To say that AIBU is not a green light to say what you want and is giving out the message that MN is no longer a place to come for support?

[AlternativePerspective]

More and more threads are being moved out of AIBU to other parts of the site because of the pasting the OP is getting on AIBU.

More and more I see posts from people saying that “if you didn’t want blunt answers you shouldn’t have posted in AIBU.

And yesterday, the ultimate, a thread where an OP needed genuine support having just realised she was in an abusive relationship being absolutely vilified on here, the thread was moved to relationships where the vilification continued to the point that the OP left the thread, and then the thread was deleted because it wasn’t in the spirit of the site. Is it any wonder that people feel they can’t admit to being abused when this is the kind of response they receive?

Yes, there are sometimes threads where an OP could be bluntly told that they are unreasonable, however there are threads where this is absolutely not appropriate, and a thread in AIBU doesn’t mean that this is a green light to wade in with your judgements and opinions and use whatever form of bullying you want to put your point across, sometimes to the detriment of the OP’s feelings.

I am generally of the view that if people are volatile then perhaps the net isn’t the best place to find support, however, many people do come here for support and mn has previously had a good reputation for being supportive in the face of domestic abuse. I no longer believe this to be the case.

I realise that AIBU is a good revenue generator for MN, however it is absolutely making mn look more like a fight club than anything else, and perhaps it’s time for *@mnhq@ to rethink this one?

Just to make it clear, I am not troll hunting, nor have I commented on the said thread. I read a part and it was just the way it was written, not "not believing abused women". It was obvious after few pages, it will go to hell.
So is many threads tbh.

I agree with pp that people often chose the wrong board. And some posters are downright nasty.
But there is still plenty of good ones

Yabbers

Yes, because we all know America and the UK have the same laws regarding speech on the internet.

You are the exact kind of poster I'm talking about.

Lots of racist Americans who live on sites like Stormfront, like to come here and pretend they are British. It's very easy to do with a VPN and probably why people are so aggressive here in ways you would never see an actual unprovoked individual in the UK behave.

I can’t stand it when two or three posters get into a battle about some (usually) miniature or irrelevant point and completely de-rail the thread. The poor OP is left trawling through all the vitriol to find a few voices of support/reason. I feel so heartfelt sorry for those as they usually just disappear.

I’m hoping it calms down again next week.......mn always goes weird during the summer holidays

The thing is that there shouldn’t be any such thing as “the wrong board.” Even if a poster posts here and it’s not as lighthearted as people would like it to be doesn’t mean that it’s ok to turn it into a fight just because it’s in AIBU.

I agree 100% I actually suggested to OP that she leave the thread as I could feel her distress growing with every post she wrote. So yes I believe it was real and I really felt for her. I said I wanted her to feel she could come back for support and not be driven away by people being "blunt". I don't get all the "troll hunting" if you think a thread isn't true, report it move on. Don't be an asshole. I would rather give support to a lying poster then leave a genuine poster stranded. And you know what, even if a thread is a lie, someone else who is in that situation may be lurking and following it. So yeah yesterday's shit show was just awful to witness and I'm sure would put off other victims from opening up on here.

I think the main problem is that the majority of threads on AIBU are just idiotic.

Am I pregnant?
My MIL kissed my baby and I’m furious.
My SIL is a bitch
My H is a lazy pig
Waaaah waaah waaah.

Everyone has become desensitised and a lot of the responses are one size fits all. Not many people seem to actually care whether it’s a poster in genuine distress.

And there’s the huge amount of trolls on here every single day which makes posters dubious which reflects in their approach.

I don’t know what the answer is tbh. It’s a shame because MN used to be such a great place. It still is very occasionally which is why people stick around.

@Lowcarblady

Some may be that.

But the more horrible truth is that, if you read the rest of their posts, many of them are British. Women. Who don't live on white supremacy sites, but happily come on here and mete out verbal disrespect and abuse.

It's easy to "other" it as foreigners, trolls, spam artists.

The truth is this is the same people who mock Boden, talk about Waitrose coffee, PTAs, school parking, Gavin and Stacey, Fleabag...they're us, British, and they're here using AIBU as a bullying forum because of some perceived code of toughness and abuse-as-proving-ground thing

I agree 100% op yanbu

I posted once about an argument I had with dp. I described a trauma response - I flinched when he touched me - as a tiny part of my post but about 3 posters picked up on that and told me that I had no right to any civility from him because I clearly hated him.

I re-posted on relationships and these posters followed me there. Posters who were giving me advice were told that actually our row was all my own fault because I flinched when he touched me.

Never mind I flinched because something in the news had triggered me reliving my rape and him being totally unsympathetic to my response. The touch I flinched from was him grabbing my arm.

The thing is that there shouldn’t be any such thing as “the wrong board.” Even if a poster posts here and it’s not as lighthearted as people would like it to be doesn’t mean that it’s ok to turn it into a fight just because it’s in AIBU.
You see I think there is such thing as the wrong board.

Some people are horrible wherever you go (in a previous life I posted on infertility and some people came to stick the boot in after I'd already said I was feeling down and upset), but generally the correct board gets posters with similar experiences or useful insights. Even if and when people disagree, they're usually offering a range of views.

It's not ok to be horrible just because it's AIBU, but I do think that given there's so many drama llama threads on AIBU, people seeking actual advice are best placed to post somewhere they are likely to get the support.

