The complaints about drama and the posting of personal problems on this forum seem to raise an issue about the policing of topics and discerning between what is on topic and what is off topic.


This issue is problematic because if, for example, I post about some personal problems that I believe are aggravating my phobia, who is to be the judge about whether I am on or off topic?


What if I have to tell a fairly long story about my personal issues in order to have the effects upon the phobia make sense? What if I write a four paragraph post and 3 paragraphs are about my personal issue and one is about the phobia response due to the personal problems. So is only 1/4 or 25% of my post on topic, i.e. the paragraph about the emet? Or is the entire 100% on topic because the personal problems and the emet are interrelated? Who decides which it is - mods or something? Should we establish a percentage of paragraphs like this to determine whether it's phobia related? Should we count the number of times the word "emet" or phobia, or sick, or whatever appears in order to know if the post is on topic?


cassiefp, who I understand is gone now, wrote in another thread that she posted about her problems with her husband being in drug rehab, but she did it only once and moved on. Well, see, that is interesting that somehow she or maybe others can consider that it is acceptable to post once about your personal problems. What about twice? Is that o.k.? Three times? When does it become too many times? And who decides? What if my personal problem is going to take a while to resolve and so my phobia will be affected for some time? Am I not allowed to post about the ongoing developments and how they relate to my phobia?


On another forum that I frequent, there are separate sections for off topic posts, and a section solely for complaining and venting. In that section, anyone can post anything that they like with absolutely no restrictions. Perhaps that could be what this forum needs, although I am sure it would take some time to implement and it would be extra work.


Edited to add that I should have put this in site discussion but I realized that too late. Perhaps a moderator could move it there? Edited by: japa