Aspies For Freedom

A lot of the people on there are like that, I've found. They go out of their way to be rude and confrontational. I posted on that site for a couple months early on last year, but I eventually gave it up because I don't like being in such negative environments (I consider myself to be a largely positive person). A lot of it is just that WP is a huge and extremely active website, and any forum like that is going to have plenty of those argumentative types of people, regardless of the forum subject.

Also, just in case you didn't already know, WP is not officially an anti-cure website. I'm not even sure if the majority of the people are anti-cure... There are a lot of people there who have AS and hate it.

Don't listen to those idiots... you know that AFF is the better place to be!

At least you know that "Batman55" resides in these parts...  WP cannot say the same.

I stop by both AFF and I2 almost daily.  If there's something I want to discuss, I usually start a thread here.  But sometimes, either I need to curse and swear to get my point across, or otherwise my humor isn't appropriate for kids, so I post on I2.  (I especially like the "karma" feature and also the huge selection of dirty emoticons.)  Only occasionally do I visit WP.  I might post there if I feel like I need to get a wider range of opinions including some that don't agree with me, but that's very rarely.

Each of these sites has its niche.  If the online AS community were analogous to a city, WP would be Grand Central Station and I2 would be some sort of nudie-bar/fight-club/rowdy sort of establishment like you might find on the edge of an industrial district.  Not sure exactly what AFF would be analogous to.

There's another forum called ZOMG, which I have glanced at a few times.  Anyone have any idea what niche that one fills?

Way to fulfill my negative prophecy even more.  No, I think I may have some gifts but I'm dragged down from learning disabilities--Soccerfreak explained this phenomenon as being "twice exceptional."

Therefore, I don't belong to the "too dull to contribute" crowd.  I'm above that.

Forgive me--I hadn't gone beyond the first statement in your presumptuous post!

Now to the second one:  There is no discussion too complicated for me.

There are discussions that have a lot of variables and viewpoints flying back and forth, and a lot of reading to be done, which I don't take part in because my attention span (I have significant ADD) doesn't "last long enough" to take it all in.  This is not the sign of a "dull" person as you suggest I am (thank you for pigeonholing me), it is the sign of someone with ADD.

And once again, I'm "above" the learning disabled crowd--it is true that I have a learning disability or two, but I also have cognitive gifts, so I prefer to hang with the intellectuals and sometimes I do a half-decent job of it.  Twice-exceptional--not one-dimensional.

You constantly call yourself unintelligent and lacking in cognitive gifts, so why do you get upset when you think the same thing is being implied by another person (though that's not the message I got from Ivar's post)? I'm not intending to sound critical, if that's what you are thinking (I am often unable to not sound critical), I just genuinely don't understand your reactions to the first post.

I don't understand why you think you are "above" those of us who do have learning disabilities either.

I'm not even sure that I, myself, could answer that question.  I will try though.  I seemed to think that his post was a bit "pigeonholing"--even though that was unintentional (apologies to erkolos.)  Well, intelligence is a shaky subject for me.

At the same time I have terrible doubts about my intelligence, I'm not very eager to accept my perceived lack of intelligence as fact, and just be done with it.  Especially when it seems others view my intelligence in a better light than I do.  So, this unstable view of myself (what am I?  dumb as dirt, or actually brainy?  both can't be right...) leads me to react irrationally.  That's my theory.  I wish I was a simpler person, things would be easier.

I don't think I am above such folks either--it's quite clear I have a learning disability or two myself.  Perhaps what I was saying is I don't want to be "written off" and placed into some hypothetical category of people who can't effectively contribute in more complex discussions.  I want to be seen as above that, if nothing else.

That is true as well. Whenever I was gone for a few hours and came back, there would be like 600 new posts to look at, and a good portion of them would be arguments, bullying, or flame wars. It is difficult for me to deal with extremely large, busy online environments (I don't see them as very different from real-life environments of a similar nature), and coupled with the general negativity I witnessed, it was all very intimidating to me.

WTF? Have you tried contacting someone about it (if you care)?

I didn't mind the color scheme too much, but I really didn't like constantly having to look at banner adverstisements featuring scantily-clad women. I don't know if they still have those there.

I thought Aliengirl put really good posts on Wrongplanet and has done so here. Due to political disagreements, I was banned from Wrongplanet today. I also have an account on Zomg and they are much more tolerantly run than Wrongplanet. As far as I can gather, WP is primarily an arm of the business interests of its founder and was not meant to simply be a support forum.

They currently have a bunch of moderators who are a complete law unto themselves and one can get banned for very minor reasons now.

Oh, it took me a while to realise that the forum was part of the Yellow Sneakers business. The founder even put up an appeal for funds some time ago and this caused a certain amount of controversy since some members believed he was making enough from his business and for ad placements on the forum.

Since the new moderators were appointed, a number of my friends were banned, and now I have been banned. I don't know if Alex really has much control over what his mods do any more - I think he just leaves them to it.

The trouble over there is one mod can just ban a person for whatever reason they feel like. I know they are supposed to discuss it with the other mods and with Alex but I don't know how often that happens now.

Yes, I think I know who you are referring to and it's likely that is what led to the formation of Zomg. It has got worse in the last few days with quite a few of my friends being banned or on the verge of being banned.

For a site that trumpets free speech, it is very selective as to what speech is actually allowed and the mods appear to be a law unto themselves nowadays.

Somebody else said they'd got banned after they'd been away for about 8 months. Seems to me that the inmates are running the asylum over there right now.