Well, what we'd class as disablist are discriminatory or abusive posts, expressing the belief that disabled people are inferior to others.

But, as ever, we'd welcome input from all Mumsnetters on this.

Sorry Madmouse, didn't mean to make it look as though we were ignoring you. That's certainly not the case.

If disablist posts have been left up in the past, and were reported to us, we can only apologise wholeheartedly for that.

We would hope that no disablist posts are left up now and in the future - although, obviously, we won't necessarily see them unless they are reported.

And we can categorically say that if anyone is reported for expressing disablist views (and they are expressing disablist views), the very least that would happen is that they'd get a mail from us. The very least...

There's not much we can do about that tbh except to remind folks that we're here to make people's lives easier not the reverse.

Sorry the libel laws are quite complicated it's true.
Put very simply, in answer to your direct question.

It's not fair to say we don't want to delete anything or moderate Mumsnet. We delete a lot and are happy to delete things that break our rules

our rules in a nutshell are:

No personal attacks
No posts that break the law
No trolling, goading or misleading
No trollhunting
No spamming

Where it becomes trickier is posts which don't obviously break the law but cause offence nonetheless.

We weren't joining in "taking the piss" of you though, 2shoes. There are truth be told many threads about how crap we are all the time. We joined in a funny thread about that phenomenon and I thought I was taking the piss out of MNHQ with my response...

No that's completely wrong - we delete thousands of posts a year that break our guidelines. You're confusing our thoughts on defamation with our moderation policy. I think users should have the rights to defend comments on defamation if they wish. As it stands we are viewed as publishers and routinely delete comments that are complained about as libellous. In this instant I think we should be viewed as "innocent facilitators" not publishers because otherwise it has a chilling effect on freedom of speech. We've been part of the libel reform campaign for some time and I wrote about it here five years ago and the position hasn't changed.

We are absolutely delighted to delete posts that are racist, disablist, deliberately provocative, personal attacks or otherwise downright nasty, as per our rules.

Yep that's a fair point - we'll have a chat about that internally and see if there was an alternative way of dealing with it.

I really wasn't meaning to make any connection to this thread by posting on the other one. Apologies if you feel we were having a go - that certainly wasn't the intention - merely a bit of general lighthearted leg-pulling of ourselves I thought.

I know 2shoes that you and others feel that we at MNHQ don't delete enough - we've had this debate every couple of years or so and I'm not sure we are ever going to agree. But over that time we have evolved our policy in consultation with users. Put simply we don't tolerate disablist posting and we state it clearly in our rules.

That said there is a tension between freedom of speech and protecting people's feelings and it's not just on the SN boards, there's a similar feeling at times on the feminism and the relationships boards. We are, as we say in our T&Cs, within reason, trying to let the conversation flow but when you've been on these boards a long time it can be tiring seeing the same old arguments being rehashed. I'm not sure there's an easy answer to that tension tbh but I do think us doing a page of disability myths is a great idea - it might be easier for people to link to that than engage in yet another conversation. I hope so.

It is possible, of course, that Mumsnet will never be completely as you want it to be. It's quite hard for us to operate things in a way that suits everyone but we do try to listen to folks' concerns and adapt where we can, whilst staying true to the core tenets of allowing parents to pool thoughts, ideas, info, advice to make eachothers' lives easier.

Well, yes. But not if the same poster persists in doing so again and again - beyond the point where they could reasonably be assumed to be posting in ignorance. We'd appreciate a heads-up on anyone who's doing that.

OK. Thanks for your reply.

As posted below, no one should be being told any longer that posts you find offensive should stand for education purposes. We acknowledge that we did often say this in the past but we've been educated!

Inflammatory posts, illegal posts, sneering-at-children posts - those should all be deleted as soon as we're made aware of them with, as we said earlier, no debate, discussion or mitigating pleas.

Where there is a muddy, grey, uncomfortable area is where a post might be offensive but not deliberately so - ie not inflammatory/goading but ignorant. That is where we think it's right to judge each post individually and in context, rather than just have a policy of blanket deletion.

This is, of course, tricky and we may not get it right every time, and you may not agree with us every time. But our intent is very much to be consistent and fair across all sensitive topics, from disability to religion. We don't have a different yardstick for disablist posts, if that's what you mean.

We obviously haven't done a great job at communicating this to you, though. We will take that on board and pull our socks up - both in our mails to those who report, and in our posts on the boards.

I haven't seen your report, ASillyPhase, but I will go and have a look and see where it is in our inbox.[/quote]

OK, have found it. You have mail, ASillyPhase

We're sorry to read this, Glitterknickaz. Where have we made it clear that we will treat you differently and that you matter less?

