Trollhunters: The bane of MumsNet

[TaiShanShe]

Several regular users seem to make it their life's work to troll hunt on MN, even when posts are quite plausibly genuine. It's becoming a regular occurrence for posts to be taken down just simply because of the sheer amount of reports a post gets, rather than for genuine cause. But what is this doing to MN? How can we expect people to be open with their expressions/feelings/ life stories if they are questioned for being trolls and reported if there is even the hint of disagreement etc. (Thoughts here are from observing the Parishioner and the Hat thread, but are also based on many other threads I've followed here)

I used to post on TES which was - at least in a former version - very tough and engaging - but latterly, and certainly nowadays, it is tame over there.

All that “Welcome to Tes” rot has been stamped out by the latest mods. There was always talk of a clique on that site and it certainly did exist - as it exists here. Still.

That “Welcome to Mumsnet” line is simply goady and an attempt to show off to your acolytes how clever you are, as a pp has said.

Actually, it is not clever, it is irritating at best and nasty at worst. It puts users who do not post on threads off ever daring to post. That is a shame and the clique are to blame rather than the so-called trolls.

The trolls and GF are the problem.

I remember sometime last year where a long-term poster had their post edited rather than being deleted with the usual "see terms and conditions" message.

That's something I suppose. The whole debacle last night would have been slightly less awful had some of the OP's comments been edited.

In all honesty, I didn't find the OP on that post to be rude. She was upset that her friend was upset and as for the misquote - I too read the line "you haven't had cancer yet" and thought crikey! I assumed bc springydaffy was a well known poster they were given the BOTD. On the whole, I thought the OP was treated unfairly by those on that thread who deemed that because she wasnt the one going through it, she didn't have a right to be upset/angry- which isn't "in the spirit of MN"

That's the level of troll hunter you get over there

They're the people the phrase "bunch of cunts" was written for!!

Well that's you're prerogative I guess OP. The majority of posters, myself included disagreed. If you honestly couldn't see how the OP calling this woman a fucking bitch and threatening to put her windows in and repeatedly dismissing in a goady manner those posters with cancer then you are as bad as her. The misquoting was absolutely done on purpose because there was no way in any shape or form did say Springdaffy say " you haven't had cancer yet " the OP missed off the latter part of Springdaffy's post which if Irrc was something along the lines of " you haven't had cancer yet you are making this all about you " which you would have seen as you were on the thread.

I'm also intrigued to why she NC to post her thread. The content could have easily outed her so this initself is questionable.

Years ago, I was a regular on another forum. As I'd posted quite a few personal details under my regular username, I decided to post about a sensitive personal dilemma under a new name.

When I came back to the thread, I was very surprised to see that EVERYONE had decided I was a troll. They'd picked my post apart and were accusing me of being inconsistent, mocking me and my grammar etc. But every word I'd written was true. I usually got on well with most of these people and saw them as sort-of-friends, so this was an eye-opener.

Personally, I've rather waste five minutes of my life sympathising with a troll, then act like an arsehole to someone who's going through a hard time.

Also, what's not often mentioned is that the troll-hunting posts tend to be deeply, deeply boring. I'll be interested in how the OP will resolve her wedding dilemma and someone will derail it by asking ten times why the OP called her relative Auntie Carol when she's actually Dad's cousin and why she said the wedding was up North and then said it was in Staffordshire. Clearly the OP is a liar. Yawn.

Than* act like an arsehole

Some of them are boring and some of them are highly insensitive and goady, some are also very hurtful.

MN is overrun with trolls. Almost every single day there's threads being deleted because they're bullshit. So it's hardly surprising that posters raise their eyes or call out the OP.

Yes once in a while the troll hunters get it wrong and that is obviously upsetting to the OP but the majority of the time those reporting a troll thread seem to get it right.

Are they right, though? I've seen a few threads deleted that I wouldn't say were troll threads, but they had deteriorated into personal slanging matches.

Yes a lot of them are right. Have you seen how often MNHQ pop up to say the thread is going soon as it's of the hairy handed variety? Or a PBP?

