Hey MNHQ. Would it be possible to have a discussion about how SN issues/threads are handled on the main boards.

[Pagwatch]

I know you are fire fighting a bit and I'm not trying to stir things up.

I just think that there are endless threads that require you to get involved and try to (for the sake of a better word) mediate between pissed of posters with no real experience of SN/disability and pissed off member of the SN/disability community.

I think you try really really hard to be fair and even handed. It's an understandable response but I have growing doubts about it.
There have been half a dozen threads recently where posters I recognise as living with SN/disability issues deal with a continuous stream of posts from any random who pops up on a thread making the same stupid, ill informed or frankly goady post.
It's like swimming through a tidal wave of shit.
Then, as posters get increasingly exasperated by each arriving poster saying 'well I'm not putting my buggy away if my baby is asleep' or 'why can't I use the disabled toilet if it's empty' or 'but people with SN can be violent. I know of stabbing someone and attacks all the time' they get rude and the thread descends into eurrgh.

I'm still reading constant posts where anyone affected by disability is berated if they are angry, the message being 'be nice, be grateful or we don't have to be fair'

It seems to me that the status quo of 'fairness' is simply unfair.
Posters already dealing with immense difficulty shouldn't be forced to defend themselves against every person who turns up and says unpleasant things under the umbrella of debate. You said a long time ago it was not our responsibility to educate but the reality is that, with no palpable support from you guys, we are endlessly having to educate.

I am not pretending to have the answer but is it possible to contemplate methods by which you could actually say to posters saying 'if someone in a wheelchair can't use their space because I'm not putting my buggy away' that their comments are wrong and not in the spirit of the site?

You link to the This Is My Child campaign but the posters who are the problem won't care and won't read it.

I don't know - I just wonder if you could think about this.
Sometimes there are not two sides to a debate because only one side is directly affected, exhausted, distressed and having their lives and their children's lives made harder.

Really user, that is what you get from the impassioned posts on this thread and others, we just want to 'have a go' and have a 'moan'

I really wish I could have given Emkana a great big hug on the deleted thread, it was lovely to see her gorgeous boy.

I hope you don't mind, Pagwatch but I c+p'ed your post from that thread, I didn't want it to be lost, because I thought it was spot on

Treating it as a bun fight, where two opposing views are trading insults is so wrong.
It's not a meeting of equals. The people dealing with SN and disability are living this shit all the time. We are a minority. This stuff is often about our children and when a gang of bored fucking arseholes start piling in because nothing is more amusing than a 'Ho Ho let's laugh at the SN brigade', it gets treated as a bun fight and we all get told to play nicely.

The endless, uninhibited trolling of the board is encouraged by that nonsense.
And by the deeply unpleasant people who rub their hands in delight every single fucking time SN or disability gets mentioned.

Pmsl at "normal"

That's it sweetheart.
Work through the pain.

Panda

Potato people is something that came about on one of the threads i started about my DS and his issues with Meltdowns and the schools inability to deal with them.

There was a rather dim/disablist poster with 'potato' in her name that seemed to be struggling with understanding that my DS has a disability and was coming out with some vile, stupid and disablist claptrap.

She and the other idiots on the thread were dubbed 'potato people'

it seems to have stuck as a name for disablist ignorant people.

Maybe user is trying to reclaim it?

Oh do fuck off and crawl back under the shitty rock you slithered out of Usertwattignumbers.

I tend to lurk on those threads and report disablist posts, I often want to post but it just seems never ending. Its hard enough dealing with the reality of ASD (ds1 has AS) to have to come on here and 'educate' the woefully and the wilfully is a step too far for me.

The deletion message got me too.

There is nothing "normal" about being a goady trolling cunt.

I'm totally a normal potatoe

Potaoes are awesome i mean what's not to love about chips.... Mash made with loads of butter....jacket spuds..

Actually I'm so pleased that user isn't bothering me at all

I do genuinely feel a bit sorry for her/him.
We are here because it matters. She has nothing better to do

Maddy, thank you for explaining. That'll save me trying to work out what on earth the autocorrect was from, or what on earth potatoes had done to be abused in such a manner

Gah! Missed out stupid

Woefully and wilfully stupid.

Oh that was a bit cringy - not your best.

I quite like potato dauphinoise too
See I'm posh too

at user posting 'look at me, look at me!'

Holds up a '1'

Er. Okay.

Right..... Have come onto this thread as I saw a reference about it made on the deleted thread. I have read through the comments.
I would like to make a public apology for any offence I caused and for causing distress to any posters.
I Should not have posted what I did and I regret my cynicism dictating my view and approach to a very sensitive subject area.
I do know what it is like to deal with difficult health issues in my family and I should have known better. Because I deal with things in the way I do doesn't mean others should be targeted in a negative way because they have a different way of dealIng with particular commentaries about SN.
I am sorry.

It's great that this happened actually.

Since the thread is to illustrate the goading that exists. And the thread is being discussed tomorrow by MNHQ. Thanks user

Oh come off it fanjo
I think it's a "nul point"

I'm getting rather tired of these usertwattynumber names. You can't keep track of who they are.

This one should be banned with any luck.

That was a good deletion message.

Have also been cheered up by user's inanities "you yourself are potatoe"