MNHQ - are they disabilist?

That comment was in answer to the question that asked if MNHQ employed anyone with disabilities. It wasn't made out of context in a tenuous well my sisters uncles girlfriends son has autism.

I was a bit at that comment too sashh. Also people with disabilities are such a broad group - as a wheelchair user I have no experience of the issues facing a parent of a child with SN, it's a totally different situation. So I am not convinced having a deaf / Deaf staff member or a parent of a child who has DS shows MN are not disablist.

I missed the thread but just had a read through this one.

Why don't HQ email when they are going to delete a thread? Seems odd when they email posters who report.

On the community team alone, we have a member of staff who is deaf, and member of staff who has a son with DS. We do try to be as compassionate and understanding as we can be to all.

Do fuck off dear.

That's the 'I can't be a misogynist because I have a wife' argument. Similar to something I overheard once, "We are not a racist company, everyone we employ is white".

Do you have a member who is deaf or Deaf? And do you know the difference?

Would you want me to be compassionate and understanding if someone was stopping you getting to work?

Say you opened your front door to find it had been bricked up, every single day. Would you want me to hold your hand and say 'there, there, they probably needed to do that' or would you want me to stop the bastards? Would you be angry? Would you have a right to be angry?

I can remember the SN boards being quite cliquey a few years ago, and indeed it got quite vicious around the time the new law was being proposed. I get the feeling though that it has improved a lot, not least because some member of the original cliques disappeared.

I've never experienced disablism from mnhq, only from other posters.

Exactly so Samcro.

And I think the desire to support familiar posters is thoroughly understandable and a good thing - having a sense of community there is a fantastic thing. It just unfortunately can have a bad result when it starts to feel like ganging up, however unintentional.

That's not a criticism of the board. It's an observation of an understandable dynamic.

the sn board can be a brilliant place. if you fit in. if you don't it can be a lonely place.
just like any other topic that is aimed at a target audience.
i don't go there now as i didn't fit in with the people who run it(or used too)
the people who post there are just people, just cos you have a child with sn doesn't make you a shiney angel.

No, you are not just responding to most post.
You are being odd and I don't understand what you are trying to achieve.

A conversation which goes

'Well I think that the SN board does a really good job, of course it can't be perfect'
'Well what would perfect look like'
'Well if it met everyone's needs that would be perfect but that not possible'
'Well how could it meet everyone's needs'

is either spoiling for a fight, being deliberately obtuse or overly defensive.

I don't understand what you are trying to achieve. The only thing that would make sense is if you were one of the posters that was fucking unpleasant on the couple of threads that shocked me. The 'well golly gee they call it how it is on there' makes me wonder.
I have a crap memory and I can't be asked to look but it would make your comments here make sense. The faux wide eyed questioning while actually making obscure digs rings a bell.

Pag's experience on those boards is far from unique. I know me and at least 3 others have had the same issue.

What?

I'm not saying anything complicated. Are you spoiling for a fight or something?

Is it your board? Have I critiqued it and upset you?
Either you are being a bit thick for some reason I don't understand or you are being oddly defensive about the SN board.
I'm going to sleep. I have to be up in four hours.

The SN board can be shit at times. No ones fault - that's life.

I've posted several times that I think MNHQ do a good job. It's incredibly difficult on a discussion board to find a line between debate and those who try to be offensive, to allow questions while resisting stereotyping and nonsense.

I'm not concerned by my bad experiences on the SN board.
In the scheme of things, however shocking it was to me, it was sometime ago and I don't rely on the SN board for anything anymore.
It has however been a huge help to me over the years. I just think that allowing ourselves to imagine that it serves every need and greets every unfamiliar face with equal warmth is unrealistic.

Well, at the risk of stating the obvious, for me perfect would probably never having had the experience of it being unpleasant.

Yes, we each experience MN differently.
I think the SN section is fantastic and yet it it remains very far from perfect. One persons ballsy is another persons obnoxious.
We all experience the site and it's boards differently.
I think MNHQ do the best they can and that includes an admirable willingness to listen to criticism .
I'll be interested to see how they respond to this thread, particularly in the context of another couple that have been reported in recent days.

Southern Rail forced me to drag myself off and on a train late at night once despite having booked passenger assistance. DH lifted my extremely heavy chair risking injury. Twice. But we couldn't leave it on the platform or train and had to get home!

I was stranded at a trainstation when passenger assist didnt come to get me a kind woman helped me off i was raging

Great idea Bourdic!

Although I have to say, in my experience, Great Western Passenger Assistance is excellent - others, not so much.