Poll: Should the name of this website be changed?

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The main argument for changing the name is that the alien analogy is dehumanizing. The main argument for keeping the name "wrong planet" is that it is a great analogy for the autistic experience in the neurotypical world.

5 years ago I started a thread proposing the name be changed. At the time my idea was overwhelmingly and passionately rejected. Except for a brief mention or two I have mostly stayed away from the topic since. Membership has turned over and I have had it in the back of my mind to pose this question again out of curiosity to see if the consensus has changed. The ongoing thread about looking at Autism optimisticly inspired me to finally act.

While not a poll question feel free to propose an alternate name.

I feel the name "WrongPlanet" is appropriate. I don't see anything wrong with it.

I like the name WrongPlanet.

I really like the name-
All I feel needs to be changed is a lot of the mentions of aspergers because that is so outdated now.

My opinion has not changed since 5 years ago. While like most autistics I have felt like an alien somehow mistakenly dropped here by mistake I know that I am a human fully deserving the respect and consideration given to "normal" humans. I feel the widespread acceptance of the alien analogy is self-defeating, an acceptance of discrimination, and internalized ableism. Faced with the widespread acceptance of the alien analogy and the very strong likelihood that Alex is not going to change the name I was and am faced with the choice of quitting WP or staying. I still cringe at the name, never have truly gotten used to it. I have come to the conclusion that the positives this site does for me outweighs the negative of being offended by the name.

The main argument I see for keeping it is I have never been able to come up with an alternative name that is not reactive or awkward such as "Our Planet also" or "Autistics Speak". Maybe somebody else can.

Probably really aspie of me but I wouldn't like to change it because it feels like unnecessary change and unnecessary change ought to be avoided.

Besides, I like how quirky it is and how non medical it feels, like a social site.

No worse than how tweeters are birds.

I like the name, Wrong Planet.

Like I said 5 years ago, I very much agree with your point of view, but I still wouldn't motion to change it, because it's not my forum to change. I respect Alex's decision in setting up WP and making those decisions all those years ago.

That said, I would be happy if he decided to change it, because I agree that it is not a healthy approach, ASPOM.

In addition I absolutely HATE being referred to as a freaking alien! I have never ever felt like I am one or don't belong here. I couldn't feel more connected to Earth and most of its inhabitants (not counting one species!)

That blasted alien analogy makes it sound like we don't really belong here, and I very much resent that.

I avoid the name by just thinking of it as WP, I never think of the whole name anyway, haven't for many years.

More than the name, I really, really wish that GD alien figure at the top of each page was removed, it is very embarrassing. I tried ad blocking it away, but that removed the entire name as well, so I stopped it.
Please let that begone. I cringe every time I see it. It's worse than the name, because it really drives the point home. Begone, evil image.

^ I like the name, have always felt like a bit of an 'alien' in human society and can very much relate to it. It's also quite funny.

I agree with you about the WP graphic though.

What? Would people rather have this site named as 'Foreigner's Planet' then?? While more human, it's easily mistaken for another.
Wrong country? Too specific, too vague.
Wrong world? Actually this is too wrong.
Cat's musings on a dog's day field? Too long and possibly too exclusive.
Beryls amongst quartz? Too narcissistic.
Moths in a butterfly's realm? More self defeating, more discriminatory, not to mention girlier.
The aspergian files? Too exclusive.
Adventures of Overwhelm and Underwhelm? Maybe... Nah.
Social Retreat and Confrontation? Wait, something's missing or off... But nah.
No more though. I suck at naming. Since the majority here is likely verbally oriented, I'd bet they'd want a more formal and 'respectable' name.

I'm not entirely an alien, but a human foreigner who fancies herself an alien ghost in a mission to acquire concepts and knowledge. Someone has to remind me of this of course.
This 'alien' doesn't always feel isolated, solitude or not, foreign world or not. But this 'human' -- human feels more isolated, foreign world or not, mission or no mission, solitude craving or no... Yeah, I see where this came from.

No, there's nothing wrong with Wrong Planet. Even if I put this over a negative light, over a negative association, it's just 'appropriate'.


I'll stop having fun now. On a serious side...

From where I live -- foreigners are not necessarily excluded and discriminated against. Sorry for this weird rant or something;
If anything, natives here discriminates against one another. Despite having the same upbringings, despite growing up with the same values, despite having the same neurology.
People here are aware of their own attitudes towards certain things, they're aware that people here are more flawed by comparison, yet they couldn't seem change themselves. They couldn't seem to until they went into another culture with different outlooks, to be out of their territories. They couldn't until they renounce their birth nationality. Some, if they succeed leaving the islands, would likely not teach their own children their native tongue. They thought, they'll ruin their kid's livelihood, they'll ruin their chance of so-called normal life in that foreign soil they chose to settle in should they expose their native culture on their children.
That's the circumstance of my life within this rather lenient culture as I see it. Doesn't affect me, yet why am I telling this story that I've never been a part of?
Because it's all I hear for most of my life.
Instead of autism and just feeling different from many people, it's something else entirely seeing before my eyes. I don't only see how myself may not fit in, be an odd one out. I also see others, trying hard to be different, trying to distance themselves from what they are given -- yeah, no different from those who doesn't want to 'feel alien' in a another sense.

To me humans discriminates humans with certain attitudes over certain traits that a human has.
That's all I can see and it's not a matter of autistics and allistics. Autistics just happened to have that trait that most people would discriminate on. Yet as far as I can see, it's not exclusively on autistics or even the disabled as whole.

I know not the circumstance of those who are discriminated as an autistic -- but I do see this is still more of a social human problem. And this human problem drives autistic people to mask or not disclose things.
And no, I don't think accepting you're different and feeling foreign from most people is not equals to accepting discrimination, exclusion and ableism.
You blame yourself from people's act on misinformation and their attitudes? You blame yourself for the world not being ready and not enlightened enough for autistics? There's already a long line of things the world isn't ready for, autism is just one of these things.


Sorry, but I'd say the name Wrong Planet will more likely stay named Wrong Planet as long our current world remains a Wrong Planet. But in the end, the decision's not mine. This is just some long winded crap in my mind.

And you wanna not to be reminded of this? I thought this isn't only a way of accepting one's oddity, but also one's drive to change the world into a 'right' one.
But then again, I wouldn't blame anyone who just want to avoid whatever they are reminded of by having the name out.

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I don't like the name of this site. I am a human just like the next person, having ASD doesn't make me any less human. In my opinion, calling Aspies/autistics "aliens" is like calling deformed people "freaks". And in this over-the-top politically correct world we live in today, you'd have thought more people would be offended by the name of this site.

It should be named something like, I don't know, like "autism village" or something. That was just the first thing that came into my head when writing this post.

WrongPlanet is more an ironical name, to me. The symbol happens to be an alien; but it implies more "alienation" than something which is "nonhuman"--an alien.

It's more like we're "too" human.

We're actually on the right planet----but it sometimes feels "wrong."

Personally I have no problem with the name, and don't feel it's necessary to change it. If someone came up with a better name then maybe I'd support changing it to that, but I don't see the need.