Any chance of a review of the FWR moderation rules in light of Maya Forstater's success in court please?

I really don’t like the idea of shuffling off any thread about women’s sex based rights into another topic and labelling it women’s/trans right is, at best, inflammatory. FWR is, by definition, about women’s sex based rights and struggles, no new topic needed.

I thought this thread was to ask HQ to revisit their moderation rules, so why has this reasonable, and lawful request resulted in talk of us being shunted off to a new board?

It doesn’t matter which board it is or what it’s called. The issue is that MN are moderating in a way that creates a hostile environment for people who hold the protected characteristic of having gender critical beliefs, or as I prefer to call it, who believe in science and reality. They can stick that wherever they like, they are still going to run into trouble if they continue to flout the law and discriminate via their moderation policies and behaviour.

It will also be arguable that they are discriminating against women if they prevent women from discussing in the feminism section issues that affect them as a result of their biological sex. Discrimination on the grounds of sex and belief is not a good look.

If HQ have implemented their hostile moderation policies in order to avoid legal action being brought by trans activists, they might be mindful to avoid creating conditions that make the opposite a possibility. Despite what some people appear to think, Mumsnet are duty bound to abide by the equality act, and they might do well to remember that fact.

most women may not know that R0wantrees received a weeks suspension that was supposed to end May 18th but she remains without access to her account.

So has R0 been banned?

Perhaps there could be a push towards clearer thread titles instead?

I agree thread titles aren't always the clearest. I started one myself the other week and on reflection it wasn't hugely informative because a duplicate was started due the subject of mine not being v clear.

I think we could have a thread discussion on FWR about what constitutes a good title but ultimately you can't really police it because it's individual interpretation.

Also some really popular threads have titles like "Radio 4 on now!" because they're posted in urgency. They could perhaps be amended after the fact.

I think the infant feeding comparison that a pp mentioned is valid. Some women understandably find any discussion of breastfeeding upsetting. They might want somewhere where they can talk about formula feeding without seeing any reference to breastfeeding. In that situation IMO it would make more sense to set up a formula feeding sub-forum, rather than banishing everyone who wants to talk about breastfeeding, combination feeding etc. from the main infant feeding board to a sub-forum for breastfeeding.

What a strange response to an unrelated request. Just leave things as they are.

I see fwr as a daily round-up of women's issues. I don't have time to check multiple forums and don't want to be shielded from different opinions.

Some threads don't get many responses, but it doesn't mean that they go unread. With information sharing threads, sometimes there isn't much to say other than 'noted!'

Perhaps there could be a push towards clearer thread titles instead?

Funny how it's always the posters who can link time and again to actual policies, laws, academic research - facts, in a nutshell - who are inevitably targeted. But the mods aren't being played by the monitors, ohh no, heaven forfend the very idea.

Also, I'm now worried that all the information that has been posted on these boards will be lost if the whole thing is re-configured?

There are literally hundreds of thousands of hours of women's work here.

Several posters whose knowledge and expertise about safeguarding have been removed this way.

Yes we lost Lang but most women may not know that R0wantrees received a weeks suspension that was supposed to end May 18th but she remains without access to her account.

Her third strike/suspension was for quoting from a feminist newsletter despite her not being the only one posting it.

I would very much like to see her reinstated as I'm sure others would.

I'm appalled that after the fight we've just had and are taking a well earned breath, that you would even consider selling us out MNHQ!

And once again I will point out that the thread rules do not appear pinned on the app.

I do find this whole thing about a new board really odd. Mumsnet has permitted it's posters to discuss this under some fairly hefty pressures. Well done you have just been vindicated.

But you now want to move us to another board to encourage other people who don't post on the board to now post there, even though there is nothing stopping them from starting their own discussions at the moment.

This will be a nightmare to moderate - you KNOW that you will have people reporting on the basis it is on the wrong board they won't need to point out transphobia.

Some posters have been warned for things that aren't clear in the rules. This makes trying to talk about this extremely difficult and many do not post or have given up because of this.The rules also make is easy for posters to be targeted not for what they posted after the rules came in but what was posted previously.The people that target these boards have been known to trawl through a posters history to try and get them banned.

Several posters whose knowledge and expertise about safeguarding have been removed this way.

Arguably, safeguarding is one if the most important and most pertinent issues we are acing right now. For fairly obvious reasons, being able to name sex is at the heart if this, and sex segregation is a key safeguarding mechanism.

Safeguarding is a feminist issue, and often involves talking about males who profess female gender identities.

Will there be a Women’s Rights board where we can talk about this, in clear and accurate terms? Will the existing rules that make talk about safeguarding and abusive power dynamics be rescinded, in light of our protected characteristic?

If FWR is dominated by threads about the impact on women of the demands being made by TRAs, that's because those demands constitute the single greatest threat to women's rights currently in existence. Everything from 1) the fundamental question of 'how do you advocate for women's rights if you can't define what a woman is' to 2) the damage being done to far greater numbers of girls than boys by the medicalisation of gender-non-conforming children, to 3) the potential dangers of being forced to share formerly single-sex spaces with men (however they identify) to 4) the women and girls losing out on life-changing opportunities through mixed sports, to 5) anti-FGM advocates being accused of transphobia for claiming the clitoris is a female sex organ, to 6) the risk of women - often the least privileged - missing out on essential healthcare because of forced changes to language which obfuscate and make ambiguous that which was previously clear, plus far more besides, is affected by those demands.

If there are other burning feminist topics that posters wish to discuss that aren't affected by this fundamental threat to so many aspects of women's rights, they are free to start threads about them and if there is the will and desire to talk about them, others will come to do so.

I am absolutely opposed to any 'hiving off' of topics which are so indisputably feminist in nature, and I'd be surprised if a majority of regular FWR users were either. It feels like we're being told we're doing feminism wrong, again, when in many cases we've been the ones holding the line for women's rights, funding and publicising the campaigns that are now seeing some victories for common sense, and pointing out again and again that this is not anti-trans, it is pro-women.

And I do hope this proposal isn't being used solely as a diversion to avoid reviewing the FWR Talk guidelines in light of yesterday's judgement.

There are plenty of rules that aren't explicitly spelled out in the pinned post. Hence many posters tripping up over language and getting a warning they weren't expecting.

Mumsnet don't VET every post, that should say!

There's a pinned post on the FWR board that has the moderation rules, if it's a rule, it'll be in there.

How can you discuss feminism without talking about sex or gender?

And I have no idea what Justine's suggestion has to do with the OP's question. Perhaps Justine should start her own thread?