Moderation, respect, and offensive language.

it doesn't mention that in the rules. one reason why private messages should exist  

a lot of forums let you appeal but ask you not to post obviously... bu-bu-but what if a member had like 10 accounts before they were banned?

It hasn't come up so far, but if we've had to ban someone, we're open to reviewing the decision. 

That said, going around any bans we put in place is against the rules anyway. It's best they email us and make their case rather than make a new account. 

Have there been any cases where people've been let back on new accounts like if they apologized or do you just ban them again?? 

What if they slip by unnoticed for ages and you suddenly notice them?

We have the ability to block by IP. Of course, with proxies this can be bypassed, but as of yet it hasn't been an issue. The vast majority of our users respect our community, our rules, and any bans in place. We'd place as many blocks as necessary to protect our users and if need be, consider legal options. 

We've had users come back before and try to remain undercover and we've blocked them. 

Anil A - Mod said:

If we have to ban a user, we have the capability to prevent them from creating new accounts. 

You're mistaken... You can't prevent someone from creating new accounts... all you can do is to ban them as soon as they're created...

and what i meant is that you must have heard of proxies? and anyway someone can just come back and as long as they don't act up/draw attention it probably wouldn't get noticed :P

Some things are starting to dawn on me, having just read this thread and thinking about some recent postings...

If we have to ban a user, we have the capability to prevent them from creating new accounts. 

if you make a decision, people can just create a new account you know...it only takes like 10 clicks...

Hello again,

Longman, Scorpion is quite right here. You've made some excellent points, but some of your remarks have been too personal, as Scorpion describes.

As I mentioned earlier, most of my moderation efforts here go into reminding researchers to observe proper research ethics. I hope we don't end up in a situation where much of my time is taken up refereeing personal disputes between established members of the community.

You are some of the most active and productive members of this forum, and it saddens me to see things going this way.

Longman, please do not make any further personal attacks, on Scorpion, Autismtwo, or any other member of the community.

Scorpion, please try to understand longman's intent in posting - like me, he's clearly keen for peace to return to the forum, and I don't think the inflammatory aspect was intentional.

All of you - and I include autismtwo in this - do sterling work explaining autistic spectrum conditions to the world. I'm here because my bosses asked me to be; you're all here voluntarily, and I greatly appreciate that.

I remain committed to not censoring these forums except in the most extreme circumstances, and I'm more than happy to account for any and all moderating decisions I make. I know that the NAS can often appear to be a large bureaucracy, and I can only try my best to humanise it. Please feel free to continue this thread, or to mail me, if you wish.

Many thanks,

Alex R - mod

longman said:

And after sayiong this I googled the words "autism crazy" and rachellouise's original posting came up.

Also a dialogue from October/November 2011 on Wrong Planet that was altogether much better conducted, and very interesting reading to boot. And there was a U-tube of an autistic child's crazy dance. There was an individual blog on autism and being crazy.

No-one else is making a fuss about the word "crazy". Clearly other adults on the spectrum are not unhappy when the word is used to describe meltdowns, judging from the individual blog.

Nice cherry picking there Longman.

Here, let me cherry pick something else for you, found by googling those same two words you used:

http://iamautistic---thisismylife.blogspot.co.uk/

longman said:

This is a valuable help service - a means by which people suddenly affected by autism, whether by adult diagnosis, as a parent of a child diagnosed, or a relative of one. It is also important for those struggling with social services to come on here and share experiences and learn from collective knowledge.

Fortunately most of that interface goes on in separate dialogues. Generally the parents of children don't read the postings of adult discussions. And mostly the adults don't read all the stuff about looking after babies. 

There is some cross-over but usually beneficial.

What happened here was that in the TITLE of a posting a mother described a toddler's behaviour as crazy. If she had used the word "crazy" in the text instead of the title, would autismtwo and Scorpion0x17 have noticed? Do you guys normally read postings on toilet training?

Had the respondent used crazy in a thread in an adult context well and good. But this was a mother trying to support an autistic child, and struggling to find the right words.

This was a thread that the adults on the spectrum had no business commenting on. Yet in a thread about helping a child with autism, in charge a brigade of over-sensitive adults shouting outrage that the word "crazy" was used. 

Well what you did was "crazy" - inappropriate, insensitive, thoughtless, selfish - and to anyone reading it I'll happily use "mad" "insane" "stupid" "looney" anything you want to take issue with me about. Because that's the truth - nothing to do with political correctness. The way you came down on this mother was lunatic behaviour.

