Old friends you miss from wrong planet

[Karamazov]

Your last paragraph has it in a nutshell bender!

I saw a couple of things in the last fortnight, one of which joined the dots of complaints I’d seen flying around when Ezra was banned, and came over here on the strength of a PM recommendation.

I’ve missed Darmok’s humour since he was banned, I’ll probably miss amity, magz and teach.

Vigilante para-mods and the real mods ignoring page after page of mass “struggling” of individual members: I’m not going to miss either of those!

 

[dragonfire42]

I miss the days when WP seemed like a refuge to me. Now it seems like 90% of threads turn political at some point even if they didn’t start there, and that just turns most of WP into a political war zone I have exactly zero interest in being a part of. And approximately 5% are posts whining about how it’s nearly impossible for an autistic man to get a girlfriend but pretty much all any woman, autistic or not, has to do to get her pick of men is exist (and you will be immediately invalidated, if not attacked, if you dare to have different experiences and say one word about it). Approximately 3% are counting and A-Z threads. I haven’t completely given up on WP, but is it really worth it to stick around because of the remaining approximately 2% of threads and because a few people there like me?

I’m not hanging out there near as much these days and am considering only bothering to check in every few months to see if anything has changed and to let the few people who care (and who I don’t know are here as well/instead) know that I’m still alive.

 

[Hylian]

Now it seems like 90% of threads turn political at some point even if they didn’t start there, and that just turns most of WP into a political war zone I have exactly zero interest in being a part of. And approximately 5% are posts whining about how it’s nearly impossible for an autistic man to get a girlfriend but pretty much all any woman, autistic or not, has to do to get her pick of men is exist (and you will be immediately invalidated, if not attacked, if you dare to have different experiences and say one word about it). Approximately 3% are counting and A-Z threads.

I genuinely can't decide if I find the incessant political arguments or the daily "autistic men can never have a girlfriend" threads more annoying. I like the Off the Wall threads, but right now they're the only activity on that site that isn't arguments, and in comparison actual autism related discussion is lacking. It sometimes feels like people aren't really using the forum as an autism forum, if that makes sense.

 

[Metalhead]

I am the first to admit that I was a very irrational and unpleasant person when I was still posting on WP. Talking to other people in places where the overall vibes were not nearly as polarized was a great thing. I guess I fell into the same trap that many other posters there did - I felt unsatisfied in my life, but I wanted to wallow and point fingers at anything or anybody but myself. I can only speak for myself, but having a decent therapist is helping me move past that stage where I was behaving in ways that was detrimental to my growth as a human being.

 

[Gerontius]

I agree with KagamineLen. To some I may still be a very unpleasant person; very well, I do not put much effort any more into being pleasant.

The whole dynamic on W.P. seemed weird to me as well when I was there. There were a few people, really, who made it pretty awful for everyone else, and some were moderators.

W.P. helped in tough times but then it got to where it was more of a burden than anything else.
I got tired of:
-watching people bully other people
-constant politics, from the MAGA-trons to the hair dye coalition
-anti-Catholic bigotry from one of the moderators' pets
-constant sexual content
-everyone has a chip on their shoulder
-moral relativism and subjectivism, bordering on the Solipsist's Convention.

 

[Ezra]

It sometimes feels like people aren't really using the forum as an autism forum, if that makes sense.

Makes total sense and is spot on. There is a group who have a political agenda there. Why they use WP for it is something I don't quite understand. The more they go at it, the smaller their audience gets. It's like they are just there to bring the place down. And even worse the mods seem totally into it.

 

[Magna]

Makes total sense and is spot on. There is a group who have a political agenda there. Why they use WP for it is something I don't quite understand. The more they go at it, the smaller their audience gets. It's like they are just there to bring the place down. And even worse the mods seem totally into it.

