Recently, I was shocked when I saw a new template created by a user who has some rich editing here. The template itself is written as pure text and says that they discovered an edit where someone said that they are planning to self-harm. Then it goes on to say that they should get counseling using the newer 988 number and website, but because it got no consensus in the forums (hence the start using this discussion), I moved it into their userspace and instead created this discussion to get the ball rolling.
They had it started at https://www.wikihow.com/Template:SelfHarm
, however, it’s now at https://www.wikihow.com/User:BlokPlaysGames/SelfHarm
. What does everyone think?
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I honestly think it’s a good idea to have a template for that kind of situation. I mean, it’s crazy that anybody could share those thoughts on wikiHow, but if it ever were to happen, hence the example, it’s a good idea to keep that as a template.
I think its a great idea! some people need that support, its good to feel like there’s someone there for you during tough times.
It’s a good idea, but maybe a general mental health template would be better? It should also specify that we’re not mental health professionals and list more free hotlines around the world (I guess most english speaking places, since most people edit from english speaking locations).
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Thanks! I couldn’t find the “new topic” button.
@BlokPlaysGames
It’s because they check your account for reasons like spam so you won’t have the new topic button or the reply button for a while, trust me I have went through that before.
And also that is a very good idea, like if you see someone trying to self-harm themself, that template is there for them with the new 988 number
Feel free to edit it in my userspace. I’m happy to see what ideas everyone has!
I changed the language in the first part to reflect international standards on Mental Health First Aid. The 988 is a good start but ideally I’d like to see it link to an article with a broader scope of crisis numbers.
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Will do! As said above, feel free to edit it
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I really like this idea! Last year I was in a webinar about addressing youth suicide as a clinician, so I’m glad to see this idea pop up on wikiHow where we tend to attract a lot of young people. Thanks @BlokPlaysGames
for taking the initiative
For those part of this collab, I have two questions I just thought of:
-
Echoing what @ChocoCat1122
mentioned above, how do we feel about broadening the scope of the message to make it useful to anyone in distress or experiencing a mental health crisis, rather than limiting it to those who specifically state they wanted to hurt themselves? Possible template names for this could be {{mentalhealth}}, {{distress}}, or {{crisis}}.
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Perhaps we get a user who needs these resources and we send them the template. Unless they’re online at that moment or they come back to wikiHow later, they might not see the message because the template didn’t trigger an email notification to them, which may weaken the impact of what we’re going for. Would it be a good idea to subst:the template?
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I like this idea. However my only problem is that this is attempting to put a one size fits all solution to mental health counseling. Also, crisis hotline numbers are not uniform worldwide, just like emergency numbers. US/Canada has 988, UK has 116 123, Japan has 0570-064-556, and South Korea has 109. We can link to them as well on a central page.
This is something that probably wikiHow staff should deal with. This is a serious topic and most of us editors do not have the appropriate training to handle crises like this. wikiHow staff might be able to handle this a lot better than volunteer editors or even administrators.
I wonder if the appropriate response would be to forward the details to wikiHow staff by email and let them handle it as appropriate.
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That sounds great to me, although they’re rarely on during peak EU hours.
I vaguely remember a user having a talk page template in their userpace pertaining to suicide for a very similar purpose (I think it might have been @Eric
?). If anyone remembers, it might be a good one to get ideas from.
I support making this template more international, with perhaps a link to hotline numbers or similar. If this does become a template, I would also propose removing the “You are loved.” at the end. It comes across as a bit cliche and I learned recently that messages like that, while well-intended, aren’t actually as helpful as you might think when it comes to mental health crises, as it puts someone’s worth on how other people feel about them. It could be replaced with a different message of hope.
I think a template like this would be very important especially for a lot of younger and newer editors to know about. The reason being that it’s not something a lot of people know how to deal with, and it can be very easy to say the wrong thing, or for people to worry about saying the wrong thing. I can imagine it might be distressing to receive a message from someone saying they are going through some sort of mental health crisis. I don’t know if it is really that often that it happens, but I am also aware that there have been incidents, and we should have a template ready for if this does happen. This will alleviate the stress and anxiety of whoever is on the receiving end of these messages. After all, it is a community of volunteers, not trained mental health experts. A template would make it easier for volunteers to know how to respond.
There was a more recent incident that led me to make it in the first place, but I’m sure there will be more. I wanted it for the same reason that when you search for suicide-related topics, you get the little blurb.
Would we maybe want to reach out to one of wikiHow’s experts for help with this? As @Awesome_Aasim
said, we aren’t professionals. @Zygomatt
is probably the closest one we have in this little group. I’ve seen a few expert articles by psychiatrists - does anyone have a good way to contact them?
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I think that was mistakenly posted in the wrong thread. I have deleted the message to not disrupt the flow of this one.
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