A rage bait goady thread…

[Strawberrryfields]

Interested to hear thoughts! When an op posts something inflammatory then ghosts the thread and doesn’t return why are they actually doing that? Do you think they’re

a) a bit bored or love a good wind up and just sit back and watch the responses come in. That they get some kind of satisfaction from that?

b) they had a random thought, decided to post and then just forget or never bother to read the responses

c) generated by the site or bots to create engagement?

I can more understand trolling on other platforms but on an anonymous forum where you get nothing from the engagement (but a cheap thrill?) seems beyond sad! Or do you think sometimes they’re not trolls but check out of the thread if they’re not getting the answers they want?

I guess they can sometimes raise interesting topics but why not post it as a hypothetical instead?

Probably shouldn’t be giving these people any thought. But just curious why people bother? (Which led me to the fake posts/ bots idea)

I think there’s a fourth option, of threads get out of hand. I once posted and asked for advice I posted back saying thank you great advice and left it at that (about four pages in) I went about my business and by that evening the thread had took off and I was being accused of being a troll for not replying and making things up. I was just busy and going about my day!

A and C usually. I generally look at the ops posts on the thread. If there's just the one I know they've just lobbed the grenade.

There are also (lazy) journalists, who post so they can create a story.

Yes that’s a good point. They can take off more than expected sometimes.

Another good point. Surely it’d be even easier to just use AI (a tip for any lazy journalists reading!)

I'd say a bit of all of that.

But MNHQ don't always remove threads when they ban the OP for being a previously banned poster.

So there's that too.

I'm fairly sure that somewhere out there, a group of people are having a competition to see who can create the longest running Mumsnet thread where the OP is never allowed to return.

Genuinely that's what I think.

The plot thickens…

I have been known to forget about a thread once I have the answer to my question like @Favouritefruits .
Also there are times that a load of posters pile on complaining about my SPAG or completely missing the point of my question. If that happens I just bail, it’s not worth the hassle of trying to keep a thread on track.

Another option - not getting the response they wanted so ignoring it.

I think it's usually either A or C.

Not sure there's so many now but recently there were multiple threads a day that definitely all seemed AI-generated, all different generic user names, all starting with 'To think that...' with some weird goady, very non-specific proposition like 'To think that if people are in therapy it just means they're self-absorbed?' or 'To think that people who only have one child are usually just inadequate parents who can't cope with more?' or something stupid like that. All generated a shit-ton of traffic and they were never taken down despite lots of people saying they'd reported them as spam. The threads weren't necessarily ghosted - sometimes there would be a couple of brief replies from the supposed OP, but they were usually quite generic. I think the mostly likely explanation would be Mumsnet posting those threads to keep the site busy.

Some of them are very, very obviously A though.

To raise the profile of a group or opinion.
If I post 'Surely all Reform voters are gammon and......'or
'I agree with Reforms plans to cut benefits so........'
In both cases it gets people talking about Reform
It builds Reform into people's consciousness. I could do the same re Trump/small boats/anything at all to raise it onto the public agenda

I've had a few threads where I've asked for advice and then the thread has taken on a mind of its own, and even when I've posted updates, people haven't read them (or have read them, and just completely ignore) so I just ignore it in the end.
I had one yesterday where I asked, what I thought was, an innocent question and then no matter what other points I made people piled on! I've just muted it now and will probably be accused of being goady 😂

I am SO often tempted to do a B! You know those mildly interesting or amusing thoughts you get throughout the day? I sometimes think it'd be nice to post it on MN, see what other people say.

Then I realise I might have to keep acknowledging replies for hours and hours, field a load of suspicion that I wasn't continually updating my random thought, get harassed for being a chatbot and/or put up with aggressive comments based on someone's unfounded, batshit assumptions about me.

It's a daunting prospect.

I've just checked - I start two threads a month on average, more than I thought. Some just die without a whisper, though.

Interesting, hadn’t thought of it in that way but completely makes sense!

Yes this. OP expecting lots of YANBU and people agreeing with them and instead they get slammed.

I think it's usually just someone who's bored and goady.

Otherwise: lazy journalists.

Or political party supporters (probably paid or bots) making posts designed to influence people's thinking. Like a previous poster mentioned. This trend worries me, and it's not always obvious. For example, there was a thread recently that was clearly meant to drum up stories of "oh isn't street crime awful these days" on a day on which a certain political party was announcing how tough they would be on street crime. Allegedly, the OP had witnessed blatant criminal activity in London, including in a phone box. The OP did respond a few times, but stopped responding when people started querying where on earth in London she'd found a phone box that wasn't in constant use for tourist photos. Almost as if they'd never been to London in the last 20 years. Or at all...

Yes I think you’re right. Hadn’t thought of it that way but seems obvious now and yes very worrying. Can’t take anything on face value!

I imagine sometimes they are asking AIBU but actually they are not willing to accepted that they are U and flounce off when everyone says they are.

Probably a mix of things. A lot of them are pretty blatant ragebait/goady nonsense but MN doesn’t want to remove them if they’re getting a lot of engagement. Sometimes the trolls take over and the OP doesn’t bother coming back.

I will look at the OP’s posts and if there’s only one or two and both on the first page but users are still chuntering along like idiots 500 posts later I know there’s no point in even looking at the thread.

People don't want to bias the response by putting it as hypothetical.

You forgot students doing low end research projects (third year undergrad or maybe MSc) and people researching plot lines for books.