And she hasn't posted since the 14th June. And I suspect she has withdrawn. And this site now wont be available to her to help support her toddler.

And don't tell me yhour truly atrocious behaviour was justified by being on the autistic spectrum because it absolutely wasn't!

Now please, for all our sakes, DROP THIS NONSENSE.

Firstly,

You have absolutely no right to tell me what I should or should not do, Longman.

Or are you now a moderator of these forums?

No, I thought not.

Secondly,

Actually, yes, I read many of the posts, in most of the forums, and reply to many of them.

The only forum I really don't read is the education one as this is an area where I have little to no knowledge.

Thirdly,

Yes, if it had been in the body of a post I had read I would most likely have commented on it.

Fourthly,

Regarding here not posting since the 14th - her first ever post on the site was on the 31/12/2012.

Her second post was the post in which she used the word "crazy" on the 10/06/2012 - nearly 6 months later.

Fifthly,

Regarding whether she is likely to return, her last post, on 14/06/2012 read as follows:

All I wanted was to find out why my son gets so distressed in the bathroon so  I could help him.  I have done  some research and  comic strip with Joshua to  get an idea how I could releave him from the stress.  Now I have ordered a padded toilet seat, as he told me the other one is to hard. I also  found some strawberry toothpaste as the mint one stings his mouth.  I am a caring mother and finger crossed that this will help to releave some of the stress  my son has to deal with.  If it does i will post it on the site to help others.

That to me sounds like a person who has got at least some of the answers she wished to receive, and who, because said it herself at the end of the post, will return.

Sixthly,

Whilst it is too early to be sure, the pattern of her postings would suggest is the type of poster who will, most likely only post here when she has a question and will spend long periods of time away from the site.

Seventhly,

Please point out exactly where I shouted outrage. I did not. My posts were calm, thoughtful, and respectful.

You may not agree with my point of view, but that, frankly, is irrelevent.

Eighthly,

You now are shouting outrage at me. Pot calling the kettle black perchance?

Ninethly,

And I repeat this point again, because it is of utmost import, you have no right to tell me, or anyone, what they should or should not post to whom or about what.

You are not a moderator of these forums.

Please get down off your high horse, and stop your moral tirade.

It is none of your business.

Tenthly,

You have now reached the point where I have no choice but to report your posts to the moderators - you have insulted me by calling me childish and now lunatic.

Those are direct personal insults and go way beyond anything I have posted either to you or anyone else.

Can I endorse Alex's point about not knowing whether someone is on the spectrum. I've just realised after writing this I may be on the wrong thread.

There are professionals out there helping people on the spectrum but on the spectrum themselves. I don't know what happens with NAS. I know they have committees that include people on the spectrum. For all I know there may be moderators on the spectrum.

I was myself in this duality, although retired now nearly three years. As an educator I had a role supporting disabled students, and supporting colleagues to help disabled students, and that included working with a number of students on the spectrum, and trying to do what I could to resolve some of the many issues affecting students on the spectrum in higher education.

I wasn't allowed to disclose my own asperger's syndrome status to students. Indeed I thought long and hard about this, and it wasn't necessarily a good thing to reveal this to students. It did create some problems though as some students couldn't fathom why I was so clued up on their issues, and there were tricky times - why are you so interested? why do you seem to know what I'm thinking?

This goes against the ethos of the Disability Equality Duty which asks educators to disclose their disabilities so as to provide a role model to disabled students. It does happen for mobility, hearing or sight disabled staff and occasionally dyslexia, but rare for autistic spectrum. Also only 1% staff in universities disclose a disability compared to over 10% students.

So yes, you are going to be in the dark whether someone else is on the spectrum.

autismtwo said:

Very good Alex, just blame me and then talk openly on the forum as if I am a non-person, Alex the judge, jury and hangman of autismtwo.

Scorpian and others thankyou for your concern and support as you can see the issue clearly as you have autism,, but you are wasting your time talking about this with Alex and Rachel as they are blind to the issue of calling a person or your own son crazy,, obvious insulting people with autism using insensitive language is okay in there world,, at least if I am over expressive by being too direct in communication it is due to my autism,, no hard feelings mend.

quote Alex"when they wish to challenge someone else's behaviour, they do so politely and respectfully."... I would never use the word challenge ? and alex politely and respectfully,, you are hypocrit ! I find your posts to be direct, one sided and offensive.

