I will try and answer both of your posts together if that is OK.

1) I have suffered from and lived with sufferers of depression for my whole life. It is rare for me to say so on a public forum, but there it is.

2) I have been in a dangerous place and sought medical help. I was prescribed drugs which had catastrophic side-effects on me, and which persisted for years after I went through the horrible withdrawal process that the said drug causes. The drug was closer to killing me than the depression. I taught myself a kind of CBT (I didn't know it was called that back then) and I have been coping drug free for nearly two decades.

3) In the UK mental-health services are barely existent except for those in the most extreme circumstances, after nearly a decade of government cuts. Doctors prescribe drugs because that is all they can do. They refer you to counseling, but you face months of wait. Anecdotally it seems that most depression suffers never get the therapy that may really help them. Much of this is cultural in that somehow in 2018 people still think depression is not a real disease.

4) These stories are extremely popular on HN, and often make it to the front page, which suggests there is a demand.

> probably p-hacking anyway.

5) What an absurd slur.

> doctors would prescribe exercise and sunlight

6) They most certainly do exactly this. I have heard it with my own ears. A doctor told a person I know that they should try St. Johns Wort before risking anti-depressents.

> jesus, imagine if somebody put a github repo up about how to self-treat cholera!

7) Is a strawman, but since you brought it up, prevention of Cholera is most definitely a self-help exercise of some worth. I believe the main treatment is 'hydration' btw. I urge all Cholera suffers who are able to to seek out medical attention, for those with no access to it, hydration would seem like a valuable self-help technique.

> I'd be really happy if every advice column on depression just told people to go to a doctor

8) This list does that in the opening section. It suggests discussing the articles with a doctor too.

> I went through a period of simply trying everything anybody recommended, no matter how ridiculous

9) The antithesis of researching a list of articles and being well informed when you chose to visit your medical professional to discuss it with them. If you are in the frame of mind to try snake-oil, I seriously doubt a list like this would make any difference either way.

10) Not all depression sufferers are 'cured' by their doctor. Not all react well (or at all) to drugs. Everyone I know who has learned to manage their depression has (once they have got through the denial) done it through lifestyle changes, CBT, lighting, exercise etc. If you search through the links you will find novel drug therapies which are helping people (dramatically) who have had no benefit at all from existing medicine, and have been shown to do so in a peer reviewed study (before you repeat that slur). If a close family member of mine was in that situation I have no doubt at all that I would be keen for them to find out about it and go and discuss it with their doctor.

11) I don't feel the need to protect anyone from information.