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Should we update the Advice & Support topic?


Badnik Mechanic

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Fun Fact, I once attempted to write this 2 years ago.

Back in 2009, some of you might remember that I made this topic in the personal discussion area: http://board.sonicstadium.org/topic/3208-if-you-need-help-advice-support-please-read/ other than the no suicide/sex topics & forum rules, it is the only sticky topic in that area, meaning it's one of the first things people see when they get access to that part of the forum.

The reason/need for it was that I realised that people on the forum were getting older and a lot of people were using the forums/status updates/irc chat to ask for some pretty major stuff which to be fair, nobody on SSMB was really qualified to comment on, even if you were, a forum topic probably isn't the best place to resolve some major issues, it's a great place to get some advice/support & to start a dialogue as to how to resolve problems, but that said, when you have members who at the time had an average age of around 16-20, it probably wasn't the best place for people to be advising on legal aid, medical issues and sexual health as well as other stuff since odds are the bulk of those advising are not qualified or experts in the field. 

Now in the 6 years since that topic has been made.... whilst the average age here as probably gone up, the central message of that topic is probably still true, the bulk of people offering guidance... 

"it must be remembered that we are not experts, even if we have been through the same problem being talked about, we are not experts."

I don't know if that topic has in fact helped anyone or not, I'd like to think someone has gotten some use from it, even if it were just a reference, I know some staff have used it when closing some topics or locking the rare status update which breaks the forum rules, but every now and again I look in that topic and one thing is pretty clear.

It's getting old.

Some of the information in there is still very relevant and very much up to date. The childline one for instance is amazingly still the same, even the phone number is the same.

However, some of the info is a tad out dated and some of it is now completely wrong.

e.g. the Samaritans 

SSMB topic = 

 calls do cost 2p per min, with an initial connection of 7p.

Their number is 08457 909090, however, you can also write and email them if you like. They are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

This is no longer correct, 

The Samaritans are now a freephone number, there is no charge, the phone number also appears to be different. 

The phone number for MIND has changed, as has Alcoholics Anonymous,

And the Sexual Health Network website no longer exists/has moved.

And that's just a few of them, I've not checked the rest but I imagine many have changed. 

 

Also thinking about stuff, the fact I'm a lot older and had to deal with a lot of 'grown up problems' there's probably some links/pages which should go in there, e.g. Citizens Advice service, Financial services, heck even when to call 999 or 101, and do I need to mention the problems of the fact that online/computer stuff has such an impact in our lives? Compared to 2009 it's a hell of a change. 

Now you might be thinking 'why don't you do it?' 

... Because I'm way too busy right now, see that forum signature? I thought that would be a short term thing, now I don't know when I'm going to remove it, in fact my free time is so short right now I'm only writing this because some other work I was doing got completely faster than I expected by a factor of hours.

Anyway...

Personally, I think the topic should get an update, along the following lines.

  • the stuff that's currently in there is still relevant, it just needs updating/directing to active well recognised sites, 
  • New advice/support links should be included, e.g. Citizens Advice, 101 phone number, financial aid, legal aid, relationship advice, domestic abuse etc etc.
  • Non UK services, being a UK site, being a UK citizen, most of the stuff I can validate is limited to the shore of the UK, someone, probably staff needs to be able to validate non UK services for their home nation. 
  • Which Non UK services, we can't list everything, my initial thoughts are 'United States of America, Australia, Germany, France/ other EU nations'.

 

How to run the update. 

Either I can update the old topic... which I don't think is a good idea since it'll be a mess. 

or...

People can copy the old stuff that's in the old topic, post the blurbs in here with the updated links/numbers/details as well as new blurbs links to the new things which I've mentioned/that people think should be included, this can then be collided together and then either myself or a staff member can create a new updated topic. 

 

Thoughts/contributions, below please.

 

 

 

 

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If we can suggest countries, then I suggest adding Italy to the list, there seem to be several Italians from what I can see, & also -though I'm not sure how viable this would be-, perhaps a general European Union area list?

Anyway, the second option of the two seems better, & going by the amount of stuff on that list it doesn't seem (though I could be way off) to be especially arduous to check everything over either, so I imagine this would be pretty quick to do.

May I also ask how often should do you think the thread should be updated to prevent this sort of thing from occuring again?

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If we can suggest countries, then I suggest adding Italy to the list, there seem to be several Italians from what I can see, & also -though I'm not sure how viable this would be-, perhaps a general European Union area list?

Anyway, the second option of the two seems better, & going by the amount of stuff on that list it doesn't seem (though I could be way off) to be especially arduous to check everything over either, so I imagine this would be pretty quick to do.

May I also ask how often should do you think the thread should be updated to prevent this sort of thing from occuring again?

We'd have to have someone knowledgeable in that area if we were to add any specific countries.  I don't believe anyone on the staff is Italian, so we wouldn't be able to search for links to this sort of thing since they'd likely be in a language that none of us speak.

I'm all for updating the information in this topic, as it's definitely an important topic.  I don't think we need a specific timeframe of updates, though.  Just updating it when we notice something needs to be changed works for our current mode of operation.

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If we can suggest countries, then I suggest adding Italy to the list, there seem to be several Italians from what I can see, & also -though I'm not sure how viable this would be-, perhaps a general European Union area list?

Anyway, the second option of the two seems better, & going by the amount of stuff on that list it doesn't seem (though I could be way off) to be especially arduous to check everything over either, so I imagine this would be pretty quick to do.

When it comes to languages, the largest barrier is that we may not have anybody on the team who can do it - if users themselves want to do up a list in that language, I'll gladly add it to the topic. I could do a decent translation into French for those from France, Quebec or St.Pierre or at least list some service alternatives, but that's as much as I can personally do.

I'd like to redo the topic and sort it by location (NA, EU, etc) and language (if we go that route).

Edited by Chris
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