To not understand MN's rules?

[Lotus90]

Does anyone else feel at a loss when it comes to MN's posting rules?

I commented this on a post about a woman wanting to give up work to seek benefits for an easier life

'Bloody pathetic. Where to even start?'

My comment was removed and I received a condescending email about 'breaking the rules'

Are mumsnet becoming more like a dictatorship by the day? Whatever happened to freedom of speech mumsnet?

Freedom of speech is not a British right and, IME, only seems to be mentioned by people who read too much daily mail.

Presumably your comment was seen as a personal attack?

What you meant was “[youre] bloody pathetic”, which really isn’t in the ‘spirit of the site’...

Have you not been here long?

Freedom of speech means you can't be arrested for saying things, not that you have a right to post them on someone else's website. Mumsnet are perfectly entitled to have rules about the content they allow here and to enforce them. If you don't like it, you are completely free to go elsewhere or set up your own discussion forum with your own rules.

This is not a democracy, nor should it be.

Personal attack. Pretty straightforward.

And this place is moderated by the posters so someone reported you.

Surely this would be better discussed directly with MNHQ by email?

Threads about threads are also banned so this will probably be deleted.

Yep. Personal attack. You called someone 'bloody pathetic'

Are mumsnet becoming more like a dictatorship by the day?

No

Whatever happened to freedom of speech mumsnet?

Too many people have a misunderstanding of what freedom of speech (which isn't even a British thing) is. It's not "I can say whatever I want with no consequences nerr nerr."

Have you read the rules? Which ones didn’t you understand?

I recently got banned for a week by saying I didn’t believe the claims of someone who posted a very odd thread. Apparently this was “troll-hunting” and that’s not allowed. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Yet I see people doing this every single day and it’s fine.

The only content which should be censored in any way on a forum is anything that is threatening, defamatory or obscene. Censoring anything beyond that is base tyranny.

I do think that MN do quite a good job a lot of the time, but their policies are muddled and admins are completely unaccountable.

@StreetwiseHercules you've made my point much more eloquently than I have!

You need to take this up with them in Site Stuff if you don't agree with a post deletion.

You can't expect to call someone "bloody pathetic" though and not have any consequences? Or is that not what you meant and I've misunderstood?

I see nothing wrong with saying someone’s post is bloody pathetic. At times it seems as though the definition of personal attack is stretched to include disagreement. And that is quite ridiculous. One might even call it bloody pathetic.

@StreetwiseHercules if you see troll hunting then report it. MN is user moderated so they rely on posters reporting to flag things. If noone reports a post then odds are it will stay up.

If you stay here long enough then you'll understand the rules. They're not really that complicated. And although sometimes applied arbitrarily, I've been here for years under various user names and never had a post deleted.

Calling someone pathetic is obviously a personal attack.

their policies are muddled and admins are completely unaccountable.

Which bit of the Talk Guidelines do you think are muddled? They seem perfectly clear to me.

Posts only get attention from MNHQ if they're reported to them. If it's not reported, then they won't see it.

And when you say 'accountable' - accountable to whom?!

Email MNHQ if you want to argue the toss.

Whatever happened to freedom of speech mumsnet?

It's a privately owned site. Freedom of speech doesn't apply.

Their site, their rules. I guess if you don't like it, you know what to do.

You can't expect to call someone "bloody pathetic" though and not have any consequences

I really don’t see why not. It’s not obscene. It’s not threatening or particularly malicious.

Mumsnet moderators aren't accountable to anyone, well except Justine Roberts.
You need to understand op, that on any site that's free to use. You are the product. Mumsnet relies on advertising and if posters use personal attacks against those they disagree with, then the footfall will tail off and so will the advertisers.
Personal attacks and troll hunting are very big no no's here.
I've found that the trick is to think, would I say this to someone's face.

recently got banned for a week by saying I didn’t believe the claims of someone who posted a very odd thread. Apparently this was “troll-hunting” and that’s not allowed.

@StreetwiseHercules I got a shirty email for troll hunting when I questioned something that didn’t make sense. I couldn’t understand the situation and asked for it to be clarified (and I wasn’t the only one it didn’t make sense to) I didn’t even know what troll hunting was before I got the email. I hadn’t realised there were so many troll posts it’s a common thing for people to do. You’d think they would make more of an effort to do something about it if it’s that much of a problem.

I tried to email HQ about it. They were less than helpful.

@PickAChew wrong! Under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998, “everyone has the right to freedom of expression” in Britain!

Under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998, “everyone has the right to freedom of expression” in Britain!

Well, you can say whatever you like. You can’t say it on whatever forum you like, though, because it’s not your platform. It’s a common mistake.