Published on 12, July, 2020
Recently I got awarded one of those badge things, from this site, apparently I am a "socialite". (!!??)
I went to have a look at what that means and discovered the following factoid.
I am one of only Eight of such people on this site, out of a total membership of nearly 80,000 souls.
Now apart from meaning that I'm a flipping outlier again, (even here!) AND "anti-socialite" would be a more apt description, it got me wondering.
Only one in 10,000 of us has as many "Friends" here as me and the other members of the socialite group...
And when I do read the wider site, most people seem to post just once or twice and then fail to continue except for a small cadre of regular posters.
Since getting "socialite"is it seems a bit of a statistically "standout" thing, I'd like to thank everyone on my friends list who by either asking for or accepting my request, made it possible.
If any of you who have added me, now regret it (and that's very possible) prompt action now, in removing me from your friends lists would:
A. be much appreciated, &
B. I'm curious to see if one can LOSE an "award" here...
I'm also curious to know if I am right to deduce that this site meets the needs of a small few of us, but is pretty irrelevant to the majority of it's members?
I must admit I do have reservations about these badges. Should a forum for autistic people be 'rewarding' social 'achievements'?
An autistic socialite does sound like an oxymoron to me. It does seem somewhat ironic that you, as a self confessed anti-socialite, have received that particular badge of honour. Congratulations anyway, Your Excellency
My thoughts on why active members are so few in relation to the total membership:
Many of the 80,000 members must be spam bots, signed up to promote their links and the accounts never used again.
Many more are people who ask a question and then never post again, perhaps not fully understanding what the forum is and thinking their question will be answered by NAS directly.
The nature of autistic monotropic thinking means that actively participating here can become a special interest and focus for a period of time. Then people may move on to other things.
The worrying statistics on autistic life expectancy means that some members may sadly have left permanently for reasons beyond their control.
Autistic people often go through life feeling that they don't 'fit in' and that feeling can persist even here. I know I experience it. Ideally this should be a place where autists can unmask and be themselves without any of the societal social expectations and norms. In reality that does not always happen and the earlier post by Zoe is a good explanation of that.
Perhaps most importantly life happens and there is a real world out there!
I seem to recall reading an old post on the forums, which seemed to date back to a time when the moderators appeared to be actively involved in discussions. I believe that NAS had been offered a selection of templates for the community part of the website, and went with the one that seemed the best fit.
This probably explains why there are 'badges' to reward social achievements, and also why certain 'features' that appear in member profiles and settings are not in use. I discover the other evening that when I visited my profile and clicked on Achievements, there was a link to view 'badges' that I have yet to be awarded. I think there were badges for blogging. Obviously, none of us will ever receive those badges.
Do you think anyone ever reads what people write on their Profile pages? I can't think of anything to write on mine, so I hardly bothered to.
I love this reply!
I read it if I get a friend request, especially if I don't know the person already from the forum. But I haven't got round to writing on mine yet, it will take more brain energy than I currently have and is very low priority right now. I probably ought to try and find a pic though...
Ah, thanks for that info.
That's news to me! They really must be stuck for choice!