Reducing Moderation Load for MN (continuation of Dealing with Inflammatory Posts)

The idea that a feminist forum should function like couples therapy is pretty weird.

🤣 'They' would like that, wouldn't they? 🤣

It is horrifying to think that you have to be THIS good at talking to be allowed to talk at all

Excellent point.

The idea that a feminist forum should function like couples therapy is pretty weird.

i once read an interesting guide to making comments online ... something along the lines of summarising the other person's POV to show you understood, stating where you are in agreement and only then putting forth your opposition.

My head reeled when I read that. It's the kind of thing counsellors do, and it's not only patronising, life's too short. I don't have a notion of summarising 'the other person's POV'.

Well said, AntiGrinch.

We are seeing a lot of DARVO, coercive control and other behaviour straight from the Duluth wheel. It is very worrying that naming it as such is becoming forbidden.

While I identify with posters who say there is a certain satisfaction in skillful and unexceptionable forms of expression, I worry that this is itself exclusionary

I said on another thread that I have literally made a career out of burying unpalatable truths in enough cotton wool that I haven't given sensitive men justification to go on the attack and discount the content of what I am saying.

Like everyone who is 46, I do the work I do to a very high standard because I've been practising for decades.

(Meanwhile, I can't do ballet, nursing, translation, bricklaying, accountancy, or anything else that other people have been getting better at for decades.)

It is horrifying to think that you have to be THIS good at talking to be allowed to talk at all

Antigrinch I've been in a similar situation and feel exactly the same. These tactics are abusive.

And that's why TRAs are lashing out on social media now, because they can see how many women are getting ready to leave (their ideology behind).

That is a button hit for me too, anti , that this is the unequal standards of behaviour, treatment, entitlements and respect absolutely central to a m/f abusive relationship. I've always thought Lundy Bancroft would have no trouble understanding all this. That dynamic is a very familiar one to women, and it can feel like being forced to co operate with abusE.

But if MN is pushed to end this conversation altogether it doesn't help us. I think this a bide our time and keep on keeping on as many women here understand the meaning of when quietly planning to escape an abusive relationship. Abusers are at their most dangerous when they know you are escaping them.

I too would love to know what the pressures on MNHQ are and how they are exerted by whom.

I also think it is important to be really conscious of what is actually happening here. I know you all know but I'm going to spell it out anyway. This dynamic was pointed out by Sarah Ditum a long time ago. The WHOLE FWR board - a consciousness raising resource for and by women on feminism in general - is now hidden from the wider public. Further marginalising these issues and further limiting their discussion.

Trans issues are being used as a LEVER by [whom? don't know - don't know what these pressures are] to shut down FEMINISM IN GENERAL

Do MNHQ grasp this? (I know you all do) (Do they care?)

Again - this is personal - I am out of a long abusive relationship in which one of the repeated motifs was that I did not express myself suitably to deserve to express myself at all. I apologised for getting angry, I apologised for raising the issue at the wrong time, too indirectly, not clearly enough, too directly, too loudly, too humourously and too humourlessly, and I sobbed "but WHEN can we talk about this? You can tell my all my faults now, again, if you want and I will listen and I will try to be better but WHEN can we talk about how desperately some things aren't working for me?" the answer of course, was NEVER

Meanwhile, in the rest of my life, NO ONE. literally NO ONE has told me that there are problems with how I express myself; that it is impolite, unclear, or even inelegant. This applies at work, in academia, in shops, talking to my children's school, chatting on the bus.

There are two situations ONLY in which I live under this "bad communication style" cloud:

1 when in an abusive relationship with a man
2 when trans issues intersecting with feminism are afoot

Of course hiding FWR is nothing at all to do with the Maria McLachlan case in the courts at the moment. Or is it a coincidence that MN take it out of active for just that week I wonder?

Hiding the "Adoption" board from Active worked well, because it meant that posters who were on MN searching for somewhere to be troll-y tend not to find us so much. You have to know where to look to even be aware that such a board exists.

