"on mumsnet this week" in the Mail. Is this a new thing

[jujumaman]

Came across this this morning when I should have been working

Is this a new weekly rip-off by the Mail? Or has it been going on for months and I'm behind the times as usual

I'm not quite as virulently anti the Mail as mnetters, find it silly rather than the end of civilisation as we know it. But still ...

Interesting to know if we would have any redress actually...can you imagine things like "Breastfeeding past six months is plain perverted" says Hunkermunker etc? I wonder if there is a kind of libel which covers the integrity of your screen persona?

peachy;

why do people complain about me every time i post..?

and why do people run to MNHQ about me...why not cat me and tell me personally if i've annoyed them....?

BoF, I am as careful as I can be about my privacy online - I don't use Facebook or MSN and I regularly namechange on here (which is sad as it means I can never build up relationships on here but hey ho). But I think that FAQ has it spot on - I am addicted to love MN and have enjoyed it immensely over the years. I also hope that I've been able to help posters as much as I've recived help myself. But if I have to change everything in a posting just because it might end up in a national newspaper, then maybe MN is no longer the place for me. Would MN consider private areas within the site maybe?

DP - you 'nana - we DO tell you to your face - don't even bother with CAT - just write it straight onto the thread

It would certainly be a shame if you stopped being flashharriet- I love that name

Agree with many that is not appropriate, and I am surprised that MNHQ are taking such a relaxed stance. The thread quoted from this week IS a sensitive topic, and the poster could easily be identifiable to colleagues or her boss. If the journalist concerned is not sensitive to those sorts of issues, I don't see why she'd be sensitive to SN/Relationships/Lone Parents etc. And as somebody said up the board, those are just the sort of topics which are likely to go down well with the DM.

In fact, a lot of threads in Employment Issues are sensitive, and I'm not sure that it is very good taste to use other people's problems at work for the entertainment of DM readers, no matter how grim the economic climate for freelancers.

Also...not to be rude, but it's a bit of a rubbish article, isn't it? I could understand why a newspaper would want to print something like MP's roundups, because they are genuinely entertaining. But this is rather dull.

Possibly the wrong eprson to ask DP, as you know I emailed you the only time I needed to explain something

However some of your posts do make peoplefeel they are being personally attacked. take the adhd ones- when youre already dealing with something ahrd to get to frips with, maybe fighting the athorities,dealing with guilt (trust me, we all do) then it can be a last straw

Why MN? If you feel it is directed at you then you might see it as a personal attack so breaking rules. Also, there are issues to be raised about people who regularly firestart. personally, i don't mind a MN barny, I'm pretty sure where I stanbd on these things but other people can't handle that at all.

And you know, whilst I don't want you booted off I DO wish you would sometimes think about who might be hurt by your posts. Absolutely so. if I an get through my time on easrth without hurting one person (won't happen, too many ex's ) then I've done well, yet you seem to aim for the otehr side entirely.

Back to the ADHD thing....

if you had worded it

'Could it be that kids with ADHD diagnoses are those who would in past times be considered difficult to manage rather than disabled?' yu may have ahd a debate. You rarely do it that way.

Why thank you

but private areas wouldn't solve it - journos could just subscribe to the private area?
I really don't see that there is any redress at all. I think people will just have to realise that once they post here, its out of their hands. I do feel a bit uncomfortable at how recognisable some posters make themselves - but at the same time I've always been fairly open myself and recognise that this is something of the charm of mumsnet. I really think that people should only post if they are happy for what they say to be linked to them by people who know them irl.

I think having pics of yourself on your MN page is a mistake now.

It would be too easy to search for the name on MN from reading it in a DM article and see what you looked like, what your children looked like, where you lived etc.

Some folk post too much about themselves on here, and many have been stung because of it.

lol BoF at hunker's misquote!
I just wanted to know why aloha had left before I named her (and also curiosity, I admit!)

agree, that's why I stopped having a profile a while back.

Although it does also help disguise my hairy-handedness.

Oh God. My outlaws read the Mail and I shudder to think what I have said about them in the past, although perhaps they may now think twice about descending on us every Christmas for 2 whole weeks....

Yes they could elliott but I'm assuming that MN could tighten up the copyright in the private areas?

Nah...

'I really think that people should only post if they are happy for what they say to be linked to them by people who know them irl.'

I am happy for things i say to be linked to me.

I am not happy at the thought that the things other people say could be linked to me as has happened here and in the past!

I've read the Mail piece - there is no way that a person could be identified from the column today. I think I recall the original thread and I think I am right in saying that her occupation was mentioned - and that's been removed by the DM

Well k999 I'm safe on that one- DH nominated MIL for a TV thing as the worst MIL ever

#I didn't approve (massively) but I reckon she gets it now!

oooh DP could get some free advertising Bof

CybilLiberty - that's a key issue. Any employer who thinks that their employee might be the person to whom the DM article was referring can easily sign up to MN and check out their pics. In which case, Nancy's dictinction between a person being quoted and their online persona being quoted simply doesn't apply.

Nancy I dont think you'd need to know

If you were HR bod trying (and knowing youre in dodgy ground) to get rid of a woman on the basis that she passed out at her appt, you'd at least wonder if it was your organisation

Nancy, the issue isn't that the DM would contain something that identifiable, but that someone reading the DM might be tempted to search further.

In some ways not having the mumsnet link is for the better...

Mamazon, that could sound like Daftpunk and me are in the same shot you know...

i think it's bonkers and completely OTT to think that an employer or HR person would recognise ANYONE from the limited detail.

Nancy66, that is just not true. If you had sacked someone who was pregnant on the grounds that they had become unreliable, you wouldn't know for sure that the poster was your ex-employee, but you'd have to think it was pretty likely.