Talk

Hi all

Thanks for your questions so far. We will certainly ask Jess and Flick to address the issue of transactivism, but do please bear in mind that the webchat marks the publication of the APPG's report on women and work, and leave space for questions on this and other issues.

Thanks

MNHQ

Hi all

We understand that this is an issue that raises strong feelings - but we don't want our webchat guests to be harangued. We think the points been made very clearly and there's not much to be gained by continuing to post broadly the same thing, so we think it's time to leave it there now, folks.

I don't think we've said it's not okay to express concern, Meddie, and there were plenty of opportunities taken to do so. After a certain point, though, concern tips over into rudeness - and to continue once asked to desist is definitely not on.

Hmm - if people were politely asked to stop the barrage, and carried on regardless, then we would respond in exactly this way regardless of the topic. After a certain point its just not fair to our guest, whoever they are - and actually, it's not fair to the many other users who didn't want a one-issue webchat.

As you know, Mumsnet has chosen to be a broad church not a narrow one, welcoming to new people, and tolerant of a wide range of different views.

We understand that when you feel strongly about an issue it can be hard to accept other points of view but, put simply, that's the deal here, and we're not going to tolerate contrary opinion being drowned out by what amounts effectively to collective barracking. This stands true for both for regular Mumsnet discussion threads and webchats.

We're happy to allow those we suspended yesterday back but on the understanding that having strong feelings about an issue does not give carte blanche to harangue others or shout them down. It's worth considering whether you can live with that because, if not, it seems likely that Mumsnet is not the place for you, and we'll have to consider permanent suspensions.

[quote ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

• At least half of the questions were on the "trans issue"...
• The webchat was not well "attended"

I think we'd argue that these two things are connected - possibly the webchat was less well attended because it was clear that it was going to be held hostage to this one issue. If you were interested in other issues, or if you'd previously experienced a similar hijacking on MN, you might well decide that it wasn't worth the candle.

The bottom line is, it's not on to barrack if you don't get the answer you want, I'm afraid. Ultimately we'll end up with no guests at all, and that will benefit no-one.

Being prescriptive about what can and can't be asked is the opposite of what we're about, ItsAllGoingToBeFine. But we do think it's important that people don't pile on if they don't like the answer - and certainly, that they desist when asked to do so by MNHQ.

That's what we did, here.