To think raking through a poster's old threads is despicable behaviour

[Behindthepaintedgarden]

There's a sideways discussion going on at the moment on another thread about this.

I've seen it a few times on here where two posters are disagreeing and one of them suddenly starts posting comments about previous remarks the poster has made (often months ago), or picking a tiny selection of threads the poster has started to imply that they're 'anti children' or 'anti weddings' or 'obviously have difficulties getting along with people'.

I remember someone doing this to me on another forum once and it creeped me out. AIBU to think it's horrible behaviour and a really cheap way to try and win an argument.

you can actually search out other poster's threads/posts?? Well I'll be fucked, I never knew that!! Does that include the various alias' that they use as well? Or just the name they are using at the time?? And how do you do it I can't even find threads I've started?

Use advanced search.

It's not difficult

I think there's a big difference between looking back through posts in order to say 'OP I see you've been through a lot of crap recently and maybe AIBU is not the best place to be at the moment' or somesuch, and doing a sneery kind of 'gosh OP you do seem to have a problem with children. Didn't you start a thread last month about kids screaming in restaurants?' kind of thing.
I go through phases where things are a bit quiet at work, and if someone took my posting history then as a snapshot of reality, they would probably see several threads posting about things that annoy me that I'm interested in guaging reaction to.
Whereas if they looked at another month most of my posts would probably be about books I'd read, tv programmes I'd watched, or jokey stuff on AIBU.
I have just never resolved an argument by throwing a poster's history back in their face, and I find it a bit sneaky and sly.

It is a bit sneaky and sly to use a posters history to win an argument.

I can understand why posters NC often to stop it happening to them.

No problem with it, personally although I've never done it. Although just about everyone name changes regularly, so how can you truly get their previous comments if they name change every few weeks so they can cover their tracks

There are, 'keyboard warriors' on every internet forum. I also believe the level of two facedness and hypocrisy on any site to be breathtaking.

Is it really and different to remarking to someone in RL, 'I distinctly remember you telling me......summat'

So, don't go contradicting yourself and backtracking now because of this particular subject, thank you.

We all have different opinions, we can all see things differently, we can all change our minds.

However, if it smacks of gaslighting which apparently only happens when men are doing it to women, then I understand why people would like to see their posting history on a similar subject.

I read another website where a regular poster sometimes checks the posting history of a contributor and asks, 'you've been asking this self same question for two years now, how about you get on with it ?'

It's a good way of pointing out who the timewasters are.

I do if someone is being a troll or very unpleasant.

If you imagine that we were all a group of friends all having coffee together then we would remember the comments our friends had made that think 'hmmmm, the other week you really running down a certain type of person and here you are doing the same again today, I'm not sure that I like you'. The problem with a forum without avatars is that it is hard to recall who said what and, with a few exception, build up your personality profile of a person like you would in real life.

YANBU

I was a victim of this a few months ago and it really upset me. A poster raked up something I'd said in another thread (where I was struggling with my newborn) and then used it to purposefully try to belittle and humiliate me. Thankfully the other MN'ers on my thread stuck up for me and said the other poster was really out of order for doing what she did but I was genuinely upset by the whole thing

Really couldn't be arsed to do it. However, I was once quite upset when someone " quoted" me to prove I was contradicting myself..but got my name mixed up with another Mumsnetter. When I pointed it out they never came back or apologised so I was left feeling maligned and not sure if people believed me! ( you can look it up to check it true!)

Yanbu. It's happens to me quite a bit because my opinions on a few subjects aren't exactly 'mainstream'. Glad to see that I'm not the only one who thinks it's a bit 'off'. :)

I've seen some posters who pick a particular topic and post on any thread which contains that topic. Usually unhelpful and potentially upsetting posts.

I have seen this too Eagle, and the topic I am thinking of can be upsetting and emotional and the poster I am thinking of just never accepts that it can be, and is rude and un helpful and repeats battering questions over and over and yet when they are answered she ignores if she does not like the ansa so YES in that case, YES say this poster has form, do not take what poster says - seriously.

I've searched people less times than I can count on one hand, but it's been because I've read a thread and thought jesus is that mil? dm? sil? I would never go back to the thread and repeat previous comments.

MrsD, I don't think it's so much fact checking that I find 'despicable' as taking comments from previous threads completely out of context to try to 'score' points against someone because they happened to disagree with you on another thread. It just seems really petty. That might be just me though - maybe for others it's being looked up at all that makes them feel stalked.

buds, we are on the same wavelength

I search people all the time. Don't see how it is despicable at all. If you don't want people to build an opinion of you then name change every day.

Do you know what else is really fun? When a group of people decide that they don't like your opinion and so MN etiquette goes out the window and the nice 'protective' thing that some of you get when people are attacking you no longer applies. They wilfully misinterpret you, accuse you of saying/believing/doing things that you don't and hardly anyone sticks up for you. They just stand back and watch certain posters stick the boot in as hard and as often as they can. MN at it's absolute finest. No doubt about that :)

I think its strange behaviour...dont those people have enough going on in their lives? After a couple of days Im hard pushed to even remember who says what. When people drop in comments about a previous comment/thread that has no relevance to current thread its annoying as it just changes the tone/discussion. But thats technology for you..some people take it very seriously, to the point of getting into huge arguments with people they are likely to never, ever meet...

I always thought it was very bad forum etiquette and against site rules......