For example, AIBU will tell you to LTB and that your DH is emotionally abusive because all cyclists are selfish MAMILS who want to avoid family life and anyone saying a different view on AIBU tends to become fair game for silly name calling too. Posting to relationships, you'd get people talking about how the posters feeling in their relationship, do they have hobby time, maybe they need to insist on some time for themselves and not martyr themselves, advice on how to approach a conversation etc.

MN gets most of its traffic and clicks from AIBU.

The purpose of the site is to make money for it's owners, the bigger the bunfight,the more clicks the thread gets. They won't get rid of the biggest and most used board on the site.

Even if some of the threads relating to abusive relationships are not what they seem that doesn’t mean they are not valuable. There maybe a person lurking who is reading the thread and realising that the way their partner treats them is not normal. They may have been so gaslighted that they thought they were the problem until they see the reactions to a similar scenario. They may be the one who ends up phoning a support organisation and getting out.

GinDaddy

You're right. It's just difficult because I never see such aggressive behaviour by British people IRL. But when I lived in America, it wouldn't be considered exactly out of place. The other issue you have is that there are so many more Americans on the internet (just due to size of population), their fascination with the British, knowing that this is one of the most popular sites in the UK and ... well, I could see it happening easily.

Completely agree with you.

AIBU is for petty gripes.
Anything else just post in that topic.

One day someone who is already in a vulnerable position will harm his/herself.

Unfortunately that's what it seems to take for companies to take any action.

It's what happened with Jeremy Kyle.

@LolaSmiles that’s true to a large extent, but one of the problems with AIBU is that because it’s the most active board on mn, if someone joins here for the first time and has a look at active convo’s they will easily see that AIBU is the most posted-on board and automatically gravitate there.

Also there is on the whole an objection to threads being moved, e.g. there have been threads on Brexit which have been moved to the Brexit board, and posters are then outraged because this should be in AIBU. Reality is that if the thread is busy enough it will automatically appear on active, so it doesn’t matter where it is. If posters hide specific topics then they don’t want to read about certain topics, but as AIBU is so active, if a poster hides that they automatically miss the majority of the threads on mn.

They may well do that, and that's understandable, but why couldn't MN put a box at the top of starting new threads (similar to disclaimers about relationships) saying that for advice on specific topics and personal problems, posters may wish to consider posting their thread in the relevant topic?
That way people are better signposted. If they still post in AIBU then that's up to them but the gudiance is there. Of course it goes without saying there is no need for any nastiness even if they still post.

I don't understand why anyone would post really difficult topics into AIBU when a quick glance shows you what the board is like (petty gripes/funny probably made up tales/ a few irrationally cross people I've the colour of the neighbor's pot plant / some helpful posts / some flippant posts / some dramatic types / down arseholes).

See I was on a thread yesterday? that I had to step away from the op was posting AGAIN I'm talking years of posts and yes he is being abusive to her and her daughter and she is putting up with it and putting her daughter through it for years and I had to step away partly because a lot of people were handing her arse on a plate to her and partly because I thought she deserved to be roasted my mom stayed with my dad for over 21 years by choice because she worked and yes she could have packed us up and left but it would have ment a step down and perhaps a "rental house" so she stayed and we suffered a lot when he left her she cried it pissed me off a lot I've not really respected her since (obviously there is way more to this) part of me was sickened by the attack she sustained but as I said I was a daughter in an abusive marriage and she should have left no matter how uncomfortable she was living in a council house or a rental we would have been better of physically and emotionally

A large solution to this that no one has mentioned and is against Mumsnet's financial interests:

Let people delete their own posts and threads, before something bad happens like it did with Jeremy Kyle's guest.

If the threads get deleted because OP is getting abused, that means less joy for abusers, they will get bored and leave. All other forums I've seen allow posters to delete (see Reddit), why can't people delete here? It's ridiculous because Mumsnet wants people to fight for views/clicks/ad revenue.

I agree, I once posted on Relationships about an issue which was mostly my doing, but I was at my absolute lowest. I got absolutely ripped to shreds, called "unhinged", my partner got called abusive when he is anything but, etc. I was in tears shaking and couldn't sleep.

These are REAL PEOPLE here! Would you say these things to someone in real life?

you would never see an actual unprovoked individual in the UK behave.

😂😂😂

Sure. No overt racism here in the UK, none whatsoever. Just those damned Americans.

@Sparklingbrook then report the serious ones to hq and ask that they be moved. Just because it’s not lighthearted or petty doesn’t mean that posters should treat it as such anyway and just wade in because it’s on the petty gripes board....

@therarestone or killed by an abusive partner because they felt so ashamed to post about it for fear of blame. Would those posters then come back and say “well, I told them to ltb, perhaps if they’d done what I said they wouldn’t be dead now....”

I posted when upset about a verbally abusive incident on AIBU and got a lot of horrible, unwarranted responses. I guess I didn't explain myself very well in the OP but when I tried to give further details I was accused of trying to change my story because I didn't like the responses. I wouldn't have minded being told I was unreasonable, if it had been done in a slightly less unpleasant way. As it was, I hid the thread and name-changed because I ended up even more upset.

I suppose, I should have known better but I really didn't think my posts would warrant such vilification from a load of strangers. Unprovoked and unnecessary.

A lot of AIBU threads I read make me uncomfortable now, as I wonder how much the venom is hurting the innocent person who originally posted.

If people could delete their own threads it would be chaos on here!