Patrick

The first one was a young user, 14 years of age, who was begging for a certain badge. He said “If you don’t give me the badge, I’ll commit suicide. It will be all over the news tomorrow.” No real ip – dynamic one. I spend a lot of time talking to him and trying to estimate is he really serious or not. After all, I didn’t gave him the badge, he didn’t kill himself. (And I spend 2 nights of horror and gained few more white hairs.)

Second one – a spammer – creating sock puppets and spamming in comments with “I want to kill myself, what are the best ways?” We tried to contact him/her, but he/she didn’t respond at all. 3 more days later spam was over – no idea what happened. Was it a scam or a real issue – I have no idea at all. We send the authorities his data tho.

And the last one (for now) – an active user, who suddenly started to delete all his uploads. After excruciating talking session he revealed that a heart break over this other community member is the reason. He sounded really lost and upset and repeating “life has no meaning now”. He send some of the files he deleted to fellow members to be re-uploaded. That reminded me so strongly to the “giving away valuable stuff” thing! The most shocking, for me at least, was that all of his friends (on the site) were supportive of his decision. He uploaded a farewell video and they all commented “Good for you!” “You should stay clean for a while.” etc. Even if this was true – it sounded awful, like they were pushing him from the cliff. (Example for – “members can inadvertently do more harm than good by trying to help”) I talked to him, convinced him to reconsider and just take a break, to delete the farewell vid, then decide. Meanwhile trying to understand does he have suicide thoughts in mind. He didn’t and eventually everything turned for the best.

Thanks for the comment. The aim is to get the person into the hands of someone who can help them in person. I understand that it is not perfect, but I believe it is the best solution. What would you suggest as an alternative?

Thanks,

Patrick

Patrick

Though they are more than welcome, with proper COPPA documentation, my communities tend not to have many people under 13. But, if I did have a member who was under 13 and threatened suicide, I would probably start by notifying the guardian that we had on file. If that was unsuccessful, I would attempt to do what I outlined here in this article.

For people 13-17, I would go ahead with what I outlined here. Of course, if you require guardianship information from people of these ages, as well, I’d certainly use that information, too.

I hope that this helps and I hope that others have some thoughts. Thanks for asking us to think about it.

Sincerely,

Patrick