Is it possible to be helpful?

Is it possible for me to help a kid without
having a thread become blocked?

I like this Gay Forum and I believe it can become an
instrument to help LGTB youth.
But right now it 'seems' like everything's held back.

I care for the questioning youth
who come to this forum for advise,
I assume the moderators feel the same.
I want the best for these kids, what I never had.

But sometimes, I wish I could direct them to
what I believe is a youth forum
or a peer driven forum,
like a forum that isn't about money,
like the kind of place that they are asking about,
like a forum that isn't controlled by one person.
Basically, like a forum different from this one.

I am not allowed to do that.
So, I'm hindered from helping the youth who come here.

I mean, that's how I want to be;
I want to be honest to the youth who come to this forum.

Rather than pretend that there isn't an alternative.
Pretend that the Hip Forums is the "End All and Be All."
Well, that's the reason I've shied away from participating here,
for so many months. (maybe you're thankful of that?)

I expect this message to be blocked,
I expect no one to notice.
But if you do read this, please copy it to your computer.

What a great Idea that Samhain had months ago
to list links for questioning youth.
And what a sad realization that the powers that be wouldn't allow it.

Have we gotten over our paranoia?
Are we ready to allow us to educate and console gay youth
in the best way that we can?

Hipforums lacks the resources to help
gay youth like outproud or GLBT National Help Center
and thankfully many other organizations out there.
And why should Hipforums try to compete with them?
That's silly, or worse self serving.

I'm sure I'll be cut from this community
for writing what I have,
I only ask that those of you
who do get a chance to read this
please continue to advocate
that folks are allowed to help
gay and questioning youth at this site
because this is the first site and first contact
that some gay youth make with the gay community
and that shouldn't be ruled by commerce.
We need to do what's right for these kids.

I love you all,
Mychal

 

I'm not quite sure whats going on here, since you where last on we now have a connected gay group (are you a member of it?) on that you can now post links to different sites that can help youngsters or anyone in the GLBT community, there is a whole links section within it.
apart from this I'm not sure which threads have been locked.
I think that the 'coming out and confused' subforum has helped a lot of young people come to terms with their sexuality.
So all in all I don't think we have done a bad job, in forming a community that has something to offer everyone in the LGBT community.

the thread that you spoke about a while ago had some links that where just straight to other forums, these could be seen as spam, I simply said these had to go but the other links could stay, if memory serves you took all the links down you posted, thats when i diecided that the whole thread was a bad idea, if I couldn't vet it without offending people.

you can always give us suggestions about how to make improvements on any of the forums and I will always listen to people that are unhappy with any of the forums I moderate.

I don't enjoy jusifying myself on threads like this so can I suggest we take this further in PM, if you have any other concerns
S

 

oh and I don't think its possible for forums to please everyone all the time, if anyone can think of a way to do this let us all know, until then I'm going to continue doing the best job I can
S

 

Maybe we could have a pinned thread that points to different gay youth communities across the web? Or would that be "spam" as well? It seems like a good idea to me, especially considering there isn't always a lot of traffic on this sub forum.

 

Interesting post, to say the least.

 

I have a sticky asking for any books or websites which would have appropriate information for high school aged GLBTU. Sam has made a some simple guidelines so it shouldn't be a problem to post there... or anywhere I guess, as long as the posts are reasonable. The local high school has asked me to put together a list so they can pass it along to kids who need it. I really would like to hear other peoples recommendations especially for information aimed at folks in a 14 on up range. By the way, Thank You Sam, for helping with this.