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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be shocked that HQ told me off for swearing?!?

156 replies

XXPowerShield · 11/10/2018 20:24

Not a TAT but will probably be deleted shortly regardless!

Long standing mner (I remember when all this were fields).

The day before yesterday there was a pile on in a single parent thread. It went on and on, real shit sandwich meanness directed at the op. Lots of supportive posters telling the unsupportive sorts to back off and OP rightfully pointed out that there was a lot of good advice too. I pmd OP and decided to report all the crappy posts to HQ so hopefully by morning the OP would have a nice shiny supportive thread to wake up to.

I cut and pasted most of my reports which consisted of "wanker" or "nasty vicious fucker" and got as many as I could before going to bed. It was a pile on, there was a lot.

I got an email from MNHQ yesterday telling me off.

Here it is;

Hi there XXPowerShield,
Thanks for all your reports, we are going to look at that thread now. We might ask the favour, though, that in future you stick to reporting for guidelines that are being broken because while we have no objection to swearing on the boards, 30 or so curse-laden reports weren't that pleasant for our staff to start their day with.
Best,
Hope
MNHQ

I am shocked, in the past when I have apologised for overly verbose sweary reports I have been told not to worry, HQ love the swearing. AIBU to be a bit Hmm at this response? Some of my reports were deleted but loads left standing including such gems as -

knowing that you were in this situation with three kids you decided to have another with someone who was not a DH, a life partner, who was clearly not able to support his child and neither were you.

I'm amazed at how little thought many women put into having babies...often with men they hardly know.

You didn't have to have four children with two deadbeats.

I wouldn't say the system is set up to fail, I would say that being a single mother with four children is intrinsically a losing situation to be in

what I dont get is if they were all wanted how comes the fathers dont bother

you decided to have another child when you already had ...You've made your situation worse,

I wasn't the only one annoyed by the stirrers on the thread (but maybe the only one who reported a bunch of nasty vicious fuckers to HQ).

I weep for humanity after reading some of these replies. ...One question to the benefit bashers do you want to live in Dickensian Britain?

I feel like I have missed a memo but am currently composing my reply to HQ but really how does one respond to the phrase "curse-laden"?!?

OP posts:
BehemothPullsThePeasantsPlough · 11/10/2018 20:56

They don’t have to be a troll for you to report them. Lots of perfectly normal posters occasionally cross the line into personal attacks when discussions get heated, and some people are just nasty/racist/disablist without being trolls. I didn’t read the thread in question but a lot of those posts might have been from unpleasant unsympathetic people rather than trolls. Still worth reporting for tone though.

VforVienetta · 11/10/2018 20:57

Tbh i don’t have a vast amount of sympathy fo the mods - i reported a threat made against me (“previousNN I will rape you”) and they included the quote in the subject line of their reply to me, which was pretty bloody upsetting to find in my inbox.
I can’t believe MN mods are offended by swearing, they’d be fainting at their desks if so.

Sowhatifidosnore · 11/10/2018 20:58

AIBU is a tricky one, post on there and people will have differing opinions and some of them robust. Doesn’t mean it needs reporting...

thisneverendingsummer · 11/10/2018 20:58

YABU to send 30 reports in with vile cuss words in each one. And 30 reports? Seriously, don't you have anything better to do? Confused

Itsnotmesothere · 11/10/2018 20:59

I agree with MargotLovedTom1 Grin

Original poster
XXPowerShield · 11/10/2018 20:59

The posts quoted are left standing, they are straight up bullying as far as I see, the ones taken down were plenty worse!

Actually I really do swear a lot in rl too.

OP posts:
thisneverendingsummer · 11/10/2018 21:00

Imagine being at a supermarket and the person in front of you is a bit rude to the cashier. When you get to the front of the queue would you then say,,, 'wow, well weren't they a fucking wanking cunt?'

LOL. Grin

thisneverendingsummer · 11/10/2018 21:00

Which thread was it?

busybarbara · 11/10/2018 21:01

So you were reporting a bunch of posts that don't contravene the rules at all and then n
mouthing off at the people who run MN? I think we can figure out where the bullying attitude is there Hmm

JennyHolzersGhost · 11/10/2018 21:01

You’re not BU OP.

GeorgeTheHippo · 11/10/2018 21:02

I think they have a point tbh. Your swearing didn't tell HQ any more than writing "unnecessary" or "personal attack" would have done. It would have been better to write that than to swear as you did. A bunch of sweaty epithets would be a bit much and wouldn't come across as funny.

