Hi new members :) Some gentle guidance for navigating WP

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Hi there new members
I'm Amity and I arrived here in 2014 (ish) suspecting that I was one of the many undiagnosed adult women that had slipped through the cracks in the system.

Over the years certain themes have emerged here, where new members had different expectations to what was available, so I hope this post might set people up with some answers, based on my own time here and indeed covering some things I wish I had known at the beginning.

So some gentle guidance to help with navigating Wrong Planet...

All of the advice on this site is amateur (though usually quite knowledgeable) and your peers can be slow to respond.

This slow pace is quite normal for many people on the spectrum. It's a different communication style to what you may have encountered before. The benefit is that your natural communication style will fit right in too, whatever it may be. You dont have to conform .

Seeking friendship? Things move slowly in this area too, it's not a personal thing, but more so from what I've observed, it's natural for ASDrs to take their time in this area.

Wrong Planet is called a support site, but it's not like one you may have come across before. Its support from an autistic perspective from knowledgable amateurs. Some members favor giving direct succinct advice, others give elaborate responses to simple questions, some dont know the answer & say nothing and every other type of response inbetween.

Some questions have been asked many times before and nowadays recieve very few answers, I used the search function to find the answers I was looking for in old threads. On that topic, necro bumping old/dormant threads isnt usually the done thing.

If you want a place to discuss things safely, start a thread in The Haven, the rules (available here: viewtopic.php?t=297515) for it are different to the general rules for the forum, (available here: viewtopic.php?t=263570) its a protected space. I personally recommend it for anyone feeling vulnerable .
It operates on a type of gift economy, in that support is given by people with their own difficulties to people also with their own personal challenges. The idea is to reciprocate, depending of course on individual abilities.
The important thing to remember is that, here you are just normal, the eccentricities you may have been bullied for in Real Life are just standard and the challenges experienced are common to your peers on WP .

A note of caution... Politics Philosophy and Religion, News and Current Events and Love & Dating are sections of the site that I would advise a new member to steer clear of, until you have an idea of the regular posters in those sections and then, I recommend only posting when you are emotionally stable.
Those sections and topics seem to stir up emotions and can become quite heated. Besides this place is primarily about autism, there are other sites for political discussions.

From the list of forums on the Board Index, I recommend these ones:

General Autism Discussion

Getting to know each other

Bipolar, Tourettes, Schizophrenia, and other Psychological Conditions

Random Discussion

Off the Wall: Forum Games, Quizzes, Roleplaying, etc.

Members Only Discussion

Parents' Discussion

The Haven

Social Skills and Making Friends

School and College Life

Work and finding a Job

Health, Fitness, and Sports

Games and Video Games

Television, Film, and Video

Art, Writing, and Music

Computers, Math, Science, and Technology

Women's Discussion

In-Depth Adult Life Discussion

Adolescent Autism Forum

Kids' Crater

LGBT Discussion

WrongPlanet.net discussion

Stats

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The site itself can be quite glitchy, the software is elderly at this stage...
Captcha, cloudfare flare ups, errors and notification issues are unfortunately an occurrence.

The moderators are also autistic, with their own challenges, but if you ever have issues that need assistance you can post them here publically: viewtopic.php?t=237032
if accountability and transparency are a concern for you.

Or if you cant see a mod on duty, post there requesting a moderator to private message you, as sometimes it's hard to know which Mod is on the volunteer rota at a particular time of day.
There is also the option of the report button on every post on the forum, this sends the mods a private notification.

Like anywhere else on the internet be vigilant of people private messaging you early on and if someone starts off friendly but then starts sending you unwanted attention, regardless of how popular they appear to be, privately report the message using the same button as above to the mods.

Why stick around? For me I never had the space to be me, as I am, without negative consequences until I joined here and realised that depending on the environment I was actually quite a regular person, also like many of us... I dont like change .

