16 Days Ago......an observation.

That's excellent !!  Thank you for that news.  He is SUCH a cool human.....I will be buying that as a gift for someone important.  He's like Bear Grylls, but without the gore and pointless risks?!

Thank you - talking scat is one of my special interests!  [that's a joke by the way......although I do have a coprolite....that makes me happy!]  I'm sure I won't  "flounce-off" from here, nor feel the need to leave for reasons of mental health, nor (hopefully) be too "of my age" with protestations about how things were much better in the "ye olde days."  I prefer sharing my thoughts in the private message format, because it is very hard to try and share something interesting, meaningful, personal or thought-provoking on these public pages......for very obvious and evident reasons.  Honest and real Q&A conversations/interactions that I find helpful and interesting are very often best conducted in a private setting.  Before I came here to this place, I had far fewer people of my tribe to do that with.  For me, this place has been very important.

This place can also be a tremendous time-sink.....if you're not too careful.

In July this year, the paperback (256 pages) and kindle editions of:

"Outdoor Tracking Handbook:

How to find anything in the wild"

by Ray Mears

will be published.

It might be interesting to see how that work will be reviewed by the initial readers.

You are beautifully poetic Number! I think I understand that you are after a gentle journey of reflective discovery. Please correct me if I’m assuming too much. I have difficulty engaging with people and talking about random things, but sometimes interesting posts like yours turn up, and it is good to talk. I would be sorry if you didn’t continue here. 

ArchaeC said:

can I turn ask you what you want to see here to keep things interesting? 

I like exploring the woods and wilds.  I don't like paths (I hate "pathways.")  I don't like signposts.  I like to discover what is over the next hill, by walking around the trees, to get to it.  If I want directions, I'll ask for them - but I will want to choose who to ask based on their appearance, gait and behaviour.  Maybe I'll find some scat on the floor......and become fascinated by it......and not bother reaching that hill after all.  Maybe a bear will jump out at me?  Maybe some "rando" human will chance across me staring at scat on the ground.....and we'll get chatting, about scat?!  Perhaps I'll glimpse a deer?

I think, in essence.....my time here in the gaze of others, is nearing it's close .......so really, the question is posed to those people who ARE here....because their ain't many places for folks like us to be around each other....just to chat and explore....like perhaps, only some autists hope for?  The question I posed in the OP that I think might be of most importance is;

Unknown said:

all of whom I presume will simply want to be in personal contact with one another here?

That is all I wanted when I came here........and was thankfully what I got.  I want others to be able to find that here too.

I am puzzled because I have seen different styles of posts and responses on the forum but I haven’t seen a thread that is hunting a bot. Can you name the bot and which thread is it hunting? I find the forum difficult to navigate so it would be great if NAS would fix it and make it autist user friendly. That would be one thing that would make connections with people in common a much nicer experience.

The diverse styles of communication and different interests of the people who use this forum is a good thing, but I am aware that some people can come across as angry, impatient and intolerant. This may be for all sorts of reasons - it could be my perception, the other persons autistic traits, mental health or the issues going on in someone’s life and so on. Some people want to control what other people say. 

Unknown said:

all of whom I presume will simply want to be in personal contact with one another here?

I think that anybody who makes a post or responds on a thread here is looking for contact with other people, and hopefully nobody is left without any interaction. You asked about what needs to happen “to keep things rolling … or at least interesting”. I can’t answer that, but I quite like talking about current affairs, material culture archaeology of Pre Pottery Neolithic to Iron Age Levant and early human cave art. I haven’t found any archaeologists here that I can engage with as my interest is niche. I don’t have the energy to talk about things that don’t interest me, or to engage with people who are aggressive, but most people have been nice. 

Unknown said:

What do YOU think needs to happen here, to keep things rolling?...or at least interesting.....for any genuine human autist here

As I haven’t anything more to add at the moment, can I turn ask you what you want to see here to keep things interesting? 

I agree with all that you say, and I would reiterate my primary point in the OP about this being a matter of BAD news!

Unknown said:

I observe that an obscure bot-hunting thread has received more responses than any other here.........for over two weeks (16 days.)  This is NOT a good observation to make!

In any event, rest assured that there is not even a modicum of even "bot research" being undertaken by me in this place any longer.  I had no personal relish nor intent to embark on any type of "hunt" at all........but events and experiences did lead me to research.......for reasons that I did not expect.  Things have moved on......and so have I.

My secondary point above (and the question I posed) was about whether people arriving here PRIMARILY hope to find personal contacts with one another? .... to share personal experiences and ideas .... art .... music ... fun ... nonsense etc?

I posed that question because, by my observation, there appears to be a more formalised Q&A style and feel to the place now?

I hope that puts any concerns you have to rest.

Speaking for myself, I didn't join the community hoping to explore a bot-hunt-detectorism-quest.

