Hello, hello. Have been alerted to this thread by RebeccaMumsnet who's a bit knackered and has retired for a well-earned tumbler of gin.
Ok so first off there's clearly a lot of strong feeling about this issue from a lot of MNetters so we shall, absolutely, take note and have a think about the way we are implementing things and how we could do things better/fairer/most consistently.
That said, let's be clear there hasn't been any change in policy - we've always considered posts like "You are a twat" to be a personal attack and deleted them when reported. We also do always aim to take note of context and if we are deleting a post in a tit-for-tat exchange we should be deleting the tat as well as the tit (as it were). (If/when we are not, it's an error though, not a change in policy.)
We do, and always have taken a dim view of troll hunting - as ever that's because we'd rather err on the side of giving folks the benefit of the doubt than mistrust or be unwelcoming to someone who needs genuine support. Sometimes this means we can all be taken in, but I feel really strongly that that is a price worth paying and if we slipped into knee-jerk suspicion of newbies MN would be half the place it is. From time to time we see people that have genuine needs and issues being doubted and it is really uncomfortable and unpleasant watching and not what MN is here for (See more on our troll policy here - its been the same for about 10 years!)
We are, of course, aiming for polite and reasonable discourse wherever possible and strongly believe that we are a forum for grown ups, so folks should be able to disagree and debate without resorting to insults. In short, if you don't want to be deleted the safest thing to do is not to be rude to someone (yes, even if you think they are deeply unpleasant you can make your point without calling them a twat) and not to troll hunt.
There will, of course, be inconsistencies and there always have been - most obviously because we don't and can't read every post so there are probably loads in existence that amount to "you are a twat" but which have not been reported. I'm afraid that's a function of the sheer size and rudeness of Mumsnet. But our community team do do their damnedest to apply the rules consistently. That said, they are human and they are making often quite fine judgements that require interpretation, sometimes under great pressure - inevitably they sometimes get things wrong.
Anyways, as said, we will have a careful look at everyone's contributions to this thread and make sure we are doing our very best to to apply our very few rules fairly and consistently and that we've aren't getting too trigger happy. Thanks for everyone's thoughts please keep them coming.