yourabi's shout trail with Sans - Help.com

I’m really not trying to make trouble. I’m not a hysterical person. If you speak with mods about me, I would think they would say that my posts and replies are one of the more stabilizing voices on help. Your and my interactions have only been a couple of times, and I think we both may have gotten misleading impressions.

Users here including me have no idea of what goes on behind the scenes and have no right to know. Every person though deserves to at least know that their question was heard, even if a satisfactory answer is not possible.

My impression now is that you are not personally responsible for the ills of the site. I’m willing to drop my complaints and butt-out of the many conversations concerning how it is run, if you are also willing to give me the benefit of the doubt as well.

“But Yousef isn’t going to do a thing. When and if he finally does read any of these posts, he won’t react with “Shucks guys, sorry I’ve been busy,” but with retribution for his critics.”

To quote a movie people complain to me and I complain to my boss. I don’t complain back to the community about what should/shouldn’t/can/won’t happen.

And per the incident you reference: 1) didn’t quite play out that way as it wasn’t interpreted as a suggestion but a call to action and 2) resulted in a torrent of emails not only to me but other support staff not involved with the site (literally costing money).

Frankly I’m perceiving the same pattern of you fermenting users into hysteria.

Thanks for fixing chat and for working on helpbot. And mostly for answering shouts today. More than anything else, I think we just need to know that we are being heard.

Hi, Yousef. I haven’t been on help much for the last week, and I just ran across a post concerning Marie being banned. Rather than discuss it in shouts, I would appreciate if you could email me. Thanks.

Hey man am I glad you’re here! There’s a troll running rampant, various user names, telling people to kill themselves. Think you could pull out your IP ban magic wand and zap it? I put in several reports. Thanks.

Greetings from the apparent new puppy capital of the world (my golden just had pups).

Do you think I might be able to see the beta of the developing site (aka Dev Switch)? No bigger either way, but I can’t wait to see what you’ve got in the works. And if you couldn’t tell already, I have no inclination to criticize changes.

Left my opinion on
http://help.com/post/216949-wtf-has-h…

Hey, I was trying to post and it wouldn’t go through. I logged out, restarted my browser, and still the post button doesn’t work. Is there a tech problem at the site or is it my account only?

I had a couple of more thoughts about the profile page.

1. Allow each user to have a list of their own favorite quotes. Especially when I have put a lot of thought into a reply, it would be helpful to have that reply handy when another similar situation comes up. (I get very tired of explaining my non-conformist views on faith for example.) Sometimes the quotes that other users have chosen are trivial, but linger on the person’s profile.

2. I completely disagree that shouts should be private. We have email sharing capability if we trust someone enough to have a private conversation. Making shouts private would make talking behind people’s backs more common, and would present an opportunity for predatory trolls (which besides being a bad thing would increase CBS’s liability).

**light bulb appears over head**

I understand and share your concern — but take everything with grain of salt — not everything is genuine or legitimate.

Hey, is there a mod in the house? I don’t see any, and we have a suicidal poster whose replies are waiting approval.

http://help.com/post/213838-i-need-help

That’s right. Mods change, having a list like that will just cause grief. I’ll put together something like /mods which shows active/inactive mods.

There should only be one authoritative list.

I noticed that you deleted my reply that included mod profile links, but I gathered from the context that you just want to make sure the links are accurate and available, not that they’re confidential?

Oh Cool. I only ask because I was following your thread on colors and marketability.

Sorry I blanked-out my profile info when I was out for a month. I was an operations mgr. then promotions mgr. at a TV station, following a career in post-production. Now I do freelance post-production editing and video production, but am trying to get a job as a communications director in a big corp. if I can (biz has declined). If nothing pans out soon I’ll apply to law school for the fall.

what do you do again?

I know you do. I didn’t leave it because he/she was taunting you, but the troll had 4 posts up and there weren’t any mods around that I know of.

thanks, you don’t have to forward me stuff like that — it happens — i’ve got better stuff to do.

Thanks.

http://help.com/post/200617-no-admin

I curse the day that I animated my avatar! Fire was first of course but seems no one noticed until I made a little crab crawl across mine. I changed it back but too late. Oh well.

