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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask about trolls

453 replies

HairsprayBabe · 16/02/2017 15:05

NOT a TAAT - just inspired by a certain one

Tell us about your fave MN troll

I liked the woman who had a dead husband who hand painted the childrens bedrooms, and now she was remarried she wanted all of her stepchildren to sleep in one room so that her children from her first marriage wouldn't have to give up their bedrooms even for one night!

Surely IANBU to ask what your favorite troll on MN has been?!

OP posts:
Maudlinmaud · 20/02/2017 11:52

I worked with a lady who went to her gp with severe abdo pain, gp examined her and told her she was in labour. She delivered a whopper of a baby a few hours later. It was the talk of the staff room for quite a while, none of us had a clue and she certainly didn't look pg... so it can happen.

WannaBe · 20/02/2017 12:11

The problem with trolls though is that while some posters may e outed as trolls because they are e.g. PBP's etc there will be others who continue to receive support but who are also trolls but who HQ cannot prove.

There was a long-running one last year which ran into multiple threads, and an awful lot of posters seemed to think that she was a troll but they kept posting on the threads until she eventually disappeared

Given MN couldn't prove one way or the other she will likely pop up and troll again in the future.

Multiple threads in a quick timeframe are red flags for me, plus sisters/mothers/close friends etc of the person coming on to post on the thread to thank all for their support, etc etc.

Oh and posting in the heat of the drama. Remember a few years back one who posted about her H having an affair and she'd just found out who was then outed after she'd posted that her H had just pulled up in the OW's car . Hmm.

Mind you the unmasking of trolls has changed somewhat. When I first joined MN trolls were pretty much outed on the thread. Dizzymare was publically outed as was judge flounce although it was before my time. But there were numerous others, and invariably back then it was impossible for HQ to be sure and it was often weeks of reporting before a troll was unmasked on the boards rather than just disappearing.

Things have changed now though.

PerryCoxHair · 20/02/2017 12:17

I have said this before and I will say again. I hid a pregnancy for 9 months. My friends and family will tell others that I didn't know I was pregnant. I did know. I just didn't tell anyone. I hid it. Not saying others are the same, but it is very easy to convince people you didn't know. No, I am not proud of what I did.

dontbesillyhenry · 20/02/2017 14:51

Vintage what happened with that thread in the end? I seemed to recall the babysitter saying the hospital and police were giving her all sorts of information which just seemed to be a total breach of confidentiality in reality

NerrSnerr · 20/02/2017 15:00

I'd also forgotten about the 'nurse' who was a long term poster giving loads of medical and career advice to people. Then she had a namechange fail on a thread where under a different name she had asked for advice about going to university to start her nurse training. It appeared that she was a nurse wannabe and had an online nurse persona.

As a real life nurse if I was going to pretend to do a job online I would make sure it was an exciting one. Maybe an actress or a pilot going to far flung places!

ElspethFlashman · 20/02/2017 15:08

Oh I met a couple of those Nerr whilst I was training. Calm down love, we're only in first year.

Met one the other day who had just (as in since September) started a midwifery post grad and airily told me that I probably hadn't needed my epidurals at all and it was mind over matter. She's never given birth.

Re trolls. God forgive me, but I've started to get suspicious of the influx of financial abuse ones. I never report them though as maybe I'm wrong. But I rarely comment on them any more.

WannaBe · 20/02/2017 15:18

Years ago there was a. Troll on here who claimed to be leaving her abusive relationship in Japan. Her username and threads made some kind of references to a fox. Anyway, she wrote a load of threads about how she was going to leave him but he was so abusive that she wasn't going to be able to leave the country. A lot of far too over invested posters got involved, organised collections of money to get her food and clothes, somewhere to stay, a mn'er to collect her at the airport. Someone even suggested breaking the law in some way to get her a passport.

Anyway I don't know how it all came out but it turned out to all be made up. IIRC one poster even spoke to her mum in RL and this was how she was unmasked.

But this is the thing. People become so over invested in these saga's, wanting to be heroes and rescuers that they are IMO in some ways responsible for the fact that people feel ok about trolling here on such sensitive and emotive subjects.

CommunistLegoOoOoBloc · 22/02/2017 22:01

HeadElf still posts, just under a new name...

justagirl484 · 24/02/2017 05:49

I have seen troll posts on AIBU. Poo crumbs, doing T-rex in the supermarket kind of thing. I tend to think when people post about serious stuff then I try to believe the poster unless they contradict their own facts very blatantly. For some reason it is always AIBU that gets trolled? I tend to see AIBU as useful for a bit of interesting topical discussion but serious issues are better posted in relationships or parenting etc where OP will usuallly be believed, but I can also see why posters would post in AIBU for the traffic?

