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I don't visit here every day, don't want to read all posts, but do want to know where I got to in each board. However, often I accidentally click "Subscribe" when I really want "Mark all as read" on the tablet device I use.

Please could these two links be wider apart?

A "like", or upvote/downvote system would be pretty cool

Here:

It would be very nice if Wrong Planet had a sub-forum called "Local/regional discussion," whose thread topics were all required to contain the name of some locale. This would make it easier for people who live in the same general locale to get to know each other.

Posted this in another thread but I reckon here is the place to put it, for what it's worth.
In general working on community sustainability.

I like the idea of regional based threads, stickied threads based on countries, or regions within countries that have a larger WP membership.

Only concern is if the regions become too small, or cliques forming.

It would be nice if PPR had a broader global influence, the politics part in particular, only some posters bring in philosophical discussions and religious discussion is even quieter again. It was moving in positive directions at one point until understandably divisive American politics took it over.
I don't post there, but I used to enjoy reading PPR when there was more variety and it attracted a broader base.

More focus on mental health and ASD, there seems to be so much stigma there still.

Mens health and wellbeing, really it needs it's own subforum but in the absence of one, perhaps the health and fitness forum could work.

More integration generally, moving away from segregated notions, but in particular between parents and adults with ASD.

I read on wikipedia that WP is mentioned as a resource for students taking autism related studies in the USA, it would be great if they could also share their academic knowledge as well as using WP to gain knowledge.

In general... themes of inclusion tolerance and a recognition of the autistic nature of the membership.

Addressing the internalised bias about disability, I think that one is part of a cycle some people experience and to me it seems to fuel more harmful than helpful ways of being. As in I see (insert pronouns here) bias from categories within WP towards other categories of people on the spectrum. This is why I have reservations about regional threads. In group, out group mentality. Othering etc.

When new members join it would be good to have a stickied thread in the getting to know eachother forum, explaining that this place operates differently to a typical support site due to the fact that everyone else is on the spectrum or has a vested interest in ASD... As in everyone else is struggling too, so new members expectations from the outset would be more realistic putting less pressure on the same people time and time again.

This could help with retaining membership as it encourages more respectful, tolerant and inclusive mindsets, for everyone, not just the person in crisis.

It would be nice if people experiencing significant relationship difficulties could post in a better environment than love and dating, it's better no doubt than it was, but doesnt tend to attract sensible heads as a result of its reputation.

In fairness though, I remember that Tallyman wouldn't touch it with fire tongs or something like that. Much has changed there. Perhaps 'in depth adult' could adopt these threads, though with less foot fall this might not work for the person seeking advice.

Another sentiment that needs emphasis is the voluntary nature of this site, changes in the culture are not admin led, nor can the outcomes of hard work in this regard be attributed to anyone other than the membership base and voluntary mods.
A sentiment I think we badly need more of, is tolerance for the mods being autistic too. It feels at times that they are expected to appear/conduct themselves in an NT presentation. If they make mistakes, the reaction is merciless at times which makes it not ok for a autist to admit making a mistake. Every time this happens we create a culture of it being ok to have unreasonable expectations of people on the spectrum. Or simply just more intolerance.

Its the same mindset that's applied to autistic celebrities, I mean if we cant interpret 'our own' correctly with tolerance and respect for how different we all are, how on earth could we ever expect to foster this in others in the real world.

Top down to lead with as the benchmark, bottom up and then perhaps we can start addressing inside out.

How about some kind of (text) indicator showing if a reader has contributed to a topic/thread before, and perhaps if they have contributed to a displayed page before? Useful for when topics get to a zillion pages and it's easy to forget if maybe you already posted there a week ago... or a month... or three years...

So something like the text line "[ Go to page: 1 ... 15, 16, 17 ]", with reader contributions on pages 11 and 15, might show up instead as:

[ Go to page: 1 ... 15, 16, 17 ] click here for your posts in this topic

(note the ellipsis is a link to indicate there are additional reader-posts between pages 1 and 15)

Damn. I came here to say this. We need geographical sub forums. Maybe one for each country, and a thread for each locale.

Possibly? Although maybe start off just with countries that people are interested in having separate subs for. No point in putting together 200 subs when 190 of them are going to be empty and eight are going to have one post a month for the first year.

(From an idea suggested by XFG.)  Sorry to put this on the Mods, but what if Haven threads for the last 90 days or so were reviewed for OP content, and an appropriate tag was appended to the beginning of each subject line?  Examples:

[ ADVISE ] - The OP is requesting advice on a personal problem.

[ CRISIS ] - The OP is at the end of his/her emotional endurance, and may need immediate intervention.

[ DISCUSS ] - The OP has an issue that he/she wants to discuss openly.

[ FRAGILE ] - The OP is experiencing intense anxiety, stress, and/or trauma and needs comfort.

[ LONG ] - The first post in the thread requires one or more taps of the "PgDn" key to read.

[ RANT/VENT ] - The OP is just blowing off steam and not requesting replies of any kind.

These are just suggestions, but they may help some of us sort out where we might be effective from where we might do more harm than good.

Don't know if these were suggested or not but a dark mode and proper notification if someone replies to you would be nice.

When searching the forums for specific keywords, showing the most recent posts/threads would be helpful.

There are lots of great ideas here. Too many to read them all. I tried to search for my suggestion, thinking it's probably 'asked and answered' but couldn't come up with narrow enough search terms.
I was very surprised to find a required binary gender tag in the registration process. Is this a limitation of the forum software? Or is it a matter of getting a volunteer to add more list items to the code, or ditch the required status from the question?
Or perhaps I'm naive in my expectations? I'm really just beginning in my personal discovery/exploration of ASD.

It’d be great if you guys did something about individual posts having their own scrolling in mobile, makes it unnecessarily difficult to scroll down the entire page.

i got a suggestion! Close it down.

Ideas From The Trenches

These are just ideas, folks, so don't attack me for posting them.  I can elaborate on them later, but for now I am only stating them in their most concise form, with suggested implementations in parentheses - ().

• Do away with all the "Counting" threads.

• Do away with images, links, and videos in signature lines.

• Establish rules on "Bullying" and "Harassment" that are more clearly-defined and more consistently enforceable.

• Limit the length of each posted video (3 minutes).

• Limit the number of images or videos in each post (1), on-site emojis exempted.

• Limit the number of new threads any one member can start (1 per 24 hours).

• Limit the number of replies any one member can make (10 per 24 hours).

• Limit the size of each post (1,920 ASCII characters or 80 columns x 24 lines).

• Limit the size of images in each post (800 x 600 pixels).

• Recruit more moderators, and train them in the standards they should follow.

Sure, these ideas may seem draconian, but they are not likely to cause problems unless people feel their "freedoms" are being curtailed.

You do realize you don't have to take part in these if you don't want to, right? Nobody's forcing you to post in them. I see a lot of posters use them -- what's your problem with them exactly?

What part of...

Fnord wrote:

...These are just ideas, folks, so don't attack me for posting them...

... do you fail to understand?