Townhall meeting this weekend!

[popecrunch]

Yeah, just a bunch of people asking a bunch of questions. I talked about the logistics of it on the last page i think, i'll quote it here so you don't have to wade through arguments to find it.

Okay so TOWN HALL STRUCTURE HERE'S HOW IT'S GOING DOWN.

1) I have created a channel in discord called questions-channel. You can't see it yet. I have gone through this thread and posted in that channel a line that is '$name: link to their post' for every post in this thread that appeared to be a question FOR, not ABOUT, the town hall. Not included in those posts are answers, side discussions, admins, the argument from a page ago that we are still not talking about in this thread for now, basically anything that didn't appear to be a question for the townhall. If your question was answered, I still included it in the list. Why does this matter? Well,
2) When the town hall starts, I will open a different channel for the town hall to take place in.  Administrators will be able to speak in it. I will lay down the ground rules for the town hall that are, well, basically what you are reading right now.  If you have a question to ask in the town hall, post it in the questions-channel. DO NOT USE THE QUESTIONS CHANNEL FOR DISCUSSION. SLOW MODE WILL BE TURNED ON. THE QUESTIONS CHANNEL IS SOLELY TO ASK QUESTIONS SO WE KNOW WHO TO GIVE THE TALKING STICK ROLE TO. What's the talking stick role? Well,
3) Starting with Camryn, who asked the first question in the thread, then going down the list of questions in the thread (via those posts), then to people who post questions in the question channel, each person will get the talking-stick role. They will be able to ask their first question.  Once me or another admin posts something that is intended to be an answer, a five minute timer starts.  The person who has the talking stick then has five minutes to ask followup questions, different questions, whatever's on their mind.  After those five minutes have passed, the talking-stick role will pass to the next person in line.  The person with the talking-stick role can choose to pass it on to the next person.  It can also be taken away if they break the rules of the town hall. We will continue until either there are no more questions, or no more admins remain who have the time to participate. I, personally, have carved out two hours definitely (modulo RL necessities) and will probably be able to stay another hour, maybe two.  Wait, what were those rules you mentioned, pope? Well,
4) No personal attacks.  I mean it. Zero tolerance here. Don't call anybody a fascist or a reactionary. I MEAN IT. do NOT test me on this.
5) It is completely okay to ask a question that takes a minute or so of research - that's why the five minute timer starts only after the first response.  However, if your question is really complicated or otherwise is gonna take A While, we reserve the right to tell you we'll get back to you within a reasonable amount of time (day or so if it's super complicated or requires input from someone who's difficult to nail down).  You can still use the rest of your time for other questions if you want.
6) We will not be accepting anonymous questions.  If you really, really don't want your name attached to your question for whatever reason, you are entirely free to ask someone else to ask it on your behalf.
7) You might get answers you do not like, or do not consider answers.  Sorry.  That doesn't mean it wasn't answered.  We will do our very best to answer all questions completely honestly to the best of our ability to do so. Please understand we're humans.
8) Absolutely no shitposting. If you're shitposting, you lose the talking stick and have to get back in line with a new question in question-channel. If you do it again, you'll be skipped for the rest of the meeting.  Don't test me on this either.

With that out of the way, I wanted to post some links to resources that you might find useful if you're in a crisis. We absolutely understand that we all love this community, and something we love being in a little tumult can be really, really upsetting.  Here is a list of some crisis resources that should cover almost all countries:

Self-harm crisis lines:

• US/Canada: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 800/273-8255 https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
  
• UK: Samaritans Hotline 116 123 https://www.samaritans.org/ (Also 212/673-3000, they WILL help people not from the UK.  Note that I have no data one way or the other about whether they handle LGBTQIA+ issues gracefully - they claim to, and I haven't heard otherwise, but.)
  
• Rest of Europe: varies, look at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/Europe/
  
• Everywhere else: http://www.suicide.org/international-sui...lines.html
  
• Text / SMS based crisis counseling - if you're in the US, text HELP to 741741. If you're in Canada, text HELP to 686868, and if you're in the UK, text HELP to 85258.  Operated by Crisis Text Line at https://www.crisistextline.org/ , and that URL will also provide text codes for some other countries as well.  Contacts are anonymized (the person you text with cannot see your phone number), and at least in the US with a Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, or AT&T phone, it won't even appear on the billing history (so if your billing details are seen by someone else, they won't even know you reached out.) Other providers, or those providers in other countries, might or might not work that way - it's the intent, but requires special handling which might or might not be possible in other countries.
  

If you have need of a resource not listed here, ask me, or ask someone else to ask me if you're nervous, and I will drop everything else and do my best to find help.  There are more resources to be found in the stickied thread here. https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=13670