to think that people on here are not rescuers and that they get far too involved?

[wannaBe]

I've just read a thread where a poster has said that if she had the money she would hire a private detective to track someone down to make sure she was ok.

I am constantly baffled by the lengths that some posters seem to think it is their right to go to to get involved in someone else's problems they've posted online.

In the years I've been here I've seen posters call ambulances/the police/social services/ask mn to track people down etc.

Apart from the fact that most drama threads are trolls, why is it that people seem to think that they have the right to get so personally involved in someone else's life without being asked to, purely because the person has posted about it on here? The whole aim of mn is that it's anonomous, surely?

Tbh it's like competitive do-gooding.

And that's before we get to the possibility of a poster being a troll and someone getting seriously hurt one day...

I never even considered the idea that the "helper" could have evil intent! I would totally dismiss this as paranoia, but the MN thing is SO big.....

wannaBe you are right..people could get duped and taken advantage of or even attacked and that's why i would advise caution before involving yourself with a situation, but I think that these things can happen in RL too and this should not change MN to the point where people are afraid to help each other...people are kept in fear enough already thats why someone can be attacked on a main road and no one helps...imagine all the people who would not have been helped through MN if ones urge to help did not overide the fear of the unknown..keeping yourself safe is the most important thing

Portofino, I started a thread before Christmas, when snow (finally) hit bits of the UK which were absolutely horrified to be disrupted in this way (was gently put down by a Scottish MNer - oops), saying we should swap help for snowbound people, and I could help in x area. I tried to be responsible by urging people to stop the postcode after three or four digits, but did have some uncomfortable moments wondering whether I had done something irresponsible, as the snowbound relatives could have been vulnerable.

It was in Chat, though, so is probably gone now, and I don't think anyone gave anything too bad away. Phew.

I was once tracked down (though admittedly not hard to do ) and had a mystery card (with a small amount of cash in it) put through my letter box by a MNer. (well it wasn't directly by the MNer is was via my vicar and her cleaner)

I have had some absolutely incredible help (mostly approached off MN - but they are MNers - many of whom I haven't met..........YET )

I have also offered to help (long time) posters.............but the buggers all turned me town

However - I do agree that some people appear to get carried away. Though I'd hope common sense would kick in in the """"'I wonder if there is a MN-er nearby who can come and help you', and I think who in their right mind will go alone to an address in the middle of nowhere, to rendezvous with someone called 'IAmAParrot'.
Or who, alone at night with a sick child, would give their address to someone they'd never met called 'CuntyPants' off the internet and open the door to them?'''''"

Scenario and someone would = FGS you're meeting in the middle of no-where you wanker

(yes the Victoria Station was a PITA, but wasn't really a risk in the same way........women's toilets at Victoria station at lunchtime were not exactly going to be prime serial killer time of the day)

Portofino it's probably easier to gain credibility as a nice person rather than the needy person iyswim. because the amount of people that respond to the person in need is less by comparison, partly because people don't want to get involved, partly because people feel that they can't get involved and partly because people (like me) are cynical of the over dramatised threads (talking cvq/dizzymare proportions here).

Whereas someone who just blends in as a seemingly nice person is less noticeable. The childmodelling woman for instance had befriended a lot of mn'ers, was giving them advice as to how to pick the right agencies, was displaying pictures of their kids on her website, had met up with several of them, a few were even moderators on her own forum iirc, and yet she was a suspected paedophile.

Similarly one of the reasons why people were so up in arms about sassysusan was that although she was also in need (as she was grieving) she was also supportive of others going through the same thing.

I've tried the "I'm a regulr but have namechanged" thing before........

But I'm REALLY crap at name changing and forget and end up outing myself within about 10 posts.........so have given up.

I did post for a friend last week (at her request) and name changed for that because of the details that I had to put in could have easily "outed" her) - but I was very careful and didn't post on ANY other threads until I had some answer

ahhhh yes the nice ones .

I think the key is to remember what you tell your children about the internet-be safe, don't give personal details etc

I don't do Farcebook so it's to remain just a name on Mn.

Stay safe people.

I don't do Farcebook so it's easy to remain for me to just be a name on Mn

oh balls.

Too much Friday enjoyment

MissRead you are safe, fear not. I may cower stand by the side of the pool but pushing would require physical effort and I don't do that! It would mess up my sheet of golden hair. :o

I do think that it can be a bit sad, with people having too much time on their hands.

Posters might be better going into real life and volunteering in their own community.

A machinating priest and a shadowy well-wisher... how delightfully Baroque!

Yabu, when my poor ds was not brought back by his father after the summer holiday, mumsnet is where I turned to in the first instance as it was the weekend and the advice I got helped me dh ind the courage to represent myself and to even know what to say......babybarrister in particular gave me step by step advice and was in fact THE emergency service for me. Not forgetting all those who just popped in on the thread to wish me well. It gave me so much confidence that people were rooting for me.. It was certainly not a competition of who could help the most! It was purely people who genuinely cared

I think this debate has split into two: (1) competitive helpiness and (2) the ethics of breaking the barrier of the "screen wall".

However I do get what you mean otoh. There have been threads where I have felt that surely this cannot be true, and reading your other posts seems like you have been here yobks and have sound evidence for feeling that way. I missed the victoria train station thread. Is it still up?

