[Older member, but I'm back :)]

Hello,

I started on this website as Shortcake. A new, terrified member who struggled badly as so many of you do.

This community of survivors helped me immensely in my journey to healing from what I'd been through. I hope those of you who are brand new find the same here as well.

I stepped down as a site moderator near the end of 2016, and also away from the site for a majority of the last year and a half because I had begun struggling with issues not even related to what brought me here.

However, I have been working through it all with the support of my husband and mother (I was cut off from my therapist which attributed to making things worse for me mentally and emotionally) and I'm doing a lot better and feel excited to be back

[I'm New Here]

Welcome to AfterSilence! I hope you find all the support you can get here We're full of awesome people.

[We Really Need A Grief Forum/area]

Thanks for the suggestion! Will discuss with other mods

[This Forum Is Not Private! (New -And Old- Members, Please Read Immediately!)]

Thank you for taking the time to open this thread. It is VERY important that you read this.

There are 2 pinned/locked topics in this forum (Welcome forum) that ask members to read before posting. I do understand that when you're new to After Silence, you're anxious to post and get involved in the healing process, and therefore may decide to just read those important sounding threads 'later'.

Here's the problem....'later' never seems to happen. The reason those threads are there in every forum, is to enlighten you as to the specific rules and guidelines for each forum. Because there ARE certain things that are not allowed to be posted (for safety, and trigger-related reasons).

As for this forum, the Welcome forum, I want to clarify and renew the most important guidelines, as I suspect another reason that the "Please Read" topics are being ignored is because they are so old and perhaps you might think they are no longer necessary to read. (They are, though).

1. Do not post what happened to you in the Welcome forum.
   Introduce yourself, by all means. If you want to tell us what part of the world you're from and how old you are, great. No problem. But do not post any part of what happened to you here - we have a separate forum for that (Share your story) which is seen only by members. This forum (Welcome) is seen not only by members, but also by secondary members, researchers, and even non-members viewing this site (it is a PUBLIC forum). So for your own safety and privacy, we ask that you only post personal things such as your story in the non-public, appropriate subforums.
2. Do not post names.
   This means - for your own privacy, and for legal reasons for AS - do not post your real name. Do not use your real name anywhere on this website. If you signed up with a username that has your real name in it, we can change it for you. Simply PM a moderator with what you would like your username changed to and we can do that for you. This is for safety, privacy, and legal security reasons.
   Also, do not (for LEGAL reasons) post the name(s) of your attacker/abuser(s) if they have not been convicted.
3. Try to keep your welcome introductions and responses simple.
   Remember that anything you post in the Welcome section can be seen by absolutely ANYONE viewing the forum and isn't a member. So try not to get into long personal discussions here. We have other forums that are not public that you can participate in longer personal discussions about different things.

We only create these rules for your safey and privacy - as well as for security and legal reasons for us. Please keep posts in the welcome forum simple and non-identifying or personal. Again, you can get personal in other forums.

Thank you,

The Aftersilence Moderating Team.

[How To Block Another Member.]

This tutorial is for any member who wishes to:

A. Block a member from chatting with them

B. Block a member from messaging them

C. Block a member's posts to prevent seeing them

D. Block a member's signature.

Please note:

A. Please try to only use this option if your issue is not resolved by chat or board mods, or while you are waiting for a chat/board mod to resolve your issue if the problem is ongoing.

B. Please only use this option as a last resort if a member continues to harass you after a mod has attempted to handle the problem.

C. Use this option with care, and try to only use it when absolutely necessary.

D. You can use this if a member's signature is triggering (but please report it if it is), distracting, or if you otherwise decide you don't want to see their signature.

Step One: Click on your username at the top of the screen.

Step two: Click "Manage Ignore Prefs".

Step three: You will be taken to this page. Type in the member's name in the box. Check whichever box(es) that you want to ignore of the member. And click "Save Changes".
Please always note that you can contact a moderator if you are having an issue with another member.

Side note: If you wish to ignore ALL Signatures on the site, you can check the box at the top above "Users I'm ignoring" that says 'Ignore all signatures when reading topics and personal messages'. Again, make sure you click "Save Changes".