Ginkypig · 11/10/2018 21:02

I think the issue is that the reports weren't clear that they are quotes from posts that you were reporting but instead just looked like you were calling the posters you were reporting names.

Report 1 wanker

Report 2 this poster is bullying and calling the thread starter a wanker.

They are very different things to look at without the context.

FrankIncensed · 11/10/2018 21:03

I love how precious some posters are about swearing! Agree OP, those comments were bullying and your swearing was very obviously not aimed at the people at MNHQ. I am actually quite confused as to why they felt the need to email you that honestly.

GeorgeTheHippo · 11/10/2018 21:03

However the autocorrect to "sweaty epithets" is for some reason amusing me 😀

Somerville · 11/10/2018 21:04

How odd. I often swear in reports (“creepy fucker here” and the like) and have never got anything but a thank you. I wouldn’t like to think I’m offending the sensibilities of a mod... though it begs the question how on Earth a mod would cope with modding a robust AIBU thread if they were that easily upset?!
If I was sent an email like that I’d probably stop reporting. I don’t have much free time to spend online, so every minute or two spent reporting takes away from my leisure time. And I’m sure that true for most of us - reporting is a small thing we do for the greater good of the community, and so we often dash said reports off as quick as we can. Insisting people write reports couched in the same language as TG’s will slow us all down and potentially make us less likely to take the time to report.

Cobrider · 11/10/2018 21:04

Were they not just of a different opinion to you though?
I don’t think MNHQ tends to intervene just because someone on here has taken a pounding.
I have been the victim of mass pile ons and it’s not nice but it’s not breaking guidelines is it?

Bluntness100 · 11/10/2018 21:05

I can see hq point of view here, I mean seriously how hard is it to report a post and just say something like this is bullying, or this is not acceptable. Sending them thirty reports with things like fucker and wanker as the reason for reporting would probably hack most folks off too.

Original poster
XXPowerShield · 11/10/2018 21:06

summer the OP wanted to keep the thread up because there was a lot of support in between the baiters but seriously it was a pile on from the off and it doesn't take long to go through reporting the bullying. I would encourage anyone to do the same but without swearing because that is not acceptable it seems.

Usually a pile on thread would just end up deleted but the OP wanted it kept for the good stuff so I was trying to get it cleaned up for her.

The reported ones were people being wankers, really having a go at the OP and making it personal, that is not supportive and against site policy. Been here plenty long enough to know all reports were definitely needed, just a shame there were so many crappy posts to report.

Reading the feedback here is reassuring and I will continue to report. I think the only reason mn works the way it does is because we stick up for each other when we need to.

OP posts:
Celebelly · 11/10/2018 21:07

I kind of get their point to be honest, and I love a good swear (I'm Scottish, after all!). I wouldn't be sending 30 reports with swear words in to someone who I don't know – while I wouldn't be offended as a recipient, not everyone feels the same, and it's largely unnecessary anyway. I wouldn't send a barrage swear words when complaining to a company about something, so I wouldn't do it when sending messages to MumsnetHQ.

GreatDuckCookery6211 · 11/10/2018 21:08

It just seems a bit odd to swear 30 odd times due to the content of the post you were reporting..

madmum5811 · 11/10/2018 21:09

All the coverage in the media showing up the potty mouths, may be making advertisers squirm.

AFistfulofDolores1 · 11/10/2018 21:09

Dunno. I love swearing. I'm told I swear a lot. I really enjoy some of the choice swearing here.

But your examples of what you wrote ... it's not so much the swearing, but the fact that it isn't modified at all, so it comes across quite aggressively. Well, it does to me, anyway. Couple this with the fact that you sent multiple reports, and it may have felt like a slew of vitriol - which the reader may have taken more personally than they might otherwise have done.

W0rriedMum · 11/10/2018 21:10

I don't like excessive swearing and think it's got out of hand on MN.
It's the "fuck off you wanker Tory" or whatever posts I hate. It kills debate stone dead and is hardly clever.

I know no one who swears like this in real life.

BehemothPullsThePeasantsPlough · 11/10/2018 21:11

MNHQ are always happy to look at reports for nasty bullying tone, and “You should have thought of that before you had the kids” or similar is often viewed as “not in the spirit of the site”, so definitely reportable though not in the way the OP did.

thisneverendingsummer · 11/10/2018 21:11

But which thread was it?