If Fathers for Justice invade again

[Nyac]

will they still be welcome?

I'm referring to the thread in the Feminism/Women's Rights section -

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a1419965-Agenda-much

where Justine said:

"an invasion - ie let's go on and tell those mumsnetters why they've got it all wrong - isn't necessarily the same as trolling tbh (ie deliberately misleading/antagonising). I think we ought to be able to be robust enough to be able to debate the issue, with the caveat, of course, that if visitors turn out merely to be here to wind up or hear to spread hatred then they are not welcome"

It appears that as long as they promote their agenda in PARD then no harm done. Is that a fair assessment?

I like this idea

Posted by TuniptheVegemal

"Lots of boards go into lockdown when a troll invasion starts and suspend new registrations.

The point I am making here is that discussion spaces on the rest of the internet are in general protected much more carefully in order to allow the conversation to flow in a way that members of the site find productive.

Mumsnet does have free speech at the core of its philosophy and I appreciate that, but the corollary is that you are offering its members little protection against attacks compared with the protection that members of other sites (including those who attack Mumsnet, ironically) accord themselves. I'm not talking about not wanting to be disagreed with here, or not wanting to have false statements corrected - I can quite see that if someone says Mr Sayer Of Scary Things About Harriet Harman had a criminal record which he did not in fact have, he has the right to have that removed. (Incidentally, there is no reason why you should have to be a member to get the post pulled - you could have a report form somewhere on the site to make it easier for non-members to report and for you to find the post they mean.) What I am talking about is the aggression and yes, misogyny that many single-issue posters bring in with them.

Mumsnet is less moderated than many other sites and I would submit that one reason for that (despite nests of vipers comparisons) is that it CAN be, because the general style of posting on here is in fact less aggressive and less personal than that in the rest of the male-dominated internet. It comes as a shock to me when I go to certain other sites just how rude posters are to each other and how little policing by other members there is of racism, sexism, homophobia etc. (We might be more direct than NetHuns but we are a hell of a lot more civilised than CommentIsFree, for instance). The problem is that when you get a load of invaders coming in they often bring with them standards of behaviour where it is ok to call a poster a manhater or a bully or accuse them of not being able to get a man, or going on about women being liars. For posters here who have experienced that kind of misogyny in real life it is pretty nasty to have it popping up in this space and we then get quite upset when MNHQ doesn't step in to delete the offending posts pronto - and as you say it takes time for you to do this especially for a full-on board invasion where not only are there loads of these posts from them, we start trying to give as good as we get so then you have to delete some of us too to be fair. And then they start complaining about censorship when actually they've been deleted for a bog standard personal attack.

So don't you think that one thing you should be doing is to make it clearer to new members that Mumsnet actually IS different from the rest of the internet and bog standard misogynistic insults (of the Miss Piggy/manhater/princess/bitter/can't get a man/lying bitch variety) are not welcome on here EVEN when they don't fall foul of your current narrow technical definition of a personal attack (eg when they aim them at a bunch of us rather than an individual)? In other words, have more of an overarching statement about misogyny? (though you might need to use a shorter word for the ones that don't really understand what it means )? "

"PARD" ?

Polite And Reasonable Discourse, IIRC.

Coined by Hully I think.

I'm not sure what constitutes an 'invasion' - if its a concerted action by lots of people at once, with exactly the same agenda, its sort of like large-scale sock puppetry. But a few individuals coming to seriously debate - that's fine.

Misogyny is not reasonable and it's not very polite to post it on a site used mainly by women, so if PARD really were the rule and rigorously applied we would be fine....

Thanks for the ongoing thoughts - I haven't bowed out just snowed under. Promise to look and respond to further points in due course.

They got annihalated anyway, was great fun to read them trying so hard to be pseudo-reasonable while pushing their stupid agenda.

Justine, could you please have a look at the FB page again? They've started up another thread on there and it is currently being filled with the same type of anti-women crap as the one MN deleted - that 'almost all' men accused of dv are innocent of the accusations against them. It's all bile and hatred and has no place on a parenting website.

I'm going to report my post in the hope that you'll take a look at it.

You beat me to it, running.

Loving the gang mentality on the FB

MNHQ thanks for deleting that FB thread so quickly - I'm feeling the love again

They have started another thread on the MN facebook page

Leaving them to it, now. I tried to be civilised... MN, can't we ban them from the FB page? They do the same to anyone who heads over their way, with Feminism in mind...

Nadine (on f4j) has just deleted and banned someone for the following reasons

"XXXX we have terms and conditions on this page and you have violated them hence the reason you are now banned. You are trying to join in a debate of which you are either being deliberately goading or you are just simply devoid of the facts . This page is for people who support both parents and want both parents to be treated equally. We are not about degrading mothers unlike some women's forum where men are fair game"

Please could we adopt the deliberately goading bit ? ;)

And an oblique dig at us me thinks.

The best part was that the person didn't even do anything out of order, posted a couple of links to Guardian articles with opposing views to F4J and made a couple of posts disagreeing with F4J. Apparently F4J aren't up for debate on their own page, only everyone else's where they think their posts should stand regardless of content.

Aside from the last sentence, that's the comment I got when I got banned from the page.

I only asked them to stop misquoting me, why they went with the ad campaign they did, and a couple of other points that had come up on the first evening of them patrolling the MN FB page...

It's a badge of honour getting banned from their pages.

I am not getting banned. I am on FB in my real name only, so they ain't getting any posts from me (I am the only person in the world with my particular name combination that I have found)

pops in to say Hi to fletch

Hi M

Ha! So Nadine has no worries about 'shutting down the debate' when it suits her.

They don't want a debate at all - they just want to fill MN pages with their own agenda. And gaffa-taped young girls.

Thankfully their idiotic, dangerous, headline-grabbing stunts should have done enough to ensure that nobody in power takes them seriously. The Law Society treat them with the derision they deserve:

'the society's chief executive, Janet Paraskeva...said, "the Law Society is appalled by the behaviour of Fathers 4 Justice. It diminishes the debate and in no way serves the interest of children or their parents."'