Are Mumsnet rules just for the little people?

[Penandink]

"Troll cries make MNers look silly. If you think the person is not real, you don't have to post - nobody has a gun at your head! If you suspect the person is false and trying to hurt, or get money, tell MNHQ! How terrible if genuine people - people in trouble, people at the end of their tether - come here as their last hope for some help and advice, are savaged and go off again, feeling terrible and that they don't have anywhere left to turn to?"

www.mumsnet.com/info/netiquette

There is a very real problem on Mumsnet that there are a small group of posters who wilfully ignore this "rule" as and when it suits them. I think the problem is now institutionalised in MN as being the norm and acceptable.

These people just make stuff up about people they've never met. Once they do this other people pile in believing the bullshit, and then acting on it. The troll-hunters also don't seem to stop and think how their assumptions might affect - or even damage the rest of the site. Lets summarise their position: " I am OUTRAGED and APPALLED by something that may or may not have happened but can't be proved, because although I say it did, I won't provide any evidence"

Sometimes this place is more like a bear pit rather than a community of support and OBJECTIVE thinking and response.

They have their bit of fun and when their target gives up - off course they do having been hounded unmercifully - the Hunter claim that proves they were a troll. Disagree with the unters and sooner rather than later they will accuse you of being a man (their ultimate insult) or a troll. A suggestion that you should leave the site usually follows.

The "silent majority" don't put up with this. They just leave...

pretty well, thanks. how're your old bones?

oh disregard the deletions thing, that's moronic. lebof just POSTS more than anyone else...

Oh, and I know I have never troll-hunted on a sensitive thread, or called troll when someone was in the middle of a "crisis". I don't do that, so I have nothing to feel guilty about

yep, I got it wrong once, and felt terrible about it. now, if its sensitive I report. if I think its someone taking the piss and there is money flying around I will post on the thread.

fwiw the 10% of deaths announced online stat was based on the deaths of actual op's, where someone had joined a forum claiming to be suffering from an illness/serious medical condition/disability and a family member later came on to announce their death. not that only 10% of people who claimed to be bereaved were genuine - there is a vast difference. :)

I also think that there's a vast difference between jumping on to a thread and shouting "troll!" which IMO achieves nothing other than to put peoples' back up, and to go on to a thread and discretely imply that perhaps things are not as they seem. As has been said up thread, simply reporting is not always effective because if all mn hq can act on is technical info, they are unable to do so if that info doesn't show up anything, even if the thread itself is blatantly fictitious.

I think tbh that until you have seen just how far some people will go to make stuff up online it can be hard to believe that it's really that bad iyswim. People hear about people making up the death of a child for instance, but unless you've had personal involvement with someone who has done just that it's just one of those things that happens out there on the net iyswim, not something that you see the direct effects of personally and so it can be hard to comprehend.

From my personal experience, I am horrified at the lengths people will go to. The troll I have banned elsewhere (I have told the story before, will tell it again if need but am sure people are bored of it by now) has had multiple persona's. I know that she has killed off at least three, two through suicide and one died as a result of a serious brain injury. When her first persona died, a guy I know (I've only found this out recently) who was close to her online received a necklace from her "parents" saying that she would have wanted him to have it, he'd been great support to her, etc etc. Her latest persona was killed off in January, and since then her "sister" has been posting on twitter, has befriended her online friends on there etc, her "partner" was also posting on twitter (and had been before she died, just to set the scene I suppose) and after she committed suicide he was apparently suspected of assisting her because he is a nurse. honestly the web of deceit behind this level of trollery has to be seen to be believed.

And the worst bit is, this is a real person. I know who she is, I know her real name, where she lives, (not her actual address but the town), where she works, I know people who know her in rl, she has a blog and a life and a partner (who is incidentally being chatted up first by the now dead woman, and now by the sister on twitter, and yes, this is all public so is visible to whoever wants to read it) who are either oblivious or completely unbelieving.

So actually yes. I think that calling people like that on trolling is perfectly ok. The damage they do is untold and immeasurable.

agree with wannabe.

oh, and Ive just checked my deletions - 12.

mainly for calling someone a twat.

hey lis have fb'd you...

I am running at a deletion rate of 2.5% in 2012. Cool.

but SO WHAT, wannabe? let the weirdo have her fantasies.
there is no way to 'discreetly' call troll...

I checked mine - I have 15 (ever - under this username). 4 of them are in Feminism for swearing/being a numpty. 10 are on the thread already mentioned, and 1 is on another thread linked to the same troll. I hardly think this makes me Evil Troll Hunter extraordinaire!

I have 21 deletions , mostly on benefit bashing threads , I think there might be a theme there

because aitch these are real people she is befriending. Often people who themselves have depression/serious disabilities and she is using that to her advantage.

One of her personas used to post on a forum for people with serious depression. She then committed suicide. People were sad. People who are already at their lowest point were sad. People who were friends with her online, who had exchanged details were talking of meeting up in rl etc and who felt they were actually friends were upset.

It's one thing to create a story about having shagged the boss at a works do and then be planning the wedding afterwards to form the plotline for your next novel, it's quite another to pretend to be a person who is so low that they first gain the support of others in the same situation and second pretend to end it all because it's all too much, when there are possibly others, real, genuine people in those groups who consider doing the same, and who for all we know might follow her lead, while going about your day to day business of going to work and running a household and planning your wedding...

That would be a great superhero name though, Porto. Imagine the get-up.

It is fascinating that Penandink is attempting to divert attention from the fact that she can't, or won't answer two rather important questions that she's been asked on this thread.

Firstly - if, as she claims, almost all the posts on here are fictitious, why does the troll hunting matter.

And secondly, how does she know so much about the site, given how recently she actually started posting (the 8th of February - a mere 6 days ago)? Is she a regular who has name-changed?

And since she is so anti-trollhunting, perhaps she would like to explain why her first ever post on this site (under this nickname) was on a thread where the OP's story was very dramatic, and stated unequivocally that the vast majority of posts on the site are fictitious (as quoted above). Surely that is trollhunting by another name?

oooh I have nineteen deletions, although I know at least one of those was where I typed "message deleted by mumsnet"

8 deletions and banned for 5 days once

Mine are on benefits threads and the catholic church

And I do think that Penandink ought to do the job properly, if she is going to discuss how many deletions people have had. It is only a valid comparison if she tells us what percentage of someone's posts are deleted, rather than just the simple number.

Ah - cross posted with Artex monkey!