There's very little about WP I like now

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i guess i am doing myself a favor by staying inside haven xD

I think "General Autism Discussion" is usually a good place to be as well as the Haven.

Very few political arguments occur there.

They mostly occur in the "News" and the "PPR" subforums.

Other sorts of arguments frequently occur in "Love and Dating."

The core mission of the site as I understand it is GAD and Coping with Life. The topical discussions are just for fun, and my advice for people who do not enjoy the PPR, is do not go to the PPR.

I think what MaxE touched upon in his post is a more delicate issue. People here have a range of disabilities. I'm on the mild end of the spectrum, and have a different set of problems and life experiences than people with more severe disabilities. In principle people should be able to realize "this person is much more disabled than I, my experience might not be applicable," but in practice this is not always the case.

I can see how the "Classicals" might feel like the "Aspies" don't understand them or their issues.

When I joined WP some years ago, I got quite scared by the attitudes of some people who wanted to decide who was autistic and who wasn't. I'm a woman who masks a lot, or at least I used to, and I got very worried about not understanding the unwritten rules of the forum...... yeah. Clearly there is such a thing as autistic culture. On some occasions I've seen new members get the social rules wrong and offend an older member. New members will sometimes have internalized bad attitudes about autism. I would like to give them time to get used to the place before criticizing them.

Also, IRL I see a huge difference between people who were diagnosed as children and us older people who just tumbled through life. Different topics, issues, ways of communicating. Sometimes the young have both better social skills and worse self esteem.

I don't post a lot because I'm very busy IRL, but I love WP. People have been very nice to me here. But I did notice that the one time I posted about a quite serious issue, it immediately attracted a troll. I was experienced enough that it didn't bother me, but something like that might bother someone younger and new to the forum.

^
There are (still) quite a few sock-puppets around.

But I strongly disagree with the theory that trolling here is due to low(er) functioning. Some of the nastier posters I've seen were either undiagnosed or obviously high functioning, while historically we had some remarkable people who were lower functioning, non-verbal, institutionalised etc. And the few "problem" members who constantly take issue with more successful people are actually diagnosed with AS.

For reasons that I don't understand and are none of my business, some posters get in trouble very fast, sometimes due to what looks like a misunderstanding, while others seem to have developed a talent for walking the line, crossing it ever so often and getting away with it

Sockpuppets are hard to prove. I've seen members post in a very similar writing style as me, and also very similar subjects and being anxious about the same sort of things, and even agreeing with what I post a lot of the time. Then I worry in case everyone will think that I'm a sockpuppet, and I'll get banned for it or something.

I'd say about 90% of topical forums started back around the time as this one, when they were all the rage, have died off. They were already in sharp decline when I got into them back in 2013. This forum is doing remarkably well for 2019. It's one of the few survivors. I'm still able to spend hours on it, which I find pretty remarkable.