AS people, please can you help me?

I greatly welcome the opportunity provided for us to link up off this site.

It is heartbreaking to see the distress this episode has caused people. I don't feel that NAS understands that while they provided a platform for an online community, the community itself is a product of the interaction of the participants, and the resulting close bonds formed amongst them.

This community in particular was not just a chat forum. Whether rightly or wrongly, intentionally or otherwise we ended up as volunteer agony aunts for what was latterly a constant flow of distressed parents and individuals seeking help.

What the new moderation did was totally undermine the delicate balance of enthusiasm and goodwill. The website may be the property of NAS, we participants are not, and deserved better, given all we have done for NAS over the past five years.

I also have a strong sense that adults with autism are still being treated as 'less people' in a world dominated by parents groups.

People might think me callous to have pushed forward the November debate, but promises were made in that thread - few if any were honoured.

I do get the feeling that NAS hopes that there will be some sort of re-affirmation as a result of new assurances. Knowing this forum over many years, I have to say, too much damage was done this time. You are asking people to trust a moderator system that clearly little respects, let along understands adults with autism.

But since the opportunity has been provided, and since we have been offered a mechanism for regrouping, it might be timely if all those affected gave their views of what is 'on the table'.  I'm not in any way shape or form the leader here, just maybe the biggest loudmouth, and it really nededs others to express how they feel.

I just want to acknowledge the contributions being made by members on this thread. Many posts demonstrate a laudable desire to look into the issues this has brought up for the longer term benefit of the community, its members and dare I say the NAS. There is pain but also compassion and reason.

I would like to assure you that both personally and with my, NT and AS colleagues, I am reflecting deeply on the events and on views being posted. Omission from posting is not a sign of indifference but allowing us a chance to think/talk and consider how best to engage with members with consistency and openness. So bear with us

Sharing Contact Information

Longman: "We have asked for contact details to be shared so we can keep in contact and reform somewhere else. This has been refused"

I don't believe we have "refused" this request. Protection of individuals personal information, as you know, is something we have to consider seriously.

In this special circumstance if any members (who have already expressed a desire to communicate outside the community) would like to send an email to communitymanager@nas.org.uk with 1) a list of usernames to whom their email address can be shared and 2) a clear statement of permission "I give my permission for my email adress to be shared with ... "list" 

You will appreciate this is a one-off service for those involved in this discussion. NAS still retains the right not to share email addresses where any risk to an individual may be present. Can you let us have emails by Friday 19 12:00 please.

I hope you find this a useful initiative.

Bob Chase

Dear KaloJaro

I am going to try and help you find a way forwards. Amongst all of the fierce debate and controversy raised by this thread and others like it we sometimes forget that the forum is supposed to be helping people with problems like yours.

I will try and challenge some of the thinking that has contributed towards your desperation. Nobody involved in this debate (the mods, the more and less experienced members) has got everything right. We have all spoken with a mixture of wisdom and ignorance but the one thing I am sure of is that noone has spoken with ill intent.

My summary of where we are is that the moderators have stepped in with size 9 boots to intervene in some debates where some extreme views were being discussed. The moderators have not, in my opinion, enough expertese in autism to keep everyone happy. Keeping everyone happy all of the time is actually impossible and I will fall back to consider that they, and we, are at the end of the day only human and that our humanity is more fallible and must be forgiven for that before we keep throwing more stones. (I'm not religious but I recognise that I am not the first person to put forward this point!)

The debate under consideration has people who cannot yet accept that the other side even has a valid point of view. There is a lack of understanding and an inability to imagine the world from other people's point of view. It seems very black and white but in reality "nothing is simple".

The debate prompted me to read Neurotribes (I'm not quick with books so have only got half way through so far). This has informed me of a lot of the rather murky history of what happened to "different" people in darker times. I'm guessing that this has informed some of the opinions in this thread. I haven't got to the conclusion of that book but I can certainly see more clearly why the subject of curing autism is quite so emotive.

I can also see that the natives of this forum, if I can call them that, have not maintained a Spock-like scientific detachment from the topic under discussion. Anybody involved in this debate needs to thoroughly understand two important concepts. "Groupthink" and "Confirmation bias". People in unions and special interest groups will support each other in maintaining extreme views when the views are contrary to the views of the man on the clapham omnibus. People also interpret information in ways that seem to agree with the idea they started with. It is easy to spot conspiracy and cruel treatment when the actual intents are unknown and the gritty reality of life suggests that ***-ups are far more common than conspiracies.

