Do people think an online conference is a good idea?
We could host this on the chat network, having a specifically made room for it, and anyone could attend.

This could be on the anniversary itself, and we could have discussions on matters relevant to the community, or whatever people wished.

Such a conference was held online for Autscape this year, and it was a really good event.

It sounds a very promising idea, Amy.  :smile:

Stella

Good idea Amy, I like it

Speaking of the chat network, I have a server that happens to have the correct software (IRCd Hybrid-7.0.3) installed.  If Gareth is interested in having another server on the network (this being the northernmost one in the UK) then just let me know, might as well use it seeing as i installed it (i already gave it a name ending with "a" which is the norm for server names on the chat network)

We are interested in having extra servers provided from well known users. I'm sure Gareth will chat with you about it. Look forward to seeing you as an admin.

I will talk about it to you on the network pikachu

For all who are interested - Pikachu has now donated a server, accessible via xana.uk.chatautism.com.

I liked the idea of an online conference - was the Autscape one the one related to the Welsh site? I can't remember now.

If that's the one you're referring to Amy, then my gripe with that is that the software they used was absolutely dreadful.  The layout was awful, the way the topics were threaded wasn't conducive to carrying out a debate, and also, and this was a big problem, it wasn't searchable (or at least I couldn't find any search function).

I think if there is an online conference, then maybe the most suitable tools would be a bulletin board like this, and also moderated chat sessions (like following a television programme on Channel 4, when they have a guest from the programme participating in an online Q&A session.  It would be good to have something like that to start off with.  Maybe a webpage giving a lecture or position paper, followed by a realtime online Q&A session, then with a 'legacy' of bulletin boards like this (or a new section of these boards) for ongoing discussion of the keynote speeches, and ancillary issues.

The Autscape one was different, the welsh one was the Awares conference.

Ah, right!  Yeah, I was thinking of the Awares one, really good in theory, and some of the contributions were good, but problems navigating the site and the threads and the lack of a search facility meant it wasn't as good as it could have been, imho!   :lol:

I think an Aff online conference would be a very good idea.  

I think it's really important to try and get a flavour of what the professionals (i.e. people who are paid to do stuff relating to AS) are up, what are their latest theories, research and so on, and also to get some input from us experts (i.e. people who live with and experience AS in our daily lives), and get some interaction and cross-fertilisation of ideas.  

Some of the academic stuff seems, by its very nature of course, to be quite clinical and removed from our experience.  And likewise, maybe for some of us, we relate to things in the context of our own personal experiences and maybe have something of a tunnel vision approach, and maybe academic theories can help us see the wider picture and/or related issues.

I really do feel that there should be more of a two-way process, to avoid academics and clinical practitioners adopting that superior and patronising, 'we're the professional experts' attitudes, which is so blinkered and unhelpful.

We do regularly post abstracts of the latest published research month by month as it appears in MEDLINE, Science Daily, New Scientist and so on, so we are as much aware of what is going on in autism science as it's reasonably possible to be.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't expand our sphere of influence, though  :smile:

how about an online conference like this one?

http://awares.org/conferences/home.asp?c...e=00020001

they might give you a copy of their software, and AFF can modify it. That conference system worked much better than any chat discussion I have witnessed.


By the way, here is a post about how they did it:
http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/phpBB2/v...highlight=

I am not really conversant in online conferences, only ever having tried to attend some frustrating streaming lectures (frustrating becos they didn't stream).  

But I would like to read this conference.

Would the chat texts be available afterwards as well, for those who are not so punctual and/or live in odd timezones?