all those who would like MN [or part] to become register only sign here

trolls can be problem....in my personal experience, the true trolls are possibly mentally ill, sadly, and are great manipulators....and tey will truely try to fight for attention...i.e. one mum looses their Baby they loose two...kinda thing...

and then there are stupid trolls....that just make up shit to stir...harmless and annpoying

and than there is those regular posters that are simply bored and do wind up threads and think they are so clever....but really, it is just rather pathetic attentionseeking...those trolls can annoy a lot, but are truely pathetic, so, one has to feel sorry for them....

but trolls can be a problem....funny thing is...I have this feeling that a fair lot of those bored regular cum trolls may be at mouldievile now, so..shoud ease up on that

I don't believe people left and went elsewhere because of privacy issues or trolls. They left for many many reasons (mainly that they could)

This has always been a public open place and it's up to the poster how much information is given out and to keep themselves save (as all internet use should be) I like anonymity, I'm glad I can namechange. Not because I am famous but my family is very recognisable to people who vaguely know us (unusual set up/circumstances)

I am confused by the issue of trolls. Is it that big a problem??? There were a few in the last few months and they didn't scam for money. Yes, people gave time and effort but again, that is up to the poster how much of themselves they give. Some have been regulars and very very funny, some may be truckers but what harm do they do? I hate the craze for shouting troll at unusual things

It's all down to personal responsibility, give only what you can afford to give in help/kindness/support, walk away from things you think are odd or report them

I think it would be a great shame if the site were less open. Before I registered I had lurked for at least 2 years, getting advice and tips, and reading about others who had problems similar to mine. This really helped me in uncountable ways. And I hadn't had to 'commit' myself (I was terrified of being 'found out' and registered only when things had got back onto a more even keel).

I don't know how I would have got through that awful ghastly time without mn. If it had been register only I wouldn't have had it, and would quite possibly be in a really dreadful situation still, or quite possibly have killed myself by now. It really was that close for me.

ladyjuliafish...I am not against namechanging per se ( I quite like the seasonal changing and also recently namechanged, as I was bored with my original id)....just think it is a bit to easy....and people, possibly bored regulars, sometimes just namechange to shitstir.....

I namechange all the time. I started because a woman at mother and toddler group recognised me and talked about my posts all the time. It wasn't done in a nasty way but it made me feel uncomfortable. She knew things about me from before I met her and would bring them up as if it was something I'd told her directly. It wasn't deeply personal, more stuff like she would say 'did you manage to get the babygate you wanted' if 6 months earlier I had asked advice on types of babygate. She had obviously search under my posting name and read everything I had ever written . I'm not a troll and neither was the woman who 'stalked' me. She didn't see what she was doing wasn't very nice as she is a bit socially awkward. If it was harder to register it would still have happened.

I probably wouldn't post if I needed to keep the same name.

some trolls are quite funny, some are downright malicious and I'm sure a fair few 'trolls' are regular posters

you could give every new member a Temp Registration (and they'd have a name automatically allocated to them, like NewMember (whatever)) till they've posted for a month or posted a certain number of posts and then only allow them a name of their own choosing and the ability to namechange.

That might put off the hairy hand truckers who want to immediately post shit as it'd be very obvious to mumsnet HQ who they were if they had to have a temp name and we'd know that they weren't regulars who had namechanged.

Whatever you do, you start an us and them situation which is what I thought people wanted to avoid.

i think, like most have said, you just have to be careful what you post and recognise that as it is completely googleable and searchable, that if you give out too much info, people will work out who you are!

or you could have bands - fewer than 10, between 11 and 100 etc

I mentioned it on another thread....maybe making it impossible to namechange all the time would be better....although not sure how doable that is....think originally it was like that with Babycentre....but not sure...

and then a new poster could be regarded as a troll..........

true faq, a new name would have to be a new "poster".

I was initially for it but now I'm not so sure.

I would never have found MN if it had not been google-able - I found useful threads here when I was searching for a topic.
I would not have registered if I had not been able to look round and lurk for a while first.
I would not have registered if I had been required to give much more information than the bare minimum.

For me, changing these things would be a very negative step - another person out tere now like me would never find and join it, and would lose out on all that's good about it.

I'm often astounded by the amount of information about themselves and their DC that people post on here - sorry, but you can give useful advice and develop reasonable levels of posting relationship without that.

what a very strange tone to that post tc

i agree though that my suggestion would only help to people to decide whether they thought posts were genuine, so they might moderate their own responses. and might well be more faff than they are worth.

mazzy that doesn't really work on a forum where someone can name change as it kind of makes the anonimity of being able to name change a bit of a farce as you can easily find out who the person is by looking at the number of posts.

None of the things any of you are proposing, i.e. requiring registration, post counts, member since etc do anything to stop trolls. I have been using internet boards for over 10 years, of all sorts, both reg and non reg. And there will always be trolls.

If you don't want yourself out there, don't post. Otherwise accept that privacy is dead and move on already.

Go ahead, flame away. I don't plan on reading the thread any further any way.

some sites have a little number that pings up saying how many times someone has posted, or member since 1872 or something. that would help with troll detection and being kind to newbies simultaneously.

The potential loss of privacy is a concern. I don't post about terribly private things on here, but am on the conception boards so would not really like to be recognised IRL. But then I change my name a fair amount which may help...

The only solution I can come up with would be to have a section on which you could post only if you had been a member for a certain period of time or were particularly prolific poster. So in other words, similar to Moldies, but without any high-school popularity contest selection method.

It doesn't really work though - for example what topics etc would there be on the "private" section that were not on the public one? It's a pretty difficult one to think through.

Alternatively it would be possible to make parts of the site un-googlable (like the ectopic pregnancy trust does) and you have to be logged in to post there but having to log in is not much of a deterrant to those who wish to troll or stalk.

I think we all just have to accept this as a hazard of the internet. When I first came on MN it was clear to me that I wanted to remain anonymous, just as it was clear that some posters wanted to be noticed. The problem with being noticable is that if you give enough away you might have problems IRL. People just need to exercise caution for themselves I think.

I am very anti- anything more stringent in terms of registering

MN is what it is because it is open

Registering inevitably puts off as many good people as the trolls it might deter - probably a lot more.

I would always think carefully about how much I wanted to reveal, even with much stricter registering.

Moldies is a private group. It's a completely different animal. It will never have the "community" or the power - and I doubt - the longevity - that MN has. Its privacy will limit it.

Oh bloody hell this is rideculous!

afaik it has been mooted before by mnhq

Have you asked Mumsnet HQ

Do you think some people from mumsnet posting here will make it happen?

I would say it's up to them (Mumsnet HQ) how they change their site, certainly not up to us lot.

well I can assure that even forums where posts are totally non-readable until you've registered, or where none of the posts are googleable still have huge problems with trolls. So I do think it would be rather naieve to think that making MN readable only by registering would be kind of defeating the point of what makes MN so different from many others - that is that advice posted on here can be found via google.