Aspies For Freedom

Am I the only person concerned about the Wikipedia entry for "Asperger syndrome"?

Do other successful aspie parents object to being depicted by the loons at ASpar and FAAS as being unable to parent children without irreperably damaging them psychologically, and in urgent need of the services of a shrink?

Am I the only aspie who is fed up to the eye teeth with adult children of aspies who are most likely somewhat AS themselves, whinging and complaining that it was bad parenting from an aspie parent that is the cause of their own marriage failure, social ineptitude or depression? The crowd who are currently dominating the Wikipedia entry are doing this, and I've seen a most spectacularly bad case of this "my weirdo mummy made me a misfit" syndrome in real life. I think it's time to GROW UP!

Am I the only person who objects the absence of a positive view or an autistic view of AS in some sections of the Wikipedia?

Another point - I have no idea where I'm supposed to post posts about the depiction of AS in the media. It used to the the biggest and the most interesting section of the forum. What the f@#$?

I think RobotsRpeople2 might have been a bit harsh in his judgement of the Wikipedia. This article in Nature lent some credibility to the online encyclopaedia:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v43...8900a.html

I have used it a lot myself, and I find that on the whole it is fairly reliable on facts and subjects that are not open to controversy, and I love the way contributors argue over the smallest facts. I love the pedantry!

I do share RR2's concerns about the scientific accuracy of the Wikipedia entries, as a persistent nutbar know-nothing can have as much influence as a world authority or scientist. I know of one situation in which a group of world authority scientific researchers were reluctant to spend their precious time writing a Wikipedia article because they feared that it would be messed up by idiots. There are measures in place to work against outright vandalism, but the danger is that if a well-organized group with one POV is regarded as the more credible authority than a smaller or less active group I think the larger or more persistent group may gain the upper hand.

It is for these reasons that I would like some sections of the Wikipedia article on AS to be scrapped altogether, because there is no credible scientific or scholarly research (or even info from credible published biographical anecdotal sources) on some of the topics covered.  The Wikipedia is supposed to have standards of neutral POV, only verifiable sources and no original research. A lot of the current content that I find offensive does not and could never meet these standards.

FWIW, the first paragraph on Wiki was just changed in the past 10 days to:

"Asperger syndrome — also referred to as Asperger's syndrome, Asperger's, or just AS — is a pervasive developmental condition related to autism. It manifests in highly individual ways and can have both positive and negative effects on a person."

If you look at the discussion section (top tabs), it will give you the discussions that prompted this change.

In Wikipedia-Land, the last edit goes not to the most erudite, honest and correct individual, but to the most persistent clique, 'specially when it comes to politics.

Umm, I probably should have written, "the last edit comes not FROM..." instead of "the last edit goes not to..."

I am not so certain it's as simple as "just go in there and edit it."  I would be curious how long and if there would be a challenge.  I do know just getting "both positive and negative" wording was not only debated among editors, but medical consultants as well.  The Wiki AS article/entry was flagged "in dispute" until all agreed to add "positive."

I guess it could also be like anything else....if no one notices, you may get away with it....if a tree falls and no one hears it, and so on....Now, if you are correct and material can easily be re-written, then the value of this site is diminished.

The one for "Prevalence of autism" (I tihnk) is worse.

Enough said.

No such luck.  I'm a wiki editor so I know how this works.  Users are notified when pages they've flagged are edited and they can view the most recent changes, so you better be sure that any change you make WILL be seen and carefully considered.  If you are a user on Wikipedia, though, you'll be notified if any of your changes are reverted, so you can discuss any important edits with other users.
Wikimedia projects are supposed to maintain a neutral POV, and the best way to do this is to provide a) incontrovertable facts and b) BOTH sides of any debate, so you can probably convince most Wiki users to at least let you insert some paragraphs about "controversies over the nature of autism", etc, which is much better than nothing.

In many ways we are child like but I'd say we have all the good traits of children... NT's typically have all the negative traits (bullying, prejudice, quick to judge, social hierarchies, social status games, competitiveness, backstabbing, envy, jealousy, etc).

Man sometimes I think the majority NT's (not all) are an inferior species

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portalervasive_Developmental_Disorders

The following are conditions that autistic's often suffer <- from in association with their diagnosis on the Autistic Spectrum or PDD:

ADHD
Antisocial personality disorder
Blindness
Bully
Clinical depression
Deafness
Dropout
Dyslexia
Echolalia
Erotophobia
Homelessness   <-------------
Hyperlexia
Isolation
Loneliness
Love-shyness
Mental retardation
Poverty           <---------
Social alienation
Solitude

...

People shouldn't tell people what they can't do, like John Locke in the Lost seires always says...

I agree. I have been at different times both poor and homeless. Not that they are psychological conditions but certainly social and financial conditions. I think this was well covered some months back on a thread with Callista.

The problem is when people enforce ideas about aspies being doomed to poverty and homelessness.

"conditions that autistic's often suffer"

"inherent or unavoidable"

Are these two statements saying the thing? I don't think so.

OK. Just so I understand. Wikipedia accurately displays some of the traits that Asperger's has or can lend itself to and you think it is bullshit ad needs to be amended......not because it is wrong or that even you think "often suffer" is a misrepresentation..........but because you believe that it may give rise to certain individuals from certain groups to incorrectly use the words "often suffer" to transform them into "inherent or unavoidable" and build a false argument convince equally as biased folk that these conditions are unavoidable and inherent?
So the problem would be the non-misrepresented article in Wikipedia that needs to be changed?
OK. Not very sensible, rational, logical or sane, but OK.

Maybe we could change the article to say that autistics are higher beings that never have any of those problems. The only problem they have is that non-autistic people can't change society to fit with their individual needs. Then call each of those listed traits as not ever effecting autistics and say that any autistic who has ever displayed any of those traits is using it solely for the purposes of confusing researchers around the world and family and friends. You can then mention it is part of the plan to lull non-autistics into a false sense of security so autistics can take sneakily take over the world.

I use it occasionally but wouldn't take everything it says uncritically.