Reasons Aspies don't join/leave WP?

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I feel that if you change the main question to "Have you ever thought about leaving WP" you will get many more replies. Members could easily answer questions about themselves and the potential number of respondents is much larger. Other reason data can still be compiled additionally.
You can always add "If you know anyone that choose not to join or did leave please provide additional info".

I have told only one person that I have AS.
I have an WP account, but you can't relate it to my "real world" identity. No one else needs to know. It's still a taboo, where I live.

So officially, I don't have a WP account. Unofficially: hey, here I am.

I agree that it's harder to get data about people who left, and a simular question on current WPers will be in a future poll.

I leave when I get tired of a variety of crap that happens around here and then come back when I need emotional camaraderie or I'm second guessing my diagnoses.

I think that's a major problem. You're asking a bunch of people with social anxiety and other social issues to PM somebody. Somebody with authority. Now if members could report a post without having to send a PM, like via a report button located on every post, this place could be really cleaned up. This is actually one of the "craps" I get fed up with. WP is outdated. A report button and even colored links are so 2003. Why they aren't implemented yet is beyond me.

One young lady whom I thought was a good contributer got feed up and announced that she was leaving and indeed never came back because of "the kind of people [we aspies] are"- namely bigoted archie bunker types, and axe grinders, and bullies.

It was a memorable post from years ago.

Her sentiment is understandable There certainly is no shortage of that here.

There are honest mopers who gripe about how miserable, then there are the bogus ones who prefer to export their misery by beating up others. The later are even worse than the former.

But there isnt much anyone can do about it.

Despite being a veteran of 5 years with a large post count, I hardly participate on WP any more and seldom read or write many posts. So while I haven't quite left yet, I'm not far off that point, I sometimes don't participate for several weeks at a time. There are various reasons for my semi-departure:

1. I'm comfortable with my Asperger's and and pretty much clued up about it, so there is little or no new insight to be gleaned from these forums.

2. I'm not a very social animal and don't really get involved much in the social chit-chat side of the forums.

3. Most of the threads are repetitive. The same topics keep coming up time and again and frankly I'm bored reading them or replying to them yet again.

4. Some new sub-forums might add interest but I guess this site can only go so far in trying to keep members interested.

5. I'm disillusioned with the way Alex runs the site. He's promised a new version of the site software for several years now and nada, zilch. The site has ongoing technical faults and bugs that never get fixed. Alex has abandoned the site from all practical point of view, which leaves the remaining moderators overstretched and not adequately supported, this means that only a tiny fraction of the posts are actually vetted by moderators. (Alex promised me he would appoint new (named) mods months ago ... nothing, he's still not got his finger out).

6. There is an air of negativity on the site; one only has to skim through the haven to see the despair of many members. This site does little to lift my spirits, quite the opposite usually. Similarly the "Love and Dating" forum might just as well be renamed the "Fighting and Hating" forum.

7. I have other interests in my life and this site is no longer a "special interest" for me.

I come here every day like I have for the majority for the past 9 years. I just don't make as many posts as I used to. There are many threads that pop up that I make the decision not to post in, because my opinions are the polar opposite as the ones in the more negative threads and part of having a sensitive soul for a role model is that I bite my tongue an post in the threads that I can relate to. I also like to show people the type of person that I truly am with my vast collection of avatars.

Well, you can also post in the Moderator Attention thread, but that puts your name out in public attached to the complaint, where as the PM is private. I also happen to prefer the PM in that I can choose what mod I send what issue to, as they do have different styles and forums they tend to post in. Also, with a PM vs a blanket report button, I can add my own observations, such as links to other comments by the same poster demonstrating a pattern, or a note that while nothing is actually breaking a rule yet, a particular thread is getting hot, and an innocuous comment by a moderator might serve to remind people that someone is paying attention and that they need to behave, nipping the need for actual moderation in the bud.

That, and I imagine that with the current mod staffing levels, they'd be completely deluged if a report button was implemented, and be completely unable to respond to the volume of reports coming in. They are just volunteer members, after all, and I wouldn't expect them to put in that amount of time sifting through all the reports for no recompense.

I remember when that started to happen; when I first started here, it was PPR that was hated by the mods and feared by the more timid members, but L&D has gradually come to replace it in that role. It's definitely more nasty in there than it was a few years ago, I have a few theories as to why that is so.

Most responders to the poll don't seem to know anyone who left/didn't join

I get the impression WP membership and posting frequency is just a specialist subject of some members

There's too many people on WP to keep track of which people are posting on the site or not unless you have a
really persistent need to keep track of it all

I didn't come to WP for 2.5 years and didn't miss it. I was extremely active before that, and since my social impairment is extreme, I can't believe I didn't feel the need to log in for so long. Maybe it was because in spite of the hardships of those years, I had a few very nice things going on in my life. And I had horrible memories of this place due to a very serious problem in the WP forums that was fortunately resolved by Alex a couple years ago when the s*** finally hit the fan, i.e. the issue reached Facebook and became publicly known, a scandal.

Is there any chance you could PM that memorable post? If it's the one I think it is, I read it once but now I can't find it.

I'm curious too who it was.

Care to share some of them? When I arrived it already had a bad reputation, I wonder how it was before.

There was a time when AS and Wrong Planet were my special interests, so I posted obsessively. Now, I feel like I've gleaned as much information as I could about AS, and have a new interest. The majority of my free time tends to go towards whatever the special interest of the moment is; I'm sure many Aspies are similar.

I'm curious, as of this moment, there are five votes for "did'nt represent them", is it possible for someone to post (or PM) any additional information they might feel comfortable sharing?