Come and talk to MNHQ: live webchat about moderation and stuff with Justine and HelenMN, Thursday 4 October, 1pm-2pm

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello. We hope you all already feel you can talk to us at MNHQ anytime - either by starting a thread in Site Stuff or by mailing us or reporting a post.

But we also thought it might be useful/interesting to have a live discussion about how how about we do things re moderation etc...

So, we're hosting our very own MNHQ live webchat!

Please do join us at 1pm on Thursday to ask (more or less) anything you want. And, if you can't make then, do feel free to post a nice question here in advance.

[Nagoo]

Where do deleted threads go? Do you move them to a special HQ only section, so you can all browse them like classics and know the lore of MN? Or is that what carrie does now? Print them off and put them in a special leather bound scrapbook folder that she hefts open to check out the troll-reports?

[ripsishere]

I won't be up and about at that time, so here's my question.
Do you have a shitlist at HQ of troublemakers? You must have a heart sink moment when someone posts something really inflammatory. Does someone have to monitor those/that person's posts?

[YouSmegHead]

Gussie I believe the next big mn campaign should do about fanjo of the fallen variety. It is ridiculous that women believe because they've had children or are a certain age that's what happen. They just accept it

Re the tsarina I know something is coming, it's a big project and has started!


My question, one question only? Why do all the web chats have to take place during the middle of the day? The mn census surely shows how many working parents come here, the stats must show how many more users are on at night? Please try and mix it up abit.

Oh and Justine, Carrie and everyone else, thank you. Over the past 5 years I have laughed, cried, sworn, questioned, developed and not gone completely round the bend because of this here mn. So thank you

[ripsishere]

Smeghead (DDs occasional insult despite not knowing what it is), I agree with you. I thank MN for my last 3 or 4 years. I've made some proper friends here and even stayed with one brave woman.

[RatherBeOnThePiste]

hides badge

Feel I need to think of sommat!

[sagelynodding]

I will be asleep!

I would like to know how MNHQ knows for sure when someone is a troll-yesterday's horrible dp in the supermarket had me taken in

And the site is brilliant kissarse

[SuePurblybilt]

For those of us who are narky tidy of mind, when we report threads for being in the wrong place or for advertising or whatever, does it secretly piss you off? Do you not think 'oh ffs, let one GO, would you?' ?
Or is it a good thing? I know the official line, just wondering about the true reaction.

[SoupDragon]

Is Olivia an attention seeker? Because this thread clearly states that questions are for Justine and Helen yet here she is, barging in with answers already...

:o

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

How many adverts should we all be clicking on a week so you can get another server?

Thank you very much for the site.

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

Hello, I'd like to ask about this:

Mumsnet Moonwatch

You may think this is all a bit lentil weaving, but over the last eight-odd years at MN Towers we?ve noticed that things tend to go a bit crazy around here come the full moon. So, with that in mind, we thought a bit of advance warning might help us all to resist our melodramatic tendencies, or alternatively to serve as a timely reminder to dress up in native costume and parade around the garden. Whichever you prefer.

Do you have any data you could share with us? Id love to see moon phase c/w no. of threads started, no. of threads >500 posts, no. of reports, no of deletions, no. of bannings, no. of mentions of the word 'bumsex' ... some pretty graphs would be lovely

[RatherBeOnThePiste]

This is all very interesting, but what I'd actually like to know is Team Hooker or Team Knit?

[wisden]

Ooh I would like to know this:

Have you ever had any major disagreements about whether a thread should have been deleted or whether a poster is/isn't a troll?

Also, what was it like when MN first started? Did you really just post and then sockpuppet to make threads and did you disagree with yourselves purely to make the thread an interesting read for lurkers?

[BigStickBIWI]

Oh, and agree definitely with having more webchats in the evening. I'm lucky in that working for myself/working mainly from home means I get to participate in many of them, but not all - and work does have to take priority though you wouldn't believe it from the amount of time I'm on here

[Hullygully]

Before I forget - I would like the option to get rid of threads I'm on in the same way I can delete threads I'm watching, sometimes they go on and on and on and I'd like to click them away.

