Justine says MN is too mean and will tighten-up moderation

[noblegiraffe]

Justine posted this on a low-traffic thread in AIBU and I think it deserves a wider audience than it is currently getting, especially as it is asking posters to report low-level sniping and pile-ons. Perhaps a bigger announcement is planned, I don't know.

"Thanks for raising this - it's something we've been discussing internally as we've noticed the same shift you’re describing and we agree it’s something we need to get a much firmer grip on. Debate is part of Mumsnet’s DNA, but unnecessary meanness isn’t, and it helps absolutely no one.
We’ve already put a plan in place to tighten things up. It’s not just about deleting the really obvious personal attacks, but tackling the low-level sniping and pile ons that drain the life out of threads and discourage people from posting in the first place. That means more proactive involvement from us earlier in a thread, not just sweeping up afterwards.
One thing that really helps is reporting. There are around 25,000 posts a day on here, so we really don’t see that much in real time. If something feels off, please do report it. We promise to read things in context and we’d much rather step in early than let a thread spiral.
Most people on here genuinely want to give support or perspective. When that gets drowned out by needless nastiness, everyone loses. So thank you to everyone who’s raised this. We hear you, we agree with you, and we’re working on it."

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5442610-the-current-state-of-mn-and-how-do-i-stop-reading?reply=148524522&utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

I think a lot of people read more into the post than is meant and get offended because it is something they are sensitive about.

that goes for I hate my mil threads as well as other things!!

Thank you @noblegiraffe for starting this thread.

I want to agree with all @BIWI's posts (there were other posters too) re AS.
Sometimes you click on a thread that's really juicy (for example, a CF thread with loads of real time updates).
Let's say hypothetically it's about a CF mum asking for ridiculous favours. Giving lifts to a club that both the DC attend, or something
The thread starts filling up quickly.
Then a poster will say but you've posted before saying you're childless.
So it's made up then.

Trolls are a MASSIVE problem on here, I feel.

I love mn, I do.
But i hate how bad mners are generally with shades of grey. I've posted about this before (under different uns).
There's so much on mn which is black n white. Various tropes.
I hate there's no nuance

Well that's the thing. Mumsnet isn't moderated. They rely on reports.

I don't actually agree with having mods, despite being one myself in the past on a large site. Mumsnet is far too big to bring effective supervision and it won't suit the overall interest in the place.

What we need is clear guidelines on what we report now. There are far too many muckrakers on here and a lot more MRAs than we think.

But reporting is easy, if you're not happy with a poster then report their posts for someone with backend powers to look at.

God I hope so. There's some horrible stuff said about us.

That's the point. You report a poster saying that they're on the wind-up all over a thread and they say 'that post has now been deleted' or 'thanks for letting us know' and that's it. They only look at the post you reported, when you want the whole lot deleted. Reporting a single post is easy. Reporting multiple posts is not.

I absolutely do get where you're coming from. I do think admins should take an interest in context and look further than the single report.

That doesn't happen right now. I'm hoping that can change.

You can even say in the little box 'this poster is being a twat across the thread' and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

I wonder if the little box even gets read or if they just click to read the post, click 'delete email' or 'brush off email' according to whether it's an obvious personal attack or outrageously racist rant or not and then move onto the next report.

Is the definition of a troll purely the OP? Because there are people who troll on a thread and I don’t think you can report them as such?

You can report any poster on a thread, not just the OP

True, I've come across a couple of particularly dedicated "serial derailers" of threads but when discussing their antics in yet another thread, my post got deleted, apparently because I called them "trolls", which by any metric they are, but MN's piecemeal approach leaves them free to spew their copypasta interminably.

I’ve seen all posts deleted a couple of times (generally when the reported poster is a blatantly obvious troll or pervert), but I agree that it would help for this to happen more often.

There was a rampant poster earlier this year who was contrary and unhelpful on every thread they posted on, but just about tiptoed along the line. They did eventually post something ablist enough to be reportable and I did state in the report that they were always goady and contrary but tended to toe the line on the reporting threshold. The comments on that thread were deleted and I haven't seen that username since.
It wouldn't surprise me if it was a PBP which would be easier to take action on.

There are too many posters just looking for a foothold to stick the boot in for the sake of it.
MRAs have increased in recent years too.
Times like elections always bring a swathe of dubious threads that don't feel like genuine discussion.

After reading this whole thread the whole situation appears to be impossible, no one on here can agree what is acceptable and what isn’t, the only way is to ban any threads on immigration/benefits/politics/autism/SEN/ Israel/ Trump and even bloody Strictly and Telly addicts, the list goes on, basically hardly anything will be left, even on this thread posters have been accusing each other of gaslighting or shutting down, which the other poster denys, how can you moderate perception? You can’t it’s impossible.

