Can we talk about the giant loophole in the talk guidelines, please?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

At the moment, Talk Guidelines say 'we'll remove posts we consider to contain personal attacks, to break the law and/or to be obscene, racist, sexist, disablist, ageist or homophobic, once they are brought to our attention, we will also delete any posts that we think are just seriously unpleasant.'

That means, if someone posts 'LRD, I really hate you, you men hating looney. You are utterly pathetic,' you will delete as a personal attack. In fact, if I'm lucky and you're feeling generous, you might delete it for disablism too.

If someone posts, on a thread where it is perfectly clear who is intended:
I fucking hate the men hating loonies on here. You are all utterly pathetic, if you truly believe you are equal to men then it can't affect you.

Then you won't delete that. Because it's not a 'personal' attack, and doesn't count under any of the specified exceptions like homophobia or ageism.

I'm getting so tired of seeing this get exploited. It just results in nasty, antagonistic, aggressive threads and I think it drives posters away from MN. Is there any chance the policy could be changed, maybe to include that you'd delete personal attacks aimed at groups when it is obvious which specific MNers are meant?

Wouldn't that count as a "seriously unpleasant" post and therefore justifiable of deletion, if necessary?

I don't see the rules as legislative anyway - that never works - and I think Mumsnet gets the balance about right.

I agree. I'm sick of certain posters coming onto feminist threads with the specific intention of derailing them. People obviously fight back and the thread goes off at a pointless tangent. It's so depressing.

( that might not be quite the point you were making but wanted to add my piece! )

Sounds fair.

Or bring it under the general "MN is mostly about being supportive and not making people's lives worse so we are going to delete that unhelpful post" caveat.

I hear that.

Very unpleasant stuff.

It might count as 'seriously unpleasant'.

But it was meant as an example, really. I think it's just become a trick some people know too well to avoid getting deleted while causing maximum offence.

I think MNHQ are often very good, but they can't really be expected to deal with posts no-one reports because they're not deletable under current rules. I know I've stopped reporting things because I know the response will be 'ah, well, unfortunately we can't delete an attack on a group'.

scarlet - yep, it's partly my point. I will admit, this is a really obvious pattern with trolls (I mean really, definitely trolls, the sort that come with a 'we banned this previously banned poster, sigh' deletion message). In the time before someone clocks up enough wankerishness to be investigated and banned, it'd be really nice if we could report their more unpleasant group attacks.

I think it'd make for a nicer atmosphere if nothing else.

Then if that's the case, it's not the rules that need changing but them that enforces them.

Because you can have a very unpleasant attack aimed at a group.

I agree. It's very tiresome to be told yet again that 'you feminists' are 'hysterical' and so on and so forth. Or old hags who can't get a shag, or man hating harpies.

Maybe that's all that's needed, ooh.

balls - YY, that's what I mean ... it's when it's 'you [group noun]' it's really obviously intended as an attack, and people do take it that way.

It is quite different from saying 'feminists all seem to me to be really unpleasant and bitter'. I don't like that (I wouldn't, would I?!), but it doesn't strike me as a deliberate attempt to pisstake with the rules.

there has been a lot of it on the UKIP threads lately too.

Agreed, and it seems to be on the increase recently.

There is the allied problem of PBP changing names 5 or 6 times within a thread solely to avoid getting their account deleted again, because... 'look! It wasn't me, it was another person with almost exactly the same name as mine, honest guv'

Even bitter, old, middle class, man hating harpies who can't get a shag can see through that one!

We should be able to report someone if they go from thread to thread, obviously doing their best to derail and insult others. It's what has happened now.

To be pedantic, we can report them Briar - as to whether it'll do any good or not...

I've noticed that a long-standing poster has exactly the same posting style as someone on FWR who has been banned. I wonder if they had a different account for shitting on feminists.

I'm terrible at noticing tone or anything like that.

Please ignore if you disagree - but I do wonder if MNHQ might get fed up with this thread if it turns out to be all about trolling strategies (annoying as they are)? Sorry if I sound like an officious arse posting that, though.

sorry

Didn't mean it like that, I just meant, I wasn't going to get too into it here.

I'll shut up now.

Hmmm... It's an interesting point. It is very difficult to tell sometimes what is a VERY general 'you' as in 'you, the rest of the world' or 'you lot on this thread' and what is a veiled insult at a particular poster. It's often more obvious to longstanding MNers who are regulars on certain boards than it is to us.

Expanding 'personal attack' to 'any attack', would probably end in us deleting half of AIBU in a single night, but certainly, any real nastiness we would consider 'not in the spirit of Mumsnet' and would delete.

But if you can report actual incidents (and don't be shy - the more info we have the easier it is to make a decision), we will ALWAYS look at those, I promise. And we can usually use Special Magic to winkle out any sock-puppety shitting on feminist types.

Yes, I can believe it'd be difficult.

But thanks for replying and thanks for considering it, much appreciated.

I wondered if named groups makes sense? Like 'oh, the Style and Beauty lot are all wankers'. I mean, that's got to be obviously directed at someone?

Because obviously (self centred sort I am), if all the 'you feminists + insult' type posts could disappear I would have semi-normal bloodpressure once in a while.

LRD... not at all, I did realise, as soon as I'd hit post, that I had done a bloody 'Trolling for Dummies' post.

I can vouch for MNHQ looking at things and coming back with a balanced reply, there is a fred going on right now where a poster is attacking people in a round about way, I reported and had a very reasonable answer.

Not as reasonable as Buffy, natch!

whilst annoying, can the genuine posters not just ignore an pretend it does not exist - they tend to give up if they do not get a rise

i couldn't agree more. I've had two comments deleted now. I made the mistake of being personal to people who had made extremely offensive comments. It's ok to make a comment that is extremely offensive to all women for example, or extremely offensive to say all single mothers, but it's not ok to call 'crunchynutcornflakes' deranged. (screen name made up to make point)

It's a difficult one, people join the FWR section just to be arseholes about feminist which isn't fair. But equally I don't want the rules changed so that I can't say anyone who voted for UKIP or BNP is a rightwing racist tool.

carol - I think the argument against just ignoring is that when the subject is something really emotive, people aren't well prepared to ignore, and they get upset or angry, and basically it makes for a bad atmosphere.

I also don't notice them giving up if they don't get a rise. They are pretty persistant and they seem to get their rocks off the sweetly reasonable 'oh, no, why do you think that?' responses as much as anything else (and you can't stop people responding with those, it's a natural one).

I actually wouldn't mind not being able to say anyone who voted UKIP is a rightwing racist tool if it meant the 'you feminists are bitches' ones could go. But I accept I'm probably naive and they'd find another way.