[How To Remove Friends.]

This tutorial is for any member who, for whatever reason, wishes to remove someone as a friend.

Step one: Click your username at the top of the page.

Step two: Click on "Manage Friends".

Step three: You will be taken to a page that lists all of the people you currently have as friends. To the right of their names, you will see these icons. Click the one that says "Remove Friend" when you hover over it to remove that person as a friend.

And you're done

[How To Change Your Friend Request Settings]

This is a tutorial for anyone who wishes to be able to manually accept or reject friend requests, instead of having people being automatically able to add you

Step one: Click on your username at the top of the page.

Step two: Click on "My settings". Hovering over each option here will give you a brief description of what you can do.

Step three: You will be taken to this page. Where it says "Friends" there are two options. The first says "Show my friends in my profile". If you leave this checked, people you have as friends will be visible on your AS profile. If you uncheck it, it will not be visible.
The second option says "Allow me to approve members before they're added as a friend". If you leave it UNchecked, members will be able to add you automatically without needing your approval. If you want to be able to to manually approve or deny friend requests, you should CHECK this box.

Step four: Always remember to click "Save Changes" before leaving, otherwise any changes you make will not be saved.

[For New Members]

Very well said Courtney! I couldn't agree more.

[Post-Count Protected Forums]

We are glad you like that safety feature! We agree that it also encourages members to get involved and communicate, and are pleased that it makes you feel more comfortable to share in the future

Thanks for the love!

[A Trigger Warning List?]

To add to what NorskyCourtney said about Trigger warnings for details about assault/stalking/ anything of a sexual or violent nature, I also try to post Trigger warnings for anything that may contain curse words (venting, quoting something that was said to us in real life, etc).

When posting about Self Injury/Harm (and always be sure to post in the correct subforum) I'd recommend always posting a trigger warning.
Same for Eating disorder related posts.

Other things that may require trigger warnings:

Talking about flashbacks, nightmares, details about legal processes, etc.

Venting that includes details of unsupportive victim blaming from others.

Anything that might be an obvious trigger to any survivor

And to post a trigger warning, you can post "Trigger Warning" or "TW" for short in your title, tag for your topic, and/or in the post itself before you begin writing the rest of it.

You can also use either of these symbols in your post:

I hope this helps

[Chat?]

Hi I had a look but couldn't see a thread so im going to ask on here. Is anyone else having problems gettin into chat? Every time I click to go in it brings up an error message??

Hi alone85,

There is a sub-forum titled "Chat Room" near the bottom of the main page: http://www.aftersilence.org/forum/index.php?showforum=38

There, you will see a pinned thread titled "If You Can't Get Into Chat". For future reference, as you inquired about a thread - this would be the thread to look at or use when you are having issues using chat.

Unfortunately, chat has been down since about Sunday, and is not working for anyone - including mods lol. The admins have been messaged about the problem, so we're all just waiting for it to be fixed Hopefully soon.

[Questions About The Blogs]

That sounds about right. You can use it for anything. Just keep in mind that a Journal is more of a private thing sometimes (like a diary). So when writing an entry (which can be about and for anything you want - for instance, I use mine to post poetry I've written), just keep in mind that if you want an entry to be more private, you need to change the privacy settings for it.

If you want to change it after you've created an entry:

You can do that by going to "Manage blogs"

Click on "Options" next to the name of the blog

Select "Manage settings" from the drop down menu

And then select your Blog view permissions. There are 4 settings for privacy:

Public (Everyone can view)

Friends only (Only my friends can view)

Private club (Only the people I choose can view)

Private (Only I can view)

If you want to edit privacy BEFORE you write an entry, you can do that during setup of your blog.
It will take you through 3 steps to create a blog.
The last step is the same Settings page as mentioned above, so just choose your privacy settings there

And remember, you can always change your privacy settings at any time.

Welcome to AS
and
Happy Blogging

[Thread Pin Request]

Thanks John Appreciated.

[Thread Pin Request]

Before AS went down a while back, I had requested this thread be pinned for easier access to members, as it appeared many members were finding it increasingly helpful. And it was pinned.
And then AS was bitten by a black widow spider or something and like...died for a few weeks.
And then AS was revived (thank you admins and mods and all), but not everything was able to be revived.

