I'm probably leaving

Or maybe only popping by to say hello now. Since the "upgrade", I've had messages removed as offensive, as spam and now they're threatening to stop my whole account. I don't seem to be able to get onto a log in page to change back to being TheCatWoman, so I feel as though I'm being punished. I've been told that one of my posts was flagged as offensive by someone and has been removed and another is under appeal, I've no idea what was offensive or against site rules in the post that has been removed, it was a fairly bland political post neither for or against anyone in particular.

Are we expected now to say nothing that could cause any possible offence to anybody?

Are we no longer allowed to express an opinion?

Who decides what is flagged? Is it one negative tick from one poster who may not like us?

Will we only be able to send vague and bland questions and thoughts in case "somebody" finds them offensive?

Well actually I find that notion offensive, the idea that there can be a chat board for a specific group of people, only we're not allowed to actually say anything that may help us make connections is absurd. I'm not a free speach warrior, but this does feel like normal converations are under attack, what's worse is whilst one may appeal there's no reasons or guidance given as to what the offensive content was. I'm left asking myself who or what flagged my post up as abusive and who or what decided to remove it? Was it human or was it an algorhythm? With no guidance as to how to avoid this alleged abuse, I'm left feeling hurt, confused, unrepresented and very angry, this is suposed to be a supportive place, not one that censors us when we're already a group that suffers from not knowing social rules and have problems communicating to others.

This site feels very dystopian right now

Parents
  • I couldn't log in with my original details, and then I received this message:

    A few days ago we emailed you about your user account. That message was to let you know about an issue with your account: The user was identified as abusive by community members.

    You have until  to send us an appeal using this form. Note that if you don't appeal this issue, your account will be permanently deleted on .

    I have no idea what message was 'abusive'. It is rather upsetting and unnecessary if this is all due to the upgrade.

  • I received that message as well. I must say it was very demoralising. I tend to not react to such things very well. In the email I received the next day they told me "Please be assured that this is an error generated by our spam filtering software". But from the initial message it really seemed to me that it was the community who had reported me, which makes me feel very unwelcome and like I wouldn't want to come here. I also received the message on a Sunday with the deadline being Sunday night, so I was sure my account would be deleted before someone could review my appeal.

    This forum upgrade has been disastrous for people with autism, but I am thankful to the mods for helping me finally get my account back and login at last.

    I still suspect that someone might have reported me on the old forum and it just didn't do anything until they upgraded it, so maybe there really is an unpleasant atmosphere around here. I have never been abusive and I assume it was someone reporting something that they disagree with.

  • I think the upgrade has been very unfortunate for autistic people, particularly those who only started using the forum just before the upgrade happened. I was close to quitting because of the automated messages. All very unfortunate and probably entirely avoidable.

Reply Children
  • I had only just joined and the upgrade was about to or was in progress.I have only just been able to log back in.Its not clear how you access previous posts in particular the ones I made initially introducing myself when I first joined.

    I did find the difficulties with trying to log in disappointing and upsetting and from what I have been reading other people have had really bad experiences.

    A lot of people have gone through a lot of stress