Civility, reasonableness, and those rules

Seriously: I don't think HQ is going to confront any of this or change the frameworks going forward. I think we all have to make a choice between:

A: submitting to the coercive control and performing endless linguistic contortions to get any actual feminist points across.

B: not submitting to the coercive control, taking your chances as to external reporting and accepting you'll eventually get banned.

I vary between the two based on little more than the mood I woke up in on any particular day.

Lang perhaps you and other well knowns like Datum might need to form a (very polite) private delegation to HQ... I’ve seen mods address you on threads quite politely, so they might be receptive - no pressure

I've had two (it might be three, actually, I forget) "if you don't comply we might have to suspend you" emails since the Limit Your Feminism rules came in so...

... perhaps there are better candidates!

MNHQ - do you still love me?

@MNHQ I appreciate that emailing posters when you delete them adds additional work.

Might your tech people consider writing a macro which auto-emails the poster when you press the “delete” button?

I.e. a generic “your post has been deleted, here is a link to the guidelines.”

Most people don’t realise their posts have been deleted, so they cannot adjust their posting style in response.

Thanks in advance (and please feel free to move to Site Stuff if you prefer)

thealternative

Yep

It must be that

The facility to email following a deletion exists...they just dont want to do it

Also, they then have to explain why, when often there literally is no rule broken, it's just not 'in the spirit'.

Basically, don't upset men and all is well.

Why rattle posters cages, just causes lots of awkward correspondence

Exactly

I am fairly positive that they DONT tell you they are deleting one of your posts because MOST people dont notice and they dont want to draw it to your attention

That’s a very interesting way of looking at it Rufus and one I hadn’t thought of. Makes perfect sense though. Why rattle posters cages, just causes lots of awkward correspondence

Well it seems very obvious to me

I get an email to say that they have deleted a post ive reported

They need to tell the poster concerned that they have deleted their post, they could use a traffic light system (which I appreciate may be a bit of a faff and not work) to tell you whether its a deletion bad enough for a potential suspension

I am fairly positive that they DONT tell you they are deleting one of your posts because MOST people dont notice and they dont want to draw it to your attention

you let posters know if they have had a post deleted?+
Yes – we'll mail posters when we delete one of their posts.

Ooh interesting. I mean it makes sense to let people you know you are deleting their posts. I wonder when they changed their minds? Want to let us know MNHQ?

That is so bizarre Girl as you are one of the most affable posters. I’ve noticed safeguarding posts tend to go (on a parenting site!?), it’s a worry.

Lang perhaps you and other well knowns like Datum might need to form a (very polite) private delegation to HQ... I’ve seen mods address you on threads quite politely, so they might be receptive - no pressure

I think you only get a message if the mod team is working their way up to suspending you. Which is lovely.

When I questioned my second known deletion since I joined MN (so years) because I got an email, I was told I “As this certainly isn't the first time that we've had to look into your posts, we will need to consider a permanent ban in future, should your posts continue to cause concern.” which was news to me.

got deleted for an allegedly racist post. I'd made a self-deprecating joke about the British being renowned for their bad cookery. I am British! It got reinstated when I queried it, with an apology.

I remember that! Even if you weren't British you're surely allowed to say our cookery is bad, it's just an opinion I'm sure we'll get over it!

I'm reminded of that old poem we used to teach schoolchildren so they'd feel resilient if anyone called them names:

"Baseball bats and grease fires
Will break your bones
But a misgendered pronoun
Is literal violence that will erase my entire existence"

It was something like that, anyway.

The guidelines currently only have this to say on pronouns, as far as I can see.

it’s clear that most trans people find the use of pronouns or names that they or others have consciously rejected, to be hurtful and would therefore struggle to engage in a discussion with those who insist on using them

I'd read this as saying that we should only fall foul of 'misgendering' if we actually know if someone has 'consciously rejected' a particular pronoun or pronouns - we're not psychic, lacking other evidence surely 'they' should be considered a safe neutral option?

Cf - I wouldn't expect a post to be deleted if someone called me a 'Cis woman' - I don't expect other people to note my preferences. However, if I asked them not to call me Cis and they persisted in doing so then I'd expect those subsequent posts to be deleted and counted as strikes.

So is the use of ‘they/them’ acceptable or not under the new-improved-subject-to-change-without-notice-and-or-at-the-whim-of-mod-on-duty rules? It’s like playing snakes and ladders with a toddler who’s suddenly decided to go up the snakes and down the ladders. I can’t keep up any more.

Something has to change
Well, a reasonable person might think that but I guess we’re not dealing with entirely reasonable people.

Another thing I wanted to point out: recently on this board something highly suspect has happened. A suspect thing that could potentially put highly vulnerable women at risk. Any regular on here would be able to spot the red flags and warning signs.

Such is the lack of trust and confidence in the mod team here and the security of the site generally - this has been dealt with by a flurry of private messages on other social media.

We can't trust MN PMs to warn each other because #emmagate. We can't trust the mods to deal with potential risks to MNers. We have no confidence that the mod team even has an understanding of the dynamics of their own website. We have multiple threads pointing these things out. There is no acknowledgement.

Something has to change.

I got 2 emails, both hinting at suspension, so my best guess is that they only email you if they're building a case to do that.

This would seem to be the case since others have reported exactly the same thing personally to me. And goes completely against the Special Shut Up the Feminists Rules themselves:

Will you let posters know if they have had a post deleted?
Yes – we'll mail posters when we delete one of their posts.

Just a PSA - you do not receive an email if you are deleted.

I noticed this, because there were only a couple of new posts after mine on one thread.

Why would you choose to not inform users that they had broken your rules?

Just a PSA - you do not receive an email if you are deleted.

I only realised I’d been deleted because I happened to scroll back through a thread, and noticed. So I “reported” my deleted post and asked for the reason.

This is why people end up getting suspended “out of the blue” - they had no idea their posts were deleted.

I wonder if we should be noting (in Bunbury or somewhere) if we notice someone has been deleted!? Like a community service type of thing.

"Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man.
You take a step forward, they take a step back.
Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man."

They've been digging at neutral pronouns since the guidelines came in. Because they got their concession from MNHQ and they did what they were always going to do when concessions were made - push further beyond forbidding speech to compelling speech. Because that is what totalitarian bullies do.