I do believe that people go to extremes eg tracking someone down with a p detective is extreme and you do have to exercise caution when meeting up with people. Personally I would not meet Up with anyone, maybe only from local mumsnet threads but I would try and help people online.

As for Riven yes it did go quite far off the scale however people were instinctively trying to help and I really don't think people knew where the post would end up from start to the end but I still believe if riven wanted to she could have stopped it getting so far where it went to the media stage as she kept coming on minute commenting , she saw how it progressed in the later stages eg twitter, facebook groups and finally tv. She could have said don't do it I don't want this but she didn't which maybe was because she wanted the issue highlighting. She has been in the press before.

I do believe that people go to extremes eg tracking someone down with a p detective is extreme and you do have to exercise caution when meeting up with people. Personally I would not meet Up with anyone, maybe only from local mumsnet threads but I would try and help people online.

As for Riven yes it did go quite far off the scale however people were instinctively trying to help and I really don't think people knew where the post would end up from start to the end but I still believe if riven wanted to she could have stopped it getting so far where it went to the media stage as she kept coming on minute commenting , she saw how it progressed in the later stages eg twitter, facebook groups and finally tv. She could have said don't do it I don't want this but she didn't which maybe was because she wanted the issue highlighting. She has been in the press before.

That was suppised to say riven kept coming on mumsnet throughout the time when people took it to the next level and seemed happy for people to contact mps.

That was suppised to say riven kept coming on mumsnet throughout the time when people took it to the next level and seemed happy for people to contact mps.

I think the one thing being overlooked here is that what you say and what you do aren't necessarily the same thing. The poster who said she would hire a detective doubtless would do nothing of the sort if the opportunity arose. How many times has this actually happened? How many instances of tracking someone down have occurred? Not very many.

feisty at no point have I said that people shouldn't give advice, have I? I've given plenty of advice/support on here and elsewhere over the years, have exchanged emails/have given my mobile number to some/have offered to send people things/offered to help out a mn'er whose dd had lost her sight and was struggling. I've only ever met up with one mn'er in rl but we'd been communicating online for about two years at the time. and there are other people elsewhere |I am planning to meet up with in the future.

Support/advice/friendship is not the issue.

The issue is when someone turns someone's problem into their own personal cause.

So let's take your situation for instance - your xh had failed to return your child, you came on here and people presumably gave support, some might have given numbers to ring, maybe even someone might know a lawyer who you could speak to and could have emailed the details or perhaps even exchanged numbers so you could talk to them. That's all well directed support, no-one would argue that. But let's say for instance that, instead of saying/doing all these things, a group of mumsnetters had started up a thread saying "I know, tell us where you ex and your ds is, we'll get a mumsnet collective together to go and snatch him back." While still well-intentioned, would you still consider that valuable support? or crossing a line?
A few years ago we had a troll who was fleaing an abusive husband in Japan. Mumsnetters came together to try to help her, and as her threads became more and more desparate so their attempts to help did as well. Initially it was all about getting clothes/money for her children. Then she said that she wasn't allowed a passport because her h knew someone in the embacy and she couldn't leave. There was serious discussion of getting her a fake passport so she could leave the country - people were actually prepared to break the law to help this woman they had never met. As it turned out, she was a troll.

I think people do get carried away because such a collective effort is contagious and people want to be involved. And rightly or wrongly people want to be the one that has made a difference. It's human nature - we all want to be seen to be doing good things and we all crave recognission in some way, it's just that for some that desire is stronger than others.

I think that riven couldn't have known how the twitter campaign etc would take off - the last time she was in the press there wasn't all this attention so she had no reason to think that that's the way it would have gone. Mnhq should have known though - justine's dh works for a newspaper, there's no way they couldn't have known how this was going, but once it had reached the media the genie was out of the bottle so to speak and it was too late to pull the plug. But hopefully the lesson will have been learned that starting up a campaign like that is a really bad idea. People would think twice about posting here for support if they thought that the outcome would be wall-to-wall coverage in the national press.

Point taken op, you are certainly right about some mners going overboard....in that respect yadnbu

I think all of this is just making everyone more cynical and not what we need on MN, especially right now. We are all adults, we all wear Big Girl Panties and are capable of deciding what is safe to do and what isn't. I think going on about this is just going to stop people getting the help they need.

If someone near me was in the 'formula in the night' situation that happened a little while ago, I would get formula etc to them safely - I'm an adult, I'm quite capable of doing that and don't need to be told I'm an idiot for doing it.

Tracking someone down using a PI is something entirely different and is just scaremongering - how many times exactly has that happened on here? None??

The person who offered to go and help R did so because R was saying she was alone and needed help. Many people asked who could go and help and one very kind person said they would if R wanted them to, she said it was no bother and could leave in 10 minutes, R was all over the place so she asked if others could help her find the house - in the end R said she was fine and not to bother going. It was not a case of the poster just deciding to do it off her own back.

Chipping, Only just seen thsi thread after I posted last night and need to say you absolutely did not offend at all
What woudl have offended if someone had tracked my detaisl or started some sort of thread asking for help for me without my permission, do you see [mwah] [choc] etc