Hi everyone,
Thanks for all the points made and questions raised. We’ll try to answer some of the main ones.
It's always worth repeating that discussions where there are polarised views and feelings are running high are always particularly difficult to moderate. And we try very hard to treat everyone fairly, which is why we have the three strikes system. We're always happy to explain our thinking and look again at decisions.
On the subject of your original post Prodigal; yes, the reason for your last deletion was the use of the phrase 'TIM', nothing more. It’s mentioned in our guidelines on moderating threads about trans issues, and there's more discussion of it on this thread. Essentially, while we understand that not everyone will agree, we do regard it as an inflammatory term which is avoidable and as such, will usually delete it.
Regarding the phrase, 'peak trans': Again, while we will always look at context, it is a phrase that isn't likely to encourage civil debate, so we do sometimes delete it.
The idea of civil and constructive debate is at the heart of our moderation on this issue. We're trying hard to maintain a space for these important discussions, and a vital part of that is ensuring that all voices and opinions are welcome.
We know that pejorative words are often thrown at gender critical feminists on social media, but two wrongs don’t make a right, and on Mumsnet we think that by encouraging civil debate we can do better than this type of name calling, and we certainly don’t tolerate it here.
We will always delete posts that include negative generalisations about the entire trans community when they’re reported or when we spot them. This just isn’t something we can tolerate. There’s a very big difference between making thoughtful arguments (TalkingInTheDark’s post is an example of this) and posting pejorative generalisations about trans people. Posters who simply believe that trans people are weird, or shouldn’t be allowed to express their trans identity, just aren’t welcome on Mumsnet.
While many sites have not been able to continue to host this debate, thus far we have, despite fairly significant cost in terms of time and money. We’ve done so because users have, in fact, largely been able to discuss feminism and transgender issues without breaking our guidelines. We very much believe it is possible to make pretty much all the points that you have raised - both in this thread and across the boards - without falling foul of our guidelines and the three strike system.
On the issue of reporting, please be assured that the person reporting is not at the forefront of our minds when moderating. We simply look at the post in context and apply our guidelines to decide whether or not it warrants deletion.
With regards to quoted posts that are deleted, no, we wouldn't usually send strikes for those. We add to the deletion message if quoting was the reason for a post being removed.
And with the concerns about new posters 'stealing names', do always drop us a line about that as it occurs, we’ll be happy to take a look.
Sadly we are finding it impossible resource-wise to send an email about every deletion we make on the boards, so we can’t promise to do that but if we're issuing a strike we will always get in touch. I also want to stress that there is no difference in weekend moderation - our whole team has many years experience in moderating online communities and works flexibly across weekdays and week-ends.
I was genuinely saddened to read the comments accusing our moderators of coercive control - nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a challenging topic to moderate and as mentioned, it's not easy for us to host and be at the centre of this debate and legal and commercial fall out that comes along with it. But we believe that Mumsnet absolutely should provide a place to discuss an issue that is an important one for so many women and parents. Thanks to all those who have expressed support and cooperation in following our guidelines in order to help us to continue to host this conversation.