Maintaining Safety and Security on missions of mercy.

[BargainBasement]

Time and time again on Mn I have seen MN-ers rise to an occasion and help a poster in desparate need. Once someone's life was saved, and many times crisis has been averted and desparately needed practical and emotional support given.

Without wanting to pour cold water on the spirit of all this, can posters please bear in ind that even on first aid courses the firt thing you are told is check for your own safety before doing ANYTHING.

A few years ago close to where I live a man ran to a bus stop and begged women for help with his wife who had suddenly gone into labour and seemed to be delivering - a woman dashed into his flat with him to see what was going on and help, and was raped, almost strangled to death and then badly burned as he tried to set fire to cover his tracks.

In the past MN-ers have met up with posters who turned out to be trolls, with the intention of helping them with desparate situations.

I'm really really happy that PomBearEnvy's crisis was sorted out, and i would guess that she is a well known poster - but if there is a circumstance where the obvious way to help is to go to an unknown house in the middle of the night, then if the poster isn't known, people chould think twice, IMO.

But then, the man who could have helped Stephen Lawrence didn't cross the road because he had heard of youth mugging people by pretending to need help .

We have to think the best of people, but there is already a novel which features a man who stalks his ex-wife by developing a persona on MN, and there are weird people out there who could see MN as a resource.

Bump.

Yes, good point. I suppose it is awkward for MNHQ to do anything specific, and they're not likely to have staff available all night.

I don't think MNHQ can do anything - except perhaps extend the advice about meet-ups to all sections and to cover all circumstances: DO NOT ARRANGE TO MEET PEOPLE FROM MN THREADS EXCEPT IN A PUBLIC PLACE or whatever.

I am pleased the plight of the baby was resolved, but I was alarmed to see MN-ers suggesting going alone to a stranger's house during the night to take formula.

I have said this before, I think it's only a matter of time before someone on mn is physically hurt by one of these trolls "crying for help".

I can see that people become emotionally involved, but to go to a stranger's house in the middle of the night is at best ill advised and at worst just bloody stupid.

People are too quick to buy the line that mn is someone's only source of support - if you have internet access to talk to mumsnetters then you have internet access to gain professional help.

There is a novel where a man stalks his ex-wife on here???

Is there Buda?

In Jonathon Coe's The Privacy of Maxwell Sim, Maxwell's DW is a MN-er. When she leaves him he finds it hard to get mny details of her life so he develops a MN profile, (inc photos of children supposedly of the woman he claims to be) follows her around, co-inciding with her on threads and agreeing with her until he eventually PMs her over something of interest to them both, giving his new e mail address as a woman's name. They maintain an e mail correspondence, she tells him all about her new relationship, sends photos of her dd, and eventually sends a short story that she has written giving her account of a family incident involving him.

Maxwell isn't sinister, so perhaps 'stalking' isn' right - but J Coe gives a pretty good account of how to get personal cntact with people on here. Hi Jonathon

I don't know if there are any other MN stalking novels?

But people are very excited by the power of Mn to help others - maybe MNHQ could signpost that meeting people on a one to one in response to a crisis is not the first thing to be thought of.

I remember the time someone's life was saved, but it was MN-ers who already knew her as RL friends who went to her house, not posters who hadn't met her.

PuzzledBrummie - I don't know. Was asking as the OP mentioned one. It appears there is!

Fascinating about the Coe novel - I might have to track that down.

Re the OP - good point, well made. I'm usually of the "assume the best of people" camp, and I didn't see a thread re night-time visits etc, but unless it was a well-known poster who people could properly vouch for, then other people should be very careful.

IIRC, the MNer whose life was saved was known to the others involved anyway and had met many times previously.

I don't think the advice to be careful needs to be specific to MN, it is applicable to any situation where you arrange to meet someone who is, in effect, a stranger. MN is, in that respect, no different to online dating.

People have it in mind to be wary re online dating, though Soupy - while people can quickly get very hooked into wanting to help a MN-er and just focussed on the plight of the baby, or whatever. But you're right of course, it applies everywhere.

I am bumping this in the light of yesterday's fiasco for a poor poster whose sister went to help in the supposed victoria Station situation.

Truly, the will to help should NOT involve anyone physically going somewhere to meet someone they do not already know, in response to to a thread by a namechanger of little known MN-er.

Calls to help somehow develop group legitimacy if someone else asks 'is there a MN-er nearby who could help?' whereas if the poster themselves were to say 'can someone come to my cubicle' a rat would be smelled.

I don't think people should go, or suggest that others go to meet people, and it shouldn't be part of MN's repertoire of the tremendous help that is often given.

Something horrible could well happne one day: less than nice lurkers must be observing how willingly MN-ers answer these calls.

I think you can get a bit over protective though. Yes the Victoria Station thing was a troll - but it was a public toilet, in a public building, in the middle of the day... not really likely to be a mass murderer is it?