MrsGG

[fluxy3]

What has happened to all the threads? I was following the story yesterday where she said she had had a baby girl...and this morning it has all gone....... was it all lies? troll? who knows?

Did she get sussed before or after telling that the baby had now died? (stopped reading pretty early on, so didn't see the end, but it was fairly clear how it was going to go)

Thanks for that mishymoo.. just read it all.. one sick bitch/troll me thinks. I'm fairly new here and so did not leave any posts.. so glad I didn't.. but it's a sad shame that others did and invested time and emotion towards this 'person'. Must admit alarm bell sounded when she was posting so soon after giving birth to seriously prem baby..... and the whole 'OMG waters broke' scene. Sad.

What I mean is did she tell that the baby had died or were the threads deleted before she got up to that point

I read the thread but didn't post. TBH I thought it sounded too neat and tidy and felt that it sounded fabricated.
What did come across though is how supportive people on MN are - such fantastic support and advice. At least if a genuine poster came along they might feel able to ask for help here.

Yes, mners are wonderful and it is nice that people are willing to go that extra mile and to look for ways to help each other. Sadly there will always be people who will look for ways to exploit that.

It was so clear how it was going to go

been beaten up-going to leave-going to lose baby-prem labour-had baby-baby dies-can't afford funeral-can't afford to run away from continued dv......

i read the whole lot but didn't post, easy to say now with hindsight, but even at the time, none of it rang true to me tbh.

i also don't think there is any point to worrying if 'mrsgg' is ok or not. after the parts of her story, including pictures, were pointed out last night, to be directly lifted from the internet, i don't believe a word of it, the whole thing was a con.

still, troll or not, mnetters did themselves proud in the way there were so many kind, supportive posts , just a shame it turned out this way

Fancy having nothing else to do in life except make up stories. Mrs. Walter Mitty

hecate no the baby didn't die. Mrsgg posted pictures of the baby on her profile last night, and hunker did some detective work and it was established that one of the pics was of a baby born last year, the world's smallest baby, that had survived which mrsgg had lifted from the net to post on her profile.

She came back afterwards very angry and said that that was her baby and how dare anyone infer that it wasn't real etc and then was gone.

Some did suggest that her writing and reaction was very similar to that of judge flounce.

What concerns me is that one day someone who really has had a premature baby and needs support will come on here and their story will be disbelieved because of stupid people crying wolf.

how v v sad that she feels the need to do that.

Or how very manipulative. Folks are assuming this was an emotionally disturbed person doing it for attention but her/his/their motiviation could just as easily have been to follow it through (like I said where I expected it to finish ...) and get money. It happens.

two thoughts:

firstly I do think that there is a case for looking behind someone's presentation. Yes, this was a troll but, as has been hinted at earlier, that possibly does not mean that the OP was in any less need of support. It's just that she cannot get the type of help she needs here as the strength of this community lies in the fact that mostly people are taken at face value and advice is given at face value.

secondly (and as someone who has been accused of being a troll before), I do often wonder as to the voracity of threads here. Some of them are just too, how shall I say, obvious and schematic. Often I just feel that it is easy to see where an OP is leading and these are the ones I have doubts about. I won't mention the threads by name but I am often suspicious of ones relating to mistresses/affairs etc.

I wonder whether it would not be better to remove the ability to change names. Or, at very least, when someone says they have changed their name, for there to be some form of moderation as to whether this is the case. It would be easy enough to do. Otherwise you can get random new posters who say they have changed their names but are in fact new posters, IYSWIM. Maybe like a little tag next to their name when they first post under the new name which says verified or something like that. I appreciate when it is valuable to be able to change names and have done so myself but would the community not be more stable if we all had to stick to one name?

Just my thoughts...

well I must say that I felt from the start that there was something not right about the whole story (and I don't normally spot trolls at all)and from the time her waters conveniently broke didn't believe a word of it tbh. There must be something very wrong with the person who posted it.

However, people like this are so rare on mn, and the majority of people are genuine, that people shouldn't change the way they post or react to posters imo.

have no sympathy with her at all. I think it was purely for money, and I thought that from the moment she posted that she was going to upload pictures of her baby and that her email address was .... in case anyone wanted to chat to her. that was just inviting people to get more personal imo and would have been much easier to suck one or two people in off board than hundreds on the forum.

I'd hazzard a guess actually that a lot of these trolls are the same person.

I also think that PA has a point re namechanges. What I'd do though is have a section on their profile that says how long they've been a member and how many other posts they've made, but without divulging what other names they've used. that way people could click on profile of namechanges and have a bit more of an idea of whether they're genuine or not.

I wouldn't want them to take away the namechange facility as sometimes poepl want to post about a delicate subject that they are not happy to post about under their usual name. Also I like the silly ones poeple do. I like the idea of knowing how long they have been member and how many times they've posted though.

I knew/suspected she was a troll right from her first post.

Can I ask if this has made it any clearer what the consensus is on what to do if you are pretty certain that you've spotted a troll but don't have definite proof?

Just ignore it?
Wait until the troller trips themselves up but potentially sucks in other mumsnetters both emotionally and possibly financially?

Not talking about funny trolls btw but one's where people are posting about distressing events.

I honestly think that mumsnetters can be far too generous wrt cash.

If you are a regular, then I have no objections to people chipping in etc. I support the Christmas donation thing (though this year was scuppered in sending anything due to being in hospital), the Mile for Maude, when a regulars partner has died and gifts have been sent etc... but if somebody is willing to dip their hands in their pockets for somebody who has only posted on one thread - I'm not comfortable with that.

yup, good idea re how to manage the name change thing. I am not technical geek but I am sure it would just require some small tweaks to the scripts which programme these forums. Most other web forums show the posters name plus the number of posts plus their join date, next to every post they make. This is extremely useful when judging someone's credibility.

They often have names for the different levels of experience. I.e. on a music forum, if you have posted 1000 times, you might be classified as a maestro! I wonder what names we could have here...!!

answers on a postcard and, in the meantime, can someone escalate this idea up to the powers that be?? I don't know how best to do it.

I tend not to post on threads where I suspect all or part of it is made up - I don't bother questioning things, just step back a bit. It tends to become obvious in a day or so if it's genuine or not.

LaDiDaDi, I think the correct reaction is to keep an eye on it and notify MNHQ if it gets to the cash stage or something like that level.

I hate the no-of-posts idea, especially with the addition of names for different levels. Horrid.

have posted in site stuff.

have to say have always felt uncomfortable with the notion of giving money to someone you've never met, even a regular tbh, although can understand why people are more comfortable with that.

I have name changed to ask question wrt work, as I know workmembers mumsnet and know my name

this is my secnd long term name - suggested by another mumsnetter but still similar to my other elf1981