Yesterday, I made a rather disappointing discovery within our community. Although we’ve seen some fantastic growth and consistent posts, our comments have dropped off slightly. A slight drop-off can be expected sometimes, but here’s what I truly didn’t like:
One of our members created a post that was clearly a call for help due to mental health issues, possibly exacerbated by a difficult day. This post was created a few hours after I went to sleep for the night, and I was only able to see it 17 hours later. It had a few dozen votes on it, yet no replies. Not a single person had bothered to drop as much as a sentence to someone who was openly struggling. Nearly 48 hours later, I’m still the only human to comment on that post.
As a community, we can certainly do better than this.
I’m realistic. I don’t expect that every single person will be able to reply to all posts 24/7. Most people aren’t nuts like me to come here almost 7 days per week lol! However, there are certainly some people who come around on a given day, and it’s nearly certain that some proportion of those votes on the post were coming from real people who saw the post. Now, votes are important on Hive, but remember that we’re all about communication. This is the crux of what makes us human.
If you see a post that’s asking for human communication, and see that nobody has replied to it for a long time, please take a moment to write at least a brief sentence – to acknowledge the existence of the person. A simple acknowledgment can mean the world to someone who may otherwise think that they are shouting into the void.
Mental Health Ambassador Role(s)
In light of seeing what happened here, I’d like to push some more focus on mental health in our community. We certainly have enough members to be able to communicate with each other, especially in times of struggle. This is exactly where we have the opportunity to shine.
Thus, I’m opening up a role for all of our members, as well as to those who have not yet joined. A mental health ambassador’s job would be to look specifically for posts from people that are asking for some type of help, implying a need or request for help, or appear to be a call for help or communication. The mental health ambassador would then open a line of communication as soon as possible to ensure that the person is in a stable mental state.
Feel free to tag me on such posts, but the essential aspect would be for someone to talk to the person who needs help.
In order to avoid a 7 day per week situation, I’ll keep this position very flexible: a mental health ambassador can choose any number of days per week that they can keep open to do this job. If they want to do this only on Mondays, that’s great. If they want to do Saturdays and Sundays, that’s also great. If they want to do this 7 days per week… God bless, that would make life easier for me lol!
Should multiple people want this job, we can communicate within the FreeCompliments Discord to split up days according to your preferences.
Does this job pay?
Of course it will! This is not necessarily an easy job and does require some degree of vigilance and care. For every day that this job is done, I’ll pay 1 HSBI Unit, regardless of whether any posts are made that require attention. This means that if you decide to do this job 5 days per week (like a standard job), you’d get paid 10 HSBI Units every 2 weeks.
I’ll just ask that you send me reminders to do so because I am a touch forgetful, especially during my busiest workweeks! As long as I am reminded, I’ll definitely be sending you the HSBI.
Is there training involved?
You can certainly ask me questions about the proper approach to situations if you’d like. Since every situation is different, there is no single proper answer. However, a key point to remember is to not be dismissive about the person’s concerns (i.e. don’t say, “don’t worry, this too shall pass” or something similarly generic that sounds like a feeble attempt to be positive without addressing the actual issue at hand).
Here are some useful guidelines which can help you.
However, you typically do not have to go to great lengths at the very beginning. Simply reaching out with a greeting and acknowledging someone’s difficulties can be a highly productive start in the process of helping them. This first step is sometimes the most significant one, and as such is the primary job of the mental health ambassador.
What do you think of the idea of mental health ambassadors? Are there any other ways that we can encourage comments on posts from those who are struggling? Am I being too harsh in my assessment and expectations?
I would love to hear any and all opinions about these topics from everyone who is currently a member of FreeCompliments, since you’re all inaugural members! Anyone else who finds this page is also very welcome to voice their opinion. We’re all about free speech, and everyone’s experience has value.
(If you were tagged, it’s because you’re an inaugural member – please let me know if you don’t want to be tagged and I’ll stop, pronto!)
More posts with further ideas incoming soon!
Disclaimer: FreeCompliments will be a beneficiary for this post, and I will attempt to boost it via Ecency points as well.
Here’s a permanent invite link to the FreeCompliments Discord!