The forum can be a bad place but it can also be a good place as it enables us to look in the mirror and examine how the other natives are struggling and coping more or less with life. I have learnt an enormous amount from joining in the discussion. I learn things and take from the debates so I also try and contribute what little I know back in so that we can move forward and improve our insight into the condition.

I'm still here, though barely.

To all the 'veterens', if you do find somewhere to go please let me know. It might even be worth looking into making a website forum of our own for us to interact on.

In short: I am leaving.

I am being treated for depression and my family are urging me for my own welfare to leave the forum. With the Department of Work and Pensions driving me to near suicide (luckily I'm living with family at the moment so not been able to act on the thoughts) because of Personal Independance Payment (where my difficulties as a young adult on the spectrum are belittled and demeaned) I had hoped checking back in to this forum on an almost regular basis would help.*

Instead I find more people like me who are also having their opinions demeaned and (seemingly) deliberately targeted because they are not 'NT'. The people I respect and admire can't take it anymore and frankly neither can I.

At the 'top' there will be no help for us. They don't care. They seem to feel they can treat adults on the spectrum as children.

Haven't we lived more or less through a hostile hell as a result of our condition? Isn't the only reassurance we can find among others like us to know we're not alone?

Until the mods engage in a full on gritty debate then I cannot trust them. I don't care if they're on the spectrum or off their actions have proven them untrustworthy and somehow its OUR job to 'earn it back'.

I may autistic, but I'm not retarded. Even NT's don't function like that.

Let me know when an alternative site is found, my family already boycott the NAS in favour of smaller groups that actually seem to do more than publicity events in local areas.

Yes I am bitter. I feel isolated and attacked. If someone mods 'retarded' then kindly insert 'a moron' if it makes you all feel better.

*And before a mod tries to downplay my feelings let me make it loud and clear: This forum and the actions of the mods HAVE CONTRIBUTED to my depression and suicidal thoughts. There is an actual correlation between visiting this website and my more dangerous 'moods' as noticed by my family (hence why they no longer want me visiting this site).

To Longman, CC, Electra, Recombiantsocks and others:

Thank you all for your support and advice. You have been a constant source of reassurance, refreshing debate and even more vital insight/information I literally couldn't have lived without. Seeing some of you censored has broken my heart (or rather driven me to panic attacks, testament to how much this ordeal has been harmful). I'll be following this thread under supervision from family to see if we can find a new home.

Edit: For the record I'm copying this just in case I'm the next target for the Mods.

Hi Technophobe,

In response to your PPS to me. I haven't got any "inside information", you can get messaged by email when someone else adds to a thread you've subscribe to. In this case KaloJaro had received notification of these posts and saw that they weren't on the main forum and in light of the previous issues with moderation, took the brave step to post them (via cut and paste) on their behalf.

I note that there haven't been any recent posts from KaloJaro - are you alive and kicking or have you suffered the same fate as those you have valiantly supported?

Hi Avi

I've gone through your points below, it would be good to have a open and honest discussion about the points raised by members of the community.

Avi Moderator said:

We regret that some long-standing and valued members feel they have lost confidence in this Community and, in some cases, the NAS as a whole. Some have felt that there has been a shift in moderation style and that this has inhibited participation by some members - in particular, autistic adults.

We do not pretend that we moderate perfectly. We apologise where feel we get it wrong and try to learn from experience.

Generally I've not seen much from the moderators since joining, generally I would put that down the fact that moderation isn't regularly needed on this site, but I understand that there is a need to exist.

However over the last few weeks there seems to have been a few instances where moderation has been conducted with all the care of a bull elephant in the mating season. Public reprimands (effectively shaming) is never an acceptable moderation tactic, especially when potentially vulnerable people are involved, arbitrary bans for things that were at most minor infringements etc. It all seems to have got quite out of hand and has resulted in what may be irreparable damage to the forums, losing some of the longest standing and most active members.

Avi Moderator said:

But we do need to moderate, to support a forum which is welcoming to autistic adults, as well as parents/carers, and where positive conversations can happen. Arguably having one space for all is what is unique about this Community. It brings with it tensions, but also the potential for fascinating interactions that would not happen elsewhere.

I don’t think that anyone is denying the need for moderation, there is obvious spam, advertising etc on the forums that needs to be dealt with and there are the occasional comments that need looking at, but in general it’s a very civil and sensible forum. Up until a few weeks ago this had seemed to be the case, but over the last few weeks the moderation in places actually seemed vindictive and spiteful.

