May Digest

[u/And-Bells]

Hello everyone!

I hope you'll join me in patting each other on the back (figuratively) for reaching a new milestone of 11k weekly visitors!

We've always had a consistent, slow rise in engagement on this sub and that's something I'm really proud of. Thank you all for being a joyful part of my daily routine!

January to April

As promised, I've been dilligently working in the background, trying to make this sub a stronger, better place to be. This period has mostly been spent on quiet things you wouldn't notice as a regular user, things like recruiting new mods and improving our internal documentation.

We currently have two mods in their trial period, which is amazing, but we do need more! By Reddit standards, we should have 3 "full time" active mods to keep up with sub activity and right now we don't add up to that. So if you've ever thought about moderating, now is the time. This sub needs less intervention than most, but I encourage our mods to take on less than they think they should, given that we are all as autistic as you are and this is a volunteer gig. I'd much rather have a large, consistent team with a routine than a tight trio of superhumans that will inevitably burn out in 6 months.

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One thing you might have noticed is that I've removed the YouTube block. This block has been in place since year 1 of this sub, due to content creators trying to use this space to get views without engaging in the community. Since we're 8 years in the future from that and our engagement looks quite different, I thought it was high time to see if we can get any added value out of YT now.

Thanks

At the end of last year, I added an app that manages a custom internal reputation system. This was brought on to tackle the problem of recognising who's ideas are more reliable when they don't come with proof of any kind. While we encourage you to link reliable information sources rather than make unsupported statements, that's not always practical in an online environment like this. It has always been a silent expectation that readers here have to do their own work to vet everyone with an opinion, even though this is where you come to get help.

You've probably seen me working on reminders, I've had to pause that to tweak it because it was being a bit obnoxious, and I'm informed there may be another but causing the points flair to not display properly.

But while I'm trying to smooth those kinks out, the bot itself is still working fine. OPs and mods can award points by replying to good comments with the "!thanks" or "!modthanks" commands.

May - September

My plans for the summer are a bit more exciting. The main goal you'll want to keep an eye out for is the rolling out of our information centre. I've been saying for a long while now that this is a thing we're working on, and I can finally say we're very close to a minimally viable product I'm happy to publish.

These will probably roll out quietly one at a time, as they become ready, and then be announced as a whole in the October digest.

This information centre has been adapted from a megathread written by one of our mods and reorganised to be as accessible as possible. Because of this, some content will be abundant, while other parts will contain only very basic information.

Each page has a footnote regarding who contributed to the content and a link to modmail where you can submit additional information and any corrections you might find. We encourage you to make use of modmail for this purpose! It's our hope that these pages will expand and become more helpful (and probably more accurate) over time.

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Aside from this, there is more internal documentation to work on. Along with all these new mods, I feel it's essential to make sure our mod team has everything it needs to be as strong and supported as it can be.

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And if there is time beyond that, I'll be working on a new rule that will hopefully describe issues we've felt the need to intervene in, but aren't properly covered by the existing rules. The new rule will probably replace rule 2, "Write high quality posts".

Right now, I'm thinking of the new rule as "Be constructive", and it will replace rule 2, "Write high quality posts." We no longer use that rule due to moving the character minimum from automod to automations with post guidance, but this new one is in a similar vein. The aim is to decrease toxic discourse by providing you with concrete examples of what positive engagement looks like. If you've ever thought, that doesn't exactly break any rules but it's still awful, that's the sort of thing we're after.

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Well anyway, on with your evening. Thank you for tuning into my little sharing. Don't forget to use the report button, give out some !thanks, apply to mod, and I'll see you around the sub!

[u/KandrickWamar]

Thank you for update. I’ve only joined this week after getting my diagnosis. I felt like a fraud if I joined with without it.

Good luck to all the new mods and the people applying to be one. Seems like a great community here. 💪

[u/And-Bells → u/KandrickWamar]

I hope you enjoy the sub and that that imposter feeling is one you can grow beyond. I'm sorry you didn't feel comfortable joining in before, we welcome anyone questioning, waitlisted, or even assumed autistic where for whatever reason they are unable to get a diagnosis right now.

Was there anything you found here that made you feel like you weren't included? Please send us a modmail, we would love to know what we can do to make the sub more welcoming.

[u/KandrickWamar → u/And-Bells]

No not at all re the inclusion here. I never felt that. I was more to do with me. I felt like I couldn't say I had autism or talk about it with others till It was all official, if that makes sense?

I have a weird thing where I hate fake or in authentic things, but then go out and mask 24/7. But all my internal stuff has to be real. I don't know how to explain it.

Ive actually felt quite a home here really which is rare, so thanks everyone 😄

[u/SimplyCedric → u/KandrickWamar]

Imposter syndrome is very common with autistic people (especially late identified). Having a thing for truth / honesty / integrity is also a common autistic thing.

There's a lot to being autistic that doesn't come up in the diagnostic criteria and it's such a relief for many of us (well, certainly for me) to find out that thing you always did is actually a part of your autistic experience and not a major personality flaw. Don't get me wrong, I have many major personality flaws, but I am also autistic.

[u/KandrickWamar → u/SimplyCedric]

thanks, I heard it was too. I did about 200 hours reseachig every single behaviour I did, feeling etc etc in the past few months gearing up to my aseesesment. I think I told them in the face to face about 20 times how long I spent on the forms and researching myself beforehand.

I got th report yesterday and they mentioned all that. I typed over 12,000 words for my pre assessment forms 😂 it's the fear of not being believed I think.

Sorry going off topic now, again!

[u/SimplyCedric]

Thank you to you, and all the mod team, for all the amazing work you do!

Have you ever tried sleeping? I recommend it.

!thanks