Including that the pinning process went back in time

But it's still proving to be insanely helpful to members who read it. And I will continue to bump it up so it's easily accessible, unless one of you angels (aka Mods/Admin) would like to re-pin it? Pretty please?

Link to thread in question: http://www.aftersilence.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=96084

-Shortcake

P.S.
There is another thread that seems to be helpful that also got lost after AS went down. It wasn't pinned before, but maybe it could be as well? (I just think they are useful and helpful tools for members to read)

http://www.aftersilence.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=96224

[Hi Im New N Need Help]

Welcome to After Silence Amanda. I am truly sorry for what brought you here, but glad you found us. I hope that you will find the support you need here. I know I have.

[New Survivor Site Re Posted.]

Patience is probably your key. In the meantime, I had another look at the Board Rules & Posting Rules, located here: http://www.aftersilence.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=194. By the looks of it, advertising/promoting another survivor website might be okay if done correctly. I would advise contacting the email address given in the rule I've copied from the Board & Posting Rules link. aftersilence@aftersilence.org
Between emailing that email address and the PM's you've sent to various staff members, I'm sure someone is bound to get back to you I'm not really in a position to answer your question any more than this, as I'm not sure I qualify as "staff" lol. In any case, I hope I've helped in some form, and I hope someone in a higher position gets back to you soon.

8. Spamming in any form is not tolerated. This
includes, but is not limited to, commercial listings, promotion of
commercial and/or personal websites, etc. Active members of the board
are of course encouraged to share their personal websites and suggest
helpful resources. However, registering for the sole purpose of
promoting your website or other people's website, book, or event is
considered extremely rude. If you only wish to promote something of
benefit for survivors, please contact us at
aftersilence[@]aftersilence.org instead and, upon review of your
material, we will be more than happy to promote it on your behalf.

[New Survivor Site Re Posted.]

When was your most recent message sent?

[New Survivor Site Re Posted.]

I'm not quite sure how long ago you contacted 7 staff members about this, but please keep in mind there are hundreds of members and not nearly that amount of staff. They are likely bombarded on a daily basis with an inbox full of messages that takes time to go through and respond to accordingly. Have these messages to them been recent?

[:::attn All Members::: Would This Interest You?]

I also would be interested! Thanks for this!

Also, have you thought about maybe making this into a poll?

So AS users could vote on it?

Maybe ask a mod about it?

Just a thought. To help tally the responses.

Yes, I wanted to make this into a poll, but I can't figure out how lol. Do you know how?

Hi Shortcake,

That is a great idea. We used to have scheduled topic chats and we plan to bring those back very soon. I have been having some issues logging into AS, but now that I seem to be able to get on I will talk to the other chat mods about getting some topic chats scheduled. Thank you for bringing this up.

Sad

Welcome back sadeyes!! And thank you so very much! I would be more than willing to help out however I can if you find yourselves short-handed in trying to get these things organized

[:::attn All Members::: Would This Interest You?]

I realize I'm not a moderator or anything, but I was just wondering how many of you would actually be interested in Scheduled, organized Topic Chats? For example, say there was an organized topic scheduled for chat on a specific day of the week at a specific time for about an hour, and there was an announcement about it a month (or at least a couple weeks) in advance. Would anyone be interested in these kinds of chats?

Possible topics could include: depression, journaling, dealing with flashbacks, discussions about Therapy, coping methods, etc...

I myself am very interested in this sort of thing, and I wondered how many other members would be interested. because maybe if enough members are interested I could try to bring this up to the mods/admins and try to help schedule these things

Would you be interested? And if so...what kind of topics?

[Hi I Am New]

Welcome to After Silence!

[Huge Delete Request For The Mods Please]

Any progress on this?

[Huge Delete Request For The Mods Please]

Hi, I would like all but my first 10 posts deleted please. Can someone please delete them for me?

(personal reasons)

**that would include deleting this post too**

Please let me know if this can be done, thank u.

[Suggestion For Chat?]

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[Suggestion For Chat?]

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