I can assure you it's very frequent.

Many of you seem to be discussing a particular thread. The good thing about MN is the selection of topics.
On the weekend someone posted a question on banks and banking, sensible question and answers then poof...not in spirit of MN message....no clue what went wrong.

Trolls are the problem, made much worse by the stupid rule that posters aren't allowed to call out obvious trolls, like they are on other forums. Instead people have to hint and ask questions round the issue. Oh and the continual name changing doesn't help.

Troll hunters are tedious and many I think are driven by the desire to look cleverer and wiser than others. Whereas they often appear more like bullies.

That said, mumsnet could do a better job, to take away the troll hunter vigilantes excuse that they ‘have’ to do it because mumsnet doesn’t.

Vigilantism abhors a vacuum, and mumsnet are providing the ideal situation for this type of behaviour, which isn’t the innocent and victimless behaviour people kid themselves it is. At its worst it’s a puffed up self justified harassment of vulnerable people.

As soon as you justify such behaviours then you allow yourself to behave in a harrying, unkind, and well, mass bullying and victimisation is never really justified.

The taste for blood and hunger tear someone apart is vile.

It’s got some shared characteristics with those vigilante paedohunters online who glorify themselves and their activities, not caring how much they destroy their victims lives when it transpires that their mark isn’t an evil childmolester, just an innocent old man. But it doesn’t matter how many real people they trample over & destroy, because the one or two big wins they get are worth the human cost. They’re often not that bothered by the nightmare they create for the prosecution afterwards either.

Anyway, I digress. Point is. Troll hunting is not the virtue filled community service it’s cracked up to be. It hurts real people and it adds to the culture of unkindness and pick picking apart of posters online presence to undermine and ‘win’ by deliberate misunderstanding and ignorance.

Mumsnet needs to step up.

Your logic is cock eyed Well. You're looking in the wrong direction. It's the trolls themselves that need addressing and the reason why posters are often suspicious.

IMO it depends on what kind of troll we’re talking about though. Wedding invite or some boring thread about children’s toys or the like then meh, not worth getting frothy over.

However over the years we have had some incredibly hard emotional trolls on here who have drawn people into their stories, stories of baby death, escaping abusive relationships, the kinds of things that people don’t dare question because the topics are so emotive that if you question their authenticity then you end up being the one looking like a bitch.

But on occasions there has been talk of collections for these people, posters driving out into the night to rescue them from apparently abusive relationships, sitting up wanting to know how the poster is because they have had a child with a serious illness/that has died.

And the reality is that there are two types of people who are drawn to those threads. The ones who have been through what the OP says they’re going through and can empathise from their own experiences, those are the ones the trolls often aim towards, but there is also another type, the user with a rescuer complex who wants to be the one who is there for the OP, who has sat up in the night worrying about them, who “thought about you as soon as I woke up,” and in truth those posts are almost as bad, because they keep the threads going so they can be the ones to be seen offering support. And those are the posters who often object to the suggestion that perhaps posting that your partner is coming up the stairs with a loaded gun while you type this full of fear and horror should maybe, just maybe, make them think how realistic that is????

Yes bang on Chaos. The posters who climb over each other to gain the attention of a poster who is in the middle of a terrible crisis - usually a child deathly ill in hospital, the OP in an abusive relationship and is having twins (!) or some other topic that is extremely sensitive, are often vulnerable themselves they just don't realise it.

There have been so many posters taken in and hurt over the year and it's those people that should be safe guarded.

Imagine if nobody reported or spoke up on a thread that was transparently obvious a troll? The board would be grid locked with them.

Chaos your right, i enjoy the troll hunting on the light “boring” as you called them threads. No one needs to spice the long sad sad situational ones.

Trolls are worse than troll hunters

If there werent trolls then there wouldnt be troll hunters

It's a pain especially when something fun and light hearted comes along and doom mongers, ock eye it's always troll... Who cares!

People have to mix up details.. Shake things up... Because of being outed and daily fail stealing stories... It's bloody obvious...