Suicide is something that should be talked about, you can argue that the topic was in the wrong forum, but a lot of sheltered people keep thoughts like suicide to themselves, and by reinforcing that in the closed bottle that is peoples' heads whatever pressure someone has in their life will only make those thoughts more prevalent and fog up the good they do have.

Speaking of wrong forum, this doesn't belong here.

...the topic of suicide should never be mentioned on a forum where we all share one love. Spiral Knights.

Hmmm, what about Gremlin Chatter? What if I want to discuss it?

What if I wanted to have an honest coversation with people about why suicides are so prevelant in our society and what can be done to reduce them? What if I wanted to discuss issues facing millitary personnel like military suicides and PTSD?

So basically a motivational guideline.

I personally never really fell victim of either taking or dishing out personal attacks at large, however I have been on the receiving end of a few threats for banning my account. They have been addressed without notable consequences.

Do we have an estimate of how much the toxicity of PvP affects the cases?

"This thread is to discuss how everyone can help stop making it such a hostile environment for people who are feeling very depressed over personal attacks."

Lets discuss your first post.

#1 "I know I am right and I won't be stopped until, and this is very important, UNTIL I am PROVEN wrong."
#2 "What I hate is having a discussion where someone assumes something negative about you and proceeds to throw out little hateful comments. I hate it but I have learnt to put up with it, because I BELIEVE in MYSELF and BELIEVE I am right as long as I can base my argument on LOGICAL FACTS. I have never started an argument on personal opinion and if I have, I have always accepted both sides and if wrong I apologised."
#3 "DON'T try and be CLEVER and say something to make YOU and your pathetic friends LAUGH. I can see people giving out advice. Yet it is those same people who have some cause to the reason why people are feeling bad about themselves. First you say what you want, then you are made to feel sorry, then you advise and feel apologetic? Funny thing is you then go and do the same hurtful thing to someone else. I am not targeting anyone in particular. If this has upset you, as you feel you may have upset someone. Use it as a tool to make yourself a better person."

#1 is logically wrong. If you are right, then you cannot be proven wrong.
#2 Putting up with it is the wrong thing to do. If something is morally wrong or against the rules, letting it go is just as good as supporting it.
#3 This brings out your strong personality, ironically moves against the entire notion that the beginning set out to prevent. What gives you the right to call someone else's friends pathetic? You just made an enemy of anyone that it was directed at. It is not wise to fight fire with fire.

Personal attacks should not be tolerated. Aphrodite already posted the guideline. Whenever I encounter them, I often send a silent complaint to inform the staff. Why silent? I don't get involved, but also do not stand by and watch. If moderators deem that the situation crossed the line, I assume action is taken.

Thanks AKD, for some reason I got banned for 2 days for posting this. Hurray for the freedom of speech, I get banned for calling myself names...

I hope for your sake it sticks some day. I was even giving you a second chance and you threw it back in my face.

Telling phantom to hang out with you is hardly an insult. And since you decided to remove my hard work in the fan fic completely, that is more of an insult than anything else. I spent hard work trying to make the story intresting, even throwing out plots and lore for you and the others to work with, but at the end, you are still the same person. You can't expect others to change when you refuse to change your self.

I have said all I wanted to say to you in the threads you graveyarded, I don't hate you Mawa, I sincerely hope that maybe one day when I read your post on the forum and I won't be as mad. I tried to change, for you and for everyone else, but it is hard, but I hope the ppl of forum can give me chance to show that I can change as a person. But if you think I am beyond redemption, then so be it.

"#2 What I mean when I say I put up with trollish behaviour, is that I don't let myself get upset over it. I used to, but I learnt if I let others win for the wrong reasons I only encourage them to hurt someone else. So what I mean is I don't allow anything anyone says to effect me emotionally to a point I break down and give up."

You should clarify that. Put up with connotes with me to mean as I stated above.

"#3 I see people who gain satisfaction from upsetting someone else, as a pathetic individual. I won't change my stance on that. This comment should make an impact on anyone who likes upsetting others, if someone hates on me for that we will know they are the ones who don't care if someone gets upset after they deliberately upset them. I can't and won't put it any way nicer."

Sure. The only problem here is that you've already lost that reader. You know, the reader you made this post in an attempt to change their point of view? I have a lot of reasons to feel people would be superior/inferior to my moral stance. If I want them to change to have a similar stance as my own, one major thing I should do is NOT get them angry and ignore me.

Arc, your OP is a huge wall of text. There's no real sections, just paragraph after paragraph. You also tend to be a bit long-winded. None of this is bad per say, but it makes it hard to read and comprehend.
If you want this post to be read by as many forum goers as possible, I suggest making a more condensed summary.

What I think you're saying:
People tend to be hurtful and insensitive online. Some more so than others. This can have serious consequences on others. This is demonstrated in a recent issue (that you don't have a link for). Everyone should remember there are actual people behind the screen-names, and those people have feelings than may be hurt.
The conversations in SK should be be kept light and related to the game. In general, people should also be nicer to each other and support a respectful environment.

IMO
I kind of agree with Skepticraven.
While your intentions are good, I don't think this post is going to make much of a difference. The people that need to be more sensitive are not going to read through your wall or text. Even if they do, they won't take you seriously.
In addition, the burden lies on both sides. Obviously, it would be good if people are more respectful and sensitive when talking online. However, people who read things online also need to keep things in perspective.
I believe SK mandates players to be at least 13 years old. I think it's reasonable to say a 13 year old can consciously choose to distance him/herself away from disagreeable things online. There's a lot of crazy things online, but every person, as a web surfer, can choose to read it or ignore it.

