"on MN this week" in the Daily Mail

[StealthBearWipesBumOnDailyMail]

Thread no 2

"AIBU to be annoyed that my unspecified female realtive criticised an aspect of my life?"

not quite the same impact as "AIBU to be livid my MIL called me a lazy cow and said I wasn't fit to marry her DS?"

(For example only My MIL is lovely and more importantly, not a DM reader!)

What I mean is that whether or not you assess the risk, or whatever, you are still basically publishing writing about yourself. It's the same on any forum. For example on the 606 forum, they will sometimes pick posts out of the forum to be published on the main page.

I just think that on MN people are a bit blind to the public nature of the forum (which is mad actually, given the relatively high profile of the forum in the media). And perhaps LH has done everyone a favour by highlighting the fact that what you write on here can be read by ANYONE. And the search facility on this site means that a frightening amount of info can be gleaned about you.

Here's a suggestion for MNHQ though - if you're really worried about stalkers, why not make the 'search for other users' posts' only available to those who have paid a CAT sub. Could prevent some cyber-stalking. You could maintain the ability to search for keywords, but just not be able to read a poster's entire posting history.

"Female relative" gives too much away there

yoo hoo MIL

taht amkes no sense Lily
There is a level at which the risk is considered acceptable - this has pushed it higher than that for lots of us

I think people are over-estimating exactly how fascinating a column on mumsnet is tbh. Don't most people only read the bits of a paper that they are interested in? I doubt many people other than MN's natural constituency will even bother looking at it. It would be like me noticing a column called On FlyfishingFanForum this week...I just wouldn't read it, never mind recognise my boss from his particular 'tackle', go and register on this site that he may or may not post on, and then trawl his threads for how he likes his maggots or whatever...

Seriously.

I disagree - I don't think this has changed the risk at all. The media has always used material from here. Just it used to be the Guardian, now it's the DM.

Lily, MN put posts on the front page too, I have no problem with that, they put posts in books, I have no problem with that either....I am not blind or stupid about the publc nature of the site and I think it is particularly silly to just boil every argument like this down to "read T&C" or "well it is a public forum". WHat the DM are doing is above and beyond what would usually happen on a public forum and, as such, people are upset about it.

The CAT fee is only £5 most stalkers would pay hat to be able to stalk freely for an entire year!

And fwiw, I don't believe that most posters do a risk assessment before posting - perhaps before their 1st post, but once you become a regular poster, you just post. And sometimes that goes wrong and you are identified.

X-post. I don't think most stalkers would pay the CAT fee, as it identifies your RL persona, if you pay via paypal/debit card/credit card. And it removes the 'casual troll' searching facility (which does happen).

BOF, this is not a flyfihing forum, almost every topic gets touched on here, not jsut potty training and nose wiping.

Also most people read the bits they like in a paper first then read the ret, they don't just read only half the paper.

Lily, it is great that th risk has not changed for you but can you not see that it may have for other posters?

I can see that their perception of risk has changed. But I simply don't think the actual risk has. And if you perceive MN as a 'safe' place to post, then I think it is all to the good to have your eyes opened.

See some of the suggestions about fixing this journo stuff has been about money "pay for CAT to search" "pay for closed area of the site" etc but the fact is that the only people who would be restricted by that is us I may not be able to afford to join all the areas I wanted to but I should imagine the DM would be more than able to pay a fiver each to join an area or two on MN if that gives them the ability to write a full column each week!

A way to 'fix the journo stuff' that's free is to set up a closed site and vet the members...

[cackle]

Soupy you are very bad

Shiney, probably, but I don't care how over the top it is, the prospect of seeing my posts in the Daily Mail (in this form) has left my blood cold and, if I had realised this was a possiblity all those years ago I would not have bothered at all.

'random acquaintance diapproves of something that is linked to us both and made a comment stating their own opinion'

that OK?

'why not make the 'search for other users' posts' only available to those who have paid a CAT sub. Could prevent some cyber-stalking' I actually like that idea, might increase MN revenue as well

It ahs changed things here- reagrdless of whether that had to happen it has, there are osters I admire who are no longer posting. For me of course that changes things!.

Some of the best aspects of MN can't work whith increased security, that's relaity. Unchangeable, but reality.

you honestly don't think there's more chance of threads being read once they're in a national newspaper?
Does make me wonder why the DM are doing it- they obviously think it will add to their reading figures in some way!

some of you obviosuly done no risk assessment training at work. dont take a genius to work out risk of being recognised with 800,000 monthly readers is a lot lower than being recognised with 2 million dayly readers.

lilyborlero you dont post much about yourself that could make you recognised. ok well i just learned how many children you got whta sex they are, name of one of them, you keep chickens, have name changed but sure could easily find you with information shown on a seach pretty good idea area where you live, and various others bits just from searching your name.

thank you anyold
that's what I was trying to point out with my xs and ys - you're only adding on to the risk
If no-one is going to read this apart from MNers - then WHY are the DM doing it exactly??

But the point is I don't mind that - because I haven't posted anything I wouldn't want my dh/employer/MIL/children/neighbour to read. So go ahead and stalk me if you like, but it doesn't bother me.

If I had posted those things, and also bitched about my employer then I might be more worried!

My point about the risk is that actually the DM is chicken feed compared to google. And google can and does bring up MN threads, on seemingly innocuous searches. And an employer with good googling skills may well use that to find out if their employees are posting about them. Certainly my last employer would have done, and even without naming them, posting details could have been sackable.

I agree with bitoffun fwiw.

No-one is going to read about mumsnet in the dm that doesn't already read about it on the internet.

Also - identifyability is surely a relative thing. If you don't want to be identified, why is that?

Lots of posters here has profiles with pictures of themselves and their children in them. So they are identified the instant someone clicks on their profile.

I am identifyable to anyone who knows me in rl. All they have to do is put the pieces of my posts together to know who I am - that's not hard. But the difference is that I don't want to be identifyable to someone who doesn't know me in rl, so I don't put pictures of me/my family online, I wouldn't give out my rl name/address on here, etc.

If you don't want to be identified by people in rl then perhaps you should be questioning why not.