In light of a few posts saying LetsRun.com moderators needs to do a better job on posts about suicide I wanted to open up a discussion on how we should handle such posts. (Some of the posters erroneously thought that a runner who may have died by suicide in Connecticut had posted on here last week saying he was contemplating suicide).
A virtual community is going to have some of the same problems that every community has. If we can help people in our community deal with some of their problems and even prevent a life from being lost that would be tremendous.
First off there was a post last week from a Kansas City Missouri IP address saying they were contemplating suicide. We deleted the thread as we usually do in these instances and then I put up a message to that IP address only when they viewed threads saying,
"We hope you are just making a bad joke about suicide, but it not we guarantee things will get better. Life is precious. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Call this number 1 (800) 273-8255 or visit
http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
for help. Or email me
-Weldon"
Does someone have a better idea on what should be done? Most of the posts in the thread that was removed were positive but some made trolling jokes, etc so that is why we delete them. Plus, there is the possibility the whole thing is a troll attempt.
As for my message to the suicide poster's IP address, the joke part was old language from the last time someone posted like this. I'd like to know if we should have a message up at all, should we just leave the thread up for a while, or what you think should be done?
Feel free to email me as well