Since we launched 43 Things we have seen some content on the site that we would have never anticipated. We meant for the site to be about people’s goals and a group of users found ways to put it to uses we do not support. Over the years, we’ve tried to cohabitate with some of this content, seeing the benefit in the community that grew around them.
However, in recent months there’s been a lot of activity on 43 Things around self-harm goals. Most of the action has been around eating disorders, suicide, and other self harm topics. We began by adding warning boxes at the top with resource material for people struggling with these issues. Unfortunately the problem grew.
Today we rolled out new pages for many of these goals that simply leave the warnings and take away the entries and ability to interact with the goal. We still stand by our community guidelines when it comes to allowing a varied range of content on the site. However, the self-harm goals were a misuse of 43 Things.
If you see truly sensitive goals please let us know. Please note that we reserve the sensitive goal feature for only the most egregious goals (typically self-harm related). Thanks.
June 25, 2007 at 6:34 pm
What about rape? I’ve noticed a couple of goals about raping people.
June 25, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Thanks Reese — I’ve now disabled those goals.
June 26, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Thank you for watching out for this and the people who need help.
There is just so much you can do online, they have to be willing to make some effort in order to help themselves.
June 29, 2007 at 12:54 am
Thank you I think its the best thing you could do. Having recovered from myself I was so shocked at the groups that had sprung up. Nothing was getting through to those girls and from what I read a lot of them hadn’t crossed the line to being sick but if they kept going on the path the were on they would have.
I didn’t join the 43 things site because I was so highly disturbed by the groups that were around (not that I placed blame with the creators I just couldn’t be apart of a site with those groups on offer.) I am now just about to open an account.
Its so good to finally see a website take action and not sit back and let it continue. Kudos.
June 29, 2007 at 9:53 pm
You guys are doing an amazing job of running the site.
I feel a lot better about using 43T and the like knowing that ya’ll are really involved in everything and are constantly trying to make the site better and interacting with all of us to help figure out how to do that.
You guys rock. :]
July 9, 2007 at 11:41 am
I’d just like an explanation why my accounts keep being disabled. I’ve never posted anything harmful. I talked about RewardTV, and how to trade referrals.. How in the world is THAT harmful? Please make some sense about your guidelines. I’m being singled out, and it’s not fair!
July 22, 2007 at 12:31 am
I think that’s great, actually! Those just weren’t appropriate goals for the site, and people who had gotten over eating disorders and written about their experiences were being targeted by the pro-eating disorder crowd with mean comments and meaner private messages. I even got a hater for writing that I didn’t think being skinny was all that great… As much as I want the site to be open and free-form, I’m glad you stood up to them and closed off those goals.
@MamaMystery: These sites are not supposed to be used to spam people, and if all you’re doing here is recruiting people for something, your account is going to be flagged and deleted. You’re not being singled out — no one is allowed to do that. It’s in the terms of service:
Visitors may post comments and other content … so long as the content … does not consist of or contain … commercial solicitation, chain letters, mass mailings, or any form of “spam.” … 43things.com reserves the right (but not the obligation) to remove or edit such content, but does not regularly review posted content.
You can recreate your account as many times as you want, but there’s an active anti-spam community here, and they have the power to flag and disable your account.
August 6, 2007 at 11:51 am
I’ve noticed this about a few days ago. The reason I was trying to get to the “suicide” goal was to try to help some people. I might not be a big help if at any… and I might make it worse, but I think it would be cool to kind of have some 43 thingers help other 43 thingers… Just an idea.
You guys are doing an awesome job with 43 things and related sites. Keep it up!
August 16, 2007 at 7:50 pm
First, the “break my ankle” goal is still up, in various variations.
Second, Mary Hawkins: I’ve been flagged for spam once. The issue back then was, that I tend to back-link my previous postings to keep an overview of what progress I already made on a goal. Especially when different goals touch another goal, backlinking is helpful to go back to any such off-track entries [regarding the goal].
I reckon, anyone was suspecting an attempt to rank high any pages. On the other hand, if linking were not wanted, 43 wouldn’t offer it, right? — So, backlinking to older postings, is that against the terms of use of 43 things?
November 7, 2007 at 9:16 am
I see you have removed “neighborhood watch”, and the “report this user”, with block this user. How are we going to help to weed out the “bad content” if there is no way to report it? On the subject of drugs, I have found the goals about drugs to be all about sharing information about how to use them, and how “great” they are, with pictures included, so you’ll know what your looking for. I know this “can’t” be what you intended 43 Things, so they get reported, then you see them making comments the next day. Is this something we just have to get used to? Or is there a plan for the future? (I hope) I really love 43 Things, and think it is a absolute “GREAT IDEA”, so I wouldn’t want you to just give up, but I hope there are some ideas about this kind of thing on the table. Thank’s.
November 7, 2007 at 3:51 pm
If you’ve reported a large number of accounts recently, you might see the “report this user” link disappear and reappear again on your pages later. This is due to a maximum limit on the daily number of reports a single user can add into the Neighborhood Watch system. Don’t worry, Neighborhood Watch is alive and kicking!
April 27, 2008 at 9:29 am
I ran across a goal “do coke”, shouldn’t it be removed as having destructive impacts on peoples lives?