needed answering desperately.
I was so impressed by people’s compassion and sound advice, that I stuck around to help others.

9.If you have posted a question, were the answers/advice accurate and helpful?
As in Question 8

10.Are you benefiting from using Help.com?
Absolutely. And I feel others are benefiting from me being on here. :)
11.Will you continue to use this site in the future? Why or why not?

Ok, biased opinion here….
Help.com is the BEST social networking site. Hands down #1. I don’t have time to answer all your questions, but to answer #10…..

100 percent yes I benefit from helping others. I love volunteering my time and knowledge to benefit others. I hope the people I give advice to appreciate it, but sometimes what I have to say is not what opinion they had already formed themselves. Case in point; a poster was placed on a certain medicine for depression but also enjoyed smoking pot. They wanted to know if the two drugs would interact in a harmful way and I told them yes it probably would and that they should quit smoking the pot. Not what they wanted to hear. So that person asked for help but wasn’t willing to listen to anyone that disagreed with the answer they wanted to hear. But that type of situation is rare here. Most really do listen to what advice we give. them.
Another case recently; a 15 year old girl who’s mother and sister died from suicides was being raped by her father and his ‘friends’. Through this site we gave her the courage to seek outside help and she was recently moved into a safe house out of harms way. To hear that was so rewarding to us.

southern_comfort wrote:
Ok, biased opinion here….
Help.com is the BEST social networking site. Hands down #1. I don’t have time to answer all your questions, but to answer #10…..

100 percent yes I benefit from helping others. I love volunteering my time and knowledge to benefit others. I hope the people I give advice to appreciate it, but sometimes what I have to say is not what opinion they had already formed themselves. Case in point; a poster was placed on a certain medicine for depression but also enjoyed smoking pot. They wanted to know if the two drugs would interact in a harmful way and I told them yes it probably would and that they should quit smoking the pot. Not what they wanted to hear. So that person asked for help but wasn’t willing to listen to anyone that disagreed with the answer they wanted to hear. But that type of situation is rare here. Most really do listen to what advice we give. them.
Another case recently; a 15 year old girl who’s mother and sister died from suicides was being raped by her father and his ‘friends’. Through this site we gave her the courage to seek outside help and she was recently moved into a safe house out of harms way. To hear that was so rewarding to us.

Wow, if only that ONE positive action came from this site…
If just that ONE girl had been saved… I would still say it was totally worth it!

Happily, I think it is safe to assume that more of us could quote such positive examples of how this site has helped people!

1.What are some problems with Help.com?
people can be kind of quick to judge. like, above, when “Dougie the Pisces” says scammers, daters and con artists are the sites weakness. Lets help each other not be victims of “scammers, daters and con artists”, but lets give everyone a place to “lay it down”.

2.How could they be improved?
It would be hard to improve this site.

3.What is the greatest strength of social networking sites? the people

4.The greatest weakness? humanity

5.Do you use any other social networking sites? If so, how many and what are they?
No. are there others? this is enough

6.What makes other social networking sites better or worse than Help.com?
N/A

7.Do you like Help.com more than any other social networking site? Why or why not?
youre losing me

8.Why did you join Help.com?
Cause I was in a meltdown. pure cosmic luck got me here ina second.

9.If you have posted a question, were the answers/advice accurate and helpful?
oh yes. I doubt getting personal attention when you need it, could ever be unhelpful

10.Are you benefiting from using Help.com?
yep

11.Will you continue to use this site in the future? Why or why not?
yes. because the people here are smarter than the norm

[quote Tiny Dancer]1.What are some problems with Help.com?
people can be kind of quick to judge. like, above, when “Dougie the Pisces” says scammers, daters and con artists are the sites weakness. Lets help each other not be victims of “scammers, daters and con artists”, but lets give everyone a place to “lay it down”.

Hmmmm not sure what you are saying here….
But surely you’ve seen those posts that are quite OBVIOUSLY fake!
And I’m not one who is quick to judge at all!
In fact… experience and intuition usually can sort through the fakes and the genuine cases!

Also… my idea for some way of easily identifying fake posts was genuine!
I know we have mods that take care of these things pretty quickly as it is!
I was simply thinking of ways to improve on what we already have!

Which I have to say is hard to do, because this site is so good!

I believe that any site in existence in cyber space can stand some improving. But for the main purpose this site was started by Erik and CM this site is A-#1. Being her as long as I have I miss some of the original ones I met and grew to love here. They departed for their own reasons though. I hope and pray they are continuing to help others in their own way. They were special to me.

1. The problems with help.com:
There are some (usually newbees) who post and really need help; sometimes the “regulars” are too busy chatting amongst themselves. Another problem is, as with any site like this, there could be pedophiles that are stalking children. A third problem: trolls

2.I think that it is great when the regulars get together and chat; to improve the site, maybe they could take a hiatus once in awhile and look at the new posts that are on the front page. As for the pedophiles: I think that the MODS AS WELL AS THE REGULARS do a great job finding people who are “faking” on this site….in whichever capacity that may be (faking a problem as in being a troll; being on here for “fake” reasons such as looking for children)

3.Obviously, the greatest strength is finding a “community” that you can belong to. I’m so glad that I got the “hourglass” here….b/c I feel like I have been and can continue to connect with some wonderful people on help :)

4.The greatest weakness is related to #1

5. I use yahoo answers and facebook….but rarely

6.My favorite site is help…..b/c it is a small community and I am getting to “know” some of the people on here….whenever I come here, I see familiar “faces” The yahoo site is like a city….you wander through there and never really “meet” anyone.

7. Yes, I like help the best

8. One day, I had about 200 messages in my “junk” box. I was deleting them, including one from “help,” and suddenly the one from “help” opened up….I followed the link and ended up here. It was not an intentional thing…at least not consciously, anyway

9.All answers to all my questions have been helpful. I remember one particular time when I was frantic….my husband had taken our 3 year old to the ER; and it was 2 am here….I couldn’t just “sit and wait,” and I couldn’t call someone around here since all my friends were busy sleeping….so I got on help. Kerry and Lazy Daze kept me company until I was able to relax. Because of that, I’m a die hard fan of help.

10. Yes, I am benefitting!!!

11. YES! I will continue to use help!!