No we did respond (although we appreciate the thread is pretty unwieldy and very long). Right now we're in listening mode not decision-taking mode but mode-switching and personning up with extreme prejudice will be happening next week.

We're really glad you're feeling better wombat and understand you may feel under pressure to explain yourself.

Going forwards we'd be really grateful if you could keep your posts on this thread on-topic - that is, addressing the general points raised in the OP around what we should do about threads by posters who are feeling suicidal, and related matters.

We don't usually have an on-topic rule so apologies for being bossy I ruddy love being bossy but it's important to keep this thread on the rails, and that won't be possible if it becomes an extended discussion of your particular thread.

Best wishes from MNHQ and we hope your recovery continues

Don't think this is fair tbh WannaBe. You're quite right that we've had this discussion before, but the users' consensus was broadly to leave things as they were. (With the exception of moving threads to MH which we have been remiss on.)

As someone else said (sorry, can't remember who!) one consequence of us usually doing our best to run big decisions past users is that we cannot satisfy everyone. But the fact that we did not do what a particular group of users wanted is not the same as doing nothing.

Apols for defensiveness

Oh heck, is there one of those around? was so hoping for a quiet weekend

We like to keep handover hours on the downlow magimedi cos otherwise it's like hanging an 'Open for business' sign up for trouble-makers. MNHQ (ie not Nightwatchers) are around seven days a week, from very early until very late, all the year round - we are NOT a Monday-Friday 9-5 operation. (Just wanted to reiterate that as it's come up a few times!)

But yes, for the Nightwatch, please either report as normal, or put a (neutrally phrased - 'would you mind taking a look here please?') post (with a link to the relevant post or thread) in the Nightwatch topic.

NWers get an alert when a thread, post or posters is reported a certain number of times, so if there's something causing a big ruckus and they're online they will be aware.

But in all of this please remember that they're under strict instructions not to make judgement calls or get involved in shades-of-grey situations or common-or-garden bunfights. We've asked them to hide things that are really egregious, or annoying obvious spam. We review everything they've done when we get in the next morning.

We may well add guidelines for them about suicide threads, but for now that's all we ask them to do. And they're volunteers and doing it out of the kindness of their hearts so please be nice (we're sure you would anyway).

Morning everyone and thanks v much for your additions overnight

Yes - this would indeed be the extremely tricky bit if that's the route we end up going down.

FYI all, we're hoping to sit down and look at all this early next week (some key people are out of the office today) and take a proper decision then. We're going to close this thread over the weekend as we know some people are finding the discussion a bit distressing (or irritating ) and we won't be able to monitor it closely over the w/e, so if you have things to add please jump in soonish.

Just wanted to say that we will keep checking in on this over the next couple of days so do please keep posting up your thoughts. Thanks all

Thanks for this and we will do our best to try to come to a balanced decision. We know lots of users feel very strongly about this.

We get you MrsL and we will do our utmost to person up. We are waiting until we have all the relevant input from all the relevant places though.

OK we think we've found this one now Worra and yes he was immediately banned.

Please folks, let's keep in general . We're going to delete some of the more recent posts as we really don't want this to descend into a dissection of any particular thread or poster.

Generally speaking, we like anonymity on MN and we think it's a good thing and allows MNers to talk about (and get support/advice on) all sorts of things they'd be very reluctant to discuss otherwise.

And while we completely accept that lots of you are really concerned about what you perceive to be a problem with sockpuppeting and namechanging, in all honesty behind the scenes we don't see a lot of that. It's easy to just get a new registration and start up an entirely new account, and that's what determined trouble-makers tend to do in our experience.

We do have some tools to frustrate this process, but - like every single other site on the internet that allows people to sign up and post - there's no surefire way of stopping people doing it if they're really determined. and it seems some of them are

But please DO report people you suspect of NCing to cause trouble or to start nasty threads with impunity because we are happy to suspend people's NCing ability if we think they're doing that.

Oh yes, good point...

This was the solution we hammered out last time with users - what do other people think?

Really need to correct the impression that MNHQ knocks off at 5pm. We keep going, seven days a week, until very late indeed.

That's radical thanks Worra

BTW if we've haven't specifically acknowledged your suggestion, it's not that we're ignoring it or think it's not good. We will be sitting down with printouts of this and the other threads and we will go through all the suggestions.

Gah! Just remembered that Night Watch don't have thread moving powers so please ignore that bit for now. But we will make sure the regular team do this from now on.

We're not encouraging it. We provide a platform, and our members use it. So long as it doesn't break our Guidelines it will stay up. What we're discussing now is whether to change our Guidelines.

One thing we have to hold our hands up to is that we haven't always been moving these threads to Mental Health, which we promised to do last time we had this discussion. This is absolutely our bad and we will make sure we do this from now on (and ask the Night Watch to do the same).

Absolutely categorically proving something to be false isn't the standard - as you say, that would be impossibly high. It's about the balance of probabilities, and any factors we can see behind the scenes. We can and do ban people on this basis several times a day (and probably more at the moment)

Well talking v generally Basset (ie not just about people who are feeling suicidal) it's actually the case that a lot of people find MN through searching a particular term and finding that a MN thread is one of the highest and most useful search results. MN is very 'highly indexed' (in SEO terms) and pops up on the front page of all sorts of weird and wonderful search terms. So yes, tbh an awful lot of people will go from 'searching for [chicken coops/bootcut jeans/domestic violence advice] and arrive at MN and be ready to ask a question within minutes. And we'd be reluctant to do something that would effectively turn them away at the door.

We do take your point MrsL but MN has been unusual for a long time in this respect - both that we seek users' views on all sorts of things, and that so far we have usually allowed posts referring to suicide to stand.

She's mentioned in the OP 26 - quite extensively! But nowhere is it being implied that she's not on the level (we think? Do flag if we've missed something)

Yes, we'd probably be reluctant to stop brand new users actually starting threads. We will look at the post count idea though.

@JustScreamNobHurts

And of all the abbreviation of my name you picked Nob are you trying to tell me something?

Arf, sorry.

Do we say somewhere that MNers have 'saved' people? Can you flag up where and we'll take a look?

Our Guidelines don't obsess over either we think, tbh. Everything that's not allowed is in the Guidelines and it's all given equal weight. Trolling isn't allowed, and neither is troll-hunting. Admittedly, the second is more prima facie easy to spot than the first in a lot of cases, but there isn't a lot we can do about that!

@JustScreamNobHurts

Be reported threads where posters have said blatantly this is bollocks and they've been left to stand

Sorry nob, are you saying you have reported them and they've been left to stand?

We don't bend over backwards to delete troll-hunting posts if we have actually banned the poster concerned as a troll - it seems a bit needlessly punitive really. So it might have been something like that.

Equally, sometimes posters are saying 'this account of events doesn't make sense' and in certain circs (and this is why we try to play it by ear) we think that's a valid thing to say and isn't the same as calling someone a troll; it can be a genuine observation that something isn't adding up, possibly because the OP has deliberately left something out to avoid being identified.