Avi Moderator said:

Moderation is needed to keep the community dynamic and functional. A member’s comment may not be suitable in a given thread, because it’s derailing or hostile in that context; but that doesn’t mean we ban the point of view reflected in that comment. 

Emphasis mine, that appears to be exactly what happened though, someone took umbrage, the poster then had their comment moderated out of existence and was then banned. The comment to most on here (all apart from the complainant and the moderator from the consensus on the forum) seemed reasonable, if heartfelt. Regardless of any of that it didn’t warrant what effectively amounted to a public flogging.

Avi Moderator said:

We’re also not here to stereotype autistic adults. This forum can be a good place for parents of autistic children to encounter autistic adults and have their horizons widened; but the NAS needs to maintain a community that can be used by both kinds of users in peace. Very rarely, this may mean mods have to ask someone to step back from a specific debate. 

Again, emphasis mine. What if the rest of the community values their contributions and thinks they had perfectly valid points, but one person complains in an attempt to shut down debate? To the community that is what appears to have happened.

Avi Moderator said:

This Community will be 5 years old this month and has been joined by over 10,000 members. With the potential advent of new mobile technology for the Community it seems a good point to review what it has done well, what is has done not so well and how we can involve members in decisions as we move forward. Please join us in a Community Development discussion in coming weeks. 

Of those 10,000 how many have posted, how many have posted more than once, how many are actually “active” (say logging in weekly, posting monthly). Without that information the 10,000 figure is meaningless, sites need to report active users, not total signups, the latter provides no useful information. From a quick search of the forums it seems that around 500 users would qualify as active, also three of the most helpful, welcoming members have left because of what has happened over the last fortnight.

I’m happy to engage in a discussion about community development but everyone needs to be accepting that a discussion can and will involve opposing viewpoints, criticisms and disagreements, if that isn’t allowed to happen then this will become an exercise in futility.

A community needs leaders, but those leaders can only operate within an accepted mandate, if the leaders drive the community away then it’s just a house of cards collapsing in the breeze.

Although I have gone and mean it, I've been keeping a look out that my fellow members are not further harmed.

I need to provide an answer to AviModerator (whom I like to think I've always found helpful).

NAS had a thriving, dynamic forum for five years, through all kinds of ups and downs, with plenty of timely, deserved and appropriate moderation. One of the most crucial elements is that the autistic adults provided a volunteer service (that came about by accident) helping other adults with autism and using their hindsight to help parents. Parents also did really valuable sevice helping each other.

For that NAS deserves the highest praise, but also the online community, parents and adults with autism, and the moderator team deserve to share in that praise. This online community was a star, an exemplar.

What has happened recently (I think 3 months back, maybe less) is an extreme and odious opposite. The forum has become a nightmare for most particuipants, many of us feeling ill just trying.

In part that has been due to a sudden massive increase in desperate people hoping the forum would provide answers. I don't know why this has come about. Maybe the success of the forum made it seem the ultimate solution. I suspect, however, that staffing of the helpline has been cut back.

Members of this forum are only in contact through public postings on this forum. None of us are trained counsellors, none of us receive stress counselling. The pressure we have increasingly been under has been incredibly stressful. When you consider that some of the regulars are very badly affected by their autism or by secondaries like depression, it was inevitable stress lines would show.

Instead of helping us, despite numerous requests, NAS suddenly started being incredibly heavy handed with the community rules. Last resort measures became up front measures. Every word we used was being scrutinised in case it might be a bad word. The reasons people have got warnings have been truly ridiculous. With the loading on the forum the extreme over-the-top moderation was bound to lead to catastrophe.

One example of the obsessive moderating I pointed out recently was a change in how the rule over disclosing personal details was being interpreted. We had a new member. In his first post he mentioned the town he lived in and that he used to live in Hereford, and again mentioned Hereford. All three place names were deleted and he was given a public telling off. He never came back. 

I did raise a complaint to the Director last week. It was dismissed out of hand. It therefore appears NAS is unable to comprehend that there is any difference between the moderation over the past five years and the ridiculously obsessive OTT moderation in the last few months.

This site should carry a Government Health Warning.

Don't blame the members if it has collapsed. Blame the over-the-top moderation over the last few months. But more importantly please think of the harm you are doing. Some of the regulars on here are vulnerable adults. Others are prone to very real distress on account of their autism. The break up of a valued and supportive forum over recent months has undoubtedly damaged their health.

We have asked for contact details to be shared so we can keep in contact and reform somewhere else. This has been refused,. NAS destroyed this online community with a callous disregard for the impact on everybody concermed.

