WEBVTT

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My name is Stuart Duncan,

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but I'm actually probably
better known online as "AutismFather."

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That's me on the internet.

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I know the resemblance is uncanny.

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(Laughter)

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But I'm going to talk
a little bit today about Minecraft.

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That's my Minecraft character.

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If you don't know the game very well,
don't worry too much about it.

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It's just the medium that I used
at the time to fill a need.

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And what I want to talk about applies
to pretty much every situation.

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So about four years ago,
I started a Minecraft server

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for children with autism
and their families,

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and I called it "Autcraft."

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And since then, we've been in the news
all around the world,

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on television and radio and magazines.

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Buzzfeed called us "one of
the best places on the internet."

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We're also the subject
of an award-winning research paper called

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"Appropriating Minecraft as an Assistive
Technology for Youth with Autism."

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It's a bit of a mouthful.

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But you get the idea, I think.

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So I want to talk a little bit
about that research paper

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and what it's about,

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but first I have to give you
a little bit of history

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on how the server came to be.

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Back in 2013, everybody
was playing Minecraft,

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kids and adults alike,

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with and without autism, of course.

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But it was the big thing.

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But I saw parents on social media
reaching out to other parents,

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asking if their autistic children
could play together.

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And the reason is that when they tried
to play on public servers,

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they kept running into bullies and trolls.

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When you have autism, you behave
a little differently sometimes,

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sometimes a lot differently.

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And we all know a little bit of difference
is all you really need

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for a bully to make you their next target.

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So these terrible, terrible people online,

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they would destroy everything
that they tried to make,

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they would steal all their stuff,

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and they would kill them
over and over again,

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making the game virtually unplayable.

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But the worst part,
the part that really hurt the most,

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was what these bullies
would say to these kids.

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They'd call them rejects

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and defects

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and retards.

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And they would tell these kids,
some as young as six years old,

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that society doesn't want them,

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and their own parents
never wanted a broken child,

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so they should just kill themselves.

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And of course, these kids, you understand,

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they would sign off
from these servers angry and hurt.

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They would break their keyboards,
they'd quite literally hate themselves,

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and their parents felt powerless
to do anything.

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So I decided I had to try and help.

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I have autism,

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my oldest son has autism,

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and both my kids and I love Minecraft,

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so I have to do something.

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So I got myself a Minecraft server,

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and I spent some time,
built a little village with some roads

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and a big welcome sign and this guy
and a lodge up on a mountaintop,

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and tried to make it inviting.

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The idea was pretty simple.

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I had a white list, so only people
that I approved could join,

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and I would just monitor
the server as much as I could,

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just to make sure that nothing went wrong.

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And that was it, that was the whole
promise: to keep the kids safe

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so they could play.

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When it was done, I went to Facebook

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and posted a pretty simple message
to my friends list, not publicly.

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I wanted to see if there
was any interest in this,

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and if it really could help.

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Turns out that I greatly underestimated
just how much this was needed,

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because within 48 hours, I got 750 emails.

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I don't have that many Facebook friends.

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(Laughter)

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Within eight days, I had to upgrade
the hosting package eight times,

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from the bottom package
to the most expensive package they had,

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and now, almost four years later,

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I have 8,000 names on the white list
from all around the world.

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But the reason I'm up here
today to talk to you

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isn't just because I gave kids
a safe place to play.

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It's what happened while they played.

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I started hearing from parents

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who said their children
were learning to read and write

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by playing on the server.

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At first they spelled things
by sound, like most kids do,

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but because they were part of a community,

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they saw other people
spelling the same words properly

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and just picked it up.

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I started hearing from parents
who said that their nonverbal children

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were starting to speak.

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They only talked about Minecraft,
but they were talking.

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(Laughter)

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Some kids made friends at school
for the first time ever.

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Some started to share,
even give things to other people.

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It was amazing.

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And every single parent came to me
and said it was because of Autcraft,

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because of what you're doing.

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But why, though?

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How could all of this be
just from a video game server?

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Well, it goes back to that
research paper I was talking about.

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In it, she covers some of the guidelines
I used when I created the server,

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guidelines that I think help encourage
people to be their very best.

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I hope.

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For example, communication.

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It can be tough for kids with autism.

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It could be tough
for grown-ups without autism.

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But I think that kids
should not be punished,

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they should be talked to.

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Nine times out of ten, when the kids
on the server act out,

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it's because of something that's happened
in the day at school or home.

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Maybe a pet died.

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Sometimes it's just
a miscommunication between two kids.

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One doesn't say what they're about to do.

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And so we just offer to help.

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We always tell the children
on the server that we're not mad,

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and they're not in trouble;

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we only want to help.

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And it shows that not only do we care,

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but we respect them enough
to listen to their point of view.

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Respect goes a long way.

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Plus, it shows them that they have
everything they need

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to be able to resolve these problems
on their own in the future

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and maybe even avoid them,
because, you know, communication.

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On most servers, as video games are,

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children are rewarded,
well, players are rewarded,

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for how well they do
in a competition, right?

