to think we should have a "date joined" shown against our user names

[ssd]

so that those posters who clearly have joined in order to promote their political views only, are shown for what they are?

no matter what party you vote for, when you try to discuss something here, there are posters who are determined to close you down or present facts when they aren't true

I think the older posters here and the newbies too I guess, would appreciate knowing how recently some of these posters joined....or not as the case may be.

I dont mind getting into a heated debate with genuine MN posters, we cant all be on the same side, that would be very boring, but when someone suddenly joins a few weeks before the general election and is all over political threads saying the same thing over and over, it dampens debate and is shit, frankly

That's a bit of a controversial subject MaQueen, MNHQ are not having any of it. It has been asked for a lot and would be very useful IMO.

Hide Topic is good too, I have ten topics only now on my Active list.

Why would it be very controversial

Hang on I will have a rummage/AS as there was a thread in Site Stuff. Some people likened it to bullying.

I think it's a good idea.

An AS brings up loads of threads but this is one from last August

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/2717328-Hide-Poster-Function

What happens if people name change to not be outed but someone recognises their joined by date?

Lots of other websites have Hide User functionality and they are both unused and useless, because:

[Let's say for the purposes of this discussion that you are a regular poster on the MN wedding forum and it is plagued with a goady fucker/bullshit artist who is obsessed with Maui]

1. You block Maui, and it is pointless - she continues to rile up 20% of wedding forum posters. Even if you can't see her posts, everyone else can, and they respond to them, and quote them. So you still see her all the time, even if her actual posts are blocked.

2. You don't want to block Maui, because if she makes a dig at you, or starts picking on a vulnerable poster, you want to be on top of what she's doing and saying.

3. You don't want to block Maui, because you live in hope some day she might screw up and say something permabannable, and you want to be able to report it to MNHQ.

The best thing to do is ignore all her posts and hope gradually everyone will do the same. But they won't. Because the forum is too big and most people don't care as much about the wedding forum as you do.

If you are desperate for a wedding forum where you can chitchat without goady fuckers, you need to seek out a small private forum where your identity is verified, maybe over FaceBook, and the mod team and swift and brutal.

*the mod team is swift and brutal.

That is the best strategy.

Agree. I nearly put my fingers on the keyboard this morning when I saw a Familiar Poster spouting some drivel. But I thought, "Why give them the satisfaction?" They obviously sit there feeding off people's outrage.

Great idea!

Think it's a good idea OP. Another option, as is the case on another forum I'm on, is that the number of posts you've made shows up with your avatar.

You can set your join date to 'visible' on your profile page if you want to. (No need to put any other info on there if that's how you want it.)

Posters can see how long you've been here at a glance if you do this.

Number of posts? Hell no! I do not want to own up to that! :o

I was thinking exactly that SoupDragon

There are a handful of posters that if they show up on a thread I hide it or just don't engage with them because you know how it will go.

I am sure lots of people would like to hide me if they could.

SD do you remember that website that we could get up and it showed the leaderboard of how many posts people had made on MN in a week? I topped it a few times. Wouldn't make the top 100 these days.

I guess you could put your join date on the end of your name if you wanted to in the form of jdxyz. Laistejd3.11 for eg.

Not if you didn't post like a troll.

I am not sure if there is an implication that I do post like a troll, I would be the world's dullest one

I phrased it badly and was mainly responding to the OP who said that she sees new posters on political threads and assumes that they have joined just to post political views whilst pretending to be a MNER- is that not trolling?

I have been through an incredibly tough year but wouldn't post about it on here as people would think who is this new poster with the drama going on? Again without all the back story on MN people are likely to think that person is a troll. Ironically my back story on MN actually goes back about a decade and a half but most people won't know that.

No of posts ! Paxillin-who-could-have learned-3-languages-instead-of-MNetting [X billion posts] ?

I was accused last week of being a newcomer. I must have joined about the same time as you, Tw1nsetAndPearls.

Agree the shame of having the number of one's posts displayed for all to see. Like a public weigh-in!

Bit don't trolls tend to post a lot dramatic stuff. You could be a newbie who has had dramatic stuff happen - maybe you joined MN to discuss those exact events.