Which is why I am pressing for an external review of NAS.

Technophobe23 said:

I've been looking at some Youtube videos by and about people with AS. One of the more interesting contributors expressed the hope that people who obtain an AS diagnosis resist any urge to use it as an excuse for bad behaviour. I can understand what she meant.  As far as I know (which isn't much - I am very much at the beginning of my learning about AS), unreasonable behaviour by intelligent adults at the high functioning end of the spectrum isn't regarded as a 'trait'.  We're surely as capable of being reasonable or unreasonable as the rest of the population?  

The rest of the population don't seem to behave uniformly and consistently reasonably. There is a lot of arbitrary and random behaviour out there. This is one of the things that bugs people on the forum.

Having said that, I wasn't aware of Oppositional Defiant Disorder or Pathological Demand Avoidance until I came on this forum. It seems to me that we are frequently distrusting and defiant of authority and can be wilful and badly behaved - I think that it takes extraordinary patience and calmness to get autistic people to co-operate. Some of this behaviour is learnt or conditioned by failing to to engage productively in society, some of it may be intrinsic to our difficulties with seeing and accepting the realities of a world in which things aren't straightforward and consistent. We react to the way the world seems to us and then the world reacts against our reactions and so it goes round.

I take the point that Wrong Planet can seem rather large and nebulous. Plus its a US site and its focus is often on the situation there..

How about http://aspievillage.uk/ as a new home?

Technophobe23 I take your point about discussion but that has been attempted in the past. Recent events have caused real distress and upset to several forum members and brought longstanding problems to a head. Several of us feel that we cannot be, or pretend to be, the polite and grateful autistic people that the NAS wants its forum contributors to be. For that reason some of us are leaving once we have found a safe new home. You're welcome there too.

Many charities do promote an image of disabled people that will increase the funding they get from the public. This is often one that jars with disabled people's image of themselves and the way they live their lives, it can be patronising and/or inaccurate. The RNIB for example has come under fire for this. The NAS is no different and operates under similar funding pressures. Its hardly a scandal, its just the reality of fundraising.

Thank you to Missdemena, for taking the trouble to explain what the hell this has all been about!  I was completely unaware of whatever occurred 3 months ago. I only joined this forum around then (presumably just after). I was going through a hard time with diagnosis assessments back then and felt very glad to find this forum. I dislike Wrong Planet despite its excellent name, for reasons somebody else mentioned above, plus the extremely annoying fact that it can be nightmarishly frustrating trying to get anything to actually post on there. 

I found some very good advice, support and help on this forum, from members who have contributed to (and started) this thread.  I know nothing whatsoever about the NAS. I don't have an opinion about the NAS, and I don't wish to form one based on what I've read here - I would rather make my own mind up based on my own experience, in my own time.  But I must admit I find it hard to believe that the NAS exists to present a sanitised image of autism for the sake of fundraising - if this is true it is a veritabe scandal and should be exposed. If it isn't, I hope the allegation will be retracted.

I've been looking at some Youtube videos by and about people with AS. One of the more interesting contributors expressed the hope that people who obtain an AS diagnosis resist any urge to use it as an excuse for bad behaviour. I can understand what she meant.  As far as I know (which isn't much - I am very much at the beginning of my learning about AS), unreasonable behaviour by intelligent adults at the high functioning end of the spectrum isn't regarded as a 'trait'.  We're surely as capable of being reasonable or unreasonable as the rest of the population?  

Without the benefit of knowledge of what happened on this forum back in November or whenever, the reactions to what seemed like a mistake by a moderator came across as quite unreasonable and overblown.  Maybe, given the background of which I am ignorant, the reactions were more understandable: without knowing what happened back then I can't even think about that.

Now that the matter of excessive moderation has been pinpointed, I can see that it does actually seem rather over-zealous. Again, I can't even think about why that might have become so, as I don't have the information. 

I hope the moderators (who will all be following this thread carefully, I'm sure) will give serious thought to the issues raised and ask themselves how they can change, with the aim of making this forum as good as it can possibly be for people with, and carers for people with, ASDs.

To all those who are on the brink of leaving, all I'll say is that I hope you won't. How about giving it one last chance? How about setting out exactly what you would like to see changed and addressing your thoughts and wishes to the moderators, on a new thread on this forum? 

To the moderators, how about letting this happen and engaging in a dialogue on such a thread on this forum?