It's a space where you can be normal, not the special kid, or the odd one out, or watchful of your every word, just normal amongst other autistics and our neurodiverse and neurotypical allies.

I hope you feel welcome here.

Excellent work Amity.

This should be a sticky. Is that something the mods can do?

From what I recall, I think sticky threads are an admin role only, so I figured as an alternative I'll bump this thread each time it disappears from the front page.
Thank you BlazingStar, it's a thread I wanted to start for some time, something realistic and supporting transparency for new members.

Excellent work Amity!

(I’d favour an auto direct to here upon creation of a new account, if admin regard that as appropriate of course.)

Thanks Karamazov I'd say it will just be a thread bumping situation, but that works too.

I concur!

We get a surprising amount of people with little or no previous experience with internet interaction and I would urge them, in particular, to take their time and read around first: the active membership is really small these days and you can figure out pretty fast who's who and what's what.

I don't like seeing good and interesting posters getting bullied and leaving just because they had the misfortune to go in the wrong place or talk to the wrong people.

This is a great way, Amity, of reminding us to be more friendly and inclusive, especially towards new members

I think that this is very sound advice for newcomers.

Some things might be worth adding:

• Autism and autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) cannot be cured.

• Nobody knows what specifically causes ASDs, although there are many conditions and substances that are suspect.

• None of the members of WP are capable of remote diagnosis of ASDs.

• If you suspect that you, a relative, or a friend might have an ASD, then you or they need to approach an appropriately-trained and licensed mental-health practitioner to receive an official diagnosis.

• Nobody knows for certain if a famous dead person had an ASD unless that person was officially diagnosed with an ASD while they were still alive.

• Nobody knows for certain if a famous living person has an ASD unless that person "comes out" with an official diagnosis; and even then, the only people who would know for sure are that person and the people who made the official diagnosis.

• Fictional characters can only be written to portray ASD-like symptoms; they cannot actually have an ASD because they are not real people.

• Movie/TV actors may or may not have ASDs, and the characters they portray as having ASD-like symptoms may only be the result of intentionally good acting, unintentionally bad acting, or specific type-casting.

• Just because your boyfriend or male relative is quiet, unromantic, blunt/direct, and disagrees with you often does not necessarily mean that he has an ASD.  He may just be a jerk.

• "Undiagnosed Aspie" is a contradiction in terms; someone is either a "Suspected Aspie" or a "Diagnosed Aspie".

• The label of "Aspie" was originally derived from the now-obsolete diagnosis of "Asperger's Syndrome", and has since come to be a slang term for anyone with an ASD or ADD/ADHD; and since it can also mean someone who is socially awkward, physically clumsy, or just plain "Nerdy", the label itself has become almost meaningless.

• The average Neurotypical person (or "NT") is not any more or less evil or stupid than the average "Aspie".

• People with ASDs are not the next step in human evolution, unless that step was taken backwards to a lesser-evolved stage -- evolution results in those who have advantages that can be passed on to the next generation, while "Aspies" are at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting a mate for procreation.

Amity this is a great and informative way to welcome people! Well done, how thoughtful and very welcoming

This is excellent, Amity. Wow! Some work went into this...

Better look out - you might get some requests and entreaties to become a mod, soon.

This post is a good idea, thank you for making it! This would have been useful when I made an account, so I hope people get good use out of this.

Thanks for the kind words and I hope it can assist people... WP members can voluntarily contribute to the community in ways that help others... I know I've been given essential help here.

Terrific pointers. It bugs me when people single out the neurotypical people on this forum. Aspie supremacy bugs me too. Yeah most of the 'toy' names for people with mental conditions have become negative or dilluted to the point they are meaningless. Autist has now become slang for being stupid. I think it's also important to add something about WP members occasionally being insensitive or inconsiderate. as It's important to keep in mind that it's not intentionally spiteful.

Very sensible advice. I could replace this with the following as you enter PPR, NCE and L&D

very well done. definitely sticky-worthy.

Just a bump.