Autismtwo,

Thank you for moving this discussion to this thread, which as Scorpion and Longman have correctly observed, is a more appropriate place for it. You have had plenty of opportunity to respond, both here and by email, as I suggested. You did not acknowledge any of my earlier warnings about your conduct. The only reason I've been talking about you in the third person on this thread is that you did not start this discussion, and I was responding to Scorpion, who did. I don't think it's reasonable to say that you have not been given a hearing.

I, also, am a user of this community. If I were to be strict about it, I could treat this response - describing me as a hypocrite - as a breach of my earlier warning to you not to attack other users. I won't, because that wouldn't be fair; as moderator, I expect a certain amount of criticism.

I'm curious about your choice of the word 'blind', though. You seem quite happy to use it - a term describing a disability - as a term of criticism directed at me and rachellouise (who hasn't returned). By your reasoning, I should be treating that also as a breach of Rule 1 of the community, just as you insist I should have responded to rachellouise. Can I use this as an example to show that I really am not here to police people's everyday use of language? I'm not going to take any action about it; but I think it's worth pointing out.

Like many users here, I don't talk directly about whether I am on the spectrum or not. But I think it's unfair to characterise this as a conflict between those who are on the spectrum and those who are not. I know you like to present things that way - hence your thread about declaring war on neurotypical people, which I did not touch. You really don't know who is and is not on the spectrum, any more than I do. I can only moderate based on people's actions here.

I notice you've started another thread criticising the NAS. I'll do my best to bring it to the attention of my colleagues in a positive way.

Yours,

Alex R - mod

And after sayiong this I googled the words "autism crazy" and rachellouise's original posting came up.

Also a dialogue from October/November 2011 on Wrong Planet that was altogether much better conducted, and very interesting reading to boot. And there was a U-tube of an autistic child's crazy dance. There was an individual blog on autism and being crazy.

No-one else is making a fuss about the word "crazy". Clearly other adults on the spectrum are not unhappy when the word is used to describe meltdowns, judging from the individual blog.

NAS, could the user guidelines include advice about the language used in posting titles? Because what happened here was that "crazy" appeared in the list of current discussions, so everyone spotted it, even though the content was about a toddler and very specific to parents.

It also needs to be borne in mind that these postings leak out onto the web. Someone doing a search on something will be able to access these postings. I've brought up several, including my own postings when doing google searches.

Therefore it would be sensible policy to advise posters to be particularly careful with the titles they use.

Thanks.

This is a valuable help service - a means by which people suddenly affected by autism, whether by adult diagnosis, as a parent of a child diagnosed, or a relative of one. It is also important for those struggling with social services to come on here and share experiences and learn from collective knowledge.

Fortunately most of that interface goes on in separate dialogues. Generally the parents of children don't read the postings of adult discussions. And mostly the adults don't read all the stuff about looking after babies. 

There is some cross-over but usually beneficial.

What happened here was that in the TITLE of a posting a mother described a toddler's behaviour as crazy. If she had used the word "crazy" in the text instead of the title, would autismtwo and Scorpion0x17 have noticed? Do you guys normally read postings on toilet training?

Had the respondent used crazy in a thread in an adult context well and good. But this was a mother trying to support an autistic child, and struggling to find the right words.

This was a thread that the adults on the spectrum had no business commenting on. Yet in a thread about helping a child with autism, in charge a brigade of over-sensitive adults shouting outrage that the word "crazy" was used. 

Well what you did was "crazy" - inappropriate, insensitive, thoughtless, selfish - and to anyone reading it I'll happily use "mad" "insane" "stupid" "looney" anything you want to take issue with me about. Because that's the truth - nothing to do with political correctness. The way you came down on this mother was lunatic behaviour.

And she hasn't posted since the 14th June. And I suspect she has withdrawn. And this site now wont be available to her to help support her toddler.

And don't tell me yhour truly atrocious behaviour was justified by being on the autistic spectrum because it absolutely wasn't!

Now please, for all our sakes, DROP THIS NONSENSE.

Alex,

I moderate on a forum myself so can understand the line you need to tread and how difficult that can be at times, however, I would question your assertion that people have been 'driven away' by the tone of discussions.

From the time I've spent on here it is clear to me that there are actually very few long term members, and many of those who are self-report as being on the spectrum.

There seem to be a far greater proportion of members that post once, twice, maybe half-a-dozen times at most, and then leave never to return again.

There are also those that post from time to time and appear to spend long periods of time away from the site.

Now, of course these observations are based purely on the postings people make, and perhaps you have statistical login data that show my perception to be false.

But, one thread comes to mind regarding someone saying that they're thinking of leaving, and I'm pretty sure that both the orginal poster, and the only other person in that thread to say they had considered leaving, have posted at least once, if not several times since that thread.

