Grants:IdeaLab/Mental health of community members - what do we know, what can we do?
1. Find out as much as possible about mental health problems of communtiy members. Do the chapters or any other groups have any data on what problems are evident on the projects? How often does it become apparent, that community members have mental health problems? Does any of the chapters employ specialists in that field? Has any chapter or group developped ways to deal with this kind of problems?
2. A lot of mental health issues are connected to stress. I want to develop a stress prevention program especially suited to the wikimedia projects.Project idea edit
What is the problem you're trying to solve? edit
Any community with as many members as the wikicommunity has members, that have mental health issues. There is a lot of jokes about that, there are some interesting blogs on the subject and the foundation does provide emergency help. But as far as I know, no coordinated research has been done and (at least in the German community) there is no serious open discussion about such issues onwiki.
What is your solution? edit
I think we need to find out more and talk about it, to help prevent hurting community members and havin wikimedia projects contribute to mental health problems.
Reducing stress ist helpful to prevent many mental issues, or to help keep them at a low level, so a anti-stress-training for wiki users seems like a good practical first step to me.
Goals edit
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About the idea creator edit
I have only joined the wikimedia projects January 2014. I started editing the de.wp and soon also uploaded pictures on commons. The more I did, the more fascinated I was by the possibilities of the projects. But at the same time I found out pretty soon, that there is also a lot of potential for hurting people or being hurt onwiki.
As a experienced social worker with two therapeutical trainings (Systemic Therapy and Counseling in Traumacases) I keep seeing phenomenons in conflicts within the community, that reminded me of mental health problems.
With that in mind try to help problem and conflict solving as a administrator in the de.wp since May 2015. I take part in as many real life gatherings, as possible, was at all WikiCons in Germany since I joined and this year visited my first Wikimania, where I held a presentation: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_addiction_and_ist_comorbidities.pdf and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimania_2016_-_Wikipedia_Addiction_and_it%27s_Comorbidites_by_Kritzolina.webm
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