PS: Thanks too, Recom, for your excellently written last post

PPS: To Missdemena - just re-read your post and realised I'd like to know something, if you wouldn't mind telling me?  How do you know these things? You refer to two people being unable to post on this forum last weekend - I've been following this thread and I didn't see that. But I've seen it said, on here, that members have no way of communicating with each other outside this public forum - so how is it that you know?  Through this whole thread I've felt as if everyone else knows something I'm in the dark about - hence my repeated questions and expressions of frustration.

All I can think of is that the information was hidden (from me - I'm not saying deliberately hidden) within one of the very confusing posts that seemd to be a jumble of quotes and current comment. I didn't 'get' those at all, and I can't see how anyone could have made much of them. (there may ony have been one of those posts - I'm not trawling back through the whole thing to find out though).

Thinking about it has got me quite annoyed again. So I'll shut up!

Technophobe23 said:

I'm still wondering what the hell this was all about. Guess I'll never know now.

What do you see when you look at this thread?

a) a puzzle

b) persecution of disabled people

c) wilful attacks on defenseless parents and their disabled children

d) an emerging and interesting socratic debate where people have been challenged with more understanding and knowledge from the parties involved.

e) A conspiracy

What do you think when someone mentions "curing autism"?

a) Eugenics

b) enforced medical intervention with quack medicine

c) harmless biomedical interventions like avoiding particular types of food

d) treating people humanely to enable them to lead fulfilling happy lives

e) The erasure of the thing that defines your personality

Do you see your autism as

a) A debilitating ruination of your life

b) An irritating handicap that stops you fulfilling your potential

c) The thing that makes you a quirky interesting person

What do you think of the moderators of the site

a) A living embodiment of the SS

b) A bunch of guys doing their best despite lack of training and an incomplete understanding of autism.

What do you think of the other contributors on the thread

a) A set of interesting people with different experiences and attitudes

b) A bunch of children who are throwing their toys out of the pram

c) A set of people who systematically struggle to communicate and make themselves understood by the others on the thread.

d) a set of people who struggle to find the grey compromise solutions to questions when everything seems clearly black or white to them.

There are no right answers! This thread and others on the forum have challenged me to think more carefully about what autism means to me. It has nudged me into reading Neurotribes. It strikes me that it is like looking in the mirror, I recognise my own traits in each of the other posters. We are all the same but all different, making sense of this is far from trivial. For me it has been an unexpected, and at times unwelcome, journey.

I really hope that CC and Longman and the others do not leave. I hope that nobody has suffered too much trauma and I apologise for anything that I have said that has offended or distressed. I'm here to learn and it is inevitable that my half understood knowledge and very personal experience of autism is not the same as everyone elses.

In answer to Technophobe's question.

This is what I see has happened - CC posted on a Stem Cell Treatment thread and got publicly reprimanded by the moderators. This affected him very badly as he had been completely misunderstood and had not been given the opportunity to discuss this privately. Hence his post and plea for help.

The responses received stirred up an issue previously brought about by over zealous moderations some 3 months earlier, which was supposedly resolved.

Over the weekend at least 2 contributors were prevented from posting, leaving them isolated from the only people who truly understand.

To some people's way of thinking (NT's mostly), this might not be a big deal and they should accept a wrist slapping and detention for not being a good boy/girl and then get on with it as if nothing has happened.

I read and feel the anguish that this has caused so many of you. You have been badly mistreated, shunned, publicly reprimanded and abused in the way the NAS is supposed educate people how NOT to treat you - all for the sake of a personal message!!!

To Longman, Electra, Classic Codger and anyone else who is considering leaving, I will miss you, your thoughtful posts have helped me in so many ways and please accept my thanks.

To the NAS I am appalled at the tactless way you have dealt with vulnerable people and don't appear to have followed your own community rules.

Just for the record, I'm NT and continue to be embarrassed by our behaviours and perpetual ignorance - I'm learning to be better than that thanks to you guys.

electra said:

Classic Codger I am immensely touched by your post but I must concur with Longman. Far from be ing a safe and supportive place, being here is making me ill. I feel by visiting I accept the NAS's toxic image of autistic adults.

However, we could all go to http://wrongplanet.net/forums/

What do you think?

I often have a look round Wrong Planet but I find it's immense size like the effect of being in a large supermarket - I quickly suffer from overload - but it may become the only alternative.

I feel that the problem with this board is that the 'mods' are too intrusive - something that - from my experience -  just does not happen on other sites.  They appear to feel that we posters need constant monitoring and protection and cannot be left to sort out our own difficulties/disagreements. 

