Rule 13: the last nail in NAS's coffin?

Peter, this is a general observation and not aimed at you personally.  I do not know you, I do not what security you have on your server, and I have no way of finding out. Even if you are legit (which I have no reason to doubt)  it does not mean that one of yours users might not be "dodgy".   > The same aplies here.<   Even if one uses a "disposable" email address and logs in using a secure bowser and / or a VPN, there is data for mining.

I did some training on preventing internet child abuse, and the police officer showed us how he had been able to "profile" his teenage neice, with her and her parents permission. All I will say is that it involved cross-referencing social media, a name here, a location there ... She replied to a message from the nice teenage boy who contacted her online, and it was her uncle. Scary!

I think the point is that anyone can post anything here.  We have no way of telling whether a poster is an "expert" or some sort of conspiracy theorist with an agenda. I usually look at the poster's profile, but often they are blank or at best uninformative, and in any case, they can be fiction. If I claimed to have a PhD in Ontological Serendipity (which I don't) there is no way you could tell if I were lying.

The net is a jungle, and one needs to fact-check everything.  That is why I try to post references to peer-reviewed literature, at least a name and date which can be checked on Google Scholar, even if you don't have access to PUBMED or other "academic" sites. Believe nothing without checking.

Whether or not a poster adds a disclaimer after posting a consignment of bovine excrement is irrelevant if someone out there believes it.

Saved me a lot of typing there, Number. hear, hear, etc.

As a newcomer to the site I have learned so much that has helped me to rationalise my 'condition', if I can call it that, through what I've always assumed to be perfectly acceptable open discussion. I have also had certain literature recommended to me, which has also been a great help. Does this constitute medical advice? You could argue it either way.

Thank you to everyone who has given advice freely thus far...just in case that river gets dammed sometime soon. As several people have already said, this is almost certainly driven by fear of litigation, and therefore somewhat understandable if regrettable.

In fairness that’s true of any new thing. Once upon a time NAS was a bunch of unknown people. Any new thing needs it’s first few members to just take the plunge and join in without there being a track record go on.

in terms of personal information all i could  collect Beyond any other forum user would be  email addresses, and passwords. And you could make a new email address and password if you want to just for the site.

l actually strictly speaking I don’t have access to the plaintext passwords either only the hashes. Although come to think of it I can see peoples IP addresses as The forum admin

With the greatest respect, because you are anonymous on here, nobody knows who you are. I imagine they are being cautious like me.

As for me I really don't know why I bother. I go to all the work of adding a forum. No one uses it. People clearly are upset about this, but no one is upset enough to spend 30 seconds registering on the forum I made. ... it's not as if I was presenting an either or choice ... sigh.

Respectfully that's as clear as mud. Define the difference between peer support and advice please.

And the suggestion that people concerned should contact a mod is totally unrealistic given the average turn around time on that is about 24 hours sometimes more.

I've long been an advocate of hospital based walk in diagnostic wards / clinics. However I don't think they need to be GP only. I think it's quite useful to rotate doctors from specialist departments into a diagnostic ward from time to time. So there is no need to do 3 referrals one after the other to decide if something is neurological or endocrinological etc. But of course funding new wards costs money.

It might just be a good idea for mods to add a disclaimer to their existing script, rather than censor the only real nexus to the world of autism that exists, rather than limiting us to small-talk..

Well I believe that the bulk of autism support and furtherment, had been coming from the parents of autists in the 90s onwards, but as that generation wanes we find that autistic society is losing a staunch fragment of itself that is not being replaced..

Your comments lend further support as reasoning for the need for a Rule 13 disclaimer!  QED

There is a fine line between information and advice.

Can I assume it is still OK to post information e.g. references to statutory guidance, legislation etc.?

I see "advice" as  "in this case, you should ... "

What about  " Have you considered ... " ? Is that advice?

What about  " Hypothetically ... it should be possible to ... " ?

From my point of view, the problem is that there is no way to tell what credentials a poster has unless they post them in a profile ... and then there is no way of checking whether a user is really a trained widget wrangler or not. It is illegal to claim to be a member of a regulated profession, which covers health professionals and social workers. You can use the title lawyer, but solicitor and barrister and legal executive are regulated.

Hear Hear, Ref. my below comment.

Why isn't rule 13 an NAS disclaimer stating: "Any medical advices expressed or implied within this forum shall not be supported by the NAS."

Perhaps with our collective unity against this current rule, they can be persuaded to take this above suggestion as forward thinking rather than placing yet more restrictive rules upon us as adult autistics.

Hi online community users,

Thankyou for your post and comments on this thread. 

Peer support is encouraged on this platform but as the rule states, users should not provide legal or medical advice. If you are unsure whether your  advice is legal or medical, please do get in touch with our moderation team by emailing communitymanager@nas.org.uk .

Moderators may remove posts that break any of the community rules (https://community.autism.org.uk/p/rules), without prior warning. However, often the approach is to post a rules reminder in the thread and contact the user directly. Banning members is something we try to avoid where possible although sometimes users will be placed into moderation for a set period of time.

We hope this provides some reassurance, please do get in touch at the email address mentioned if you have further questions.

Kind regards,

Clare Mod

Could we have a Community Moderator share this discussion and explain the rationale behind these rules and how they are implemented, please?

Unfortunately in many places, GPs are no longer a viable service. Even if the government funds the NHS adequately it will take six or seven years to train and recruit more GPs. A&E is not much better unless you are a "blue light" critical care case. NHS 111 can offer advice, and I have known them to arrange a next-day GP appointment. Our local hospital has a GP-led clinic that deals with primary care patients who turn up at casualty, either because they are not registered with a GP or can't get an appointment.

GPs always have been private businesses. Maybe what we need, certainly in major towns and cities, is a proper primary care facility, with salaried GPs, diagnostic facilities, and other health care professionals. It is ridiculous to visit your GP, and then be sent to the hospital pathology department for a blood test, for example. Some GP practices have counsellors,physiotherapists, and other services on-site. Others are one-man bands like something out of Dr Finlay's casebook.

I hate rules that shut down discussion of anything medical related with "see a professional." It's a minimum six-week wait to see my GP. It's often helpful to get an idea of what to do in the meantime from other people who have had the same experience.

Perhaps naively, I have sufficient faith in our volunteer human guardian angels (aka MODS) to not be so worried about this new rule.

Firstly, I presume they have good cause to introduce the rule.  They might have felt it necessary, even if they really didn't want to.  Personally, I have no cause to challenge or question their decision on this matter.

Secondly, I presume that they have good enough sense not to "wield" this rule against anyone who displays a modicum of care and disclaimer with advice and opinion that they proffer here.  Most of us amateur well meaning "real" people seem to always make our non-professionalism clear in our posts.

I will continue to spout the same old bol locks to whomever solicits opinion in this place.....if I feel I may have something useful to say.

If I find that I am being unreasonably censored, I will review my contributions and presence in this place.