What are the odds of this being another William Freund?

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The reason that wrongplanet was mentioned in that article was obvious. They got most of their information for their article here.

They got it from Dan - BUT since they mentioned that he "sought solace online", it gives a skewed view of things if they make it look like this was the only forum he visited.

That he visited so many others (where he was relatively coherent), seemed to have stopped posting there and then burst in here out of the blue, incoherently demanding money, and later also joined a 'pro suicide' site and seeked advice from gun forums is very different from the sop story of 'he seeked solace in one AS forum'.

They also left a big chunk out of one of the quotes... Will stated he was gonne scare the kids with a laser gun. In the same post, he also said he had the shotgun for self defence, in case there was a drive-by.

They cut out the intermittent words and phrases and made it look like he explicitly announced he was gonna use his shotgun on people on Halloween, which is not true.

Last edited by Noetic on 01 Nov 2005, 4:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

It was a skewed view, but i imagine that they wrote their entire article from a few police interviews and from here. I would imagine that someone from this site sent them URL's from major threads on this site and they wrote the entire article based on that.

I amended my post - AFAIK Dan specifically gave an interview, that's why it is AS-related and why it mentions WP. However, the reporter could have done some simple research to see that it was by far not just this forum Will was or had been active in.

Last edited by Noetic on 01 Nov 2005, 4:53 am, edited 2 times in total.

i read the article, and found it rather more positive than i thought it would be. it certainly highlights that members of WP did try to offer support to Will. if its description of AS is more simplistic than sensational, that is most definitely a good thing.

eyeenteepee, the use of "rare" to describe violence in people with AS is both realistic and true. on the whole, i applaud the sensitivity of the article.

there are a number of people on the site who can offer basic counselling/listening skills (it's not realistic to offer full scale therapeutic stuff over the internet) for anyone who's struggling to deal with all of this. i know that neuroman, stlf and myself are happy to offer this (as and when we can), and i'll try and round up any other names, and then post them here. (perhaps people who can offer these skills could let me know?).

i still think we're all doing incredibly well in dealing with such a difficult situation. we deserve a big thumbs up.

Vivi
(as Mod)

That makes sense then. It just seems they had too much WP specific information for it to be an accident.

Crickey....

'Tis a sad day for wrongplanet...

Does this mean also my posts when dealing with William Freund have also been moved too. Because I can not find them anymore. Will You be putting them back where they were or not.

threads will be returned once all this has calmed down as far as the media is concerned. although there hasn't been anything dreadful, as yet, and it's quite possible there won't be, so please don't worry about it too much, people.

we moved them "just in case", to protect confidentiality. sorry if this has alarmed anyone.

Vivi
(as Mod)

vetivert

I am ok with this, I was just wondering myself.

I am glad You(Wrong Planet) are willing to protect our confidentialty.

I was not trying to alarm anyone.

I didn't think the article was *too* terrible. He described the community in a fairly positive light and did mention that violent behavior isn't a common thing with aspergers specifically.

There are probably a few sentences I would nit pick, just like some of you had. There was one where he refferred to aspergers as a "disease", which seems not only kind of demeaning like other terms, but probably not even medically accurate to begin with (anybody want to weigh in).I also didn't like the way he dotted his I's and crossed his T's, quite offensive. j/k

I suppose because Asperger's is mentioned in the article, that means it paints it in a negative light or whatever, but I really didn't think this particular case, considering the actual reality pertaining to it, was that bad.

Another point to realize is that my talking to him didn't seem to give that much information. All of the postings quoted were ones that they were able to find themselves, and, to be honest, I think this article tells a much better story than the kind of thing we've seen in the past with stories like this (e.g. "Oh, by the way, the killer had Aspergers!"). In a strange sense, the article portrays Freund in a kind of good light. I mean, this guy killed two (as far as we know) innocent people. It's good that they took a little time to go back and read some of the things he had said, try to understand the guy, go a bit deeper into the case.

It's been said that no publicity is bad publicity. I'm hoping that this doesn't give some impression of "ASPERGERS = PSYCHO MURDERER!! !" in the public mind and that it instead maybe gets people to learn more about it and even be more tolerant/understanding. It could happen.

We'll have to see what comes of this.

I'm impressed too.

I'm glad that WP has acted in the way that it has to let the authorities know all the information. The fact that we have been honest should put us in a good light with the wider public.

Actually, I was interviewed by the paper as well. You can see quotes from me in the second page of the article. I tried to get them to stress that AS wasn't something that caused violent behavior.

I'd like to point out how far we Asperger's have come in the last 10 years.
People with AS disorders were once thought to lack real emotional expression, lack empathy, and lack theory of mind. We have shown that these views are quite false. Our actions surrounding this incident, and elsewhere on this site demonstrate the following.

1. People with Asperger's have feelings as deep and as real as any NT.

2. People with Asperger's have "the ability to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one's own." In short, people with Asperger's posess Theory of Mind.

3. People with Asperger's have empathy and are capeable of acting on it.

4. What is true for the person with Asperger's is true for others on the Autistic Spectrum.

None of this is new to us at WrongPlanet, but it will be new to the media and authorities driven here by the Los Angeles Times Story, and I would like to see these characteristics highlighted in all future articles about this site.

It need not be a dark day for WrongPlanet.
Without a doubt, it is a time of sadness and concern.
It is also a time for action.
The leaders of this site need to draft a plan for handling suicide threats in the future.
We need to allow the leaders of this site to handle all media requests.
We need to welcome with open arms all those who come earnestly seeking a place in our online community. We need to not engage those who come with negativity.
Our quiet community at WrongPlanet will probably become a much busier and nosier place in the following days and weeks. Not all of it bad.
Bandwidth useage is probably going to grow and get expensive. Those with means might want to consider increasing their financial contributions.

On the whole, I suppose it could have been worse... but I really didn't expect WrongPlanet to get publicised at all. I must say, the idea of angry people flocking here is not a pleasant one, nor was the reference to AS as a 'disease'. I think Will's grammatical errors were irrelevant, and I think they should have included his other sites, but all in all, I guess it wasn't too terrible.

Out of interest, what does slash-dotted mean?