A request for opinions and advice regarding Amber's departure from an outsider, but concerned friend.

[Catitainahatita]

Hi.

I am one of Amber's friends from outside the SN board. We have been distressed and upset by her departure and are unsure of how to respond to it.

We know that Amber was trying to seek a solution with MNHQ for some of the problems that she has faced on the boards recently. We would like to continue this, but are unsure of how to proceed.

To be clear: We are aware that there are many, many issues here that we do not understand or know about. It is not our intention to try to do anything that would be detrimental to other users of the SN board.

For these reasons, we seek your opinions and advice. We do not wish to be presumptious or insensitive or disrespectful in anyway. We would just like to help our friend.

One final personal comment. I realise that my own participation in a recent thread here was rude and beligerant. I apologised there and do so again here. I hope this lapse of personal control can be forgotten if not forgiven.

My only motivation here is concern for Amber; although, I repeat, this does not mean that I am looking to help her at the cost of anyone else.

I really hope there is a solution that is amenable to all. Could you all give us some help on how this might be done?

Thank you very much.

If the proposals would only affect the SN board, it isn't my place to comment. But, there is a suggestion of a warning before posts that might prompt a strong reaction in someone suffering from a particular disorder. And wouldn't that logically have to extend beyond autism to conditions like anxiety, phobia, depression?

So I'm anxious that any developments here would suffer 'mission creep' into the rest of MN. For that reason, the discussion perhaps ought to be wider than just in the SN board.

While we are all under an obligation to think about possible reactions before posting it is impossible that anyone could be expected to anticipate them all.

This site exists to facilitate conversation, and conversation is essentially risky. The site unfortunately can't be reorganised to eliminate those risks. The degree of censorship and self-censorship would be extreme.

Thanks, that's a good tone to take. I have emailed Amber to let her know.

It may be she can contribute if I post for her? At the moment she needs to feel safe.

I liked the thing that amber herself pointed out that she got from another forum - the safe, debate and hell levels of chat thread; but of course there is the problem with that the movement of a thread from safe to debate, or hell, would be in REaction to something that has already happened, not preventive.

Still, if it worked for amber on the other forum, it might be a good place to start here - it would need policing from MNHQ of course, and maybe they would need someone to have a bit of extra training to spot the danger signs quckly enough - but it would be a start.

Robespierre:
I think any suggestions/proposals would have inevitably to apply to MN as a whole.

I was unsure of where to put this thread, but opted for SN as I thought that the people here were uniquely placed to give insight on the subject.

I also think the issues raised by last weeks events are relevant to all MNnetters. We are talking about the question of limits of free speech really and how and if, this should/could be policed.

It is a very tricky area in general. I do not presume to have the answers. I just hope that through talking we can get some mutually agreed ideas on the subject.

Mary
Of course we would like to hear from Amber. Its the not hearing from her that upsets us most.

I don't think this is workable. Additional rules would put people off posting on SN (many need a lot of coaxing already because it feels like accepting their child has problems and because it feels like trying to join an exclusive club - not my words).

Maybe Amber could have her own forum - heaven knows enough people would recommend it.

MN are looking at the problem - hope Justine doesn't mind if I c&p her post from a previous thread:

"We are, though, as mentioned previously, looking at creating private support groups to allow more sensitive/private discussion of particular subjects or by particular groups, which I think may be helpful for you - the aim is to get these up and running in the next few months. We'll keep you posted - in the meantime please do post any further thoughts/suggestions here in site stuff."

tbh I don't think extra rules would help, mn already has rules which are not stuck to when it comes to disability, actually i thing thre are actually laws in place that make discrimination ilegal, but even that doesn't get the offensive posts deleted.
I have to be honest I didn't read the thread in sn that started this, I thought it sounded sick so stayed away(if it had said CP in the title I would have gone mad)
someone suggested on the other thread, mn buddys, I thought that sounded good, maybe a few sn posters could help Amber(And others if needed) not sur ehow but there must be a way, I know if I am unsure what some one means on a thread I email someone like peachy or spooky.

Maybe Amber could have a Mumsnet blog - because comments that would upset her could be removed from that - perhaps she could get someone else to check it for her first.

mn buddy's is a good idea, again, not sure how it would work but emailing your buddy might be a way round things if Amber was comfortable with that.

agree with 2 shoes

Well tbh not everyone thought the piece terrible- if they had there would have been no discussion and no problem. The problem is that people are dealing with different things and dealing with them in different ways at different times.

I'm pretty familiar with autism, but I still have absolutely no idea whether something like 'Autism Every Day' or' Welcome to Beirut' would be upsetting to Amber (and tbh if I hadn't seen Autism Every Day slagged off on a lot of neurodiversity websites- with a lot of misquotes- then I would never have predicted the strong reaction it received on those websites - other than it was sponsored by Autism Speaks- which may explain it I guess). These are definitely things (and there will be more) that I would be likely to share freely with others though as I think they could both be incredibly useful to some people.

My point being that even with my knowledge of autism, and my fairly wide reading of the neurodiversity 'literature' (for want of a better word) and often with quite a bit of identity with it, I still have no idea whether those pieces would be upsetting to Amber or not. So really, someone new and feeling their way around their emotions following a regression or a shock diagnosis is going to have no chance.

I don't normally post in this section, but as Catitainahatita says this is about the whole board.

Amber herself said that this wasn't just about offensive posts, but any posts that might trigger a particular response in her. This is impossible to workaround since there is no reliable way to know which posts might have that effect.

Even if it were possible for someone to know which posts would cause Amber difficulties you'd need all posts to be examined before they became generally viewable. Some boards are like that and some blog comments, but it is only possible on very small boards. Imagine posting and waiting an hour for MN to examine your post to see if it was 'safe' and even then they couldn't be sure.

