Question a Mod's decisions, here.....

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Thanks for adding the human touch and eloquence my posts lack, Cat.
And thanks for reiterating the avoidance of the issues.

Its difficult to avoid any bias from mods, i think, and then it can always be percieved as such anyway,
personally i see to much liberties for the obvious (professional) shills, who on top of that get to be on the preferential side in disputes too often, at the 'detriment' of less 'instructed' or 'verbal' users, be it political or medical!
You can't avoid attracting that, but there should be some reigning in imho, and in the same time we see newcomers who express themselves differently, getting harsh judgements from the mods, that's totally unneccessairy, again imo

+ + a lot of catering to a certain group of complainers!

personally...i am of the belief that removal of the sheer amount of spam we recently have been getting, has taken precious time and energy away from the mods WP time, that could otherwise have been dedicated to dealing with the REAL user issues at hand and maintaining a healthy forum environment.

obviously, it's not the whole story, but i believe it's a factor worth considering no matter how minor.

cat, i cannot help but feel a sense of blame and inadequacy when i read this:

Having a team of mods with 24/7 professional-level service is something I might expect from a paid site, but I wouldn't expect it from a free site. Alex and the mods are giving us a free space to discuss autism issues, and they have no obligation to even continue to provide the service, since we're not paying customers.

I'm not trying to invalidate any of the actual complaints, it's just my own attitude that when it comes to free internet sites, if you disagree with the management, and don't like how the site is run, then don't waste your time there.

Unfortunately in the case of autism communities, there aren't many others, and this is the best one I've found. Yes, the platform is old and wonky, I'm not a fan of ads that hijack my browser and take me to another site, CloudFlare crashes regularly, and the spam has been out of control this past year or so.

But it's being provided for free, and I understand that better service probably costs more money. I personally can't afford to pay for a subscription site (not that one exists for autism, that I know of?) - so I'm just grateful that it works at all, and there is a place I can visit, to interact with 'my people', because I don't know any other autistics in real life.

As for the quality of the community, and the moderators' decisions, again I think we have to keep in mind that these are volunteers, doing the best they know how. They're not getting paid, they're volunteering for free, and they don't owe us anything, whatsoever. They're doing it because they care about maintaining a supportive community for autistics, and they take on the responsibility of being the 'bad guy' in dealing with interpersonal disputes, which is a thankless job.

Go ahead and label me as a butt-kisser or whatever, but to me it's just basic decency to be respectful and appreciative to people who volunteer their time and energy to provide this community for us, rather than bashing them for their shortcomings. I can understand the need to speak out in cases of unfairness (and I'm not making a judgment on that one way or another) - I just think we need to keep it in perspective, that these are volunteers, who are doing the best they know how, to keep the peace between members who (let's face it) are not brilliant at getting along socially.

I have times when I can't deal with the social climate of this forum, and have to take extended breaks. I completely understand being frustrated, when members are allowed to get away with behavior that is disrespectful and antagonistic. But even so, I truly believe that the moderators are doing the best they know how, and that as a non-paying member, my options are to either enjoy being part of this forum, or decide that it's not for me, and go do something else.

I agree a lot with what Ash said. We also have some very good moderators to speak of at this point. But I feel everyone being too close to home makes everything just that - to close to home!

I think it would be worth having some NT mods. People very distant from the issues and less personal ironically have a more neutral touch in my experience.

@ Ashariel:

It has been addressed several times, on this thread, by different people, that we are aware that modding is a thankless job (and, now you've mentioned it, several times, in one post)----and, we most certainly know / understand that they are NOT getting paid----and, I don't think I've ever run-across a site, where one pays a subscription, to post on a forum (but I certainly can believe they're out there); so, ALL mods, on ALL forum sites, AFAIK, are volunteers----but, as I've said before, I don't recall ever seeing anything like this (the behavior of a couple of the Mods, here).

By your own admission, you take breaks from here----and, a quick perusal of your post history shows that you don't travel in the same circles, as most of the users who have posted, in this thread (you, being mostly a GAD poster, and alot of the rest of us, here, being mostly PPR & NCE posters----though, all of us travel). This thread, as I said in the OP, is the continuation of a discussion that was started, last summer (IIRC), and, mostly, the people who have participated in this thread, participated on that one, as well----and, there seems to be, maybe, unique issues that take place, between the users and Mods, in PPR & NCE, as opposed to the rest of the site; and, because these issues are STILL ongoing, I totally understand people needing to continue to post their complaints.

Please consider that there may be issues / events of which you're not aware----and, that what seems to be your limited experience with the Mods, may not be all-there-is (meaning, there just may be another side to the story, so-to-speak - and, there IS).

Also, I don't believe anyone who has participated on this thread, has been disrespectful----and, I certainly don't feel that anyone has bashed, anyone else.