Hope you’re not working Marie too hard. Her advise is still needed.

Will html links to photos work, not as replies, but in the post itself?

I just read your reply and closed the post about a “back-up plan for help.com”. It was not my intention to stir up rumors, nor to create a site to compete with this one. I just didn’t want to login one day and find that the site had disappeared and that our community had dispersed. The other post of mine that you referenced, about business models for the site, was about the commercial viability of what this site, about possible solutions. To my memory, I never said that the company had developed plans to charge users. I just wondered which would be tolerated better, banner ads or fees.

Having been a manager, I can understand how both posts could seem “incendiary” to you. Many long-term users here, as well as some of the mods, could tell you that I’m usually one of the more level-headed people here. If I caused you a problem, or just irritated you, I apologize. I’m sure you have enough work already without battling rumors.

What you may not realize is the degree to which some of us regular users feel uninformed. Perhaps it would be helpful for you to post again and answer questions. If this is something you can’t do because of company confidentiality reasons, I understand. But I do think it would put an end to rumors.

Hi, Yousef. Some of us regular users have been discussing ways in which the site could be more effective in dealing with suicidal posters. Considering our recent loss of Jason (Scatt4ever) to suicide, it’s on our minds.

Many of us deal daily with posters who may be at worst in the very act of taking their own lives, or they could just be bored kids seeking attention. And yet the only resource we have is an automated response with a link to suicidepreventionlifeline.org. Most of us have no training in this area, but are compelled by conscience to do what we can.

In this post begun by Shakeybritches, http://help.com/post/157759-what-do-y… we’ve been batting around a lot of ideas. None of it has been criticism of the site, just thoughts on how to improve help.com. Considering how many people turn to this site in times of extreme crisis, I think these suggestions are of the highest priority.

None of the mods are on my friends list (although Maxima may have invited some). But our ideas will need your, the mods’ and probably management attention if they are to be addressed. I would greatly appreciate your guidance.

Thanks,

Sansceriph

that’s a relief. i do think many of us are still wondering if the future changes will alter the character of the site. maybe that’s inevitable, but it’s hard to see how c-net wouldn’t want to make it more commercial.

Also, I don’t think that sounds like a feature that would be high on my list (or maybe even on my list)…

There will not be any subscription fees in the foreseeable future.

lately i’ve been spending too much time on here, and now i think i know why people announce that they’re leaving, whether permanently or temporarily. they get to say goodbye to friends. and it’s kind of a self-imposed exile. they’re embarrassed to come back for a time, and they go do something that needs getting done. and for some, maybe they want to see if anyone will miss them.

so i’ve been thinking about taking a break. i need to get work done and have been procrastinating. and it occurred to me that, while the powers-that-be are considering improvements to the site, maybe they could add an option for a time-out of our logins, a self-directed time-out.

here’s how it could work. enable each user to edit their time-per-login at their account admin settings.

why would help.com want to do this? wouldn’t it limit their traffic? it might. but it might also prevent people from becoming so addicted to the site that they leave. it would help us manage our help addiction.

i know.. “just log out and get your stuff done.”

i have to also wonder how c-net makes any money from the site, and whether subscription fees or banner ads are in our future. if it came down to that, which would people prefer? i hate banner ads, but most people who come here aren’t willing to pay for it. maybe “gold memberships” that include forums could be sold?

hi yousef. babacup just sent me a very strange shout. she says that someone is posting under her name and inviting her. at least i think that’s what she’s saying. or it may be that someone knows her real name. anyway, could you look into it? (or have a mod do it)
thanks.

fiddle with this!

just kidding. thanks.

I’ve been fiddling with stuff… should be back to normal.

any idea why i would be having to reload pages to view notices and shouts? others are posting with questions about this too.

aside from my pet suggestion of a checkbox for posters that would say “open to religious advice” so they can opt out of being proselytized, i have a new one..

a button for a poster that would say “please get back to my original subject” or some such. especially for people new to the site, it would help them to gently steer the conversation back to their problem or issue when others have turned it into a chat or an argument. what do you think?