The idea of titling a thread that might cause difficulties was also unworkable since the OP has no way of knowing who will hold what opinion.

I think people DID try to come up with ideas to help, but there is not always a solution.

Well, catinthehat, if it is about the whole board, then sadly I would have to say quite strongly that the kind of restrictions that it seems would be necessary are just unworkable.

As saintly says: "My point being that even with my knowledge of autism, and my fairly wide reading of the neurodiversity 'literature' (for want of a better word) and often with quite a bit of identity with it, I still have no idea whether those pieces would be upsetting to Amber or not."

and that is just one person's autism. Another person with autism might have different triggers, and people with mental health problems would have different triggers again. This is a talk site, and it is talk that is unsafe because it is spontaneous, unpredictable, and emotionally insense.

It is not a question of whether MN polices the site adequately to stamp on offensive threads. It is about creating a very very heavily limited form of conversation. MN is more robust than many other sites. It is not aplace that could be made so extremely pre-emptively sensitive to a range of special vulnerabilities. Not without a huge loss to very many people.

Ultimately though, it wasn't a particular post or posts that triggered Amber not being able to cope any more.

I think she felt truly unhappy that it was suggested that her safety or otherwise on this board wasn't going to be considered, because the users didn't want it to change. As if it were a matter to be voted on, like "what's your favourite colour?".

Thing is, she isn't the only one who has problems, but is the only one with the "umph" to face up to it, I certainly wouldn't have the courage to make a stand and try to get it changed. I just get upset and hide for a bit until I feel better, and avoid what is causing my distress.

Can it not just maybe be that Amber is having a spectacularly difficult time at the moment and that the poem/ thread was just the straw that broke the camels back iyswim.

Maybe she needs the break, she had posted here for sometime before all of this, had she had problems before? (I ask genuinely as I don't know, my sons SN are not autism so I don't tend to frequent those threads so much).

I don't know, but I had the very real sense from amber over the last week that she was knackered and very emotional. At theses times, sometimes you do need to step away. We all do.

Also to be very honest ime people on the SN board do post sensitively but they also have to post with honesty otherwise it would be pointless having it, but I don't think that amber wants that to change.

Oh I don't know I do really feel for her and hope that she is being looked after and is resting.

MaryBS the upsets that you mention earlier in this thread I share also, many people do. It is a bruising site. Honest exchange is bruising.

Sorry, it was another thread you mentioned them on.

Sorry ignore me cross posts with mary, who knows much more than me.

[sigh]. No right answer to this one, is there?

I think it's both better (in terms of keeping the "point" of the board, ie somewhere the desperate can go for help without feeling they're not allowed to talk about their desperation) and safer (in that there's less chance of threads slipping through the net) if we look for an "opt in" solution rather than an "opt out" solution. So if we can designate what Amber was calling a Safe Space rather than trying to censor and sanitise every single thread in the SN section.

How we do it technically - flagging threads, buddy system, sub-boards, whatever - I've no idea. I imagine if we start with the solution that causes mumsnet the least cost and effort, then if we prove that works we can ask to have it formalised.

But Amber is going to have to cope with the small possibility of things getting through the net even so. Because the triggers are pretty much personal to her, no-one can guarantee she will never see things that upset her. Though I hope and pray she will never go through as horrible a set of personal circumstances as she is struggling with at the moment, and that once life is treating her better she will be in a better position to deal with the inevitable unpredictability of forums.

apart from the original poem on "that" thread, I don't think that was the real problem in the end - amber felt that she had upset and offended other posters who were disagreeing with her take on the poem, and she found that very hard to deal with.

MaryBS- I think everyone who uses MN feels that at some stage. As Robespierre says 'talk is unsafe' (I rather like that! Will nick it!!)

Autism (actually perhaps all disability) is difficult because something that shares a name may not share much else. My son is nothing like Amber, and the problems his disability causes are nothing like hers. So of course we're going to identify with different things and be upset by different things. For a long time any thread on MN that said 'I wish he'd just stop talking' had the potential to upset me (and as you can imagine there would be a few in a SN section frequented by parents of kids with AS) but it would have been entirely unreasonable of me to expect people not to talk about their kids talking non-stop and their problems associated with that and the agggh of a child non-stop talking at you - just because mine couldn't do that. I think all of us have to learn to take what talks to us, and politely respect that which doesn't, especially on a diverse SN board.

And switching off and walking away periodically can be the best way to do it sometimes.

Well cross post with thumbwitch, but as I said elsewhere she didn't offend me and I wasn't upset, but I still disagreed with her. I think all of us who disagreed with her said the same.

MrsT and Robespierre, you may think you know what it feels like, but do you, really? If everyone felt like that, there wouldn't be a problem, and we wouldn't be sitting here having this discussion, now would we?

I had this last week from someone, a close confidante, who wanted to know why I wanted an Asperger label, was it a crutch "because we all feel like that sometimes". Well I'm sorry, that ain't necessarily true!

Erm I'm not comparing myself to having AS. I am saying that we all get upset by MN sometimes. And that every single one of us has to sometimes walk away.

I think I've been punched enough times to know the difference between NT upset and totally losing the plot because the dishwasher door won't shut etc etc.

I am not (again) talking about AS - my concern is that those who are not dealing with AS are still able to say how they feel and discuss their version of autism/disability.

IME in RL mixed adult/parent support groups don't work very well for anyone. I know Amber is also a parent but she is getting upset as an adult with AS.

I'm not sure what the answer is (another section for parents on the spectrum perhaps- that's what I would suggest in RL).