AUTISTIC PEOPLE ON THE (N.A.S.) INTERNET, AND "HOW-TO" USE IT.

Didn't expect to post this, but it is yet another example of "issues":
"[" and "]" divide the whole of the part actually copied AS TEXT. (I have a "snapshot" of the screen, but did not want to start along such lines, since "text" is hard enough for some of us to "post" already. If I can, then I shall try to "post" the "snapshot" if anyone asks.)

[18 Oct 2017
ElephantInTheRoom
ElephantInTheRoom in Home
AUTISTIC PEOPLE ON THE (N.A.S.) INTERNET, AND "HOW-TO" USE IT.
Disallowed Cynosure replied:
"Hi" in reply to your "EMAILS" at me, which don't show up on this website, but "EMAILing" brings up many other "issues" of the sort over which I began this "thread/forum"... This is what I did & I still do. Believe it or not, I have *never* used "Emailing software" to send an "Email" in my entire life, never. The device I use to "SetUp" all of this Internet stuff is an iPOD, which can "receive", yet has no "phone number". Upon this little fellow I gain any "messages", "notifications", "updates... (with 14 other replies)
Like 22 days ago ]

... There were also "buttons" after which, I can only describe as: Like [ThumbsUp Icon] 2 [Clock Icon] 2 days ago. [... Icon].
If this makes sense, anyone should recognise it.

THE "ISSUES" here are this:
"ElephantInTheRoom" shows up as the person I supposedly replied to... but I was actually replying to "NAS24896"!
"14 other replies" ... really? Where?
"22 days ago" - I only posted all of that YESTERDAY (i.e. about 2 hours ago).
"[Clock Icon] 2 days ago" - Less than two hours, and contradicts it saying "22 days ago" as above.

The time of me POSTING this particular "issue" should register as around 02.30 (half-past-Two AM.). On 19th October.
So... yet another "confusing" thing about "The Internet". ふっ.

Hi DC, sorry if it seems a silly question, but I'm a little confused. What are you actually trying to do? Why "emails"? Do you mean private messages on here? Are you trying to send them and it doesn't work? You don't need a email program for that or a phone number, but depending on someone's account settings you can usually only send private messages to someone you are friends with. Was that what you tried? To become friends with someone, and was that not working? Or had someone send you a friend request in order to be able to send you private messages, and you couldn't accept it (on your device, I mean)?

Try not too hard to understand the structure of this forum, it's not you being dumb, it's just a strange system and confuses everybody a bit. When replying to someone, perhaps address them (as you did), then it's clear anyway, even if the reply appears in the wrong place. 

I'm sometimes getting a little confused with your quotation marks. At times you seem to use them to indicate that this is exactly how the button is called, o.k., I understand that, but often I have no idea. Sometimes people use them to indicate a sarcastic or not literal meaning but that doesn't seem to fit either. Like in the last sentence you wrote. Or is it a way of highlighting words? Think I would find it easier to read without a lot of highlighting because I'm focusing a lot on understanding the reason for highlighting (if that's what it's for). Others may have other preferences though. Don't worry too much about it, It's just my personal opinion/preference and may or may not be shared by anyone else (and even if others share it there is no law about it).

There are also only a few kind of laws here, other things are a matter of personal judgement which isn't always easy and is subjective and autism doesn't help with it. So you are certainly allowed several posts in a day, but say if you keep posting comment after comment and nobody has time to respond or you are not actually taking replies into consideration when posting then there can be a point where it gets too much and it starts to appear offensive, no matter what the content is. You haven't done that, so no worries. It's also allowed to deviate from the topic a bit, but if the deviation becomes the main topic of the thread then opening a new one is certainly the better option, otherwise it's a bit unfair to the original poster. That's exactly what you did (opening a new thread, I mean) - perfect. 

Anyway, just trying to understand what you are having problems with. 

Hi DC, sorry if it seems a silly question, but I'm a little confused. What are you actually trying to do? Why "emails"? Do you mean private messages on here? Are you trying to send them and it doesn't work? You don't need a email program for that or a phone number, but depending on someone's account settings you can usually only send private messages to someone you are friends with. Was that what you tried? To become friends with someone, and was that not working? Or had someone send you a friend request in order to be able to send you private messages, and you couldn't accept it (on your device, I mean)?

Try not too hard to understand the structure of this forum, it's not you being dumb, it's just a strange system and confuses everybody a bit. When replying to someone, perhaps address them (as you did), then it's clear anyway, even if the reply appears in the wrong place. 

I'm sometimes getting a little confused with your quotation marks. At times you seem to use them to indicate that this is exactly how the button is called, o.k., I understand that, but often I have no idea. Sometimes people use them to indicate a sarcastic or not literal meaning but that doesn't seem to fit either. Like in the last sentence you wrote. Or is it a way of highlighting words? Think I would find it easier to read without a lot of highlighting because I'm focusing a lot on understanding the reason for highlighting (if that's what it's for). Others may have other preferences though. Don't worry too much about it, It's just my personal opinion/preference and may or may not be shared by anyone else (and even if others share it there is no law about it).

