What has been your experience on WP?

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One thing I used to notice more of:

People would start these threads where they'd preface it with something like, "I think I might have a really teeny, tiny, microscopic, almost non-existent, very, very, very mild form of Asperger's." Then they'd proceed to rattle of a laundry list of common autistic traits, and ask for confirmation that they were/weren't on the spectrum.

I remember thinking, "Since Asperger's is already on the "mild" end of the spectrum, if your case is that minuscule, it would be virtually non-existent, and you wouldn't even suspect anything was amiss." I think a lot of these people were struggling with accepting who they were and had to dip a toe in and leave an exit strategy in case they were afraid of what they found.

Point is, not so much of that anymore.

I've always loved learning about other people's unique thoughts regarding the world and their experiences in it.

And on top of that, before finding WP earlier this year I had had no meaningful communication whatsoever with someone I knew to be autistic (in elementary school I helped take care of an autistic junior that could only communicate via body language), much less have a well informed conversation about it. I was diagnosed about 5 years ago and poor mental health made it a struggle to learn more about autism, much less find others to talk with. I just ended up searching "aspergers forum" on a whim, and found myself relating to the name and brief description of WP.

I learned a lot about autism, here, and even more about myself. Finding answers, and voices just like mine, about things I went through 30 years of my life with not knowing why, struggling endlessly and futilely with problems that no one else seemed to have... has been cathartic in a way I can't explain. And being able to [mostly] let loose and talk as I naturally do is so freeing.

Also confirming I stay faaaaar away from public discussions about philosophy, politics and religion. Having constructive conversations on those topics has far too many rules and requirements for a free-wheeling public forum to be a friendly place.

Definitely a mixed bag. I wasn't planning on staying this long. My main annoyance with this site at first was when I'd make threads and I'd sometimes get posters talking about random nonsense in the thread and the conversation would head towards going in a bad direction.

There was also the fact that sometimes my intentions were misunderstood, which I'll admit was down to my own obliviousness, I had a habit of making observations and not stopping to think about what others could think my intentions were and assuming that others would approach such subjects from a similar angle as me.

I do remember encountering a small amount of sexism at first, such as when I'd talk with others and I would be dismissed as an emotional woman. Not a regular occurrence, but it was disappointing. I was ready to leave at one point when I saw some disturbing posts in the LGBT section which were filled with so much misinformation that I didn't even know where to start. However, a user reached out to me and convinced me to stay.

There are some good users here, when I first arrived I was worried that reporting wouldn't do much good since there was a vocal minority of users who seemed to have temporarily overrun the site and I was concerned about how widespread the issue was and if I'd be better off leaving.

When I met some of the nicer people, I realised that it wasn't all bad. They've offered their support, made me feel welcome and even made me laugh at times.

When I joined WP, it was kind of small and I got to know everyone pretty easily. Then when my boyfriend was banned (amidst a lot of other people) I was put off being here. So I left and didn't come back for maybe a year?

I came back out of curiosity and wanting to know more about others' experiences of autism. I've kind of lurked ever since, hence my low post count.

There are some awesome people here which is why I keep coming back.

I have had mixed experiences here, the good and the bad. I have been here since 2006 and I think this forum has taken a different direction in the last few years. I think of users here who were toxic due to their own issues have left this place believing the rest of us were evil lol. But those people don't last long on other autism forums either.

I’ve on been here sporadically since June 2020, so about a year and a third now. For the first year or so of that, I rarely if ever seemed to post anything that got replies, but more recently I’ve participated in some more heated debates against other members in the forums.

Though it’s not nearly enough to turn me off of the site, I will say that overall the community is not as nice and wholesome as I would’ve expected. I’m just going to go ahead and say it: conservatives are far more prevalent than I would’ve expected for an autism forum. It’s not at all hard to find people on WP bitching about SJWs, political correctness, and so on. But still, there are plenty of people here who are nice and supportive. So overall, I feel welcome.

It's been better recently than it was initially.

I should give myself a break from here, or even just lurk, but lurking is really hard for me to do. Sometimes I just have to share my feelings or thoughts out loud here. It's a form of comfort for me. WP has the same amount of good and bad points.

I don't really post as often as I used to because of the political posts + the fact I can't relate to half the people here. I've kind of slowly been phasing out WP and other ASD forums for other forms of social media. As more people close to my age leave + make accounts but don't stick around, the more boring these forums get to me.

The rules were clarified in a very militant way. It was basically saying anyone could be racist if they were accused of it. Like League Girl said.