What’s with the influx of posters researching others?

[NCso]

I’ve seen this a lot recently. Someone asks for advice (normal MN type post) and someone miles down in the comments will say ‘looking at all your other posts you need to sort out this and that’ - mostly a snide comment alluding to someone’s marriage being in the shit or concluding the poster has some sort of MH issue. I’m not surprised people NC every post. I might have been oblivious to this but do people generally do due dil on others here or is this new? Excluding times when a poster makes a couple of threads within days of each other and they’re recognised of course.

AIBU to think some of these posters are a bit OTT, and purposefully trying to “dig up dirt” to stir the pot?

It's been done as long as mn has had the feature.
Its common on all sites where you can see a posters history.

To be fair, if you’re on mumsnet in the first place, you’re not busy so have ‘time’ on your hands, and it doesn’t take any more ‘energy’ to use advanced search than it does to do anything else on here.

well it takes longer than just reading a thread. It’s also just odd behaviour, going back looking for evidence of something OP once said 2yrs ago and challenging them with this info. If you’re doing that, then you need to do something else with your time. I waste a lot of time online like many (kids have grown up, more time on my hands) but if I ever start doing that, i’m putting myself on an internet ban.

I don't usually pay that much attention to who is posting, but sometimes you just remember someone because they're frequent posters about the same sort of issue.

Like they're posting "is this abuse" type threads regularly, then they post some other incident as if it's standalone, that posters will tell them they're overreacting to.

Which shores up their hope that it's not that bad or it's normal, or belief it's their fault somehow.

If I recognise that, I may look them up and if I think it's relevant I may point out the context.

But if you have an hour to spare on mumsnet, you have an hour to spare and people can spend it reading threads or using AS if they like, being as mumsnet provide it as a function.

No one is better because they would never do it, as it’s part of how the site runs and mumsnet provides the function.

It’s funny when people think they’re morally superior because they would never do it. People can do what they like and mumsnet will pull them up on it if they break guidelines, other than that…meh. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I’ve been glad when people have done it to warn that all isn’t what it seems.

Its often used by one of the spiteful posters as one of their tactics for bullying

You’ve forgotten reading multiple threads so you can gather whatever evidence you want to call out the OP. Potentially pages. So no, it’s not as quick as you quote above.

Agreed. It is like "mean girls" at school isn't it? They're trying to gather as much "evidence" against the op to make her look bad. This site will be full of fictitious threads, nobody needs the MN private investigation service. We're adults, and all aware of trolls.

Yes, or when a lot of nice replies are going to a lot of trouble to offer suggestions and sympathise because on the face of it, it looks as if the OP is dealing with someone else being a bad friend, but someone recognises the username as a poster who continually posts the same angry thing about ‘friends’ mistreating her, when it turns out they’re slight acquaintances whose ‘sin’ has been to not say goodbye to her at someone else’s party, or to tell her they didn’t need a fridge magnet holiday souvenir from someone they hadn’t seen since their distant school days.

Sometimes it's massively relevant and important though.

For example, if an OP posts about a health issue, and 200 people reply saying 'Yeah, that sounds concerning, go back to the doctor' it is definitely relevant and helpful if someone points out that the OP has a history of posting about exactly the same health issue for the past two years and has previously been diagnosed with severe health anxiety by a psychiatrist but refuses to engage with psychiatric services and refuses medication.

There was also a poster who repeatedly posted about her abusive partner and if she didn't get the replies she wanted, would start another thread but deliberately missing out key information (for example, she would claim that she couldn't leave him because she had 'nowhere to go' but in actual fact she had previously mentioned that she owned a property which she was renting out).

Some posters really are disingenuous and looking at their past threads can be quite important to stop other people (in good faith) fuelling/validating an OP's self-destructive behaviours, or just to stop other people wasting their time in posting sincere responses to a thread which isn't actually genuine.

Or deeply peculiar but regular posts, like the ones from a British-Nigerian man who repeatedly explains his parentage and birth location, and lists the precise numbers of years he has spent in the UK and in Nigeria at different points in his life, and always concludes asking whether he's Nigerian or British.

Sometimes it arrives via different hooks, like a random remark from a friend, or something about supporting national football teams, but it's always the same question, and clearly an ongoing obsession with someone who is perhaps not very well.

Certainly there's no evidence he's paying the slightest attention to anyone's answers on here.

There's a lot of people on MN with way too much time on their hands!
(Cue people looking up my post history and deducing that I too have too much time on my hands).

With the amount believing and engaging with obvious troll threads, that are often later deleted by mumsnet, unfortunately many posters seem completely oblivious to trolls.

How mean! I expect PP had never made an impulse purchase or run into financial problems in their life ...

Fine if its about something serious eg a sick child , but when you are just chatting about something trivial its a sign of a sad bastard IMO!

I dont see an issue with it- if the function is there why wouldn't people use it? its not like they are using some sneaky spyware to do it, its literally a function of this site. If you dont like it then dont use it 🤷‍♀️

I certainly dont use it much but I have used it when someone's posts seems suspiciously trolly and over the top and its saved me typing out a response. Or, when someone has been viciously mean and looking at their posting history it becomes obvious why. It explains a lot about some people's behaviours.

Also- its super easy to get around it by simply changing your name so I am not sure why anyone would be annoyed by it

Because people are abusing the function .They use it to harrangue people about something they posted 5 years ago , thereby implying or directly accusing people of lying etc.Sometimes these comments can be really nasty esp if people PM you
And why should people have to change their name just to avoid the idiots?

I dont think I have ever seen anyone "constantly" harangued by it. Removing the function would not mean noone is ever bullied or harangued on here. Some of the cruellest posts ive ever seen on here have had nothing to do with searching previous posts. If someone is being harassed then they need to report it.

I also think the search function has prevented bullying because it exposes a poster who consistently makes nasty comments to people around certain specific issues. You could equally argue why should the search be removed just to avoid idiots abusing it?

Im not saying it should be removed. Nor did I say people are constantly being harrangued although I have been on the receiving end of it so my perspective will be different.

I am sorry you were harassed by someone. Thats not ok regardless of any function on here. Unfortunately, online you will always find dickheads of some kind and there is no way to stop them on open public forums

I think it's really useful. Someone was posting about a man dying from domestic violence at the hands of a woman. Turns out it was a bloke with an agenda who had previously posted that some women were violently abused by men because of the things they said (as if it was their fault and they deserved it). It was pretty clear it was some sort of woman hating incel type and not someone concerned about DV happening to men.

Yeah, I'm not a big A/Ser but I did it a couple of days ago on a thread where I recognised the OP from an old thread and wanted to double check I wasn't about to bark up the wrong tree about something. Another poster also searched, said they had and someone else came on and typed how sad and time consuming they were being. But the search would've taken Poster A about the same amount of time as Poster B took to type a post about why they're better than the people who do it.

I’ve never seen anyone harangued. What I have seen is people posting over and over threads such as - my IL’s are perfectly pleasant to my child from a previous marriage, but they don’t treat them the same as their other DGC, they don’t pay for their private schooling and they won’t inherit, and last week they wouldn’t take my DC to the theatre/SIL hasn’t asked my DC to be a bridesmaid/they don’t have as many photos of DC/insert latest issue. My child has no contact with their father’s family, AIBU to expect more? Repeat ad nauseum.

The same advice is given over and over, to no avail.