@tyme wrote:
- Are there topics, features, or supports you think would make this community even better? Whether it’s ideas for new discussion spaces, community events or activities, feedback on usability or features, or suggestions for improving safety and connection — we’d love to hear from you!
We'd love to hear from you.
@tyme Small gripe to start with, and I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but can we please fix the forum's New Post forms so that your published post actually looks like what you type into the text box? Particularly with regards to paragraphing?
Single-space paragraphs that look all run-together in the posting form come out double-spaced, while normal-looking double-spaced posts come out quadruple-spaced.
And you see the consequences of this all the time; so many posts bloated out with whopping great gaps between every paragraph.
Drives me up the wall when I try to make a post, and then find I have to go back and edit out all my spaces. 😠
On a more significant note:
Could you maybe considder adding a sub-forum, ect. that is intended to act as a line of communication between the community and our government, community (perhaps through the media?), and the leaders of the mental health system (e.g. the APS management)? I'm not sure I can really offer much on how such a chanel might work, but presumably it would involve the senior SANE figures reaching out to all the major players in these fields and asking them to provide liasons who would routinely visit/observe this "community voice" chanel so that they can go back and advise their respective organizations about what the community is struggling with, and what response the community wants to see from them.
Many of us feel that we’ve reached a point where conversations within our own circles, while meaningful, are no longer enough on their own to bring real change. For our lives to truly improve, those with the ability to make a difference need to hear our concerns and choose to act. Unfortunately, the systems and institutions involved can be so large that our voices often struggle to reach them. Official opportunities to advise them on their policies & work are few and far between, all too brief, rarely announced well enough such that you would know their going on, and tend to be so rigidly structured that your lucky if they are inquiring into the matters you actually want to discuss. It's an extremely clumsy and ineffective means of the people in need (us) being able to appeal to the powers that be for whatever it is we need.
What we need is a more open, direct and effective line of communication to the people who govern and shape the world we have to live in. And I can't see any way that could happen aside from some community-based organization with some clout, like SANE, taking the lead to develop the space, and attracting the leaders who need to listen to the people into that space.
