The online conference Autism From the Inside, hosted from Australia, is okay: the video interviews have been enlightened and about efforts against backward attitudes, and with commentability. But the online Social Gathering Space program it tried out was way overambitious, and in my perception it did not work, because it relied too much on having confidence to initiate contacts.
It was full of little graphics of tables or rooms or little cabins, that were set as private spaces or as talking spaces defined by topic. "Talking tables". Loads of them, sometimes stacked in rows, while few were being used. Because they were places to either go and sit waiting to start when someone else came there, or to join someone else in, a chat or conversation.
To initiate a social contact. WHEN IT'S TOO HARD TO DO THAT, BECAUSE WE ARE AUTISTIC, INNIT ? What else was ever going to happen ?
A meet and greet area, kind of in a graphic of a tent, where no folks were meeting and greeting. A branch-off section of the graphic callled the "learning lab", that included a stage for making your own announcements like Speaker's Corner - but who to? At what times would there be anyone there to hear them? No times if intending speakers + audience were checking for each other's presence before they had the motive or confidence to turn up.
What did the pictures of wasps denote? What of the graphics like signposts? When you used the chat column to the right, who were you reaching, more than just the help staff?
It was problematically high data using, too. Despite a guide to use on mobiles that was supposed to hold for tablets too, it did not work on tablets: on mobile setting it did not load, on desktop setting the graphics froze. These graphics would not run on an old laptop either. Even library computers could only run them after you installed an update of the Chrome browser first.
So this "virtual world all to ourselves" was too optimistic, and in effect was for the tech-savvy type of aspie in affluent possession of the latest computing hardware, who was hoped to be socially confident against the point of autism too! I only ever saw a few folks exploring it at a time. All those chatting spaces might have worked in a utopian ideal aspie scene where all are warm reliable friends.
Not in the real scene that's wrecked by too much militant anger around, many folks fearful of getting turned on for using wrong words, when they can't keep up with which words have become wrong, and of getting branded "ableist" while its meaning is unclear + in constant flux. Nobody is confident to chat in a scene like that.
Maurice Frank
26 Sep 2022
It was full of little graphics of tables or rooms or little cabins, that were set as private spaces or as talking spaces defined by topic. "Talking tables". Loads of them, sometimes stacked in rows, while few were being used. Because they were places to either go and sit waiting to start when someone else came there, or to join someone else in, a chat or conversation.
To initiate a social contact. WHEN IT'S TOO HARD TO DO THAT, BECAUSE WE ARE AUTISTIC, INNIT ? What else was ever going to happen ?
A meet and greet area, kind of in a graphic of a tent, where no folks were meeting and greeting. A branch-off section of the graphic callled the "learning lab", that included a stage for making your own announcements like Speaker's Corner - but who to? At what times would there be anyone there to hear them? No times if intending speakers + audience were checking for each other's presence before they had the motive or confidence to turn up.
What did the pictures of wasps denote? What of the graphics like signposts? When you used the chat column to the right, who were you reaching, more than just the help staff?
It was problematically high data using, too. Despite a guide to use on mobiles that was supposed to hold for tablets too, it did not work on tablets: on mobile setting it did not load, on desktop setting the graphics froze. These graphics would not run on an old laptop either. Even library computers could only run them after you installed an update of the Chrome browser first.
So this "virtual world all to ourselves" was too optimistic, and in effect was for the tech-savvy type of aspie in affluent possession of the latest computing hardware, who was hoped to be socially confident against the point of autism too! I only ever saw a few folks exploring it at a time. All those chatting spaces might have worked in a utopian ideal aspie scene where all are warm reliable friends.
Not in the real scene that's wrecked by too much militant anger around, many folks fearful of getting turned on for using wrong words, when they can't keep up with which words have become wrong, and of getting branded "ableist" while its meaning is unclear + in constant flux. Nobody is confident to chat in a scene like that.
Maurice Frank
26 Sep 2022
