I don't want people to get the wrong impression that it's just a few moderoids who don't want the channel. I haven't replied here because every time I write a post, I don't feel like I'm adding much of anything and end up deleting it, but when we voted on this, the vote was unanimous not to add the new channel. So it's not just a vocal few or something. We made this thread largely because people were still trying to do longform discussion in #server-suggestions and this seemed like a better medium for it considering the slow mode in there, but at least for me, nothing I've seen here has swayed me from my initial position.
I guess all I can really say is I simply don't see a reality where this new channel wouldn't just become a vent channel. I've been giving it a lot of thought since the suggestion came up in August and I just don't see it working out the positive way everyone in here is talking about? Some of you may use it "correctly", but for most others it'll be a vent channel, plain and simple. If we try to add in rules to restrict that, we simply run the risk of alienating people who aren't regulars, because I have no doubt that—just like in #general now—moderoids and members alike would give more leeway to regulars and naturally engage less with the people who aren't in our inner circle. Especially if there are opt-in levels of privacy at play. I think the goalposts and expectations for what this channel should be have moved around a bit, so to be clear I'm still assuming people want a "#mental-health" or something similar.
To be quite honest, I am simply not interested in the extensive moderation that I think this dedicated channel would need in order to run smoothly. Just thinking of it completely exhausts me and I have personally said that if we add this channel, I would likely step down so as not to have to engage with it unless no moderoids were online and an admin had to step in. It's definitely kind of selfish but I am just a volunteer, as are all the other moderoids. If the majority of us are plainly uncomfortable being in charge of a channel like this, I don't think it's a good idea to add it fullstop.
But that said, I do want to talk a bit about rebranding #serious to politics or whatever we have now. I think everyone agrees that it's not like the channel was used for anything but talk about US Politics since at least the primaries last year, but tbh, even before that, there was never really all that much "real life" stuff in there. It was few and far between and never really spurred much discussion or back and forth. Before we made the change, I also went through and searched every time we had to send someone out of #general and into #serious because things got too heavy. I wanted to make sure we weren't completely blocking off options for people who needed somewhere to talk and over the last year, we only had to do that once. Every other time, I guess we just left it, which makes sense because I can think of many times people have complained about life stuff in #general or used it to vent a little bit when they were frustrated or talked about big life changes and asked for advice. So if people want to start talking about things that are a little heavier than usual, I don't think anyone has a problem with that. Especially now that we're trialling two #general channels, if people find the topic of one a little disagreeable, it's easy to hop into the other one. I'd rather people just get a bit more comfortable sharing things, even if they aren't always positive, in the general channels than have a channel that is only ever about those kinds of things and as a result requires a lot more oversight from the mod team.
