Published on 12, July, 2020
I don't know about others, but I'm getting a little concerned that the arguments will put off new members.
Quite often people join and then disappear quite quickly.
I've been involved in these myself on occasion, so I'm not innocent.
However, maybe the mods could create a section where these potentially contentious threads could be placed that had a heading like NSFW (a new one on me but it seems to be well known).
If a seemingly innocuous thread then turns into a constant argument, perhaps it could be moved to there.
It's sometimes interraction between older males and older females (or non binary etc) and comes down to very different relationship/*ex points of view but can of course stem from any subject and any set of contributors.
I think it happens more often than it once did, and I've not been here a year yet.
You know I have a vision for this forum as an autistic safe space. What is an autistic safe space? It's a place where its safe to be your self and honest about your self and your issues with out having the outside world accuse you of being a weirdo and a creep. It's a place where we can be honest about our special interests with out apologising for the fact that they make other people uncomfortable. It's a place where people can honestly relate to each other with out having to do a stressful mental risk assessment on every word and joke. It's a place of tolerance where when people express views or tell jokes that upset each other they can work it out in a civil manner with out hurling accusations or villainizing each other.
It's a place where autistic people can come to discuss the difficulties they have interacting with the neurotypical world, whether that be in work, or relationships, or sexuality or anything else, without being made to feel bad because they don't conform to societies expectations and norms. Because they struggle to traverse a social landscape not made with them in mind.
What a safe space is not is a place where young autistic men new to the forum open up about the difficulties in their relationships / sex lives only to be dog piled by people vilifying them, even accusing them of being criminal.
People have been leaving this forum because of this. Lots of people have been put off when their 1st or second thread is filled with hateful comments against them only to be locked by a mod without any reassurance that they have done nothing wrong.
The last thing I want to do is create an echo chamber. This forum is better if its full of a diverse set of views and robust debate. However as they are subject to repeated abuse by a small subsection of this forum people are already starting to vote with their feet. If this continues, if this tirade of abuse is allowed to continue, this forum will become an echo chamber anyway.
If this happens I will have to seriously consider setting up my own forum for autistic people for those leaving this forum. I already run my own autistic rights advocacy type website and I'm more than capable of doing this. I don't want to do it. But I'll have to consider it if things don't improve going forward.
An autistic safe space must be a queer safe space, an ace safe space, and a trans safe space, given the enormous overlap in these already marginalized identities. The current rules would ensure this if they were enforced, but they are not, which has turned this place into an echo chamber where the existence of trans people is up for debate and men proclaim their right to sexually harass / coerce others and encourage new posters to do the same.
Peter said:If this happens I will have to seriously consider setting up my own forum for autistic people for those leaving this forum.
Go for it! That would be fantastic. I'm not saying that there can't be an autistic space run primarily for the benefit of and dominated by straight men, but it's shameful that the National Autistic Society is hosting it.
OK.
What about a space where people are free to make reasoned arguments without being accused of crimes by extremists? A space where people who make baseless accusations are brought to book. A place where anonymity is not abused, simply because there are no 'real life' consequences.
I would support that. It is shameful that the National Autistic Society does not police its forum effectively enough that people who accuse others, with no basis in fact, of crimes are not suspended or expelled.
Firstly, your definition is incorrect. An extremist is someone with extreme views, it is terrorists who commit acts of terror (the clue is in the name). Terrorists can be regarded as a subset of extremist who express their views in targeted violence, often to exert political pressure. For example, two bishops might take extreme positions about a doctrinal matter, in polar opposition to each other. They could be accurately called 'extremists', but it would be unlikely that they would blow anyone up over it.
Secondly, I have named no names, so from the action of logic, I have not 'name called'. If someone is innocent of having made baseless accusations, then I have not referred to them, even obliquely. Only someone guilty of verbally abusing anyone here would imagine that they were being referred to.
Anonymity can be useful, if it is not abused. It is the abuse that I am objecting to, people saying abusive things because they have anonymity. If you read my original post, you will find that I made no complaint about anonymity on this forum, neither did I make any appeal for it to be dispensed with, so your points on these matters are not relevant to anything I said.
Martin said:What about a space where people are free to make reasoned arguments without being accused of crimes by extremists? A space where people who make baseless accusations are brought to book. A place where anonymity is not abused, simply because there are no 'real life' consequences. I would support that. It is shameful that the National Autistic Society does not police its forum effectively enough that people who accuse others, with no basis in fact, of crimes are not suspended or expelled.
What "extremists"? Extremists commit acts of terror, nobody on this forum has done that. That is also name calling and accusatory. It doesn't only work in one direction you know. We are all equally subject to the same rules on this forum.Also NAS forum will never get rid of anonymity because we are not safe as autistic people to be open about it. Imagine all the potential employers that would look up people here then bin their job applications in secret. Anti-anon only serves the oppressor and never the oppressed. You wouldn't want your private life and all the things you've shared here open for all and sundry to read and attach to you either.