How can we improve Devpressed?

meta
1

Devpressed is currently about as an MVP as it gets. How can we make it better? Topics, moderation, anonymity, etc.

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Here are a few of my thoughts -

  1. Centralized resources: Your site (http://blog.baugues.com/depression) has some fantastic resources on it. It’d be great to have links to that, slides from your talk (or video if available) and answers to common questions. Possibly a list of steps to do if you’re struggling with this. Common questions:
  • What’s the difference between a psychiatrist and a therapist?
  • Which one should I see?
  • What’s the difference between a LCPC and a LCSW? Does it matter?

  1. Stories: I think just hearing that people struggle throughout the community is super helpful. I’ve been hearing the stories of more and more developers who struggled and were defeated by their illnesses which, although tragic and painful, has given me some solidarity. It makes it easier to reach out when the struggle is a team effort.

  2. Support: Communication through a forum such as this, possibly meetups to just get together and discuss these topics in a safe place.

This is a tender subject that will probably require some moderation and policing, and I could definitely see some people desiring anonymity.

1 Like
3

Agreed on all fronts.

I set the registration system to allow anonymity. It asks for a valid email address, but that address is not revealed to the public. Participants are welcome to use a throwaway.

I added a resources category, and later will create a topic with some of the resources you mentioned. Also added a stories category.

4

A friend of mine and I noticed right away there’s no real introduction, FAQ or primer for n00bs like us. I think that would be a great idea. I’ll even volunteer to help create something like that.

5

This topic is now pinned. It will appear at the top of its category until it is either unpinned by a moderator, or cleared by each user using the Clear Pin button.

6

Great idea.

I added a Welcome to Devpressed Topic. An FAQ would be a great addition. I’d gladly accept help on that.

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A psychiatrist is an MD who can write prescriptions. An LCPC is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and an LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social worker–both are masters level therapists who can counsel but not prescribe meds. They often refer to a psychiatrist and collaborate if a medication would be helpful. If you have never been prescribed psych meds or aren’t sure if you need them, a therapist is a good place to start.

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FYI, I don’t seem to be getting digest emails. I wasn’t here for several days, had my settings to get a digest every day. I checked my spam, but don’t seem to be getting them.

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There doesn’t seem to have been any activity in several days, so that might be why you’re not getting updates.

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oh … heh. that would do it :slight_smile: I obviously wasn’t paying attention.

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We’re all developers here, right? So why don’t you open the source code to this site on GitHub? We could crowdsource a FAQ, getting started articles, etc.

I can imagine an article section of the Devpressed website, powered by jekyllrb.com or a wiki or something else simple, and let people contribute that way.

12

I would prefer if Gravatar could be disabled. As long as my email is kept private, I don’t feel the need for an anonymous email, but my Gravatar is personally identifiable.

edit: … and publicly visible.

2 Likes
13

I’d like to see the following articles always be the first ones to appear at the top of the first page of topics.

Emergency Resources
Welcome
FAQ
Privacy Policy

14

Can we open source Discourses? (I suppose there are open source forums we could use.)

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Yes - holy crap, yes - please turn off the Gravatar connection. I created an account under the condition that “your email will never be shown to the public”, and then panicked when I saw that my profile had a picture of my face on it.

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16

Plus one for turn off gravatar. I just had to switch to a junk email address and it will definitely diminish the chances of me seeing notifications … which will diminish my incentive to return only in that i may not remember :slight_smile:

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17

Yes! SO SO Sorry. I let this site dwindle for the last few weeks, and its getting a bunch of traffic again. This is at the top of the queue.

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@greg I think it would be nice to include anxiety as a topic - I developed panic disorder last year and had panic attacks on a daily basis for a long time - anxiety and depression come hand in hand and it could have made a huge difference to have something like this back then :slight_smile:

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Discourse is an open source project, you can contribute here: https://github.com/discourse/discourse

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I thought I can put my name in the name field, but when I viewed another profile, it showed their name. So I changed my name to private and it changed, I thought it would be unchangeable. Maybe put a hint for this of some sort (ie “Do not use your real name if you want to stay anonymous”)