Anti-Religious Trolling On Mumsnet

OK. But if I was to object to,say, infant male circumcision, I would be criticising all the adherents of several major world religions. And I am so very strongly opposed to it I do not feel inclined to be kind and understanding about it. Would I be deleted?

Bertrand even with derailment moderation, you can discuss what you like, within talk guidelines, if it relates to the OP. You can also start any new thread you like, within talk guidelines.

^not engaging with a poster seeking to derail feels especially awful when other posters gleefully pile in, to support the poster derailing, in their derailment, from the original discussion, the OP raised.

It also feels especially awful when the conversation is successfully steered towards the derailleur's agenda and the posters discussing the points raised in the OP leave the thread.

So is the bile and vitriol we're talking about the same as the "sky fairy" "imaginary friend" stuff?

Because I still don't know what we're talking about. I also have a bit of an issue with being expected to be kind and considerate all the time. I couldn't promise that because there are elements of religions that make me very angry, and which I genuinely believe are unacceptable. Would the new regime, for example, expect me to stay silent about infant male circumcision? Anti abortion protesters?

pearly, yes, I'm complicit, guilty if I engage. The thread gets derailed. I also am complicit if I ignore, the poster, purposely derailing, does not get challenged and is given a platform to continue. So I am guilty if I do not engage, in order to challenge what they are saying, guilty in doing nothing. This is why I feel moderation would be helpful.

lumpy- but if capsium feels it's wrong to engage in derailment then why does she do it unless she feels forced?

By engaging with the derailer she is equally guilty.

Lumpy I am wondering if your thread is the one I did complain about (as I mentioned upthread) but I cannot honestly remember as there has been a couple over the years. In that case MN came back and said no guidelines about personal attack had been broken but I replied saying the persistent ridicule, belittling and derision, even if not personal attack, was putting people off posting and they agreed, saying they would post a "be nice" message on the thread and e-mail a couple of the nastier posters about their tone so often MN do try to mediate even if we are not all aware of it.

It is very difficult to "legislate" on these things. I think we all agree that discussion and disagreement are fine but outright attack, insult and belittling is not. There are dissenting posters who are reasonable and measured, it is the
condescending nastiness that does MN no credit. Sadly there are some people around who see it as ok to hijack these threads and close down discussion.

I like to resolve issues, pearly, if possible. So I often will talk about them if someone brings them up. Maybe I'm too hopeful that these issues can be resolved...

In what way do you feel "forced" to engage with a "derailer" capsium? I notice that you do very readily, even from this thread.

But Augusta because there has been no guideline on derailment, they would be difficult to detect. People engage when the derailleur says things too annoying to go unchallenged but then it looks like they are complicit in a diverting conversation.

It really depends on posters feelings at the time, as to whether a diversion is welcome or not and as such a natural evolution of the thread conversation. Being able to report anonymously for persistent and purposeful derailment would indicate to MN when and where a diversion, from the topic the OP raised, really is not welcome.

We don't have this facility at the moment - so the thread conversation is often shut down and people exit the thread, as it fills up with derailing posts or people engage, which can appear as if they are cooperating with the diversion. It is impossible to say, conclusively, what is happening retrospectively without posters disclosing the reason they exit or engage.

As I have said, because of the above situation, I feel uncomfortable accusing people before a guideline is officially set. Derailleurs have not done anything wrong in terms of MN guidelines. This fact can make people feel forced to engage with a derailleur, as derailment is seen as 'fair game' but it also makes the rest of the people on the thread complicit in the derailment.

I don't post much on the P/R board but when I did recently it ended up getting derailed slightly. That's fine, it happens. But when the OP asked to try and get back on topic they were responded to with: "Sorry OP, but you're posting on a public board, so tough!"

I just don't think that's polite. And it isn't a question of not allowing criticism of religion, just having a time and place for it.

FWIW I get just as annoyed, if not more so, by the constant derailment of any thread about cycling. If it happens occasionally then that is to be expected, but every single bloody time is tiresome. It is difficult to police this sort of thing as often it's not the same people. For some reason, threads about cycling act as a magnet for people who want to have a pop at cyclists. From this thread and a quick look through the P/R board it seems similar happens there.

The 'best' discussion I know of is pretty heavily regulated in terms of keeping things on topic. Not that debate is shut down. Quite the opposite I find. If tangents develop then people start threads specifically on them, and the original discussion can still be had. All too often on here you just end up with people talking across each other. Not that a heavily regulated discussion would work on MN, it's too big for that. But it would be nice if people didn't derail threads too much, and start their own if it is a significant tangent, particularly if the OP felt the tangent was overriding what they set out to discuss. (Again, disclaimer, I know that the OP doesn't hold any special prerogative over how a discussion should go. And I don't think anything heavy handed from MN is worthwhile, unless there is a pattern of behaviour from a particular poster.)

I am very sorry that your mental health is fragile.

But I honestly don't think we should have to post with the assumption that somebody with fragile mental health is reading. If you said that on your thread and people continued to post in a way you found upsetting then that is obviously despicable, and I am shocked that nobody reported the posters on your behalf.

I question whether it really would take such a lot of time to find these derailed threads. Surely if it happens as often as you suggest, capsium, you could find a couple of examples relatively quickly using Advanced Search with, say, "christian" as a search term and limiting it to the last three months?

Did you report the horrible posts?

But Lumpy, although that must obviously have been very unpleasant and upsetting, those posts could easily have been reported to MNHQ as personal attacks. That's very different from derailment.