To feel I can’t post here anymore without changing my user name every time I post.

[ThePlaceToVent]

I don’t know if anyone else feels like this.

I have been posting here for a good 10 years (think I deregistered once or twice).

It has always been a good place for me to have a rant.

I have accepted you will get flamed a bit and get unnecessarily attacked.

But recently there seems to be a hobby of trawling through posters posts to “out” them, prove them wrong, attack them or, for me, which happened recently to put them in RL and humiliate them, which leads to posters constantly name changing and for me has lead to shit in RL because someone chose to out me in my RL.

Surely we are all posting here to vent in an annoymous space - so why are doing this to each other?

Surely the talk guidelines and the forum etiquette are that you leave someone be to have a vent or you let them know privately you know who they are so you can deal with it with no harm done in RL?

The attacking is increasing the name changing which decreases the trust and the long term recognisable posters.

I never post if I feel it is too outing, I don’t see what changing your name will do.. if someone recognises your circumstances, game over....
It is annoying when you get the little fbi squad who do hours of scrolling just to find out something your wrote 4 weeks ago because they have nothing better to do, luckily not happened to me but I’ve seen it on other posts.

I agree with you OP. It seems to be some of the same posters who often pontificate that MN should be a supportive place for women who trawl through others old posts and don't see it as intrusive as all to bring their miscarriage or marriage problems into an AIBU about declining a wedding invitation or something

I name change very regularly. This is an anonymous forum- I dont wish to be identifiable but, equally, I'm not interested in MN 'personalities' or looking at an individual's history. If a poster wants us to consider previous, relevant posts, they can refer us to them themselves.
You get the self-appointed MN prefects on here, of course, which is one thing. But what you describe is another level altogether and definitely not in the spirit...
Report, name change and move on.

There are a lot of trolls so I do understand mn being cautious.

I only name change if I’m posting about something particular to school. I wouldn’t want to be recognised by one of the parents and then my posting history read. I put a lot of stuff on about my private life that I wouldn’t want to be public knowledge to all and sundry. I’m sure they’d be horrified. But I don’t want people to know how ill I actually am or my treatment as a child.

I understand how you feel. That said, Sometimes I advance search someone and find they have no posting history. In this case, I have reported a couple of times or if I’m really sure it’s dodgy, tell other posters it’s a first post. Most discrepancies outed are pretty extreme such as the op saing they got married last week but their fiancée died yesterday iyswim. Bad example btw.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to re-consider what / how you post, OP.

This worries me.
MN is moderated so people can see triggering comments or remove the trolls. Why shouldn’t you have an option that others disagree with.

and don't see it as intrusive as all to bring their miscarriage or marriage problems into an AIBU about declining a wedding invitation or something

Can you give one actual example of that happening?

If people are pulling irrelevant details onto a thread you can report it.

Mini".. ive never changed my name either (mainly as i dont know how but also dont see the point, im not famous just a mum with one dc who has found mn interesting, educational, ignoring sometimes but benefits outweight negatives). I try and avoid things i dont agree with and know my view point ill be flamed.

Alśo op...if there are mntters who have time to trolll through and read previous details says more about them than the ones they attack.

@Frenchmontana I'm not going to bother looking through threads to provide you with an example. This is the kind of thing I mean, people are talking about their private lives and others want to use their posts to make some kind of point

I cannot understand why people TELL you they have name changed, what is the purpose of that?
OP I agree with you, this place is a haven of people with A LOT of time on their hands and you need to find poeple IRL to help you with serious issues you may have as on here you really do have no idea what is real and what is not. Who is who and why they do what they do, it is a virtual world and when you treat it as such it is not so bad!!!

It's not what you are talking about.

I have never seen on mn someone pulling a miscarriage into entirely irrelevant thread.

On the odd occasion (been here 10 years) someone has pulled something irrelevant, but nothing like a miscarriage, I have seen posters point out that's incredibly unfair to do.....and mn have deleted it.

If you make claims something quite awful happens, you would have an example.

As I said, if something is totally irrelevant, then report it. But if people want to look more into it. That's up to them.

And sometimes it's entirely relevant.

Getting round it is easy. Name change. It takes 2 minutes

YANBU! I also have some nosey colleagues who like to try to find out who people are. They’ve told me ‘jokingly’ that they’ll find me one day so i just tell them I don’t post.

See you're now acting like the self appointed prefects of mumsnet that someone referenced upthread Frenchmontana demanding proof because of course if you have no experience of something happening then it never happened 🤔 I've been using mumsnet since 2008 and have seen people drag up completely irrelevant info on posters many times.

I cannot understand why people TELL you they have name changed, what is the purpose of that?

Because some users will look them up, see they have no posting history, and assume they are a troll otherwise.

Outing is possible but not because of details, but timing. If you post something that happened at your DCs school that day then anyone else who was there might recognise you.

I really hate it when posters search a username and mention past posts. I find it a bit creepy. I also can’t believe that some posters remember posters from ages ago based on a few details and basically turn their current thread into an old thread. It’s not that helpful if someone is asking for advice or support on a current situation and if it’s someone that needs help they are far more likely to open up if you don’t do this and they don’t feel they’re being attacked.

Indeed self appointed ‘ troll hunter’ vigilantes trawl MN daily looking no for anyone who may not fit their distorted perception of acceptable poster. They do try and make people’s lives miserable and use other social media sites to debate (I use the term debate loosely) whether someone’s complex situation is real and therefore deserves a place on MN. Luckily most are banned but a few take great, rather odd and obsessive, pleasure in trying to derail threads and pull individuals apart. Some of their behaviour towards the most vulnerable is truly appalling.
I think you have to try and see it for what it is but if you’re not in a good place emotionally, that must be hard.

It depends on the situation. Someone who posts asking for advice on a DD misbehaving at school who has their posts searched and ‘well in March 2013 your DS got a detention for forgetting his homework, maybe it’s your parenting OP’ is out of order in a big way and yes, creepy.

OTOH, glaring inconsistencies are another matter especially when there is a suspicion someone is trying to exhort money.

I think most of the longer term posters name change more frequently these days because of the likes of the Daily Mail and the variety of security breaches on MN. Not to mention the fact that MN and it's members are discussed with some derision on another public site. It's not generally because they have inconsistencies in their posting history that they want to hide.

When you've been on a site with a troll problem as bad as this one (ironically caused by the ease with which you can nc) you become really adept at spotting troll-like posting and some posters like to point this out - subtly and not so subtly.

You can AS, roll your eyes and hide the thread after having your suspicions confirmed.

I just name change about once a month, don't really start threads apart from in 'telly addicts' and don't really post about my life and family on here in a lot of detail.

Some of my threads have been pulled apart and had irrelevant details brought in. It just makes me shut down and not want to use the site and therefore not actually get any support for situations.

Personally I prefer to be discussed in public than private: a public discussion at least is thrashed out there and can be responded to. Behind the scenes discussions are a bit sneaky for me.

Can someone explain why it’s bad to be outed? I put pictures of myself on MN the other day and thought ‘well, this will out me’ and then realised that it wouldn’t bother me. I don’t post anything that I would be ashamed to say in real life (does anyone??) so why would it be a problem if I was recognisable?

Someone did this to me yesterday. Advanced searched, took a personal post that was highly emotive from a few weeks ago, then they tried to use it against me in another (subject unrelated) thread. I can be a bit of an arsehole sometimes, but that poster tried to use something sensitive to humiliate me; just to get one up. It's probably the lowest thing I have ever seen happen on here.