For the Attention of The National Autistic Society

Are you Ian, enforcing the community rules? Are you deciding them?

Nope, I am on par with you here in my lack of power - in fact I have no desire to moderate others. I am interested in balance and fairness more than anything else.

I'd love for the to be a nice place to visit but I fear it never will be.

This honestly pains me to hear you feel this way.

I would like us to be able to discuss anything open and honestly and that involves dealing with people who have trauma and sometimes a restricted world view as a result of their life experiences.

I would prefer for us to be tolerant of their views so long as they stay within the letter of the rules here.

The rights of some take precedence over the health of others according to this lore.

This is the nature of rights - they should be immutable. In a decent world others would respect this and be civil but in this age of social media, people have grown accustomed to virulent defence of their opinions at the expense of socal niceties.

For us to only talk about nice things would mean we cannot talk about a lot of the trauma related issues that plague us and this would negate much of the good that comes from this site.

I cannot in good faith suggest a solution that meets your needs as it requires others to comply. We could ask for politics to be an "off limits" subject which would require the mods to change the rules - would that go some way to make you willing to stay?

I understand. But like I'm trying to say in my own post to this thread - budgets for the NAS will be extremely tight - they are running with a huge multi million pound deficit, and I think that they are doing the best that they can under the circumstances. The software is trying to protect us, and does a poor job in some circumstances. If it wasn't there, I bet the site would be drowned in nonsense and v i a g r a adverts. I've had this happen to me. I contested it, and it was reinstated.

Roses are red. Violets are purple.

Yet another one flagged  as spam! It's apparently wrong to post about things that affect your mental well being.

Same has just happened to me. The NAS needs to sort the problem out. For me being falsely accused of things, be it spamming or anything else,  is a major psychological trigger. That's a product of childhood experiences at prep school.It's further made worse by the often very negative way that mental health professionals  are  found to have behaved to those of us who are later found to be autistic.

That is a major problem the NAS urgently needs to fix. Perfectly decent posts can end up being flagged as spam,due to the technical shortcomings of the forum software, while some posters are given free rein to make posts deliberately designed to cause  disharmony.

Or less intolerance?

more tolerance, I hope you mean?

Incidentally I consider myself a kind of volunteer. I'm here to offer support if I can. Sometimes I may also receive support. I'm not here to parade my divisive opinions (of which I have many) and to boast about keeping the mods busy.

According to this post, the mods are volunteers: https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/38534/a-message-from-the-moderation-team

I wasn't sure of the meaning of "volunteers" in this context. Paid staff who voluntarily take on this extra task outside their job description, or unpaid volunteers? But in some ways that is immaterial. In either case, it's not their main job; they have to find time for it outside their normal activities. And, either way, they deserve our respect and support.

I think this can be triggered by some random things - it's automated, as far as I know. People have pointed out some things that can trigger it, but I can't remember them now. If you contest it, a real human will reinstate it.

Defamation isn't the answer. It only fans the flames of critics.

We were brought up in an an environment of war. It began in School, and manifest throughout our lives. All people know is conflict and antagonism. The answer isn't to make everything Rainbows and Unicorns.

Less tolerance, and more mutual respect, please!

Debbie said:

There is a stream of provable misinformation here on the forum for you to read.

Yes. 

Although... it does seem to have gone rather quiet.... 

This is a problem of all boards, I don't think that there is a solution.

The National Autistic Society had a net deficit of over £3 million last year - I don't think that they have the money to spend trying to achieve something that is probably impossible.

The mods may even be volunteers (I don't know), but there is unlikely to be the budget for full time monitoring and live fact-checking of every post. I suspect that the 'report' feature is the best that they can do on such a limited budget.

In answer to your actual question, unlike Facebook, this is meant to be anonymous, and for very good reasons. This makes detecting false accounts extra difficult. Posts are bumped to the top every time someone replies. So, one of the BEST things that one can do for a post to be forgotten about is simply to not reply.

I'd like to thank them for providing this outlet to us, even if it is imperfect.

Iain said:

Can you cite any misinformation that has been spreading recently that is provably incorrect?

I am loathe to continue the wars on here but in this instance, I felt the need to respond, because I'm getting very fed up.

There is a stream of provable misinformation here on the forum for you to read.

However, I will just show you my own (deliberately light hearted) response to one, although I'm amazed that in a forum where a very few posters post conspiracy theories, bigotry and misogyny etc etc you need any citation.

At moment nothing, but there is a way of reporting SPAM attacks so they are eventually removed.  And these SPAM attacks keep coming round every few months.

I  did type out a response to this but it has been flagged for spam. I guess someones not in favour of my freedom of expression

Caelus had an interesting thread the other day? Has it been deleted now?  I guess the mods must be listening to my entreaties somewhat.

I understand the position you are taking regarding freedom of expression.  It's turning the forum into a very unpleasant bear pit and exacerbating my mental suffering and the suffering of others

I'd love for the to be a nice place to visit but I fear it never will be.

The rights of some take precedence over the health of others according to this lore.

You say that for political opinion their is a policy of freedom of speech here,  Is this limited in anyway? What do the community rules say?  Are you Ian, enforcing the community rules? Are you deciding them?

What is to stop literally anyone from signing up to this website to spread disinformation? What are your safeguards?

There is no automated process so it is down to people to report posts they believe to be spam or abusive.

I don't think they are here to police the accuracy of information however. They can respond is someone is giving dangerous advice about using drugs etc but if it is for political opinions then that is down to freedom of speech.

Can you cite any misinformation that has been spreading recently that is provably incorrect?

I don't think you need to worry about the website going down or being taken away from us. I can't see that there's any evidence that that is about to happen.