Introducing myself

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We're four weeks onwards from my first posting here. In the meantime I've seen more aggressive, intimidating and hurting postings from "funny" guys than supporting, empathic, uplifting from understanding WP-ers. Tagging someone as a foe doesn't seem to affect anything. Further to this, moderators don't seem to follow up on reports. I really don't see the added value of this forum anymore.

I'll be lurking for another week or so and take my decision after that.

I think I can get where you are coming from AugustD - with the exception of your impression that the mods don't seem to do much. I spend a large number of hours every week on moderation tasks, most days, and the mods are much busier behind the scenes than may seem apparent to you. As volunteers they contribute a lot of effort and unpaid time.

Leaving that aside. First and foremost - as Alex has made clear in the past - WP is intended to be a support forum. I think it has strayed a bit far away from that ethos in the past couple of years.

I came here originally to:

seek like minds
seek support when needed
learn more about AS and the lives of AS people different from myself - we are all individuals
explore constructive ways of making AS lives better
find inspiration and encouragement that I can pass on to my AS children, grandchildren, and use to encourage myself
experience kindness, respect and understanding.

There have been many disappointments over the years. The blind faith of some AS members in what NT "experts" say as if it was holy writ, more important than the lived experience and insights of AS people themselves. However I know this comes from a place of damaged confidence and internalised oppression.

The nastiness. Yes, it is a fact of life on WP currently. We used to hope that it could be "quarantined" in PPR and Love and Dating forums. It was for a long time, but in the past year, particularly, it seems to have spread and infected other forums. We issue warnings, we ban some incorrigible offenders, we try to encourage repeat offenders to behave more respectfully. However the aggro goes on, which wears down the posters who do make every effort to post within the rules and with respect.

I would like Alex to show some proactive leadership again, as he did in the early years. He was the anchor for WP, and without that anchor, it has drifted, and the mods are left to deal with it as best they can.

If I personally invested even more time and effort into moderation I would very quickly burnout. Some of the personal attacks on mods in recent years have been particularly unpleasant, and the criticisms usually unfair.

Unless WP returns to its core support ethos, and the backbiting etc ends, then I think that there will be other new members like yourself who decide to leave in disappointment.

However they are probably the very members who could help restore the civility, respect and support that WP used to thrive on once upon a time.

I hope you will stay.

Your efforts are appreciated by the nonvocal majority B19.

After I joined, it took about 12 weeks for the established members to treat me with the same acceptance that established members receive.

This isn't surprising to me, because it seems clear that because of adverse past experiences, of not being taken seriously, or being invalidated, etc, often starting in childhood, a lot of AS people do become wary of new people in their orbit that they don't know well enough to feel safe with. That's an AS thing, not just a WP thing.

I think the best places to get to know other members and for them to get to know you is the General Autism Forum, so maybe create a thread there about an aspect of AS that really interests you and which you would like to discuss?

I didn't go through your entire post history. But I see you feel there are too many junk areas where people just chat and play games and not enough autism talk.

For my first three years here I mostly spent time in the General Autism Discussion section to the tune of about 10,000 posts. Needless to say I got burned out only talking about autism.

But it is still there and one can put in quite a few posts per day just discussing autism.

I also saw that you have been posting in Politics, Philosophy and Religion, and Love Dating where the most aggressive type of people and discussions take place.

What I like about WP is the veriety it offers. If you want to discuss autism then stay in GAD. Or the Haven and Members Only. If you want to avoid more aggressive members and discussions, then stay out of PPR and L&D.

AugustD - On the top left side (as you look at this screen) you can click on the two words "board index" and it brings up all the choices of different forums.

I don't play games, at my age I hardly know what most of them are, since my children grew up decades ago and left home. At that point my knowledge of these past times expired, though I know many of the younger members like them, and probably find them stress relieving. So I bypass them, though I have no problem with them being here. Anything that helps AS people relieve stress (within legal limits and WP rules) seems a good thing.

I find the most interesting posts - for me to read - are from seasoned older respectful members like AsPartOfMe, Trogluddite, and others who make thoughtful considerations about an issue. We did used to have many more of these. Members like Aristophanes; perhaps other posters could name some more here, so that AugustD can look up their posts and perhaps enjoy reading them. There are so many more though I have just got up and my mind is still warming up.