Hello. OK, am here to answer your Qs if I can...
Last night's thread was deleted because the MNHQer on duty felt it had become a bunfighty trollhunt. Subsequent threads were deleted for broadly similar reasons.
We hear your comments that leaving the thread up may have been more useful but we have Talk Guidelines about trollhunting/posting in a way that implies another poster is up to no good - and we have to apply them fairly and squarely to all.
As for begging threads in general, we agree it is all a bit tricky.
We, like you, have been overwhelmed in the past by the generosity of Mumsnetters to other Mumsnetters in difficulty. And we wouldn't want to "ban" that kind of thing - even if we could.
However, we do acknowledge that the flipside of such outpourings of generosity is that unscrupulous or desperate people may then try to take advantage.
As always, we maintain our stance that we (and you) should give people the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise (hence our stance on trollhunty posts). But we're not sure it's always wise to extend that benefit of the doubt when it comes to giving cash to people you don't "know".
The truth is, we can never know anyone on the internet is who they say there are - whether they've been posting on Mumsnet for five minutes or five years - so, before you send anyone money as a result of an MN thread, we'd suggest you bear that in mind and only part with your cash if you're prepared for the possibility that it might not be spent as you'd intended.
In the past, other MNers have banded together to collect money/gifts for another Mumsnetter, rather than all send money separately. And that might be a safer/less random way to do this kind of thing. But, again, the same caveats apply.
Sorry if that all sounds a bit 
, especially right on the heels of our Secret Santa this year but it's right, we think, that people do consider it.