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The better you do,
the better reward you get.

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That can be automated; the server
does the work, the code is there.

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On Autcraft, we don't do that.

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We have things like
"Player of the Week" and "CBAs,"

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which is "Caught Being Awesome."

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(Laughter)

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We award players ranks on the servers
based on the attributes they exhibit,

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such as the "Buddy" rank for people
who are friendly towards others,

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and "Junior Helper" for people
that are helpful towards others.

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We have "Senior Helper" for the adults.

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But they're obvious, right?

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Like, people know what to expect
and how to earn these things

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because of how they're named.

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As soon as somebody signs onto the server,

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they know that they're going
to be rewarded for who they are

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and not what they can do.

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Our top award, the AutismFather Sword,

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which is named after me
because I'm the founder,

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is a very powerful sword that
you can't get in the game any other way

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than to show that you completely put
the community above yourself,

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and that compassion and kindness
is at the core of who you are.

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We've given away quite a few
of those swords, actually.

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I figure, if we're watching the server
to make sure nothing bad happens,

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we should also watch for the good things
that happen and reward people for them.

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We're always trying
to show all the players

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that everybody is considered
to be equal, even me.

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But we know we can't treat
people equally to do that.

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Some of the players get angry very easily.

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Some of them have additional
struggles on top of autism,

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such as OCD or Tourette's.

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So, I have this knack
of remembering all of the players.

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I remember their first day,
the conversations we've had,

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things we've talked about,
things they've built.

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So when somebody comes
to me with a problem,

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I handle that situation differently
than I would with any other player,

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based on what I know about them.

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For the other admins and helpers,
we document everything

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so that, whether it's good or bad
or a concerning conversation,

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it's there, so everybody is aware.

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I want to give you one example
of this one player.

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He was with us for a little while,

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but at some point he started
spamming dashes in the chat,

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like a big long line of dashes
all the way across the screen.

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A little while later, he'd do it again.

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The other players asked him
not to do that, and he'd say, "OK."

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And then he'd do it again.

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It started to frustrate the other players.

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They asked me to mute him
or to punish him for breaking the rules,

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but I knew there had to be
something more to it.

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So I went to his aunt, who is
the contact that I have for him.

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She explained that
he had gone blind in one eye

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and was losing his vision in the other.

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So what he was doing
was splitting up the chat

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into easier-to-see blocks of text,

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which is pretty smart.

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So that very same night, I talked
to a friend of mine who writes code

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and we created a brand-new
plug-in for the server

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that makes it so that
any player on the server,

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including him, of course,

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could just enter a command
and instantly have every single line

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separated by dashes.

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Plus, they can make it
asterisks or blank lines

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or anything they want --
whatever works best for them.

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We even went a little bit extra
and made it so it highlights your name,

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so that it's easier to see
if somebody mentions you.

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It's just one example of how
doing a little bit extra,

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a small modification,

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still helps everybody be on equal footing,

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even though you did a little extra
just for that one player.

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The big one is to be not afraid.

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The children on my server are not afraid.

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They are free to just be themselves,

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and it's because we support
and encourage and celebrate each other.

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We all know what it feels like
to be the outcast

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and to be hated simply for existing,

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and so when we're together on the server,
we're not afraid anymore.

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For the first two years
or so on the server,

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I talked to two children per week
on average that were suicidal.

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But they came to me because
I'm the one that made them feel safe.

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They felt like I was the only person
in the world they could talk to.

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So I guess my message is:

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whether you have a charity
or some other organization,

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or you're a teacher or a therapist

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or you're a parent
who is just doing your very best,

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or you're an autistic, like I am,

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no matter who you are,

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you absolutely must help these children
strip away those fears

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before you do anything else,

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because anything else
is going to feel forced

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unless they're not afraid.

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It's why positive reinforcement
will always do better

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than any form of punishment.

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They want to learn when they
feel safe and happy.

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It just happens naturally;
they don't even try to learn.

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These are words from the kids
on the server to describe the server.

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The one thing I would hope
that you could take away

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is that no matter what somebody else
is going through in life right now,

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whether they're being bullied
at school or at home,

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if they're questioning their sexuality
or even their gender,

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which happens a lot
in the autism community,

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if they're feeling alone or even suicidal,

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you have to live your life in such a way

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that that person feels like they can
come to and tell you.

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They have to feel perfectly safe
in talking to you about it.

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If you want to see
a group of autistic children --

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kids who society wrongly thinks
are supposed to be antisocial

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and lacking in empathy --

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if you want to see them come together
and build the most compassionate

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and friendly and generous
community you've ever seen,

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the kind of place that people
would write about

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as one of the best places on the internet,

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they'll do that.

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I've seen it.

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I'm there every day.

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But they have some huge obstacles
that they have to overcome to do that,

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and it would be really helpful
to have somebody there

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who could help to show them that
the only thing they really have to fear

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is self-doubt.

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So I guess I'm asking you
to please be that person for them,

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because to them,

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those kids --

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it means everything.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)