# Sticky  Advice Center guidelines. PLEASE READ.



## beth x

Welcome to the Advice Center of Personality Cafe, where members of our community can aid each other by providing encouragement and feedback to those asking for help. 

We ask that you keep the following in mind when providing advice to other members: 

- Please post in good faith, with the purpose of being constructive. Do not enter threads in order to make fun of advice-seekers or their situations. 

- Unless a member specifically asks, do not armchair-diagnose someone with mental illnesses. Advising someone to seek help for being unwell is fine; trying to impose a diagnosis is not, since it can create stigma, generate an argumentative atmosphere, and is often used to pigeonhole or dismiss other viewpoints. Please stay focused on the issue the OP has requested help with. 

- Sometimes you will disagree with the topic being asked about. You might even be turned off by the member asking for help. Instigating heated arguments with the OP or using the thread to repudiate behavior you disagree with is not what the thread is about. If you cannot remain civil or if the member is not receptive to your ideas once you share them the first time, we ask that you move on and not respond further. If you believe the forum topic violates forum rules, please report the thread instead of instigating arguments or insulting the OP.

- If you are the creator of an advice thread, you can ask a member to leave your thread. Please make your request clearly and civilly. If the request is not honored, please use the Report Post function to contact staff about the member's posts. (The bottom bar of each post has a "Report Post" link to make these requests.)
If the OP of that thread has asked you to leave their thread, even if you disagree with their viewpoint, please do so. You offered your best input; it's up to them to accept or reject it.

- If you are the creator of an advice thread, once the thread has served its purpose you can request that the mods close it by again using the Report Post function on the OP. 

The Advice Center is under the same rules as the rest of the forum, and staff will enforce the rules similarly.


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## Jennywocky

*Suicide Thread Policy*

Along with all the regular guidelines listed above, we are also standardizing our policies on threads regarding suicide, after conferring with Vertical Scope. (While we've had a similar policy in place in the past, it hasn't been followed consistently.)

This forum has some wonderfully supportive members while not being equipped with qualified counseling professionals who are authorized to act in a capacity to advise people strongly considering self-harm. This also means the public responses to struggling members can vary greatly in terms of quality and intention.

In the future we will be closing threads where members are discussing possibly committing suicide, how to commit suicide, etc., and redirecting people to qualified health professionals. We will post boilerplate in the thread as well as send the member contact information for various counseling services where they can receive help from experienced and trained professionals. 

Meanwhile, we continue to encourage friendships and a sense of community among those who participate on the forum. 

_"... in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other." _~ Contact


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