Justine said

I was called delusional once (I'm being serious now, the port has worn off). I was offended, there was no need to insinuate that I had mental health issues just because they didn't agree with what I had posted.

Agog is a well underused wrod.

Fosho.

I am all agog because I "started' all this with no more than an autocorrect. To me, this should be about what the poster wrote, which was rude, defensive etc. The responses WERE fair in the context.

YY, MmeL, but would you be comfortable telling someone you don't know well they were delusional? What about using 'anorexic' in a non-clinical sense to someone you don't know?

The problem is that if people really can't grasp it, then MNHQ will have to keep explaining every disputed deletion. Which is a waste of time for everyone.

Allagory makes some good points. Lord McAlpine is trying to shed some light on how to stay within the law on Twitter.

Oh, thanks, Plyushka, you may have saved my (admittedly fragile) sanity!

Garlic
If someone called me delusional, I would assume that they disagreed with my opinion, not that they were seriously questioning my MH.

It was much better in the old days when you could just call someone a 'stupid twat'. Nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade.

Chipping, because the remark translates as YOU ARE MENTALLY ILL IN QUITE A SERIOUS WAY.

Some people will never get it, garlic.

That's ok, Helen. I will know what I am thinking when I use it. :)

I never ever ever use the word cunt in RL. And very very rarely online.

I do agree with you, actually, that we should be civil to each other. It would make it much more pleasant for MNHQ too, cause you'd be spared the 'wahhhhhhhhhhhh, she called me names' nonsense.

I don't believe people can't tell the difference between insulting an opinion and insulting the person who opined. "That's crap" is a debating position. "You're crap" is an insult.

I have asked DH (libel lawyer). If you are seriously suggesting that someone is delusional, then that is potentially defamatory. If you are using it just as a form of abuse, it is not. It's just abuse.

In the terms of the Mumsnet rules, it seems to me that you just need to say that someone's opinions are delusional, rather than they are delusional. Because you are attacking the opinions, not the person.

Which is silly because that is probably more likely to be defamatory than calling someone delusional. Which was probably just abuse.

I wonder if Mumsnet HQ don't need some more expensive advice...

Bollocks is excellent. I can see Helen's point though. Most of us have a few brain cells, we should come up with far better arguments then this.

From the medical dictionary:

medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/delusion. delusion /de·lu·sion/ (dĕ-loo´zhun) an idiosyncratic false belief that is firmly maintained in spite of incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary...

I still don't see how it's a personal attack.

Helen, I'm really glad you said that! Couldn't read the entire 5 pages as I was getting quite arsey about this.

SueP, calling a person delusional is offensive. Saying it's true actually makes things worse, unless you happen to be making a very carefully-judged call on a mental health thread.

Perhaps you meant the other poster "had been deluded" by something she read in the papers or suchlike?

Shame. Because bollocks is an excellent word.

See, I'm not a fan of 'cunt' either. How about 'you're talking bollocks?' Do you think MN would get invaded by F4J though? It could be construed as man hating I suppose.

Alan Hansen?

oh dear. Crossposts there, and I am all about the C word while Helen is statesman-like and sensible.

Sorry, H.