My focus and energy is intended towards getting to know, learn with / have fun with, plus support each other - in the manner of which fellow ND folk are capable - where some of our NT connections in life might struggle to do so.

However, if there were to be community members who do relish a "bot hunt"; it is not my business to deter them, each to celebrate and explore their own passions! 

Although, I might personally appreciate "bot hunt" fans doing so in those threads with that shared interest in mind - rather than bringing a bot hunt to lots of other unrelated threads. 

Some people relish (or need) access to positive threads, while others enjoy and thrive upon darker or more mysterious material.  I believe neither style is wrong, or better, than the other (but it would be good for people to have the choice about which genre they choose to experience).

However, there is one aspect about which I am not sure / about which I am slightly concerned: as Autistic people may have a a wide variety of presentations and some may have attendant other challenges too (not least of which; many of us have lived experience of navigating the mental health system at times in our lives too)...can we be confident that "bot hunt" enthusiasm takes sufficient care to safeguard those of our fellow forum friends who (at times) might be more sensitive to such fuelled worries? 

I feel that I am too new an account to be able to adequately answer that question (but I wouldn't like to think some people might feel triggered by coming across a "bot hunt" in a thread they wouldn't have expected to include that type of tangent / segue). 

Surely, I would hope, people potentially feeling more vulnerable (at a given moment in their life's journey) also deserve a way of charting a safe navigation through a community forum such as here.

There do seem to be lots of peope deseprate for help and I understand why, but if there are AI bots on here, then how do we know they're not asking for help, because they "see" that as a way of learning how to respond and what the hooks are to draw people in? Will we as in us here, end up helping to define how ASC is viewed by AI?

There are a variety of tells and indicators....it isn't all about how it is written...flashing, rhythm, pace...amongst other things.

Thx for sharing the articles. It can be really difficult to spot who's who online now as AI can be very convincing in the way it types. I was on a writing forum last year and someone new joined and participated in discussions, seemed really friendly and interested in writing, but got banned a day later because it turned out it was a bot-yet everyone thought it was a real person. If the moderator hadn’t said it was a bot I would never have known.

Appreciate you sharing the article

Ok… or maybe not all posts are written by English speakers. For me this is not my first language so now I started wondering if my posts also look like written by a bot. I’m sure I also make some mistakes in English. But I guess I know what you mean. 

Bunny said:

Besides having communication difficulties due to our autism, difficulties with using punctuation and grammar can be due to dyslexia, which can be comorbid with ASD.

Thanks.

The reason I was thinking about it being bot related is the techniques used by chatbots which is called tokenisation:

https://languagelover.org/2022/04/14/why-do-chatbots-ignore-punctuation/

Chatbots ignore punctuation because their programs rely on tokenization.  Tokens are the chopped-up pieces of text that allow a chatbot to determine what the user wants and give an appropriate response. 

I did find another article that talks about how to spot if a bot has written a post - quite interesting:

https://www.theinternetpatrol.com/how-to-tell-written-by-ai/

A few headline points that seem as if they were made for autists:

- Bots often follow a strict schedule, posting at regular intervals, day or night.
- While AI algorithms have become proficient at generating coherent text, they often lack the human touch.
- Bots usually resort to generic responses or repeat phrases, showing an inability to grasp the context or nuances of the conversation.
- Bots often display a peculiar pattern in their responses, with repeated phrases or a lack of personal opinions.

More a sign of being genuine, I'd say.

All abilities in communication should be accepted here of all places.

Iain said:

One thing that does perplex me is when someone posts a message here and it is just one long, unstructured block of text with no punctuation, paragraphs or and way to make it easy to read.

Is this a thing now?

Besides having communication difficulties due to our autism, difficulties with using punctuation and grammar can be due - for example - to dyslexia, and/or to learning disabilities, either or both of which can be comorbid with ASD.

If you want to make blocks of text easier to read, you can copy and paste them into an AI tool (eg ChatGPT) and ask for it to be restructured with paragraphs and punctuation.

British Dyslexia Association - Signs of dyslexia

I'm trying to understand if the way some posts are written (as one block of text without punctuation and paragraphs) are a sign that they were written by a bot or if it is just that education no longer does punctuation.

Sorry, I don’t understand who is the bot here? 

One thing that does perplex me is when someone posts a message here and it is just one long, unstructured block of text with no punctuation, paragraphs or and way to make it easy to read.

Is this a thing now? I've seen some older posters doing the same so are they just ahead of their time or desperately trying to regain their youth by writing the way the kids do?

Is this a bot thing too?

Another Autistician said:

it can often be hard to re type the long messages of advice and good will.

I find it easiest to have a few text files on my computer which have al the which have things like links, book references, regularly asked for facts etc so I can just copy / paste the relevant bits when needed.

This saves a lot of time.

There are suggested posts somewhere on the right when viewing on a desktop computer. It is easy for newbies to think that they are still relevant. Having said that, this can result in an old post once again becoming relevant, so it's fine, I guess.