Is conflict inevitable in ASD communities?

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This group has 90% less drama than other forums I am on.

Aspies are humans, and humans misunderstand stuff. I would never think all people get along 100% of the time.

yay

I think this forum has less conflict than most other forums, but only because it's full of individuals in need of support, or those that simply do not 'fit in' to reality. I think you would find the same at most other condition/disorder websites.

Also: conflict is more strongly moderated here on WP than on other sites.

The fact that it is relatively civil is a testament to our character which can mask deep feelings from the fact that there is fundamental disagreement as to what Autism is and how to think about it. All of the issues come down to that. Even the self diagnose debate is tied to the idea that way too many people are claiming to be a autistic when they are not. In that respect it is not that different from the parent who says if you can speak you can't speak for my kid because if you can speak you are not autistic.

On a NT music lovers or political site the conflict can be about a part of someones identity at most, not a "pervasive" part of who they or a loved one is. When "ret*d" is thrown around on an NT site it is usually about bullying ego etc. When "broken" is used in the ASD community it is meant literally.

So while NT's sites may sound worse they are not. The good thing is that if a consensus is ever reached here a lot of the animosity will end over it will continue because of the hierarchies involved.

I would think there would be less conflict on an autism website due to people with Aspergers being objective and fact based rather than being religiously/politically extremist.

I can see why you might think that. I have a different view. A lot of conflict is driven by past hurt, ego, and a refusal to acknowledge that one's own opinion is not the same as fact.

As moderator on another aspie forum I suppose I do have my share of experiences of being on top of conflict.

I wouldn't say it's less, but the arguments can get quite heated, since in my experience there are some of us are so convinced that there's only 1 truth to it. But that might be the extreme cases. I wish I could say "aspies don't think much of religion" for example yet some are pretty devout in their beliefs. I wouldn't say there's more conflict, but the conflict seems to be a different type.

I've seen that disagreement often is met by "can you elaborate" much more than on non-specific, non-aspie oriented forums. The other side is that some people just lack any tact and just barge in and seem like they're trolling, yet on further inspection looking at these members, you can conclude that they're just like this and offer plenty of good contributions to forums, even if it's in their own special way.

I also think it has to do with the people around. I will say that, for smaller forums with regulars (since the one I'm moderating is nowhere the scale of WP) it's noticeable when regulars aren't around as much. It's also why often the atmosphere changes when people cross the line and end up being banned. Yet I think that is part of any forum. Regulars often set tone; it just happens that I sometimes notice certain individuals more than others as being "invasive" towards the general atmosphere.

Conflict is inevitable in life, period.

How can one tell the difference between those trolling,the self diagnosed and people with Aspergers?Would it be possible for Wrong Planet to be notified by physicians to prove ones diagnosis?It may be too difficult to accomplish though.

Let's not even go there...

conflict is inevitable in all human society unfortunately

A site would have to demand any new and all current users produce diagnostic reports to gain or continue membership. These users would have to agree to waive confidentially, then the site would have to call the psychs and verify the report and the psychs are real. On a site like this you would have to hire massive amount of people to do this. It would go viral immediately even into the mainstream media where the comedy shows would have a field day. The site would find itself under constant attempts to shut it down. So it is not happening

Spot on.

Prior to autism entering my world I was for a long time involved in the atheist community on line. Now I'm British where being godless is not really a big deal but many of the American sites I used to post on were full of some very angry people and with just cause. Atheists are othered in America in fact they are statistically one of the least trusted minorities. They get a whole heap of s**t every day. And so many atheist communities on line were really really nasty to any theists that happened to come along to the forums. Now some theists were just trolling and deserved everything they got but the level of vitriol spewed by many of the atheists was completely over the top and counter productive in most cases.

In those safe havens of atheism on-line it was the Christians that were othered and its a very seductive thing. If you are part of the mob, as I was, then you do get tempted into joining in the attacks. I found myself verbally savaging some poor Christian on many an occasion. I tried my best to check myself on it but the temptation to get stuck in and attack was very real. You feel safe as you are part of the crowd, you feel justified cos you know you are right and you feel like getting a bit of revenge on these people because others like them have caused you harm. Its all to tempting to forget that these are people and to treat them as something less than. And this is all justified internatlly by the fact that they are seen as the problem in the world.

Ultimately now I a bit older and wiser I try to avoid such folly. My basic premiss in life is that people are basically good but most are ignorant. There are very few bad people in the world and most bad behaviour is simply due to a lack of knowledge or understanding. Education and good dialogue is what is required without judgement or vitriol. This is how we create real change.

Of course if after a load of education and good dialogue without judgement they still behave in bigoted and nasty ways then they have no excuse and so the gates of hell may justly be unleashed!! !

I'm not even sure how exactly this would fly internationally. "Privacy" laws do differ in some countries and thus who can access medical information might be quite limited.

It would also mean that this kind of personal information should be stored somewhere highly encrypted. A site/site owner would most likely be responsible if someone were to access the files with ill intent (hacking or otherwise). Not sure if someone, running a forum would like to carry such a responsibility.

I may be needlessly worrying about being attacked by people with a vendetta against people with Aspergers.I read all posts in the topic "Is Self-Diagnosis Okay/Valid/A Good Thing?" and I went wow that sums it up for me.There is a lot to take in here.I feel like the new kid at school as I was just diagnosed two weeks ago and have only been on Wrong Planet a few days.