Trolls

[SilverOldie2]

This is sort of about another thread, but not a specific one. AIBU to say that I simply cannot understand what people get out of coming on here and starting a thread which pulls on people's heartstrings when it is completely false. I've seen posters opening their souls on some threads where they are concerned for the OP and can't imagine how devastated they must feel when they discover that it was all a fake.

I'm not talking about those who post something so outrageous or funny, you sort of know it's not true and can have fun with it

Can there be any acceptable reason why they do it? Have you ever trolled and if so why? What the hell do they get out of it? I just do not understand.

I don't think anyone has said trolls don't cause damage.

It's possible to have sympathy for both those who have suffered hurt after being sucked in by trolls and for those who have been wrongly branded a troll when going through a bad time.

Just because I feel sad for what happened to Nobbly does not mean I don't feel sad for people who have been sucked in by trolls such as those on MrsDeVere's thread.

I have sympathy for both.

And yes I have been sucked in by nasty troll threads before. It made me feel like shit.

When I was trying to get some advice on what to do about an abusive ex who was threatening me and instead had lots of people yelling "troll!" instead that was also shit.

But I blame all the trolls who have posted about abusive relationships for that.

The reason we are given is that it's better to have loads of trolls all over the place than to have one truthful person doubted.

I have never said that and that's not what I think.

I completely disagree that it's better to have trolls over the place than one truthful person doubted.

I'm just saying I have sympathy for people who have been sucked in by troll threads and for those who have been doubted. That is all.

I do get that it's better to have one person incorrectly branded a troll and banned and have one person hurt then it is to let trolls run rampant and have hundreds more hurt. The lesser of two evils.

I just don't know who to believe any more. How do we know who is genuine and who isn't?

I've mentioned this earlier in the thread, but there is a another forum I frequent, it's a support forum. There is a poster there who has been posting there for about a year now. Before that she posted here but had her thread deleted and she was banned because it was concluded she wasn't genuine. She has posted things which do show that if she is a troll then she isn't just trolling online but is in fact lying about it in real life too.

Obviously I know people lie in real life so I have no clue what to believe .

Nobbly was a victim of the trolling albeit in a different way and unless MNHQ get a grip of the trolling there will be more Nobblys and more MrsDVs and more and more that only lurk or read and don't post.

It is interesting that Gransnet does not allow name changing.

You are right Toads it is the lesser of two evils but I think more could be done by MNHQ to alleviate the situation.

I agree there should be a distinction between trollhunters and trollspotters. It's a bit galling getting your posts removed and your wrist slapped when you're only stating the obvious.

I am in two minds about name changing. It's actually one of the reasons I like Mumsnet. I don't name change very often but when I get bored of my nickname and want to change I like the fact I can easily do it. However I don't have a problem telling people that that post was made by me under a different name and I have done before.

I also like the fact that I can name change if I want to talk about something personal or embarrassing and not have it linked to my regular posting name.

I can see why trolls would also love the name changing facility, albeit for a different reason.

I agree with Maryz last post totally.

So I have reported it to HQ in the hope that they come on to this thread & listen to what we are saying.

And because anyone who wants to troll knows that mnhq have that policy, they are free to run rampant here, knowing that they are very unlikely to be silenced, and that if anyone even questions them the questioner will be abused and called names, deleted or even banned. It's great fun for the trolls - a form of protected bullying imo.

^^ This, a times this. THIS is mn's troll policy. Whether they originally meant it to be or not THIS is the result of their ill thought out policy.

MN is basically a huge, out of control site which has grown and expanded quicker than they knew what to do with it. It's not one coherent site, it's multiple micro sites which each have their own rules and ways. Think how different aibu is from chat is from relationships is from S&B is from pregnancy.... better to think of it as a reddit style place with tons of separate sub forums than one monolith.

I think

1. the sub forums need a trim, or some to be amalgamated etc to control the sheer size of the place &
2. They need community moderators! Fgs if livejournal and reddit could manage it back in the day then a behemoth like MN can manage it now. Posters how have the capability, time and understanding to keep an eye on things.

