History of community
Jun. 17th, 2014 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pyraxisI want to spread this long but incredibly important Tumblr post about the history of the autism and multiplicity communities everywhere I can.
We weren't a part of all of the groups and initiatives described there, but we know some of the people involved. Our place was on the forums, the rise and fall of various forums between 2004 and the present.
I want to talk about one thing. The importance of freedom of speech and an uncensored space in the development of a community. Everything Amorpha/S. says about the Dark Personalities mailing list has been mirrored in Daria's and my own experiences of the unmoderated autism forum we have been a part of. It is imperative to have a space for people who have been cast out of other communities for being too controversial, for saying critical things, for breaking social rules, for pissing off the wrong person. When there is social upheaval because huge new ideas have come to light, there is an urgent need for space where they can be spoken about freely, hashed out, argued about, screamed about. In the brouhaha over demanding trigger warnings that has even spread to mainstream media in the past year, I want people to understand why it is important to keep places where trigger warnings and other kinds of content policing are not required.
It's still difficult to write about this because I am an intensely private person and used to keeping up mental boundaries.
Thanks Kerry for the link on your journal. (This one.)
We weren't a part of all of the groups and initiatives described there, but we know some of the people involved. Our place was on the forums, the rise and fall of various forums between 2004 and the present.
I want to talk about one thing. The importance of freedom of speech and an uncensored space in the development of a community. Everything Amorpha/S. says about the Dark Personalities mailing list has been mirrored in Daria's and my own experiences of the unmoderated autism forum we have been a part of. It is imperative to have a space for people who have been cast out of other communities for being too controversial, for saying critical things, for breaking social rules, for pissing off the wrong person. When there is social upheaval because huge new ideas have come to light, there is an urgent need for space where they can be spoken about freely, hashed out, argued about, screamed about. In the brouhaha over demanding trigger warnings that has even spread to mainstream media in the past year, I want people to understand why it is important to keep places where trigger warnings and other kinds of content policing are not required.
It's still difficult to write about this because I am an intensely private person and used to keeping up mental boundaries.
Thanks Kerry for the link on your journal. (This one.)
no subject
Date: 2014-06-18 07:19 am (UTC)We've had problems with some 'safe spaces' for similar reasons, though it's difficult to *say* that when the norm in a lot of communities these days is to try and avoid arguments and just... agree with everyone. That's not to say such spaces aren't important, but there need to be spaces where you can deal with difficult topics without warnings too. They're not even mutually exclusive, in my opinion.
We've spent time on some autistic forums, but that was ages ago; we'd mostly switched to journalling sites' communities as a means of getting to know other autistics by 2006-ish.
(Also, my post on our system journal is locked; I should make it public.)
~K.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-26 11:35 am (UTC)- Leonie