ElvishArchdruid · 24/02/2017 05:58

I find it hard because some things just sound really out there. If you dare not stroke the ego then you and fellow persons on your wave length are up for burning on the pyre.

Buggies on buses, been done to death, thought I'd warn that OP before she gets a load of not again.

I guess somethings that seem embellished, like people wanting to sue, maybe those people think there's a genuine entitlement.

Maybe I should open my eyes a bit more over the generally chilled outlook I have on life.

ElvishArchdruid · 24/02/2017 06:03

I've upset some wee soul over the farm hand & TA post, but it does sound like a Mills & Boon book. I didn't realise people had such a low threshold for a laugh, on a post about squirting Hmm

Firefries · 24/02/2017 06:05

I haven't read all of this but I find trolls annoying. I wish they'd just say "my life sucks" or "I'm bored" and "here's a fancy/rubbish story because I need some attention." I really would prefer that. I like a basic "I want to talk" or "I want to vent" thread so long as they're genuine. It frustrates me to see a troll go on and on and draw people in who bring their own real stories only for it to feed some fake story. Anyway. Enough said. Other than that I don't mind mumsnet.

justagirl484 · 24/02/2017 06:07

ElvishArchdruid being chilled is good. Chill on....

a post about squirting Squirting? what is that???

Emmageddon · 24/02/2017 10:40

The squirting TA and farmhand thread reads true to me. A slightly prudish teacher eavesdropping on a risqué conversation between two members of staff who are flirting with each other, all under the guise of "won't somebody think about the children" Grin

CaraAspen · 24/02/2017 10:46

ElvishArchdruid

I've upset some wee soul over the farm hand & TA post, but it does sound like a Mills & Boon book. I didn't realise people had such a low threshold for a laugh, on a post about squirting hmm

A wee soul? Is that coming from another wee soul, then? How do you like that label?
Clearly the OP asked for the thread to be removed in order to avoid identification. But don't let that stop you from trying to be unpleasant.

CaraAspen · 24/02/2017 10:48

The teacher was not being prudish, by the way. She was concerned about unprofessional behaviour on the part of the TA person.

Emmageddon · 24/02/2017 10:51

Nothing unprofessional about talking in private. It's more unprofessional to eavesdrop and then broadcast it on an open message board.

But let's not argue eh?

CaraAspen · 24/02/2017 10:53

There were children around and EVEN if they did not understand the reference, they should not be exposed to it. The teacher was right.

CaraAspen · 24/02/2017 10:54

The TA is in a subordinate rule to the teacher and the teacher has every right to pull her up on her frankly unprofessional conduct. It is cringeworthy, too. Ugh

WannaBe · 24/02/2017 10:54

I think the thing with aibu trolls is that back in the day so called funny trolls were left to stand. Pirate sex, the milk machine one, hamster casserole etc. Everyone knew they were trolls and sort of played/laughed along.

Now we get posts which are equally outragious but A, people aren't allowed to suggest that they've just been started for a laugh, every post is a goady fucker or a troll, and any troll hunting, even on amusing threads is deleted and posters potentially banned, and the threads are removed with the same serious messages that serious vampiric trolls are.

CaraAspen · 24/02/2017 10:55

Corrected:

CaraAspen

The TA is in a subordinate role to the teacher and the teacher has every right to pull her up on her frankly unprofessional conduct. It is cringeworthy, too. Ugh

DelphineCormier · 24/02/2017 18:03

It really isn't that difficult to not realise you're pregnant until late on if you don't have any obvious symptoms. You don't have to be enormous either. I do think there's probably some kind of psychological link there, but actually not knowing isn't hard. Pretty terrifying, but not hard.

justagirl484 · 24/02/2017 22:10

I am vey fortunate as the trolls I have encountered on here are usually the silly harmless WTF? ones. I have never had someone on Mumsnet asking me for money or anything dodgy. But on Facebook I have had a lot of things like that. I think FB is badly regulated tbh and so much more personal.

ZackyVengeance · 24/02/2017 22:19

Wannabe do you remember the troll on the sn topic who got my dd a computer

WannaBe · 24/02/2017 23:41

Globetrotter? Oh yeah. And to my horror I had a fb friend request from her recently and we have mutual friends in common from the VI world. Shock.

How is your dd?