Instructions

To access our main features, such as the Community Forum, Designated Spaces, or to have your business listed in our Directory, you have to become a member.

There are 2 membership options. A Standard membership and a Low Income membership. We have done this to try and make this community as accessible as possible. Please only opt for the Low-Income membership if you genuinely cannot afford the Standard membership. Both memberships provide the same features.

Membership is free for the first month. There are no contracts. Membership can be cancelled at any time.

Click on any button that says ‘Join Our Community’ or ‘Join the We Are Autistic Community’ (like the one below). This will take you through to the membership options.

Choose either the Standard or Low-Income membership and click on the button that says ‘Sign Up’.

A pop-up box will appear. You will be required to enter your First Name, Last Name, Email Address, and will have to create a password. The password must have at least 10 characters.

You will then be taken through to a payment page. In the Additional Information section, you will have to confirm that you are autistic (no formal diagnosis is required). You will also have to confirm that you are age 18 years or over, and that you agree to abide to the We Are Autistic policies.

After pressing Continue you will be taken through to the payment section. We require a card payment. We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, JCB or Diner's Club. Complete the card number, expiration date, security code and your postal/zip code.

You will then have the option to review before you press Subscribe to purchase your membership.

Before you can start connecting with other members, or asking questions, or commenting... you will be required to set up an account with Disqus.

Disqus is an integrated engagement platform that We Are Autistic use, in order to enable the functionality of our Forums and Designated Spaces.

After you have purchased a membership, log in to your We Are Autistic account. We have found that once you have logged in once, most laptops, phones, browsers, etc will 'remember' you and you will not have to log in every time. This is the case when using the app too.

Navigate to the Forum page. Under the Comment box you will see the words 'Log In With'.

You can use Facebook, X (Twitter), Google, Microsoft or Apple to set up. However, we recommend setting up an account directly with Disqus.

Enter your name in the box and press return. You will then be taken through to Disqus. A login box will appear. In the bottom right there is a link that says 'Need an account'.

Click on this and then complete the form.

You will have to verify your email address. Don't forget to check your spam/junk folder in case the email has gone into there. It can take up to 20 minutes to come through.

Once you have verified your email address, you then have the option to edit your profile.

Click on the blue Edit Profile button to upload your avatar/profile image. This could be an actual image of yourself or simply an image or illustration that you like. Please bear in mind our policies on what can and cannot be displayed.

Enter your First Name only in the 'Name' field. Do not enter your Last Name! We prefer you to use your first name, as it promoted authenticity. However, you can choose whatever name you like/prefer.

You then have the option to add a bio. This is a great way to describe yourself in a sentence or two. And it's also a great place to add your pronouns.

Finally add your location. This could be just your country or maybe your state/province/county and then your country. Do not put your full address!

You then have the option to keep your profile activity private. If you tick this box then it means no one can follow you or see your comments on your profile. If you do not tick this, then other members will be able to follow you and see your comments.

Once this has been done, head back to the Forum on the We Are Autistic website and start getting involved!

A note on terminology first. On our Forum page you will find a number of forums. A forum is a topic that contains lots of 'conversations' that could be assigned to the forum name. For example in 'Health & Wellbeing' you can expect to find comments and posts on things related to physical and mental health and wellbeing.

A Thread is basically a conversation. And a Comment would be your contribution to that conversation.

You can start your own Threads within a Forum, but you are not able to create Forums.

If you can a suggestion for a new forum that you can complete the form at the bottom of the Forum page.

There will be a prompt in an empty Thread, which says 'Start a discussion'. And in populated Threads it will say 'Join the discussion.'

Comments are displayed with the newest first.

If a Comment contains one of our restricted words then it will not be published until a moderator has reviewed it. Following review, it is possible that it may not be published.

If a Comment contains a link it will not be published until a moderator has reviewed it.

You are allowed to add images and video clips to your comments providing they do not breach the rules in our Comment Policy.

With @mentions, you are able to tag and link to the profile of a user who you are following. This enables comments to be directed to a specific person.

If you read a Comment and you are concerned about the content, you have the option to 'flag' the comment. Flagged comments are sent to the moderators for review. If a comment has been flagged 3 times, it will automatically be removed until it has been reviewed.

Comments are posted in real time, save for any technical/operating delays that are out of our control.

Please bear in mind that We Are Autistic is a global community and therefore time differences may affect response times from other members and from the moderators.

We have designed some reactions that you can use to react to comments. These are displayed with the thread.

Once you have joined and set up your account, you are able to start interacting with other members.

Once you have logged in to your We Are Autistic account, your homepage should automatically change to the members homepage.

The homepage is set to the Forums page.

You will see a series of illustrations, which are the current Forums.

Simply choose which Forum you would like to participate in by clicking on the illustration.

This will take you straight through to the comments.

There are 2 ways of participating in the Designated Spaces.

The first is by supporting other members who have contributed to the spaces.

Head to the Designated Spaces page. This can be found by going to the navigation bar on the members homepage and using the dropdown menu.

Each Designated Space has an illustration. Click on the button below the illustration. This will take you through to a summary of the recent posts. Each post will have an image and a brief overview.

Under each post there will be the words 'Read More'. Click on this and it will take you through to the full wording of the post.

Underneath the wording will be a comment section (just like the ones in the Forums). You can then add comments, show your support, ask questions, and so on.

The second way of getting involved in the Designated Spaces is to become a contributor. We want as many members as possible to share their creativity, companion animals, diagnosis journeys, and special interests.

To become a contributor you need to submit a form. This can be found in the dropdown menu on the navigation bar. A link to the form can also be found here: Contributor Request Form.

Once your form has been received, it will be checked over by one of our team, and then it will be uploaded on to the website.

The time it takes for this to occur varies, depending on how many contributions we are receiving and other factors. However, we aim to get your contributions up as soon as possible.