🚀 go-pugleaf

                    Shunned, Hated, or Misunderstood?

                         INDEPENDENT LIVING BBS

                    210-350-6624             28.8kbps


- A specialized BBS for people who are misunderstood, shunned or hated
  because they are different. Typical causes: autism, Tourette's
  syndrome, PDD(NOS), and attention deficit disorders. Whatever the
  cause, all are equally welcome.

- Discussion encouraged: issues related to practical problems of living
  independently. Topical format encourages discovery of insights and
  survival skills.

- Access totally FREE -- validation is optional.

- Anonymity permitted -- Identity needn't be disclosed even to the 
  Sysop.

- Off-line mail reader minimizes long-distance phone charges.
  One can download all public messages and upload replies in 2 minutes.


(I've attempted to post this to relevant newsgroups only. If you feel
this doesn't belong in your newsgroup, please mail me, explain why, and
I'll take your group out for the next posting. Thanks.)


1) A NEW BBS; WELCOME!

There's a new BBS in town for people whose lives have been circumscribed
by being shunned, hated, or just misunderstood, because they are
different.

Unlike the ethnic minorities and those with homosexual orientation who
have had this problem in the past, most still affected have had to face
it alone -- alone, in the sense of no back-up from any political
pressure group -- also, in many cases, alone in the sense of not finding
any kindred spirit.

Those who have managed to live outside of mental institutions, group
homes, prisons, and other controlled environments must have developed
some extraordinary insights and survival skills. Self-esteem can
increase dramatically after one has consciously formulated and written
down the insights and survival skills developed in the course of coping.

Even without participation on this BBS, the list of public forums could
be a very useful outline for those who want to embark on the
above-mentioned writing task. Topics include making friends, holding
jobs, job hunting, social settings, relating to immediate family, ways
of filling one's time, SSI and other financial resources, etc. etc.

This BBS is also open to those who want to derive benefit from
understanding those who are shunned, hated, or misunderstood:

1. Parents and family members 
Many of those shunned have some kind of physical/neurological
abnormality such as autism. Parents and other loved ones will, for the
lack of anything better, have a need to believe in the latest "miracle
cure".  What usually happens is that the affected person ends up being
worse off.  But we think that a lot more prograss can be made by
understanding the mess of *emotional* problems that come from being
shunned and hated.

In some cases there are additional problems caused by the underlying
neurological impairment, such as being completely unable to communicate;
these people throw temper tantrums day in and day out and have no way of
telling anybody what's bothering them. We believe that the temper
tantrums are, in large part, by the frustration of being unable to
communicate. A few of those unable to speak are able to type. We would
welcome their input.

2. Those who must deal with community anxiety about unusual behavior
Police are often called because people are anxious about someone's
unusual behavior. Others, such as innkeepers heads of clubs are often in
the same position. The usual reaction is to kick that person out of the
club or throw him/her in jail on some pretense.  With our input you'll
find better ways.

3. Those looking for good employees, friends, and lovers
There are many people who have real abilities but are never get that
first chance, becuase of knee-jerk reactions to their being different.
These people will be eternally grateful to *anyone* who gives them *any*
chance to be something other than an object of scorn and pity. In other
words, they can make amazingly good employees, friends, and lovers. But
there are pitfalls. Learn from our experience about how to avoid these
pitfalls.



2) SAFE TO POST; ANONYMITY POSSIBLE

On many Internet news groups, the concern has come up that all posts are
archived by search engines, easy to retrieve by malicious people or by
the idle curious. This BBS is not connected to the Internet, and your
messages can not be retrieved by any search engines.


3) USING FORUMS OFF-LINE

The idea of the BBS is that there is a forum for each important topic
that people with autism, ADD, etc. face. The idea is to consciously
formulate the insights and survival skills one has acquired and to learn
from others and to find kindred spirits.

The forums can be read and written to on-line, but that could result in
phone bills that would drive many people to the poor house.

There is an easy-to-use QWK mail facility available, that allows one to
download the latest messages from the forums, read them while off the
phone line with a QWK reader, and write replies using the same program.
One then logs back on to upload a packet of replies and download the
next packet of new messages. The amount of time on the phone wire is a
minute or two at 14.4 or 28.8KBaud.

The above-mentioned .QWK reader can be downloaded off the BBS, but the
phone wire time would not be negligible. We therefore encourage
participants to look for it on the Internet.

For DOS and Windows: The BlueWave package can be used as a QWK reader.
It is available at <http://www.cris.com/~BlueWave>. The .QWK readers
call for PKWare's PKZIP archiver. (<http://www.pkware.com> -- file
PKZ204G.EXE) Needed to dial in: a modem terminal program, preferably
with ZMODEM protocol (Telix for DOS is excellent), but even the built-in
Windows Terminal will do.

For Apple Macintosh: I suggest TIMM as a QWK reader, ZipIt as a PKZIP
archiver for the QWK reader, and ZTerm as a terminal program to dial in.
The URLs are:
<ftp://mirrors.aol.com/pub/info-mac/comm/bbs/timm-11.hqx>
<ftp://mirrors.aol.com/pub/info-mac/cmp/zip-it-135.hqx>
<ftp://mirrors.aol.com/pub/info-mac/comm/term/zterm-101.hqx>

Note that all of the above is _suggested_ software; any other software
with the same functionality will do.


4) VALIDATION and non-validated access

Full access to the BBS requires validation with either  the sysop, or
with two other validators, Wendel Simpson (North America) or Martijn
Dekker (Europe). First sign on to the Board as "new". Then a series of
questions appears about name, address,phone number, and a few other
things. Those who wish to remain anonymous may put 111-1111 as the phone
number, 11/11/11 as the birthdate, and "Not Applicable", "None of your
business", or other words to that effect as answers to other questions.

Users who wish to remain unvalidated and anonymous are allowed to read
the public Forums and post to them. But they have no access to any other
feature of this BBS, including private e-mail.  Using the e-mail feature
is the only way for a user to contact another user off the BBS; i.e.
there is no other way to convey contacting information without also
disclosing it to the Sysop and to all of the other users.

Those unable to e-mail other users still can e-mail the Sysop. The new
user who wishes to remain anonymous and unvalidated should send the
Sysop a note saying "Please give me anonymous access". Upon receiving
that note, the Sysop will raise your access status to UNVALIDATED.


New users who want to be validated have two options:
a) When signing up as a new user, leave a good phone number in the
above-mentioned sign-up procedure. And then the sysop will validate you
by phone.
b) On Internet e-mail, send a note to one of the following validators
and let him validate you by phone:

in Europe:
  Martijn Dekker, e-mail: Martijn_Dekker@spidernet.nl;
                  Fidonet: 2:282/541.12

in North America:
  Wendel Simpson, e-mail: a203@amug.org


5) CONCLUSION

Come in and join us! We are eager to hear and learn from you. We do hope
to see you soon.

Phone number: 210-350-6624. Speed: 28.800bps maximum.
Running The Major BBS by Galacticomm.

- Dean Walker, sysop, e-mail: PlimChoy@ix.netcom.com
- Wendel Simpson
- Martijn Dekker