List of what is currently wrong with the forum

Maybe it’s time we collectively emailed the community manager and say we’re walking if they don’t fix this.

It would be bad enough on a random forum at another time of year but they seem to have forgotten that we are autistic and many of us have RSD, are very isolated and lonely or suffer severe stress if we are perceived to have broken rules or upset other forum members.

Deleted User said:

Especially at this time of year, which so many people find difficult.

Couldn’t agree more. I feel that there should be much, much better team support over this period, if this over-zealous filter is going to remain in effect - just like there is for many important helplines.

This what the NAS says about suicide:

"Why might you feel suicidal?

Reasons for suicidal thoughts vary and some people may not know why they feel suicidal. The most common reasons affect both autistic and non-autistic people, but autistic people may be more likely to experience them, such as:

• existing mental health issues
• trauma or stressful experiences ( relationship/financial/work worries)
• loneliness / social isolation."

At this time of year, those issues can be significantly heightened - and this forum can be an important source of companionship and moral support. But not when we're locked out from posting, or there’s an ongoing and unreasonable risk of that happening.

That's very upsetting to hear  

Firemonkey can't post.

This situation stresses out a lot of people, but firemonkey particularly.

We could, or rather others could as I wouldn't even know where to begin, my fear is that for me, it would be just as bad as this has become, because I'm a technoklutz and wouldn't understand it

Another thing… I keep receiving notifications that I’ve received PMs, except that I haven’t received any PMs

Surely the logical thing to do is have functionality that re- filters messages after edits, rather than quarantining them? If an original post can be filtered, then an edited one should be filterable also, rinse and repeat.

Testing to see if this post goes into moderation - written 31.12.24, 12.29pm

Deleted User said:

it would make more sense to simply remove the the functionality than keep banning people for using it.

My suspicions are they are treating us like vunlerable children and they lack the resource to evolve their systems to our capabilities.

You see how rare it is for a mod to post here now - I think they just don't have the staff anymore so we are a lower priority than ever. I don't see that getting fixed anytime soon.

There alternative is not having this forum and I think that is a price not worth paying.

Especially at this time of year, which so many people find difficult.

I hope you’ve emailed them again  

The forum is no longer fit for purpose.

If they regard editing as suspicious, it would make more sense to simply remove the functionality than keep banning people for using it.

I'd always wondered about that.  Thanks for explaining.

Martin said:

What in a user editing their own post is suspicious, what is this irritating glitch supposed to be guarding against?

The reason for this is a lot of spammers bypassed previous filters by first posting an innocuous post then coming back and editing it to add a link that would have been stopped in the original post.

On the previous site here, editing more than twice would have had the same effect I recall - it certainly happened to me when I was correcting something and added a typo by mistake and tried to correct it.

I suspect by making the site "safer" that it has just become more intolerant to our failings.

Automated. I was, wondering if it was bots. 

That's the issue I have. I don't edit now. 

I am very tempted to start building one, I can build websites and could quite easily build a forum. 

So it seems that poor Debbie has been locked out yet again :(  

This place really sucks.

As I said in a related thread, an important source of support - like this forum - ceases to be one when its users can't rely on it any more.

test

Arise said:

I think we could self-organise and build our own. There are enough coders here that could work on it if they would be willing to participate. Building our own gives us exactly what we want and we have some fairly specific needs that we might not find in any other existing service. 

As this one seems thoroughly broken, I would welcome this.

I'd hope though that the regular contributors here would use it and of course there's no guarantee.

Peter and Ausomely Autistic have set up their own forums since I've been present here (2+ years).

The Microstock Group forum has been in use for many years and is successful.

It's the only example I know of an individual person setting up a forum for a group and the only other type of forum I have used (ie photography).

https://www.microstockgroup.com/

Thank you the suggestion.

I think we could self-organise and build our own. There are enough coders here that could work on it if they would be willing to participate. Building our own gives us exactly what we want and we have some fairly specific needs that we might not find in any other existing service.