Posted by Solstice on January 2, 2011, at 13:46:38
In reply to Re: Deleted Posts, posted by violette on January 2, 2011, at 11:27:06
Violette -
The cautions and concerns you raise here are a big deal. And I think you are exactly right about your point that while this issue may not register with us when we're in good shape, when we have an unpredictable period of impairment it can be a huge problem because as a result of that impairment, we may post things that cause us harm.
I'm a big-time subscriber to the idea that we have to take responsibility for our behavior and be willing to accept the consequences (good or bad) that follow. However, I also believe that it is ethically questionable for a mental health care professional to hold someone whose brain is periodically impaired (due to a biological condition they have no control over) to that same standard during periods of impairment. Even our court system recognizes that mental impairments can take place (often temporarily) that result in an individual behaving in ways that they should not be held legally responsible for (think Andrea Yates). If the technology is available to build in a certain amount of protection for a community like this with folks vulnerable to 'posting-while-immpaired,' then I believe the compassionate and most ethical thing to do is to put those protections in place. I cannot think of any valid reason to withhold those protections.
Solstice
> Even if someone accidentally posted their real email address or other identifying information here, and Dr. Bob felt that person was valued enough to address their concern by deleting the post, it will likely still remain on Twitter, his Yahoo sites, all the other places he feeds our posts too, and all the other websites he lets our posts be fed too (he has no security mechanism in place to prevent this like other websites do).
>
> Psych Central has a TOS where in order to use their forums, you cannot transfer the content of posts to other websites. There also seems to be a security mechanisms in place to prevent automatic feeds by other sites. Policies which are reasonable due to the nature of the population who use the site and the nature of the content of the posts, the risks involved. Policies you'd expect from a forum owned by a psychologist (Dr Grohol).
>
> So for those who are not perfect or cannot predict if and when they will have mental symptoms that contradict their reasoning, anyone who uses this forum could find themself in that situation someday. This might not matter to some people, but it can be more important to others. Different people have different stakes involved.
>
> Unfortunatley, for those in situations where it does matter, it might not cross their mind before using this forum, as the policies of this site are much different from the other mental health forums who have those policies because they want members to be safe.
>
> _____________________________________
poster:Solstice
thread:974853
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20101201/msgs/975589.html