Small steps to reduce confusion here on WP.

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Decided to place this discussion thread in the 'In-Depth Adult Life Discussion' Forum - on account of getting older wiser, and needing to slow-down. Hence, reassessing roles here on WP.

By the very nature of the Autism Spectrum, it is common to express things in tangents; it is what it is.

It's best to be mindful that too much confusion might discourage people concerned with Autism Spectrum to overlook important discussions here on WP! ​

Potential steps to reduce confusion here on WP:

* Reconsidering the 'QUOTE' option (the 'REPLY' option is fine to a point) to respond to discussion threads might help curb cumbersome discussion threads, maintain continuity, and reduce confusion.

* One step is to reconsider how to maintain discussion threads to around a maximum of twenty-five posts (which seems optimum).

* Limiting post sizes might better invite users to apply the 'QUOTE' option. With up to twenty-five posts to scan through, one can readily decide which posts to 'QUOTE' within managed-sized discussion threads - again maintaining continuity, and limiting confusion.

Anybody have additional ideas regarding small steps towards curbing confusion here on WP?

Keeping in mind that this is an autism forum, and that autistic people have different capabilities and comorbids could be helpful. I sometimes see higher functioning people get frustrated and act rude when someone posts something they can't read properly, or when someone goes on a tangent, like the person has decided to have problems writing things and staying on topic.

There's no problem with asking people to reiterate and stay on topic, and if you still can't understand them or they won't stay on topic, then there's also no issue with just leaving the discussion instead of being rude and making fun of them, and thus discouraging people from posting here or learning how to better their communication skills.

I'm not going to lie; I do get a little frustrated when people can't spell or write out their posts properly. I know they probably don't mean it (although some people do actually have their own way of spelling certain words even if they know it's not spelt that way, and I'm not talking about American-English). And I try not to be rude to them.
But as a person who is rather perfectionist when it comes to writing posts, I do get a little irked at how other people can just post and not be bugged by any typos. And with technology of today most computers and phones have things like spell-check and autocorrect, so I thought that would be a good help to make people's posts more readable if they do struggle with writing.

Gotta agree.
My spelling and grammar were awful in my teens, but I worked on it, and now I think I'm doing OK.
I can't help feeling bemused of how some native English speakers treat their language.
It may be an autistic trait to be anal about this?
I have to admit though, it is kind of fun for a non native English speaker to find errors and faults in texts written by natives

/Mats

Paragraph breaks in posts breaks-up sometimes lengthy text, and hence encourages people to investigate posted content.

New and regular visitors, and WP members alike might view the 'Active Discussions' list on the main page as one of many indicators of the gist of WP.

Many of us here on WP might feel hard-pressed to contribute to 'Active Discussions' threads - on account of potentially important content getting "lost in the shuffle" of well................active discussion threads!

In-depth discussions on the Autism Spectrum can be difficult to maintain - hence such in-depth discussions infrequently show-up on the 'Active Discussions' listings.

Can in-depth discussions become more of the rule, and less of the exception - and hence frequently augment the 'Active Discussions' listings? Any further proactive steps to reduce confusion here on WP?

It's completely unnecesary to 'quote' the contents of the previous post if you're replying to it. Quite a lot of people do this, both here and on other forums, but it just takes up space. If you want to make it clear that you're specifically replying to the previous poster, just use the ^ sign at the start of your own post.

DeepHour: Or do it like this.

However, I disagree that quoting is always unnecesary.
I agree that quoting the whole post makes little sense, but if one removes all text but the piece one is commenting on, in particular when commenting on a lengthy post, it is quite helpful.

/Mats

I think it would help if we tried to keep in mind that when somebody is expressing a complaint or issue or problem with a certain type of person, the OP is partly venting their frustration to blow off steam & they do NOT mean that they believe all people are like that in negative ways. For example I seen LOTS of posts in L&D get derailed over my many years here because when somebody was saying something negative & used the word Men or Woman, at least a few readers automatically assumed that the person must be complaining about all men or all woman because the poster did not directly state that they were not talking about all men or all woman. They are always exceptions to everything & we should not need to post a disclaimer every time we say anything negative that lists every single possible exception to our complaint. I think we all hate others putting words in our mouths & we should try to avoid doing that to to each other. WP is meant to be a support site & NOT a flame war site. This causes the OPs to feel even more alienated & misjudged which would only add to their problems & issues. Plus LOTS of potentially helpful or useful threads get derailed by this petty bickering.

I always use words like "some", "many", etc, when talking about men or women or any group of people.

I, for one, would appreciate more widespread use of the Oxford Comma.