Hi -- MJ and Angie -- both of you have made excellent points and given me something to think about.

For my own clarification, I need to make some distinction between two categories of disruption. The first category are people who are reaching out for help and may communicate in a way that creates a disruption. This may mean bringing up topics that are triggering for one's own healing, having "foot in the mouth itus" and all the types of disagreement and miscommunication that occur in the normal course of getting to know people and learning to get along with people of diverse personalities and backgrounds while working on very complex mental health issues that we face.

The other category are people whose complaints about the site or behaviors are idiosyncratic, insistent, continual, and disruptive. They seem -- from my POV -- to place their right to personal self-expression above the right of anyone else to feel safe here. For example, I have noticed a few people who were strongly put out and very vocal when profane language was not tolerated. Or avatars that trigger. And felt self-expression was wrongfully denied them. I noticed a new, youthful member throw out insults to older members, whose histories were well-known to many, and they were promptly defended. The individual was not asked to leave in any way shape or form, but certain norms of civility were asked. I know that some of this was done through PMs and offers to assist by members who truly, authentically, and kindly extended themselves in an attitude of caring.

I apply the "leave it if you don't like it" philosophy to myself, too. There have been a few instances where I may not have agreed with decisions that were made. I expressed one such opinion in a PM to Dr. John. However, it is more important to me not to be banned from the forums than to be stubbornly "right," so I do my best to observe policies and norms. I may make mistakes. If there comes a time when I "can't stand" the ways things are run here, when I have to compromise my principles to be here, it is time for me to leave.

I understand that the people who insist on their right to profanity, triggering avatars, hurling insults about and the like, also are here to reach out for help. However, at the point that their insistence on self-expression violates others' values, sense of safety, and feeling secure in reaching out to get their needs met, my position is to advise the "self-expressionists" to "find someplace else." I do not want to cop an attitude about it, nor appoint myself to police the boundaries -- that's the job of the mods and JG. In fact, I personally have never told or hinted that anyone should leave the Forums. The attitude I expressed on this thread is one I have kept to myself and only expressed publicly after the topic of our attitudes about the environment of Psych Central was brought up in this thread.

I agree that finding that area where growth occurs at Psych Central, where more people's needs are accommodated, where tolerance is practiced, can involve discomfort or outright painful moments. I also believe that the forums cannot and should not be "all things to all people."

It is agreed, for example, that debate of political and religious ideas is not appropriate here. The forums are about mental health. I think suggestions that one might look someplace else are generally made kindfully and tactfully, not with an attitude. I suspect that in expressing the "go someplace else" idea on this thread, the words came out more curtly and sharply than the actual practice of this process of, say, suggesting to someone that profane creativity might need some other place to express itself other than the Forums.

The bottom line for me remains that after the norms of the forum are explained to a person -- hopefully in PMs, and hopefully by mods -- if the individual continues to require types of self-expression that violate the safety of others, it is best for that person to find a place where she or he can fulfill that need. I don't think this is really telling the person to "get out of here, or else." It is a process of establishing boundaries and giving the person a choice: if you observe the boundaries, you will receive support, suggestions, comfort, and maybe some friendship here. If you choose to violate the boundaries, you will continue to receive negative feedback, requests to stop, and mods and members will call you on your uncivil, disruptive, or hostile behaviors.

At least, that's the way I'm seeing things for right now . . .