There are also only a few kind of laws here, other things are a matter of personal judgement which isn't always easy and is subjective and autism doesn't help with it. So you are certainly allowed several posts in a day, but say if you keep posting comment after comment and nobody has time to respond or you are not actually taking replies into consideration when posting then there can be a point where it gets too much and it starts to appear offensive, no matter what the content is. You haven't done that, so no worries. It's also allowed to deviate from the topic a bit, but if the deviation becomes the main topic of the thread then opening a new one is certainly the better option, otherwise it's a bit unfair to the original poster. That's exactly what you did (opening a new thread, I mean) - perfect. 

Anyway, just trying to understand what you are having problems with. 

Hi there, trying to define some terms the way I understand them (maybe the fact that English isn't my first language makes that sometimes easier because I get less distracted by the more original meaning of words...)

Topic - what a thread is about

Thread - a series of posts, all on the same topic (well, more or less); someone opens one by posting a comment on a new topic, then people respond, more people respond to those responds and so on. Because of replies to replies to replies... this isn't all simple and linear, and the way this website works often makes it quite hard to read.

Forum - is what is called here the "NAS community". It's this part of their website you are on at the moment. A forum is a place for non-NAS people to discuss things, as compared to the rest of the website where the content comes from people working at the NAS. So all the threads with posts on various topics are found on that forum. The same applies to other forums on other websites.

Post - any comment you submit, either by starting a new thread or by replying to someone else's post

Friend - someone you have made a slightly more personal connection with, on social media (like Facebook, but also this forum) that works like in kindergarten. You can't develop into being friends and both simply know it, you have to ask someone "Do you want to be my friend?" - this is done by sending a friend request. Then the other person can decide if they want to accept this (basically saying "yes, I want to be your friend") or not (by just ignoring it or declining it (o.k., this bit is different from kindergarten). Being friends with someone allows you to do some more private things. You may send them a private message (a message only that person can see) or (for example on Facebook) be able to see their whole profile, their comments etc. On the NAS forum it doesn't have much functionality, it's just for private messages as far as I can see, but it's a way of saying "I find we have something in common and feel somehow connected to you / I appreciate your comments / let's keep sharing our thoughts...", and perhaps to form collection of friends (think this is what people often do on Facebook, not sure if there is much of this here). Guess like in real life one expects friends to sometimes be a little more understanding towards them than the general (forum) population. Unfortunately it does sometimes also go the other way. Generally I'd say to be friends on social media is far less deep or committing as in real life.

Private messages - Sometimes I would like to reply to someone but know that it would either upset others or perhaps embarrass the person I want to reply to in front of others. If I were good at that I could probably write it anyway but in a way that avoids all these problems, but I'm not. Turning it around, for example if someone sent me a private message saying "oktanol, no need getting so worked up about this, xyz didn't mean it like that even if it came across that way" it would probably make me calm down, if someone would write the same as a reply to something I posted I would probably feel more irritated, think they are taking sides, that it's not fair, and go on arguing and getting more upset. Sometimes I would also like to say something that's too private to be on a website where everybody (including people that are not members of this forum) can see it. This is way I would sometimes like to send private messages. Whenever I tried this I got no response though - possibly because the other person just didn't want it, which is fine, possibly because they didn't see it - who knows.

Hope it has clarified some things. Don't worry about asking, it took me also a while to figure out what mods are.

To Oktanol (again) this turn,
"Private Message". Until you specified that term exactly, I honestly did not know what it meant, as it keeps appearing as part of a list of one of those "pop-up" lists that likes to have massive fight with the "Virtual Keyboard" on my E-Reader. I try to access it, it disappears/reappears. I try to tap a part of it, it disappears/reappears. I twitch or blink, and it disappears/reappears.

"Friending". All of what I posted then, was what I meant and happened. The "friend" request was kind of meant as that sort of thing which is done in real life, where one may visit a shop/store, yet unexpectedly encounter very much difficulty (or hostility)... and only one (or two) persons actually rescue you therefrom... and in great relief at them, a '"THANK YOU" CARD' is a most appropriate thing to give back to them.
The "Thank You" was to "NAS24896" (correct number?); I genuinely meant to "send" a "ThankYou", and I did not know how this involves "sharing Emails" or such jargon and before I could even consider such implications, the "BOX" that I said appeared did appear, and I couldn't do anything else about it. But whatever I wrote, I GENUINELY meant the "Thank You"! I intended to copy/paste/edit the message I sent, but as I said, EVERYTHING else I was doing disappeared after that.
This all is a part of what this "thread" is for - to report "niggles" such as that, and how such "niggles" are not found out until AFTER doing them, and about how confusing or difficult they may be.

A last "niggle/issue", related to this. Sometimes even when I switch from one thread to another or just press the "back" button (still here on NAS), I am "signed out", text disappears, I wind up elsewhere, etc. Some of these problems are to do with NAS, and some are not; but for this "thread", all such are mentioned as reasons for trouble or misunderstanding while "using the Internet". ふっ.