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Original poster

Why do you allow blatant sexism to go unchecked?

5 replies

MissingHaversham · 09/02/2012 12:52

I've read the explanation in the dv thread, but don't really understand the reasoning. Racism is not a personal attack either, but is deleted anyway.

This is the best place I know online, but this policy of allowing hateful posts about women and not tackling the obvious MRA trolls is starting to leave a bad taste. I know you don't comment, SS and all that, but whatever you are doing doesn't seem to be working. The MRA trolls don't even try to pretend they're not anymore because they've realised there are no sanctions.

The feminism board was absolutely battered by this, and individual posters were driven away, but nothing was done. Now it's the relationships board that's in the firing line and, again, it seems nothing will be done.

It seems really inconsistent to run campaigns like the don't sexualise our girls one, and yet allow blatant and aggressive sexism to flourish unchecked on your boards.

Perhaps if you would explain this beyond the personal attack/offence dichotomy, which doesn't stand up anyway, it might help. As it stands, it does feel as though you've rather moved on from behaving as though your community matters to you.

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MNHQ

HelenMumsnet · 09/02/2012 13:14

Hello.

Gosh, we're sorry you feel this way.

And nothing could be further from the truth: our community is central to all that matters to us.

OK, first off, we're assuming you did report these hateful posts to us?

We haven't had any reports from that DV thread since yesterday morning, I believe, but we'll go and take another look now.

Secondly, please don't think that we take thread derailing/trolling any less seriously than personal attacks. We don't.

It's just that personal attacks are (relatively) simply to deal with, once they're reported.

Reports of suspected trollery/derailment take longer to deal with, as we have to investigate and build up a picture of posting history.

As you know, and as we say in our Talk Guidelines, we tend to err on the side of caution and prefer to give everyone the benefit of the doubt until we're pretty sure we can prove otherwise. We acknowledge that this can be pretty frustrating/uncomfortable at times but, the more you report to us, the more quickly, generally speaking, we can get ourselves in the picture.

MNHQ

HelenMumsnet · 09/02/2012 14:14

@MissingHaversham

Helen, thanks for your response. One thing I don't understand though is that even when the MRA trolls have announced their plans on their own site/s, i.e. closing down the feminism board, driving named posters away, they were able to go about it anyway. Links were provided, it was pretty obvious stuff.

Yes, that's true. And, trust us, many of those who joined a while back with that purpose clearly in mind or whom we could link clearly back to those published plans were banned. Lots of them. And rebanned when they came back.

It's certainly possible that they may have come back again. Or that there may be new ones of their ilk who have joined. Please don't think we're not looking, checking and acting, where appropriate, when you flag up possible 'contenders'.

MNHQ

HelenMumsnet · 09/02/2012 14:18

That said, just because there may be people joining MN deliberately to inflame/troll, it doesn't mean we're going to waive our other rules about not making personal attacks/not trollhunting etc etc.

MNHQ

HelenMumsnet · 09/02/2012 16:48

@ValarMorghulis

Reports of suspected trollery/derailment take longer to deal with, as we have to investigate and build up a picture of posting history.

I don't understand this.
Why do you need to know that they are here specifically to cause trouble before deleting the posts that are offensive? If a post is offensive it is offensive? Irrespective of that posters intentions or whether they are acting as a troll or not?

Some of the posts on that DV thread were dangerously inaccurate. To allow them to stand is absurd. As the victim of DV and as a woman i take them personally and feel attacked. Why do you fail to act?

We tend not to delete posts just because they're offensive (however much we, individually, may want to) - unless they break our Talk Guidelines. That's been our stance since Mumsnet began.

Neither do we tend to delete inaccurate posts - partly because (say on a medical thread) we wouldn't presume to be able to rule on all matters of accuracy, and partly because we've found that it's better to let other posters correct inaccuracies. That way, the ignorant few who may be following the thread, not posting but nodding in agreement with the inaccuracies, can be corrected, too.

Is there a particular post still standing on that DV thread that you think should be deleted, ValarMorghulis? If so, please do report it and we'll take a look.

MNHQ

HelenMumsnet · 10/02/2012 10:11

@GetOrfMoiiLand

Thank you Misshaversham for posting this.

MNHQ I would urge you to reread the offensive posts by ken on the thread in question, and please say how they can NOT contravene your talk guidelines. I quoted those oft quoted guidelines on the other thread.

MNHQ have deleted idiotic threads (like where everyone was saying 'mitmoo') as it contravened the general rule of 'to make parents lives easier'. Why can you not delete offensive people who are DELIBERATLEY here to wind people up.

We have read them, GetOrf. And we think you'll find a fair few of them are not there any more. Because they broke our guidelines.

Re offensive people who are deliberately here to wind people up: you can be 100% sure that, if we though that was the case, those people will have had, at the very least, a very stern email from us asking them to change the way they are posting. If they didn't reply or didn't change the way they are posting, they would be banned.

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