They don't need to be given crazy powers, but the ability of a community moderator to pop on to a thread and say "This thread is raising flags, beware/Hey everybody stop being dicks and arguing/This thread is causing concern so we've frozen/hidden it while we raise it higher (to paid mods)" would help.

They could defuse situations before they explode. They can acknowledge people's very valid concerns about the level of trolling. They can control discussion and debate in a manageable way before the shit hits the fan and MNHQ eventually wade in decades too late. There's an 'official' visibility on the boards. More importantly - they are around all the time, unlike HQ. They see and live these threads, unlike HQ. You don't need to send them reams of details about suspicious looking threads and repeatedly raise the issue because they're not appearing halfway through an event with no clue, they were there from the beginning, unlike HQ.

Basically MN need to do something, anything, about their troll problem. But they say admitting it is the first step, and I don't think they do think there is a problem.

Well said Cassie

And a ruddy edit button would be nice too while we're at it!

Yes they can tell whether someone is a new poster or a name changer. They can also see all a poster's name changes.

maybe we need see sort of nethuns ticker to say how many posts someone has or when the joined

The rest of the internet manages it just fine dixie, I'm sure MN would cope!

I don't know what the answer is, but I'm uneasy to see it suggested that certain areas of the site should be visible to members only, if those "certain areas" include sensitive topics such as Bereavement and Relationships. Because, sadly, I think it's those very areas that may draw in some first-time, desperately worried and bona fide posters who are looking for support - people who may perhaps never have used Mumsnet before, but have Googled and seen that this site does provide support and experience in those areas. Surely, no one would want those people to be unable to access the advice that MN could offer them.

But I also see that these are the same areas where trolls may rampage freely.

So I think I agree with MaryZ and others who suggest that perhaps if lots of people (a dozen? 20? whatever) hit the report button in regard to a particular thread, MNHQ should lock/suspend the thread until they can investigate further.

Obviously, that wouldn't deter all trolls! But it might keep away a few previously banned posters.

"I don't know what the answer is, but I'm uneasy to see it suggested that certain areas of the site should be visible to members only, if those "certain areas" include sensitive topics such as Bereavement and Relationships. Because, sadly, I think it's those very areas that may draw in some first-time, desperately worried and bona fide posters who are looking for support - people who may perhaps never have used Mumsnet before, but have Googled and seen that this site does provide support and experience in those areas. Surely, no one would want those people to be unable to access the advice that MN could offer them." but anyone is free to join at any point, we already have OTBT which isn't searchable by google, so why not relationships and bereavement as well.

Personally I find it pretty offensive that the sex topic is considered more protected than e.g. bereavement, where you have to be a member for at least 90 days to post whereas bereavement is seemingly a free-for-all.

And posters creating new accounts rather than namechanging would still be detectable via their IP address, this is after all how mn manages to detect previously banned posters so this wouldn't be any different.

I like the idea where a post could be made anonymously but would be moderated first.

I agree with pretty much everything Cassie, Maryz and wannaBe have said. Make certain areas harder to access although as the thread that we are all referring to was in AIBU it would have slipped through, MN need to be far more robust when threads such as that are flagged, they should be hidden immediately whilst they are looked at.

Also think that the site needs to have a topic cull, there are so many topics where tumbleweed is blowing through, a time limit could be set and if a topic has not been used for a set period of time it should go, AIBU threads should be deleted after a period of time. MN seem to keep an awful lot of 'stuff' and this site is technically very flaky and unreliable at the best of times, I don't think they have the system to manage it all, make it less unwieldy and it may become more reliable.

WannaBe
I did read your earlier post about the person who trolled the other online forum you were involved with. And that was clearly a horrible thing.

But I don't understand from your posts how a newbie looking for support from MN could get that support if Bereavement and Relationships were to become hidden/non-Googleable topics, in the same way that OTBT is?

When they create an account to post they will be able to access the hidden sub forums.

I agree, btw, that a cull of topics would be no bad thing. Though I can't really see how that would help with the problem re: trolls (but I might just be missing the point here! - apologies if I am).