Spiral Knights is not Facebook. Nobody can attack you personally because they don't know you personally (unless you choose to make yourself vulnerable). Whatever they say is like words in a book you are reading. If you read something you are uncomfortable with, just skip it. Arguments are inevitable, and you may get caught up in the heat of the moment. However, the instant you shut down your computer, all those problems should go away.

I've had the similar situation here - "you can get past it over time" > "no you can't."

It's true. I'm a chronic self-loather and it does not get better over time. Every life problem is like adding trash ontop of a pile, no matter how trivial the problem actually is. Every time you get into emotional distress (in my case it's caused by making mistakes and then getting in trouble with people close to me) you remember everything terrible that you've done or experienced up until that point and it causes you to make rash decisions, often along the lines of doing self harm in some way (treating yourself horribly, especially)
It looks childish, it feels somewhat childish when one does it, but it certainly doesn't elude from the fact that people do it because they want attention, and are in a distressed enough state that they cannot see the good things in life.
The solution is not to feed that desire for attention directly, like a mother feeding a baby, but rather to teach and show the person interesting things if life, like philosophy or maybe a funny channel on YouTube, or tell them good things about themselves (provided they're true)

Or maybe I'm just an autistic man-baby and this stuff only applies to me :P

You should probably direct a person with any sort of problems to a professional, but you don't need me to tell you that.

@Vishno:
I don't think you have to always moderate what you say (and it's not realistic to expect that for everyone). But when you're dealing with someone who you know has susceptibility to serious (irl) reactions, then guard them.

That shouldn't really be a big issue though if you treat people with decency, which I think is generally what this thread is going for. You know, the whole "don't be a bully" thing.

If a particular person is being targeted repeated, then that counts as cyber bullying/stalking.

My comment is referring to general messages that some people find upsetting. This is because there is no way to figure out if a post will settle well with every single person that reads it. For instance, what if I have a super intense fear of spiders and you wrote a horror story about a giant spider eating someone alive while they slept? Suppose that story kept me awake for the next week and made me extremely paranoid. Should you be held responsible?

ie. Saying someone should to kill him/her self during a forum debate out of stupid rage is much different than pming them repeatedly in game and saying they should kill themselves. Would it be better if you not said it at all? Of course. But people should also be expected to read messages with context in mind.

As an example, in the "Would you rather thread" I posted this:
"Would you rather be betrayed by your best friend or kill your best friend?"
Taken out of context, this statement could be emotionally unsettling. However, the post was made in a thread that is full of crazy hypothetical scenarios. So it shouldn't be taken seriously.

I'm sorry if I missed it but based on what we are discussing here, general messages don't apply

Oh, well I'm sorry. I'm not exactly sure what is it you are trying to say. In post #21, I gave summary of what I think you are saying. Since you didn't mention any inaccuracies, I just continued with that assumption.
I don't think you provided details regarding the specific event that motivated you to make this post. All I know is it had something to do with suicide.

[off-topic derailing, ignore me]

I can't stop derailing topics to start arguments nobody cares about but me.

Edited this out, mailing you in-game, let's keep it there.

I've never been able to process walls of text (although this is a very important and meaningful one, I'm sure), but I'm assuming the title summarizes everything? Bit confused about what the discussion is about... from my point of view, "yes, we should be raising awareness to help those unnecessarily hated on" but what exactly is this whole chit-chat about, is there something that not everyone is agreeing with ? 0_0

I sympathize with the victims of bullying, and everyone who gets stressed out over their relationships in this game. But I've been posting on the forums nearly daily for almost three years, and I never get into emotional disputes. Why? I confine my comments to the game itself. I don't talk about the players. (A post like this is the closest I get to talking about players.)

If you want to have a big, angry argument with someone, then do it in real life. If you don't know the person in real life, then don't have a big, angry argument with them. There's no point in getting upset over a video game or its players. And if you don't get upset, it will be much harder for people to get upset with you.

I think the problem is about what is being addressed. Freedom of speech is one thing, attacking a person is another. We can all criticize, complain, comment on each other, and it all comes down to how the recipient handles it, but when it comes down to shaming, humiliate or mentally harm with any intent, then there's your problem. That said, it's not that we don't care, it's just that not all of us are part of it.

I also want to mention that a problem with "being aware" is that victims of bullying tend not to tell anyone about their issues. How do you help victims if you can't even detect or find them. Is it more efficient to censor everyone then to treat those victims? What is the alternative to your proposal here? I'm not here to deny your suggestion, but it doesn't seem fair that everyone gets a slap if someone says something stupid or ridiculous.

My suggestion? Please educate those "victims" how to handle negativity and criticism, because knowing what's wrong with yourself helps to better yourself, make yourself a stronger person and it's overall beneficial to everyone that way.

There's a saying: "Don't child-proof the world; world-proof the child." The world will never be totally safe and happy and comfortable. So train people with strategies and coping mechanisms, for dealing with angry and mean people. For example, help them recognize and ignore trolls on the Internet. This broad approach is what Zaffy-Laffy, Vishno, and I have been advocating in posts #45, #43, and (more abrasively) #26.

You can help victims to withstand/avoid bad situations, while also punishing/helping outright bullies. The two are not exclusive. When done well, both are preventative of future bullying.

So this can be summed up as "if you have nothing nice to type, don't bother typing it"