Hiding FWR from Active will make it a bit harder for those troll-y GF to find it to post on, but I suspect a lot of TRAs come here direct from other places and I wonder if MNHQ analytics are able to tell how many come from, say, Twitter and how many get here through navigating the Talk topic list or by clicking on an active thread.

I know that since the Adoption board was hidden I dont' post on there nearly as much, and tend to pop in from time to time and then see a long and interesting thread that has been running for a while without me knowing. It feels as if the pace of posting on there has slowed right down, though perhaps that's an inaccurate perception. (Again, perhaps MNHQ have data on activity pre- and post-hiding for the Adoption board and the others that are similarly protected from the casual user)

Have you never seen how nasty the threads about Gypsies can get?
Ew. No.

I think that's meant to be tea but since we don't seem to have a coffee smiley it'll have to do! It identifies as a big cup of artisanal super strong coffee.

This is really disturbing. I think FWR is an important resource for women of all kinds - why hide it? What does it mean that there is a 'combative tone'? What on earth does that mean, and can MNHQ be more specific? Does that just mean people disagreeing with each other because that's actually just free speech (have you heard the House of Commons? If that's not awash with a 'combative tone' I don't know what is). I've mostly seen people on here being respectful to be honest.

I came to MN as a second time new mum. As a new mum to a baby with a minor but time consuming health problem, I was averaging a few hours sleep a night. Add in problems with other parts of the family and there was no way I could be politically active in any way in RL. MN gave me one way to be politically / intellectually active thanks to simply interacting with the amazing women on here who provide evidence I can follow up from the laptop, and suggestions of petitions I can sign and letters I can write.

There must be loads of lurkers and posters like me - we've found a place we can discuss feminism whilst also juggling doing all that mountain of unpaid caring that means we really, really need feminism.

Probably not putting this well, still chronically sleep deprived.

Ah, but the people who other commenters aren't being kind and conciliatory to in AIBU are female. Apparently that's OK, it's failing to defer to male people that's the problem.

Being dysphoric has a level of "upsetness" built in surely. Empathy is needed. That is not meant to be goady.

Have you never seen how nasty the threads about Gypsies can get?

But does AIBU routinely upset whole categories of people, unless you count mothers-in-law?

Echo echo echo

The idea that I would only listen to one aspect of an issue is frankly risible when I get paid to research.

Sorry boss, no idea what anyone else thinks, I just made sure I was checking with people that thought the exact same thing as I thought before I had even thought about it.

No one is going to pay me for that research!

Women talking together is never an echo chamber. We don't all always agree because we are feminists.

I was sign posted here by an acquaintance who was ‘peaked’ by following a thread on active and discovering these boards, and reading them.

He wouldn’t have known about half these issues, and he wouldn’t have been able to point me here when I started expressing frustration at how things were going.

I would be very upset if this board was essentially ‘hidden’ from the rest of mn. It would take away a fantastic resource, turn us into an echo chamber, and ensure no one else can find out the facts of what is happening.

Why? AIBU could be argued to be upsetting to a great variety of people at times, the reports must be high but you don’t hide it?

I agree that I’d want to know who is behind applying this pressure, and why MN seems like they may be capitulating.

There was a phase when people felt quite freed by the building consensus, which was actually supported and championed by the very prominent transwomen here and at meetings, that we could and should speak about male and female biology.

I think this released a lot of tension and was a bit of an outpouring based on relief TBH, especially as many felt strongly that compelled speech is very frightening. If there is a fear it is of that. Not of people.

It's a bit bonkers really that talking about biology is controversial and I guess it looked shocking if you had socialised yourself out of it. Frankly I had missed the memo where reality had become unacceptable, must have slept through the last ten years.

As is the way, things settle down.

I joke a lot, but I try to not insult. If crisp is snarky then I try to be a bit subtle rather than snark but I respect crisp has come here to talk.

Just sayin.

I do think that MNHQ have been awesome so far and I appreciate the tightrope they are walking

But i will be disappointed if FWR is 'closed down' in effect

Thats wrong but I can't think of another way of saying it