So I do wonder how much effect the 'problem' that you perceive is really having, or whether the posting and visiting patterns of the users invloved would have been much the same no matter what had been posted or by whom.

Longman,

I absolutely agree that there are behaviours that can not be excused on the grounds of autism, and if someone transgresses to that degree then remediating action should be taken.

However, I have just read through the thread that sparked this one upto the point at which Alex stepped in, and, frankly, I see nothing either offensive or insulting in anything autismtwo posted!

Forthright, blunt, and direct? Yes.

But, offensive or insulting? No.

The use of the word "crazy", however, was, in my opinion, both offensive and insulting to the autistic community as a whole.

This is what I have the most problem with - an actual insult to the autistic community was left to go apparently unchallenged by the moderators, whereas a forthright and, in my opinion, justified challenge to that insult, by an apparent member of that community, was stamped on.

To sum up,

I am of the opinion that, it is of fundamental importance that those that claim to represent and fight for recognition of our needs (i.e. the NAS), should do everything they can to oppose the denegration of the autistic community, and to support the thoughts, views, and feelings of the members of that community, no matter how crudely those thoughts, views, and feelings are presented.

For, if that does not happen, what hope do we have?

Very good Alex, just blame me and then talk openly on the forum as if I am a non-person, Alex the judge, jury and hangman of autismtwo.

Scorpian and others thankyou for your concern and support as you can see the issue clearly as you have autism,, but you are wasting your time talking about this with Alex and Rachel as they are blind to the issue of calling a person or your own son crazy,, obvious insulting people with autism using insensitive language is okay in there world,, at least if I am over expressive by being too direct in communication it is due to my autism,, no hard feelings mend.

quote Alex"when they wish to challenge someone else's behaviour, they do so politely and respectfully."... I would never use the word challenge ? and alex politely and respectfully,, you are hypocrit ! I find your posts to be direct, one sided and offensive.

When I said on the other thread (started by Rachellouise - who hasn't posted again since the 14th, and I guess has left) - that I felt the moderators needed to find a better way of handling it, I was looking for something that perhaps summarised the main points and hoped the conflicting parties would agree to truce.

I don't think the moderators should be obliged to excuse thoroughly bad behaviour even if it is symptomatic of autism. I would worry if the moderators singled out one party for blame when it is just the argument at issue.

However I cannot go along with Scorpion0x17 on this one, even if that puts me under the label of creep.

I did raise, under the other thread, that perseveration and persistance of resentment of something said that with NTs would pass, or a sense of grudge is likely with autistic spectrum, and the moderators needed to anticipate and plan for this (if they would be so kind).

But at some point even we auties and aspies have to show regard for balanced discussion. 

It is also something that damages our cause (if we have one - I forget sometimes), since the public, or at least parents and carers see us adults on the spectrum making an endless row out of sweet nothing at all..... why it looks just like a couple of four year olds having a meltdown.

Really, I repeat, can we put the toys back in the pram and forget it?

Scorpion0x17 said:

Would you reprimand and threaten to moderate a user who came on, stated they were severely dyslexic, and who then posted message so full of mistakes and errors that they often contained apprent insults and offensive language?

That would depend very much on the situation. It's unlikely that we'd do that, not least because it should be apparent from the context whether the user intended to be insulting or offensive.

We do try to maintain a 'light touch' in enforcing the rules. Most of the mod actions I've taken lately have been related to the 'no unapproved research' rule. The sort of situation we've got here is fortunately very rare. But we have had several users leave recently because of the tone of certain discussions.

Our aim is to create a welcoming environment for as many users as possible, both on the spectrum and not. That's not always easy. As I've said before, I can't know for certain who's on the spectrum and who isn't. I need to try and implement the rules in such a way that users who are on the spectrum are properly supported. But I also need to make sure that the community as a whole functions smoothly. If a tiny number of users are driving away others because of their hostility, that means I'm not succeeding.

I usually don't have to do more than ask the users nicely to be respectful of each other. This situation has been the exception. I had asked autismtwo, on several different threads, not to harass other users.

The rules exist to enable everyone to share the forum. An occasional mistake does not prevent that, but a consistent pattern of attacking other users does.

I'm hopeful that we can go on peacefully again, though. Most users do as you have done - when they wish to challenge someone else's behaviour, they do so politely and respectfully.

I hope I've made the differences clear here, but I'm happy to explain further if needed.

Thanks,

Alex R - mod