As discussed here:
http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/showthre...342&page=1

Action i've been taking so far has been along the lines of contacting current supporters and possible future supporters of this campaign in order to educate them on the truth. There is now an "autism speaks doesn't speak for me" group in SL as well as the pre-existing groups (AFF and ALF - let me know if there's more i've missed).

Current known supporters include:
Daphne Molinari, founder of the "Autism speaks in Second Life" group, used to be involved with the relay for life campaign which aimed to raise funds for cancer research. She claims to be interested in raising funds for other autism-related charities too and has asked me to discuss this with her.

Various people in "millons of us" - various people in this company are members of the autism speaks in second life group. I am currently trying to contact who I can in the company to discuss the matter and ask for others to do so when they can. One disturbing aspect to this is that millions of us is a very similar kind of organisation to the more well known "electric sheep company" in the type of work they do (virtual worlds consultancy etc) and so I will keep a close eye on ESC too. I do not have too much concern about ESC though as I know a few former ESC guys who are still in touch with their former colleagues.

Various misc random SL users - not much to say on this group other than basically "spread awareness". If you see someone in the group then educate them as to why it's a bad idea to be in it. Another possibility is to all setup groups with the words "autism speaks" in the name so as to ensure they turn up in search results. Names such as "say no to autism speaks", "down with autism speaks" or whatever else we can think of. Feel free to advertise these groups in group IM in the AFF group, IM me inworld (Gareth Ellison) if you'd like group notices and other promotion.

If people are wanting to take more action then I feel it is appropriate we all meet up in-world and discuss strategies. Once autism speaks "migrates" into SL heavily it's doubtful whether we'll be successful in combatting them. Hopefully we can prevent a traditional safe haven from curebies being taken away if we all act now.

Sounds like the next step is to set a time and a place.

I'll ask the group in-world now, but feel there should be some time for new people to register an account and briefly get used to operating the SL viewer.

Not likely I can participate, with my old computer and slow connection, but I will be with you all in spirit!

i could join you guys, but i can't get my mom to let me register for the Teen SL which requires a credit card. maybe once i turn 18 in July i can join. does regular SL require a credit card number for "validation" like Teen SL does?

~Kaz

This is all on the main grid, to my knowledge autism speaks are not present on the teen grid.

No, regular Second Life only requires a valid email address. Though age verification is in its beta (verification of age so that land owners can keep unverified people off the land if the land contains adult content) but I dont think many have verified yet. you dont even need money inworld, freebie clothes and gadgets are everywhere

How does one join? Does it require any memory on the computer?

Just head [url = https://secure-web11.secondlife.com/join...+Step]here[/url] and follow the prompts - I'd be happy to give the guided tour, if you do end up joining. In fact, I'll extend the offer to any other new Australian members, or anyone willing to put up with a late night or early morning due to time differences.

It does need a pretty big chunk of memory - here's the system requirements.

Oops, that didn't work - here's the joining link again:

https://secure-web11.secondlife.com/join...+This+Step

Hm... I'm on Second Life every now and again. I'm not exactly on there frequently, and I'm not too good with the controls... But I'll see if I can drop by and lend a hand, I guess.

I will say that anyone who signs up underage does so without any support. Read the post in this board on illegal activity - violating the TOS of a privately owned service (such as SL) is illegal....

Thanks Zakkie, but it looks as though I'm going to have to give moral support only - my computer is already stuffed to the gills with WoW!

If I manage to sort out the partition (Windows has half my hard disc, and we rarely use it ) I might have enough space. I was hoping that all the memory would be on the server, like email. (You can tell that I don't know nearly enough about what I'm doing, can't you!)

Oh, I'm legal age. I had to be to legally join. I just don't spend much time on SL.

Writing to some SL news sites and blogs may help our cause.
Contact info pages for some of the known ones:

The Avastar - contact info
The Metaverse Messenger (you have to download the newspaper in PDF. contact info is on page 5 where it says we can write letters to the editor)
The SL Herald - staff list (maybe we could contact one of these people inworld. though they might be a bit biased toward Daphne because she was thier Post 6 girl once)
Brutal Honesty Blog

And we still have to write to Torley Linden. I'd do it myself but I dont know what say