I'm very sorry that I have to post this, but I'd like to express my disatisfaction with the way in which Aspies Central is run. In particular, I'm unsettled by the team's apparent lack of respect for freedom of speech and the ability of members to learn from each other by discussing the merits of differing opinions.
In the thread Aspergers and Religion, the administrator posted early on that he expected members to stick to the topic started by the original poster. This is a reasonable demand, and it's one that I complied with fully by directly quoting and answering the OP's questions. Being a lifelong atheist who's recieved quite a bit of abuse from religious people, it is understandable that my responses to these questions were expressions of disapproval of religion with references to my personal experience. And that's all they were. No one could look at them with an objective eye and claim that they were in any way abusive. Yet when I returned not long after, I was greeted with this message:
You CANNOT sustain a community by mollycoddling people and trying to protect their delicate little eyes from any and all dissenting opinion. You cannot cultivate a forum with a culture in which people learn from each other by practically expecting that every person posting in any given thread must agree completely on the topic at hand.
Before I go, I'd like to address one point from another thread.
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In conclusion, I believe that the current direction of Aspies Central is needlessly restrictive. Autistic people tend to thrive in the least restrictive environments, and I don't feel that this is something offered by the current direction of Aspies Central. I have better things to do than run around telling people to stay away from a forum, but I do intend to be honest, should the topic ever come up in conversation.
If you are able to refund me for my year's VIP subscription, I'd greatly appreciate it. If not, it's no big deal.
Thank you to the people who have supported me here.
If you ever decide to cut out the overzelous moderation, good luck to Brent and crew with the future development of the site.
Kind regards,
Kuribo
In the thread Aspergers and Religion, the administrator posted early on that he expected members to stick to the topic started by the original poster. This is a reasonable demand, and it's one that I complied with fully by directly quoting and answering the OP's questions. Being a lifelong atheist who's recieved quite a bit of abuse from religious people, it is understandable that my responses to these questions were expressions of disapproval of religion with references to my personal experience. And that's all they were. No one could look at them with an objective eye and claim that they were in any way abusive. Yet when I returned not long after, I was greeted with this message:
Some may consider posting a whole new thread and choosing to leave the forum in response to this an overreaction, but I think it's entirely justified. It is of vital importance that people on the spectrum have the opportunity to come to places where they can (within reasonable limits) express themselves freely, especially for those who lack any meaningful contact offline. This incident is enough for me to make the assesment that Aspies Central is no such place. I've witnessed similar situations on AC in the past (which for a long time, made me feel uneasy about posting here) but it did look to me like the site had moved on from that self-destructive phase since the change of ownership. Apparently, I was mistaken.Anonymous said:
You CANNOT sustain a community by mollycoddling people and trying to protect their delicate little eyes from any and all dissenting opinion. You cannot cultivate a forum with a culture in which people learn from each other by practically expecting that every person posting in any given thread must agree completely on the topic at hand.
Before I go, I'd like to address one point from another thread.
One thing that one must remember when running a site for Autistic people is that many of us may be totally bereft of meaningful interaction ofline. Bearing this in mind, I'd like you to try and recall one informal conversation you've had in real life in which the initiator attempted to control what other participants were and weren't allowed to talk about. I expect that you can't. Threads are merely facilitators for conversations between people, most of whom are friends. Aside from when the thread becomes completely unrecognisable from the OP, why try to disrupt their natural flow?
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In conclusion, I believe that the current direction of Aspies Central is needlessly restrictive. Autistic people tend to thrive in the least restrictive environments, and I don't feel that this is something offered by the current direction of Aspies Central. I have better things to do than run around telling people to stay away from a forum, but I do intend to be honest, should the topic ever come up in conversation.
If you are able to refund me for my year's VIP subscription, I'd greatly appreciate it. If not, it's no big deal.
Thank you to the people who have supported me here.
If you ever decide to cut out the overzelous moderation, good luck to Brent and crew with the future development of the site.
Kind regards,
Kuribo