Yes, as we said earlier, if we notice (or are tipped off) that a poster is persistently attacking the disabled but perhaps flying below the guidelines radar, we would definitely take action.

We do completely understand that you don't want to feel that it's your place to educate the ignorant and bigoted. And we agree that it's not your place to, either. And apologise for past communications from us that made sound as though it should be - no one should be getting that kind of mail from us any more.

However, MN is a place that doesn't censor or pre-censor debate. We believe that, through reasoned, civil debate, attitudes can change. Which means we do, at least initially, allow uncomfortable and even offensive opinions - on all sorts of topics - to stand (unless they break our guidelines).

That said, we realise, as we've said here earlier, that we could do more in these instances to post on the threads and let everyone know where we're coming from - and what we absolutely won't tolerate. We think it would be helpful, from now on, to spell out our thinking on the boards for all to see, not just in mails to those who've reported.

It does sound as though the timing was unfortunate, Maryz. But I am sure as sure can be that it wasn't deliberate (not our style, as we'd hope you'd know).

And calling people selfish, self-centred and ignorant, while very possibly true, would be making personal attacks. We're sure you could find other ways to phrase those points, though.

I haven't seen your report, ASillyPhase, but I will go and have a look and see where it is in our inbox.

No, we have just said that we do not tolerate disablist postings.

And that, from now on, we will be more vigilant about going onto thread and reinforcing that stance.

If there are threads or posts we have mistakenly let stand in the past month, we would be happy to revisit them. As we've said, we don't go in for blanket censorship of certain topics (though, God knows, that would be easier) so we have to weigh up each reported post in context. We acknowledge that we're not perfect and that we have much to learn but we'd like to think we're always open to your questions and responsive to your feedback.

What attitude, Badvoc? Do please tell us what in our most recent post makes your question your membership. We'd like to be able to reassure you.

We're not making excuses, amillionyears. They were two genuine reasons for our less-than-ideal response time but we do - and have - apologise fully.

No they are not, ASillyPhase. Please see our post just a few moments ago.

Morning, folks. Thanks for your patience. We'll do our best to answer your latest Qs now.

To start with, though, just to recap for those who haven't read all the thread...

• We do not tolerate clearly disablist posts on Mumsnet - and will delete them, as soon as we are made aware of them, with no debate, discussion or mitigating pleas.

• We may not, though, delete a post that forms part of a reasonable and valid discussion, if we believe that post was made in genuine and honest ignorance. Instead, we may decide it's best to let it stand and allow others to voice their own, more enlightened, views. However, if the original 'ignorant' poster persists with the same sort of posts after that - ie when they can't possibly be ignorant any more - we would look into deleting/mailing/warning/banning, as appropriate.

• We've always thought it's wrong to adopt a policy of blanket censorship. We feel it's wiser to judge each post that's reported on its individual words and context, and make decisions on a post-by-post basis.

• We agree that we were slow to act on the original two pushchair threads. Unfortunately staff sickness left us on the back foot but we should, at the very least, have posted on the threads to make our stance on disablist views clear.

• The two deleted threads were deleted for different reasons. One because we felt it was deliberately inflammatory; the other (2shoes' one) because it was a thread about a thread. 2shoes: we're sorry you didn't get any satisfactory replies yesterday; I'll look into that today and mail you as soon as poss.

• The current pushchair thread has not been deleted because, as we posted on the thread last night, we believe the OP, who's been an MNer for ages, started it in response to last night's Channel 4 news report and was entirely unaware of the other threads. And, at least the last time we checked, it was a valid discussion, with no disablist content. We have, however, posted on it to remind people that we don't tolerate disablist posts - and we will keep an eye on it today. Please do report to us any posts that concern you.

• And finally, we couldn't refute more passionately any assumption that MN SNers don't matter to us. MNSN is undoubtedly one of the aspects of our MN Community of which we are the most proud. It's one of the things that makes coming into work every morning a truly uplifting experience even when you're mad at us. We may not get everything right all the time but the last thing any of us would dream of doing is make you feel you don't matter to us. If that's the impression any of you have got, we are really sorry.

Very sorry 2Shoes - service hasn't really been normal tonight because of this and the other Site Stuff thread, so reports and correspondence are backing up a bit. We will take a look as soon as we possibly can.

Yes, this a fair point and we should try to do this more often.

Thanks Celstial - that is a good example.

In the spirit of teasing it out (not dismissing your point): looking at my post further down, I referred to 'a pram' and 'a wheelchair'. I think you could make the argument that - in the context of a generally respectful attitude - those are acceptable shorthand terms for 'a child in a pram' and 'a wheelchair user and their wheelchair'. What's not acceptable is deliberately referring to a wheelchair user as 'a wheelchair'.

Does that make any sense?