ASPartOfMe wrote:
Grammar Geek wrote:
This is probably a touchy subject, and I really don’t want to come off the wrong way, but I know there’s a member who makes a thread almost every time there’s a mass shooting in the US, and they usually don’t receive too many responses. Another forum I use just has a general thread about guns that gets updated whenever a mass shooting occurs. It might be something to consider; it’s been on my mind regarding this site for years, and I feel like it hasn’t been brought up for sensitivity’s sake, so I hope this isn’t seen as out of line.
I am that member and I am not offended by the suggestion. Actually merging all the mass shootings into one thread is something that has crossed my mind. It is something I did for Autism research because of the suggested links to negative outcomes that was repeatedly upsetting a particular member. I felt if it was upsetting that member it was upsetting other members who were not public about it. I do believe that posts about certain studies would get more responses if they were not in that MEGA thread but I have to weigh that with this being partially a support site.
The Coronavirus Mega thread still gets a lot of responses but by a small group of members. I do not think separating them would get more responses as people have learned to live with it and moved on.
As far as the mass shooting thread there is a numbing effect occurring. I post maybe 1/4 to a 1/3 of the mass shootings that occur. If I posted about every one I would have no time to post about anything else. Having regular mass shooting threads is way to slow down the normalization process. It also is a reminder that most mass shootings are not about somebody opening fire on people they have no association with.
I'm glad you're mindful about it. The reason I'm sensitive is because I hate having ASD so much that I don't like to have more reason to hate it when coming on to a support forum (not getting at you, just agreeing with what you said
). When these scary posts are merged into one thread I am actually less likely to stumble upon it or to open the thread, so it's out of sight out of mind for me, but is still easily accessible for other users if they want a read.
It's human psychology really, like when a sign says "do not touch" and you have that urge to touch the forbidden object no matter how stupid you know it would be. That's basically how I feel when a certain thread springs up about autistic people going to death camps or something, I see the thread title and think "I am panicking now, I have to open this thread to feed my anxiety so that I can freak out". It's not like I do it to be a jerk or anything, it's just...I don't know, like a "I fear to watch, yet I cannot turn away" type of situation. When these posts are merged into one thread I'm less likely to have any of those urges.
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