I think the reason they do use WP as the echo chamber for their political agenda is because the tactics they use would get them banned in most any forum like this one for example that doesn't tolerate people openly calling people names, disparaging them, defaming their character and even accusing people of very virulent and egregious things if people don't virtue signal with the same volume and intensity that they do. Most any other forum and they'd get banned for flagrant violation of common sense and egalitarian rules.

I can say with confidence that there are no professed white supremacists on WP and have never been since I was a member there. It's also true that the good people who have left WP and have joined AF are largely centrists politically and all have advocated for and supported equal rights for all people. This speaks to the fact that unfortunately, there's a small cadre of hyper-political people that now include the mods there or at least have the support of the mods that have broken the inclusive support mechanism of that forum. Couple that with the total absence of "top down" leadership and the inflexible and militant hyper-political agenda has spread even into non-political sections including the protected Haven area without being curtailed by the moderators. The pernicious and pervasive bias of a relatively small number of people there which is now supported by the mods there has, in effect, become a kangaroo court of opinion.

Kangaroo Court: an unofficial court held by a group of people in order to try someone regarded, especially without good evidence, as guilty of a crime or misdemeanor.

 

[Hylian]

This speaks to the fact that unfortunately, there's a small cadre of hyper-political people that now include the mods there or at least have the support of the mods that have broken the inclusive support mechanism of that forum. Couple that with the total absence of "top down" leadership and the inflexible and militant hyper-political agenda has spread even into non-political sections including the protected Haven area without being curtailed by the moderators. The pernicious and pervasive bias of a relatively small number of people there with the approval of the mods has in effect become a kangaroo court of opinion.

The fact that people now make obvious personal attacks in The Haven and start arguments there, which is ignored by the mods, is one of the reasons I actually went through with checking out this forum. While I know the mods have their own lives, it seems like the rules just basically don't get enforced at this point.

I'm also still using WP a bit but I'm already starting to prefer this site. I don't feel like I have to walk on eggshells posting in subforums where there shouldn't be eggshells. Most of the things I've written here I haven't had to delete out of worry that I'm going to start a chain reaction of arguments.

 

[Ezra]

I have heard that the owner and only admin of WP is very political and very politically biased and only appointed mods who were of the same mindset. And even that there is some sort of sponsorship which exists related to that. I have no idea is there is any truth to that, but it seems believable considering the conditions that exist.

Any other forum I have been on, including this one, never had the owner/founder/developer there the entire time of its inception as the only administrator. All other forums I know of have changed hands from one admin to the next. What's worse is this single admin is basically no longer there at all, is unreachable, and will never hand the reigns over to someone else to manage, maintain and update the forum. So the place becomes more and more outdated and continues to deteriorate exponentially.

Wrong Planet is desperately in need of a complete overhaul, that will never take place.

 

[Slyfox]

Get the feeling I shouldn’t post much here

 

[Ezra]

Your last paragraph has it in a nutshell bender!

I saw a couple of things in the last fortnight, one of which joined the dots of complaints I’d seen flying around when Ezra was banned, and came over here on the strength of a PM recommendation.

I’ve missed Darmok’s humour since he was banned, I’ll probably miss amity, magz and teach.

Vigilante para-mods and the real mods ignoring page after page of mass “struggling” of individual members: I’m not going to miss either of those!

I suspect I was banned specifically for most of the remaining duration of US election time. I would not be surprised if Darmok received a similar extended temporary ban for the same reason. Considering the huge amount of effort on WP being put into getting people to not vote for Trump. They seem to think they are reaching the greater autism community and swaying thousands. Not that I was posting a bunch of pro-trump stuff, but doing too good of a job at challenging them I suppose.

 

[Metalhead]

Frankly, reading all of this is giving me a sudden need to apologize for my words years ago. I may have been in a completely different headspace back then, but I was still behaving in inexcusable ways and I was a part of the problem that is WP. I was acting like a narcissistic douchebag, frankly.