[Hullygully]

Isn't this chat the one that was mooted some time ago?

[OatyBeatie]

When Cameron came into office he spoke about replacing the term "third sector" with the alternative term "civil society". "Third sector" refers only to not-for-profit organisations and "civil society" refers to all non-state organisations, both commercial and non-commercial. Cameron's verbal preference seemed to be all about creating a big moral distinction between state (bad) and non-state (good) in place of the big moral distinction between services that are offered for profit and those that are offered by not-for-profit organisations.

That has helped to generate a climate where commercial organisations can be invited to run all sorts of services that were formerly in the not-for-profit arena, and even a climate where commercial organisations are invited into the heart of the process of state regulation of commercial activity: the regulation of the junk food industry and of alcohol sale, for example.

In that climate, what is the impact of a commercial organisation like Mumsnet taking on a campaigning role of the sort associated with the not-for-profit sector? As a limited company, without any of the special features that charities, social enterprises and community interest companies have, how can it ensure that its campaigning activities have the right kind of independence from its profit-seeking requirement? Clearly there is good will at MN, but is that enough?

Taking the example of the Let Girls be Girls campaign, that helped to push the government towards a new inquiry into sexualising commercial pressures on children, but it seems also to have functioned as a lossleader that must have helped to draw huge interest in MN from potential advertisers (certainly advertising on MN seems to have grown massively in the post-election period following all the political attention on MN and its consequent high-profile campaigning). And quite damagingly, the inquiry concluded that the emphasis in relation to commercial sexualising pressures should be on commercial self-regulation: I can't help thinking that a retailers' campaign spearheaded by an advertising industry company (Mumsnet) functions quite nicely as a device for retailers to brush off state regulation by saying "leave it to us."

And the whole "Family Friendly" programme seems to blur campaigning and profit-seeking activities: an MN family friendly award seems to act as part of a company's decision to have advertising on MN, and I think the family-safe broadband initiative has gained MN free promotion when the internet is accessed via McDonalds wifi?

Is there something potentially quite dangerous, in this climate where the commercial sector is already encroaching so heavily on the state, about allowing a commercial organisation to encroach heavily into the arena of popular protest and lobbying? Do you ever consider refounding some of your activities in formal not-for-profit structures -- a social enterprise or a charity or whatever?

[BigStickBIWI]

Good question, Oatie. I've wondered about an MN charity too - especially given many of the charitable initiatives/activities that are spearheaded by individual MNetters.

[SillyBeardyDaddyman]

Ok...

Off the top of my head I'd like to ask:

1. What's Olivia been smoking recently?
   

1. Is it true that MNHQ has a Boris Johnson sex doll?
   

1. Where's my [raspberry]?
   

TIA

[SillyBeardyDaddyman]

And can someone give Kat a high5 from me? She knows why.

[LineRunner]

May I also say thank you for the We Believe You Campaign?

[JustineMumsnet]

Oh, this is going to be fun .

Loathe as I am to clip anyone's wings, can I humbly suggest we focus mainly on the community management side of things if we're going to have any chance of getting questions answered. Either way, those are the things we're going to address first - that's why I've got Helen here - she's head community team honcho, in case anyone didn't know. Am very happy to come back to do more strategy/policy type chat, if I can't get to those questions today.

Now, fearing that this will become a teeny bit unmanageable in terms of volume, I'm going to lock this thread in a bit until it's time for the chat so we can get on with some other stuff

[Hullygully]

Justine, is it too late to change your initial post on this to say it's the long awaited comm mngmt discussion?

[Hullygully]

Oh, it does say moderation...

MAYBE PUT IT IN BOLD CAPS

heh heh

[senua]

When will this site be re-named parentsnet ?

Well, not parentsnet because that doesn't roll off the tongue but something similarly inclusive that doen't reinforce the stereotype that child-rearing is principally women's work.