Mumsnet moderation used to be much better. They’ve done it before so they can do it again, assuming they want their site to be valued like it used to be that is.

When were they better at moderation?

Absolutely. It's the tagging.. if you say anything that isn't full on denial of the existence of trans people then you'll get 30 plus tags.. and many if thise will just be some sarcastic comment so not even worry reading. But it becomes not worth it to disagree because there's no debate going on there. Just people patting each other on the back
And whilst yeah there are reasonable people with reasonable views i just happen not to agree with.. there are also quite a few deeply hateful people who say genuinely harrowing things about trans people. And it's just left up. And the 'reasonable' people just pretend it's not happening.

I have been a moderator, and I think it worked best when there were about a dozen of us, so there would almost always be a couple on duty, reading various sections and removing or giving warnings, with the power to remove repeat offenders, exceptionally bad ones, and spammers immediately.

We were also contributors, but had to keep our moderator identity separate, as malcontents like to hound and abuse people who have ticked them off.

I have also used media where posts from new members have to be viewed and approved before they are published, which is a good way of screening out scammers and nutcases.

Some technical groups do not allow any content on politics, race, religion, knitting, cat videos, photos of meals, etc. They seem remarkably trouble-free.

And the 'reasonable' people just pretend it's not happening.

I think this happens a lot with a lot of the 'contentious' topics. I've seen "I don't see any antisemitism, just criticism of Israel" when there is definitely antisemitism being posted. Or "I don't see any racism, just genuine concern about immigration" when there's definitely racism being posted. Or "I don't see any transphobia just discussion of women's rights" when there's definitely transphobia being posted.

I'm not entirely sure why it happens.

Agree. The Sara Cox thread was messed up.

I don’t understand how people can be so bitter about someone doing something selfless and raising millions for children. I find the mentality thoroughly depressing.

I remember one forum used to.move your thread if it was in the wrong section
.Don't know if they still.do. Anything goes on AIBU.
Would like to see the Christmas threads on the Christmas board.

Perhaps in the longer term, MN could incorporate some sort of AI assistant to scan the threads and help flag up potential issues more promptly. This would enable them to be more proactive and rely less heavily on users reporting. You'd probably still need a real human to make the final call, but it might speed things up.

In an ideal world, an integrated AI tool for MN users could also flag potential issues to posters before they publish their posts, and maybe offer suggested amendments. E.g. the "assistant" could suggest edits (which could be rejected) to make a post sound less racist/less ablist etc!

Too much? Maybe, but I can't sleep and was just pondering the question of why some people seem unable to express their concerns about immigration without sounding racist. I experimented with putting a couple of posts from the Shabana Mahmoud thread through ChatGPT and asked it to make them sound less racist. It actually did a pretty decent job!

I agree. And quite often the posters who complain about “being shut down” or “piled on” on FWR threads, conveniently forget to mention on these type of threads that they did not pleasantly and politely express their reasoned opinion to get such a response, they posted goady and/or abusive shite and therefore people either responded in kind, or posted to refute whatever nasty smear they had made about women on FWR/the thread in question.

It’s awful when people are attacked for poor grammar or for struggling to express their views. In real life, if someone came to you with a problem but had trouble putting their thoughts into words or didn’t communicate the same way you do, would you attack them instead of trying to understand them? It’s troubling how people speak to one another when they’re hiding behind anonymity. It’s like road rage, the kind of hostility you’d never show face-to-face but feel free to release when there’s a layer of distance or protection.

A few days ago, there was a thread here that ended up being deleted. The original poster was completely torn apart, accused of being drunk and vain, and mocked for their grammar. All of that happened simply because people were triggered by her her topic (which wasn’t an abusive or offensive take) and wanted to silence her. If it’s a topic that bruises their ego, their internal rot surfaces.

They quite literally come to FWR because they know it's largely gender critical, then complain about being "shouted down" or "piled on" because they get a lot of gender critical responses rebutting what they say. One of them has said openly that their mission there is to be a TRA voice in a GC space. And that's fine, that's allowed, but it really doesn't follow that they should get then get cross about it.

If TRAs hadn't spent so many years declaring "no debate" and getting people sacked, cancelled and pilloried for wanting single sex spaces, they wouldn't have created such strong pockets in the vanishingly few places you were still allowed to say it.

I think the biggest problem is that everyone seems to assume bad intent these days.

be that in response to an OP and the thread ends up in a frenzy despite very little information from OP

or in response to someone wording something in a way that reads wrong and rather than a kind discussion around it there’s an immediate accusation of that person being a bigot or whatever.