 

[BenderRodriguez]

Frankly, reading all of this is giving me a sudden need to apologize for my words years ago. I may have been in a completely different headspace back then, but I was still behaving in inexcusable ways and I was a part of the problem that is WP. I was acting like a narcissistic douchebag, frankly.

I'm not sure what you feel you did, but I can assure you that right now the problem is systemic in nature and not caused by individual posters per se. Here, you seem like a very nice person as far as I'm concerned

 

[BenderRodriguez]

I suspect I was banned specifically for most of the remaining duration of US election time. I would not be surprised if Darmok received a similar extended temporary ban for the same reason. Considering the huge amount of effort on WP being put into getting people to not vote for Trump. They seem to think they are reaching the greater autism community and swaying thousands. Not that I was posting a bunch of pro-trump stuff, but doing too good of a job at challenging them I suppose.

I don't want to add to the drama, so please let me know if I'm being out of line, but I need to get some things off my chest.

First of all, thinking that anybody is going to change their vote based on internet exchanges is ridiculous, double ridiculous when these exchanges consist of berating and shutting people down: if anything, it's going to have the opposite effect.

I'm thinking along the same lines regarding your ban and you can add VegetableMan to that list (and it looks like sly is the next target). With you, it was obvious a certain poster came back with the explicit intent of getting you banned and was tolerated or even encouraged: right now I'd say he's being rewarded by being allowed to run amok all over the place, even if the mods have admitted they know he's trolling. And after you left, others thought it was "funny" to make all kind of passive-aggressive and tasteless comments about "a certain banned member" (how does one roll their eyes over here?) I can't believe men close to my age can be so petty and immature.

I mentioned it before, but I think the goal is to get a small echo-chamber with 20 or so active members and no need for moderation and they're getting closer and closer to it. The problem now is either articulate people with a high standard for posting like Magna or Brictoria etc or those like me and a few others who started to speak up against the double standards and trolling despite being on the left. As far as I'm concerned, some of my (non-political) posts started disappearing without an explanation, my reports about unrelated issues were ignored and I was generally treated like a pain in the back, a trouble-maker and thrown in with the "nazis" and the "insufferable blow-hards who love the smell of their own farts"... We cannot be outright banned because we post within the rules and don't lose our temper so this is apparently the way of making us feel unwelcomed.

To the point that I started to ask myself to what extent all this is orchestrated: it's is the kind of paranoia I don't need spilling into my personal life. And the open admisssion "we know it's trolling, we admit it and we're not going to do anything about it" was just the last straw.

 

[Metalhead]

I'm not sure what you feel you did, but I can assure you that right now the problem is systemic in nature and not caused by individual posters per se. Here, you seem like a very nice person as far as I'm concerned

I basically was posting that everybody who disagreed with me was literally Hitler incarnate. That might be WP culture, but I look back at that now and I realize that was such middle school grade BS.

 

[Ezra]

VegetableMan is back. I heard he got banned because of his signature;
"The moderators on this site should be ashamed of themselves for allowing the bullying and harassment of members.", but if so it was only a two week ban and the sig is still there.

 

[Juliettaa]

This thread makes me glad I've never set foot in the place. WP sounds toxic with the potential to be very damaging to some people

 

[Ella Spell]

Wrong Planet is definitely an appropriate name for the site because members are denounced and humiliated as "wrong" if they don't parrot hypocritical, bigoted, and prejudiced groupthink used to demean other human beings, or if they dare to need support for mental health.

 

[QueenOfFrance87]

I miss Tallyman and Cornflake, both are the most decent mods on that site. I also liked interacting with Kyle the Ghost, Anonymous Anonymous, Equestria2LA, Skilpadde, and babybird.

Most of the mods now are terrible, and so are some users *coughfnordcough*. I couldn't take it anymore, so that's why I left.

 

[Karamazov]

@Ezra

Hi Ezra,it's VTSV,how are you.

Boo!

Happy Monday dude, nice to see you again