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See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Calling all night owls!

113 replies

RebeccaMumsnet · 23/02/2016 13:24

Hi all,

We'd like to recruit some more of you into the Nightwatch, to help out alongside our current night time volunteers.

The Nightwatch are a group of MNetters, many from overseas, who have the power to hide posts or threads of a spammy nature, or posts that overtly break our Talk guidelines.

They can't see or respond to reports, and aren't asked to make judgment calls on stuff like personal attacks, bunfights, troll-hunting and so on; they're simply equipped to deal with the sort of beyond-the-pale posts or images that you - and they! - would normally report to us.

Night watchers don't have to identify themselves, and are under no obligation to be around full-time - it's more a question of popping on the boards as you would do in the course of a normal day's Mumsnetting. We will be drawing up a rota and asking what works for you and what doesn't; if you thought you were likely to be around one night a week, that'd be about perfect.

If you're interested, please post below and we'll mail you with further information. We are looking for a handful of people, and will be looking at the global timezones to help cover as much time as possible, so please don't take it personally if you're not selected: it doesn't mean we love you any less Grin

OP posts:
usual · 24/02/2016 11:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Sparklingbrook · 24/02/2016 11:09

Posting stuff on the actual Nightwatch thread makes you feel like supergrass.

usual · 24/02/2016 11:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Sparklingbrook · 24/02/2016 10:59

Nightwatch could choose to ignore the message if they had a personal interest I guess.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 24/02/2016 10:57

The reports don't go to the nightwatch though Sarah. They just get a message to say something has been reported a lot.

See, I should get a job MNHQ.

RebeccaMumsnet · 24/02/2016 10:51

@ouryve

between 9am and midnight we get 98 reports.

Blardy hell, half of them are probably mine Blush

That's just reports ouryve, we also get mails in for various other things to all departments and deal with approx 300 per day.

@magimedi

I see you have used Monday night as an example!

How many reports do you get from midnight to 9am on a Friday/Saturday?

From midnight to 9am we get 17 and from 9am - midnight we get 81 - that's on an average Saturday using a years worth of data just on reports.

OP posts:
ouryve · 24/02/2016 10:36

between 9am and midnight we get 98 reports.

Blardy hell, half of them are probably mine Blush

Sparklingbrook · 24/02/2016 10:35

Nightwatchers having their own posts and threads reported. Shock There must be some guidelines for that. Grin

Sarah715 · 24/02/2016 10:35

To be clear, there are people on this thread whose posts I have reported in the past. If they become mods I won't want to report their posts, to them.

Sarah715 · 24/02/2016 10:32

But someone who gets the email and it involves one of their own posts...what happens then? They're supposed to agree to hide their own thread or post? Will they see who reported it?

JOEYDOESNTSHAREFOOD · 24/02/2016 10:32

You have contradicted yourself MNHQ - Either you are drawing up a rota for night watchers, or it is a role for "when you are lurking anyway".

leghoul · 24/02/2016 10:20

Sorry I was overcomplicating matters. IN one of my other lives I run training blabla other stuff for a national support service and get twitchy with anything OUTSIDE MY CONTROL that may involve RISK etc. arrhh
maybe I'm not the man for the job Grin

Can people put it on their CV? are there certificates? any perks other than a feeling of power and secret service about it Grin

I think it's okay for it to be unpaid if people willingly volunteer & are lurking about anyway & it's voluntary. Not sure about rota though which conflicts with the informality a bit.

magimedi · 24/02/2016 10:10

I see you have used Monday night as an example!

How many reports do you get from midnight to 9am on a Friday/Saturday?

Another one who thinks you should be paying someone for this job. If you were a charity, it would be different, but you are a business, with some assets:

Taken from company check:

companycheck.co.uk/search?term=mumsnet

It doesn't give a date, but I assume it is fairly current:

Mumsnet Limited:

Cash: £2.2M

Net Worth: £3.2M

Assets: £4.2M

Liabilities: £1.0M

AdriftOnMemoryBliss · 24/02/2016 10:03

if you get so few reports, would it really kill you to pay maybe two people to job share and cover the night shift properly?

Germgirl · 24/02/2016 09:40

Maybe the unpaid thing could work if they knew they could contact someone at MNHQ if things get out of hand. Would having someone from HQ 'on call' every night help? A paid position whereby they're available to take calls/emails from NW members. And how low is the threshold for reports? There was a thread recently that appears to have had loads of reports overnight yet nothing was done. Maybe the threshold needs to be set lower?

RebeccaMumsnet · 24/02/2016 09:35

Thanks for your comments all, we are reading them through and thanks to those who have volunteered. We will look through everyone interested on Friday and let those who are successful know early next week.

We are one of the few site who do pay our moderators, we have a team who deal with reports.

The nightwatch are an extension to this.

They will ONLY deal with threads/posts that they get a auto generated mail about (the mail is sent if there is a high volume of reports about one thread/post). They have no data access, we do not ask them to make judgement calls. If they are online and get a mail from MN to say that a specific post has been reported several times, they can have a look and if it's blatant spam/trolling etc, they can hide it for us to review in the morning.

We do give basic info on how to deal with threads as and when they arise and we give a basic overview of what we are asking for when they start.

This is a no obligation role, we are asking that if they are online anyway, they help out by hiding things.

The volume of reports overnight is actually very low. For example, between midnight and 9am on an average Monday (figures based on average over a year) we get about 21 reports and between 9am and midnight we get 98 reports.

The difficulty is there is no exact science, we have many night with no reports and then we'll have an evening when we get a few hundred. We try our best to cover as much as we can, as quickly as we can.

OP posts:
WotNoLoobrush · 24/02/2016 09:34

My first thought when I read this was why can't this be a paid job.

TheCokeMachine · 24/02/2016 08:38

Asking posters to become unpaid moderators can lead to trouble. Look what happened on Reddit a couple of years ago. Or worse, take a look at AOL when the moderators revolted and AOL were successfully sued for back pay.

Other tech companies claim to moderate via algorithms (this isn't strictly true), but is is part of moderation. Surely your tech can set up alerts to point you to threads with a high volume of reports? And you can pay a number of impartial humans (on a non-disclosure agreement) to moderate via alerting.

Be careful MNHQ, unpaid moderators can come with a high cost.

MuddhaOfSuburbia · 24/02/2016 08:37

another one who says this should be a PAID role

who's running shit at the towers these days

Calling all night owls!
OhShutUpThomas · 24/02/2016 07:35

I agree that this is embarrassing. Mumsnet is a huge company with responsibilities - this should be a paid role.

bewarethesavagejaw1984 · 24/02/2016 07:28

Yes - I am in New Zealand.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 24/02/2016 06:24

Some people's interview techniques might need tweaking from:

MNHQ you are so tight and embarrassing. .can I have the job Grin

ICJump · 24/02/2016 06:18

This should be a paid role. With proper access to reports and stuff.

If that happens I'm up for it

gooseberryroolz · 24/02/2016 03:35

I would bloody love to have some power around here.

I'm hoping the rejectees will at least get secret, special edition emojis.

MrsTerryPratchett · 24/02/2016 03:11

I would bloody love to have some power around here. And, I'm in Canada so could do it. However, considering the desperate, awful financial states some people on here are in, wouldn't it be better to pay someone? It's a flexible, work from home job. They are like hen's teeth.

Please consider paid staff MNHQ.