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...

My head is going to explode

Nope, not what I said at all Reality.

Its the "hating" something done by certain MNers and then the extensive "lets" for the in crowd that I just find a bit childish.

That's also why we have quiches, surely? So that groups of friends can chat away to their hearts' content on their own thread.

I have seen some threads started by other posters become derailed on purpose by groups of "regulars" with their own agenda. Which is a slightly different point to the one I made above, admittedly.

Has something happened I've missed?

Well give examples because this vague 'I just don't like/ get some of you' is annoying as hell.

If you are going to say something just
Bloody say it

Who are the in crowd?

Kayano who is your post directed at?

I read somewhere on the internet recently that a study was done into internet usage, and that of all deaths announced on the internet i.e. websites and chat forums etc, only 10% were found to be genuine. So the implication was that the majority of dramatic situations posted online are in fact fictitious.

I think the idea that people should just report and move on is all very well, but in reality it's not that simple. Some of the most prolific trolls on mn had been reported numerous times before they ere actually outed on the boards, and mn were powerless to do anything, because unless there is a previous history where someone has been found to be trolling, there is actually no way of knowing whether someone really is genuine or not, other than a suspicion born out of the patern of the drama posted etc.

If you look at someone like Dizzymare, she had been reported to mn hq numerous times for weeks, and they had no evidence that she was anything other than genuine, or more to the point, they had no evidence that she wasn't. And meanwhile dizzymare's drama was unfolding on here, with her being rushed to hospital/having the babies/losing the babies/coming home/crying all over the internet and she was getting more and more and more support with people being sucked further and further in. It was IMO only a matter of time before someone started a collection... If shiny hadn't posted her suspicions on the board, saying that there were people getting a huge amount of support and mn'ers really needed to think about how genuine it was likely to be, dizzymare would probably have got a huge amount of emotional and possibly even financial support from users who themselves were vulnerable, but empathic based on the fact they believed they had shared experiences.

And before anyone says it, yes, you are entirely responsible for yourself on the internet and shouldn't give more than you can afford to lose. But when it comes down to such highly charged subjects as bereavement, people feel that shared experience and relive the pain themselves and thus feel the need to help out where they can. Because no-one who has been through the loss of a child wants to think of someone else going through what they have been through. And that personal responsibility goes both ways, so if you're going to make up a life and a load of problems and senarios and pretend to be something you're not, then you do so knowing that one day someone may call you on it.

The issue I have with people saying posters should only ever cry troll through the medium of reporting is that that essentially gives trolls a free reign on here, because if they know they can never be challenged publically they will continue to come here..

I've been here for seven years now, and I don't think I've ever seen an instance of a serious troll being outed that has turned out to actually be a genuin poster.

Anyone who starts threads that
Contain the words 'some
Posters' or 'some groups of posters' or 'MN royalty' or are just generally vague.

I like examples before I can tell if it's true

Excellent post wannabe.

re: what Custy said about different responses, I don't think it's so much a case of Royalty - it's just this: If you have spent months/years building up a rapport with a poster and you feel you 'know' them, you automatically approach anything they say (eg. an AIBU about the PILS) from the start point that they are usually sane, nice, and well-balanced. Therefore if their AIBU sounds like they are BU, you know it is out of character for them.

So you either

a) go easy on them because they must be having a bad day, and you might still say 'Yes,YABU' but you do it in a gentle jokey way, or

b) you assume that the situation must indeed be awful, and much worse than it sounds for them to be driven to such anger, and however they may have worded their OP to sound U, you find yourself wanting to agree with them and justify their stance. Because that's what friends do - they believe one another.

When it is someone you don't 'know' you just answer the question as it sounds to you Black v White, Yes v No - like it was a totally hyperthetical ethical question without a real human being attached to the end of it.

Does that make sense?

I'm going to wait to hear what the silent majority have to say on the issue.

Pretty sure they'll agree with me though. They usually do.

Mumsnet has been like this for all the 6-7 years since I've been a member. It can be annoying but I've learned to ignore it.

i agree with you OP. When I first joined MN, I posted a couple of my RL dilemmas and got completely beaten up as being a troll. I have since namechanged several times and now write little about my own circumstances as I know that, just because I have an unusual life, nobody will believe me. It's a shame as I would genuinely like advice; the reason I have led an unusual life is, I suspect, because I see things differently (? wrongly) from other people so would really appreciate other people's input to put me straight (I may be a little Aspergers). I am first hand proof that troll hunting has a negative impact on people being able to get support and perspective. It's a shame really. Oh, btw, I suspect that people who called me a troll all thought that they were "right" even though they weren't! Genuine OP's can leave a thread because they have had enough emotionally, rather than because they were trolling.

tethers

oooh handbags

Now then, now then. I'm after a nice quiet Sunday evening, do you hear?

Just to be clear: discussions of our trolling/troll-hunting rules is, of course, fine.

Yer actual troll-hunting/personal attacks are not.

For those of you who report suspected trolling activity: we ALWAYS look into it. It may take us a while to come to a proper conclusion, but that doesn't mean you're being ignored or not taken seriously. We're very sorry for the frustration and irritation caused by this, and by our necessarily opaque responses. We wish there were a better way to do it, but we've yet to find one.

And whatever this thread is, it's not an AIBU, so it's been moved to Site Stuff.