To think it's time MN becomes a closed forum?

[minipie]

So:

The bastard Daily Mail cuts and pastes very personal stories from MN, discouraging others from opening up and seeking support.

Trolls come on and waste everyone's time, increasing our cynicism in genuine cases and discouraging others from giving support.

Spammers jump on any related (or unrelated) thread and post a link to their crappy product, wasting MNHQ's time in weeding them out.

Hairy handed truckers come and get their weirdo jollies from MNers seeking sexual or physical advice.

Isn't it time we became a closed forum?

I appreciate that wouldn't completely solve all these problems - but it would surely reduce them.

Otherwise, I'm worried the site is going to die, or become limited to the most bland and anodyne threads (lentil recipes and so on).

This is a genuine AIBU - I am not at all techie so there may be downsides I haven't thought of.

Open to debate...

Internet forums by their very nature can never bee truly private.

And as others have said, MNHQ needs advertising revenue, so they wouldn't want to make it private.

What have the DM done now? They haven't nicked another story?

Sometimes it isn't possible to be too closed ,when needing help with a particular problem.
I guess the whole atmosphere would change?

I'm sure the majority of posters don't post on personal problems - there must be thousands of us who are only interested in style, food, property and funny stories. Why should we have our access denied? More gardening tips and knitting please!

what does PBP mean? could it mean... Pakistan border patrol? pot belly pig? practicality beats purity? peanut butter panic? puffing billy posse? all copied from acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/PBP

'less swearing'?!? Well fuck that for a game of soldiers. It wouldn't be mumsnet anymore.

You are aware OP that we are the 'product' not the customer don't you?

There has probably been more than one splinter board set up over the years to give a safe place to chat. They don't last the test of time.

OP here. By closed I simply meant that it can't be googled. Forum is only visible to those who join as members. No fee and no restrictions on joining.

Yes that would mean journos could still join, as could trolls. However I would have thought that the absence of googling would stop a lot of the laziest journos and might reduce the appeal to trolls as their audience would be limited. Also the hairy handers would have to join rather than just google.

Hmm I see the point about reduced ad revenue... Shame

Not read all responses, catching up now

Isn't going to happen. MN would lose too much money.

It's MN who allow the DM to use n their articles, isn't it? I doubt they'll stop as it's free advertising.

It would be financial suicide. MN want as much traffic as possible.

Yes Ginkgypig I see your point, it could lull people into a false sense of security.

Giraffe nothing, they could join but couldn't just google and MN thread pops up. They would have to do a specific site search. Appreciate that may not make it that much harder.

Any other ideas for stopping the bloody DM screen grab tactics?

OP if this was triggered by the thread earlier today that was a PBP apparently.

Hm. Yes, this (and other ideas) have been discussed many times in the 8 years since I joined, and v likely before then by posters who've been around when this here was all green fields….

I don't know what the solution is tbh.
There are enough 'closed' FB groups for all sorts of specific interests/problems.
Us posters need to be aware that everything we write is visible to the whole wide world and is copyrighted by MN.
Yy MN is a commercial operation, so need to maximise their exposure. Frankly, I think we can all either like that, or lump. Other fora/ums are available, minus the swearing

So, the conclusion I have reached for myself personally is don't give more of yourself than you can afford to lose, be than in time, personal information, privacy or tangible stuff like money/things.

But I understand your frustration, OP. It's been baaaaaad recently.

I can see why you might want it, but it won't happen.

I think MN must find it tricky to balance between getting those clicks and increasing traffic and making sure the site still serves it's USP of providing a supportive(ish) environment for parents. I sometimes think those two aims are mutually exclusive.

You start charging and any woman who is being financially abused loses their life line to other people

Any other ideas for stopping the bloody DM screen grab tactics?

Change your username to something involving 'Daily Mail' + "very rude word'; this tends to stop them from directly quoting you

Dame it was triggered by the DM story that that thread referred to. Today's thread was a PBP but the DM story was real and the original thread that it ripped off was real AFAIK. I just thought that was despicable of the DM and also would eventually kill a lot of open discussion on MN (and indeed elsewhere).

Ok, ok, point taken about the financial suicide and the fact that the DM and trolls can also access closed forums. Clearly IABU.

Now, how do we stop the DM?

Cross posted Pacific

Off to namechange

Lack of google won't stop journos. There's a search box here too.

MN can stop the DM but they don't want to. Anything we post becomes the property of MN iirc so it's up to them to stop it.

But they won't.

A while back there was a mass-namechange, and a lot of the posters whose NN still includes some version of DM changed then. This was after some particularly lazy and sneering article - which I can already not remember.
The only use for the DM in our house would be in the bottom of the ginuea pig cage (how on earth do you spell GP? )