Coming Soon: Agony Aunt from The Supporters - here to answer your questions, concerns and cover common areas of interest! Submit your questions to the Supporters email account with the title: 'Agony Aunt Question' and look out for responses in the upcoming editions of the Ezine!
If you have immediate concerns you'd like addressed, please still use the Supporters email account as usual! We will still be responding to emails as normal!
Do you have questions about how to cut down on drinking, how to address self harm with your parents or problems in a relationship, etc? Then get in touch!
there is an entire forum for this exact same thing. Why would someone wait a month for a reply?
And if their problem doesnt get chosen will they feel like its not important/bad enough?
why not cover an issue an episode:
- coping with parents divorce
- limiting alcohol consumption
there is an entire forum for this exact same thing. Why would someone wait a month for a reply?
And if their problem doesnt get chosen will they feel like its not important/bad enough?
why not cover an issue an episode:
- coping with parents divorce
- limiting alcohol consumption
etc.
Word.
There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you.
But there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.
I aint no abacus but you can count on me.
What Charlie and Liv said.
I personally find agony aunts irritating, but that is a personal preference, and if other people are interested in having an agony aunt section, I wouldn't have a problem with it.
However if it were to be included I think it should come from the ezine not the supporters and potentially be a little more light-hearted. As Charlie said, the support boards are a much more efficient way to get responses to srs bsns issues, and allow for a range of responses within days instead of waiting for a month for one single response, which may well completely miss the point.
Like I say, the fact that the phrase 'agony aunt' causes me actual agony is just my personal preference, but I do stand by my points that this idea probably needs a little more thought before it goes live. Although I presume your post is one that has been drafted and approved on the supporters board, so maybe it's too late for suggestions of change?
Additionally, I understand that the supporters are there to try and help people through tough patches in their lives, but not to take the place of a professional, especially in terms of giving advice. The supporters are not trained counsellors, and as such have no place in telling people how to best live their lives, but only to provide a listening ear. I feel that bringing in an Agony Aunt column will firstly trivialise people's problems that they are experiencing (the ezine is for entertainment, people's real-life problems are not), and secondly, there is the danger that any advice offered in replies to such emails may be taken as words of a professional that are to be obeyed strictly to the letter (seen it happen), and the supporters can in no way guarantee that the results of that won't lead to any harm, even if they genuinely have the best intentions.
Thanks for the input.
Good to know its not a good idea
It was my Edda, and my intent was to be able to cover, as suggested, a couple of areas of interest per edition. But rather than just a block of text as seems to be common in the ezine, I thought a different more fun style would be nice to add some variety.
Both the ezine and the supporters had input in this.
The point I was trying to make was that my personal preference is that I dislike agony aunt type things. However, I am overlooking that personal preference, to think about it as a general idea. And I'm saying that I think it would be better if it was more light-hearted.
I was thinking about this further as I wandered to my lecture, and also wanted to say that if it was decided to make the topics quite srs bsns, maybe it would be an idea for the ezine writers to essentially 'make up' the problems. As in, decide that they want to cover alcohol dependence, and write a question themselves and answer it? That way it's not encouraging people to submit srs bsns problems and wait a month to see if they get answered.
I'm not going to say I like the idea because I don't. But I wanted to explain why I have my doubts about it and share my ideas. If responses to ideas were limited to only positive ones then nothing would ever get anywhere.
And Jodie changed her reply before posting, and as I was writing this so now I seem unnecessarily defensive
The point I was trying to make was that my personal preference is that I dislike agony aunt type things. However, I am overlooking that personal preference, to think about it as a general idea. And I'm saying that I think it would be better if it was more light-hearted.
I was thinking about this further as I wandered to my lecture, and also wanted to say that if it was decided to make the topics quite srs bsns, maybe it would be an idea for the ezine writers to essentially 'make up' the problems. As in, decide that they want to cover alcohol dependence, and write a question themselves and answer it? That way it's not encouraging people to submit srs bsns problems and wait a month to see if they get answered.
I agree with both of Jenna's points: i.e. that it should probably not be super serious, but if it is serious, it should be made-up stuff. But it shouldn't be serious. Basically because none of you are doctors. Unless you actually ARE doctors, in which case you can just ignore my point.
(Also, shame on you Jenna for not knowing enough internet acronyms. Tut tut)
Jenna the point of getting people involved is to make the community feel more involved in the ezine. At the moment it's very much us writing stuff and they don't have much input. I don't know if we could do something else to aid that.
Additionally, perhaps this should be moved to FCQ?
I wondered this.
However, to be fair, this is a post that has been discussed and approved by both the eZine and the supporters, so technically they weren't asking for feedback, we just kind of gave it...
I guess my question is whether or not this is up for discussion? Has the method of collecting questions and type of questions being answered been agreed by all? If so, then I imagine it's kind of wrong of us to give our thoughts? As a related note, is there a channel for members to give feedback about the eZine? I guess that where our comments might be best suited?
I just thought of an amazing analogy, but I shall keep schtum as Claire will not doubt come and shoot it down :p
The Agoby Aunt is intended to replace forums or be serious or a place of support. Instead the intention was for it to be light hearted but also answer some questions that members had - about any topic they have, it doesn't even have to be self harm related. It couldn't just be a question about every day life.
As we have said, if a member wants support and quick advice or to ask a serious question then we encourage them to post in the appropriate forum or e-mail the supporters as normal and not post it for the agony aunt.
DILLIGAF
"it’s when you’re acting selflessly, that you are at your bravest"
- Four.
♥
Why not wait and see what the article is like for before shooting it down based on what you think it's going to be like? Atleast give it a chance and we can see what the response is to the finished thing first.
And as Jodie said, we want more member input in the eZine, something which we are trying to have more of (see the eZine thread for other ways to get involved). We welcome any ideas anyone had as to get more member involvement in the eZine.
DILLIGAF
"it’s when you’re acting selflessly, that you are at your bravest"
- Four.
♥
I understand what you're saying, Amy, and it makes perfect sense. However, are you sure it's actually going to work that way? I mean, obviously the ezine people have the say on what to publish, but I'd say that despite all pleas to keep it not serious, there's still going to be a flood of "fix my problem" emails.
I think for the reasons Anna's stated, it's legit to raise concerns before it happens, and not just wait and see.
Additionally, in terms of getting more input from the community, how about having a problem, and inviting 'lay' members to make their contributions to suggest things? There's lots of people who give sterling advice who aren't on the supporters and it'd be a nice chance for them to get some recognition.
i hope it does work.
i like the idea of the different formatting rather than a load of text, i just wonder if it might be easier or whatever to come up with your own hypothetical letters like.
