Community Updates

Community Update: February 2024

Meditation Mind Team February 11, 2024

As always, thank you for being a part of the community! We only have a handful of changes since our last update, but they’re important so we wanted to share them with everyone sooner than later. If you’re not already a member of our online Discord community, please join us today!

Table of Contents

  1. Guidelines Updates
  2. More Bloom Bot Updates
  3. New Channel: #intentions
  4. New Partner Community: Taoism (English)

Guidelines Updates

While people often associate meditation and mindfulness with mental health, it is important to note that Meditation Mind is not a mental health server. Views and opinions on the server are not intended to be a substitute for professional advice and should not be presented as such.

As members of our server staff lack the qualifications and expertise to adequately moderate certain types of mental health discussion, to ensure the safety of all involved—both active participants and lurkers—we have established the following guidelines to promote responsible engagement with topics related to mental health.

Mental Health Discussion Guidelines
  • Diagnosing should be done by a qualified professional, within the proper context.
  • Do not attempt to diagnose others.
  • Do not attempt to confirm or refute others’ diagnoses.
  • If you choose to self-diagnose, do not ask others to confirm or refute the diagnosis.
  • Personalized advice should be given by a qualified professional with adequate knowledge of the patient and their circumstances, within the context of a physician-patient relationship.
  • Such advice should be delivered privately, to prevent a third-party from attempting to follow advice not meant for them, to their own detriment.
  • Sharing personal experiences in a general context (i.e., not in the form of advice, directly or indirectly) to provide inspiration or background context, achieve human connection, etc. is OK.
  • Advice that is non-personalized, generally applicable, and recognized as implementable by a non-qualified individual with little to no potential for harm is OK.
  • Discussing general mental health/well-being, such as everyday struggles with fear, anxiety, sadness, anger, and/or other thoughts or emotions, is OK.
  • Sharing of resources should also satisfy the above rules.
  • Examples of acceptable resources: Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing (Treleaven) or The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (Williams, Teasdale, Segal, Kabat-Zinn)

At noted in the details above, discussion of general, everyday mental well-being is relevant and welcome. However, the line between general mental well-being and diagnosable mental health conditions can be fuzzy. When in doubt, please err on the side of caution, for everyone’s safety.

We do offer a small selection of mental health resources in #mental-health, including crisis hotlines, meditation-related resources, peer support servers, and a resource bot. We also have a ?crisis command for quick access to crisis resources.

In our general guidelines, we have also added “avatars/pfps” to rule #7 (shown above) for clarity. Like server nicknames and custom statuses, avatars/profile pictures are immediately visible in the member list and in channels when posting, and should be appropriate for an all-ages server with a wholesome atmosphere.

Bloom Bot Updates

Once again, we have made some exciting (and long-awaited) updates to our community’s custom bot, Bloom.

  • Personal Customization Profiles

    In the previous update, we introduced time zone and privacy customization to individual commands. Now you can create your own personal profile to store your customization settings and automatically apply them to commands.

    Profile settings include: UTC offset, anonymous tracking, streak reporting, streak visibility, and stats visibility. Use the /customize group of commands to view and modify your profile.

  • Stats Updates

    Dark mode stats graphs are back! And this time we have also added a theme option to /stats for those who prefer the white background.

    While the default bar color is orange (shown below), stats for members who are monthly supporters on Patreon or Ko-fi will be shown using the member’s custom role color, which is a donator perk.

bloom-stats
  • Quick Term Lookup

    Wondering what some meditation-related jargon means? Try using the new /whatis command to get a quick definition! Since results are usually compact, the command may be used in all channels, but please use it reasonably. When in doubt, use #bot-commands.

    The /whatis command actually provides an abbreviated definition based on data from Bloom's new glossary, a long-awaited feature. More info below!

  • Glossary Features

    After multiple attempts to introduce a glossary feature over the years, the /glossary group of commands is finally here!

    Use /glossary list to get a list of available terms, /glossary info to get full details for an entry, /glossary search for an AI-powered search, or /glossary suggest to suggest a term for addition. As several of these commands produce significant output, usage is limited to #bot-commands.

  • Help Menu

    Bloom's new help menu now provides info for subcommands when a parent command is specified using the optional command parameter. For example, below is the output for /help command: glossary.

help for commands

New Channel

On January 1, we added #intentions as a place for community members to discuss intentions, both for the turn of the year and beyond.

The channel is similar to #accountability, but less focused on check-ins and consistent practice, and more centered on discussion and supporting each other with new habits, goals, etc.

New Partner Community

A community dedicated to the serious and respectful exploration of Taoism. We explore the rich tapestry of Taoist philosophy, meditation, and practice, including in-depth Dao discussions, meditative practice, qigong and martial arts, feng shui, and more.

Join us to explore the full spectrum of Taoism—from the philosophical to the mystical. Let's embark on this thousand-step journey together.

We are happy to welcome Taoism (English) as a new partner community. While Taoism/Daoism is included in our server themes, in-depth discussions are uncommon. Taoism (English) will help fill this gap, offering a welcoming environment and intelligent conversation. We hope this partnership will be beneficial for members of both communities. (If invite is broken, join via Disboard.)

And that’s it for our February update. If you have any feedback or suggestions, feel free to get in touch via @ModMail or /suggest!

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