As a result of their interference we have lost Classic Codger and Longman - something that grieves me greatly.  I just hope that at some point they will return.

I agree with CC and do not agree with Recombatint socks.  To me aspergers is just being different from the majority.  I find the majority to be intolerant of difference and the fault of any conflict to lie mainly with them.  I simply think that they see things less clearly and are less intelligent.  Any talk of treatment of AS I find very creepy, inappropriate and Orwellian.

I think we also need to realise that we HAD a thriving online community, and be proud of what was developed amongst us, which might re-assemble elsewhere, as Electra suggests.

Three months ago NAS decided to substitute a tightly regulated, politically correct space. it is not a nice space to be in.

While I admire anyone trying to continue, there are fewer people around to give moral support, if indeed they dare risk it. We only exist as profile names. This is our only contact with each other. We can only console each other in public. And the moment we do, the moderators pounce.

I was suspended for 4 days without prior warning because someone allegedly complained that something I said in general about moderation was a personal attack.

Classic Codger I do admire you continuing to try, but you must realise the slightest thing you do wrong and you will be on another report. This forum is making people ill.

Classic Codger I am immensely touched by your post but I must concur with Longman. Far from be ing a safe and supportive place, being here is making me ill. I feel by visiting I accept the NAS's toxic image of autistic adults.

However, we could all go to http://wrongplanet.net/forums/

What do you think?

Firstly I need to answer Technophobe's question. Gestalt - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

NAS thinks the online community is a space they created. In fact it has evolved out of the many key participants who loyally kept it going through rough times. The online community is the people who participated, not the owner of the space.

Not least, when it slumped in December, the communuity pulled it back out. NAS don't realise that.

I cannot continue, and I understand CC's concerns. But I now have serious ethical concerns about NAS and cannot go on.

CC put his finger on it by quoting the Holocaust. first they took the socialists. NAS want to create a perfect image of the adult with autism for funding purposes. That's all NAS is now - professional fund raisers. People like me offend their little picture of a vulnerable adult with autism.

I don't approve of ethnic cleansing and I don't personally see much difference from the stereotyping and cleansing exercise going on here,. NAS profoundly disgusts me now. I cannot remain associated with such execrable attitudes.

I'm going to plead with you, Longman, Electra, two people who I have come to regard and respect as friends, mentors and guides, intelligent, reliable, and sharing (I think) my principals. Often stating things better than me, presenting arguments that I could not, in ways that are beyond my skills, and teaching me in the process.

And when I needed you most, you were there standing at my side, helping and supporting me, as you have others. Unafraid to speak out, (First they came for the  Socialists... Pastor Martin Niemoller) people with strength of character.

One of my deleted sorry pre-moderated and still being processed posts at the weekend was on this subject (I have a copy on a Word document of every post I've ever made on here) and with the gracious condescention of the NAS, I'll summarise:

The NAS doesn't care whether we stay or go. They will absolutely refute any responsibility for causing it, saying it's 'your choice'. To prove it's 'your choice', they'll 'value you as a member', 'thank you for your contribution', 'regret that you feel you have to leave' etc etc - the whole armoury of empty phrases that take minimal effort to copy and paste. I've heard them all, so have you, and that's why we judge people by what they do, and not what they say. Have they begged you to stay? Of course not. Have they offered a year's free subscription, a t-shirt, a coaster for your coffee mug as a way to say 'stay'?. Dream on. So how do they show that they 'value' us?

All of this attitude towards autistic people from the 'leading' autistic charity that calls for us to 'accept difference, not indifference'. Very well NAS, I do not accept your indifference.

The people who truly value us are our own kind. If we leave, we leave them without our help and support. The only people who are hurt by our leaving are ourselves, the confused and frightened newbies, the seekers, even the occasional parent, and we've had plenty of lovely comments from such people, thanking us for help that they say they've been unable to get from the NAS. Are we to abandon these people?

Please, and I'm begging you now, please don't. There are few enough of us as it is.

In my deleted post, I asked if anyone can suggest a website that we can meet up on, and can anyone suggest a particularly good free e-mail provider. I also, incidentaly, tried to accept Electra's offer to meet up on the 5th and asked for a time/location (I don't know the area) and if anyone else could join us?

Please don't leave, at least until we have an alternative. The NAS aren't going to allow us to exchange contact details (and on this one, I do largely agree with the safeguarding issues) and going now would be like giving the bullies the sand to throw in our faces. And anyway, I'll be lonely without you.

Anyone heard from KaloJaro?