Early on Tuesday morning, 2 April 2019, I logged on to the Facebook Group Aspergers Help Australia — of which the I’m owner and admin — and noticed there were three new posts awaiting approval. These screen captures show the pending posts in question…
After reading these pending posts, I declined them all in their existing forms for the reasons shown in this message to the Member who posted them.
These two messages were met with this reply… (highlight added)
When I tried to reply, the Member had left the Aspergers Help Australia Group — and posted the following review on our Facebook Page…
Since it’s not possible to reply directly to the former-Member, let me at least clarify a few points and reply to others raised.
Screen capture #1
The reason for declining this post was simple: it duplicated a post already in our Timeline and Photo album.
Screen capture #2
The reason for declining this post was the unbalanced and unsubstantiated editorialising and opinions in the text introduction.
Claiming that the “majority of us really hate this” and that “it is a hate symbol” without offering any attempt at substantiating those claims is not only immature… it’s irresponsible.
Screen capture #3
The reason for declining this post was the exaggerated editorialising and the lack of clarity in the charts and data of the image. Plus the reliability of claiming to represent the majority of autistic people using a sample of — according to the infographic itself — 2,449 people who responded to a survey (unattributed — but somehow I, a supposedly incompetent graph/chart reader, managed to spot this figure while the former-Member, an educator with expertise in reading them, somehow came up with the figure of 1,499 respondents, which is an even smaller sample of unknown origin — I can find NO mention of it, even in the fine print).
There are some other question that I’m unable to clarify or answer, including how many people online use the hashtag #actuallyautistic — or how many of them are actually autistic with formal diagnoses to prove it.
To join our Group, Aspergers Help Australia, you must agree to our guidelines and rules, which are posted prominently as our Pinned Announcement. (Hard to miss… as you can see from this screen capture…)
As for putting words in my mouth (see screen capture #5), I leave it to you to decide for yourself who is the more credible:
Someone who taught geography for 30 years and believes that promoting autism awareness is reasonable justification for using data and conclusions that are highly questionable, if not downright dubious, and who bristles at the idea of having to post responsibly?
Or…
Someone who taught graphic design and visual communication at two leading universities — usually while practicing professionally with international clients — for three decades (including teaching world’s best practice for designing graphs and charts, etc), and who has spent more than two decades online as a professional moderator of bulletin boards, forums and discussion lists, online and offline?
Read what some of my international peers say about me here:
https://themarketingdoc.wordpress.com/peers/
Thanks for your time and attention.
John Counsel
Admin
Aspergers Help Australia
©2019 John Counsel. All rights reserved.
My Aspie World 