When all this has calmed down, can we have a proper chat about what MNHQ, actually want please?

[HoneyDragonFucker]

I'd like to know whether the site is moving in another direction. And what that means for some of our important supportive boards.

I've seen some awful threads and posts left up for far to long. I'm also cynical of the IF you report it gets dealt with party line. As it doesn't. The trolling and goading that occurs in Bereavement, FWR, SN and Relationships, is left far too long after it has been reported.

Yet it is very obvious that some posters are either being monitored or targeted by reporters as they are deleted with alarming speed and precision.

With respect it's your site, but I'm buggered if I know what I can and can't say anymore.

[HoneyDragonFucker]

Kotinka just to emphasise. When I am referring to goading, I am not referring to anything that could be misconstrued, or subjective. I am talking about goading with intent to provoke a reaction, the goading that is mentioned in the guidelines.

Last night, I was disappointed in the behaviour of a lot of posters across the boards. But not surprised it happened.

[LEMisafucker]

Take a look at "discussions o the day" thats what they want

[curlew]

I was sent a warning email recently. There had been "lots of complaints". I've asked for details and had no reply.

[OhChristYouFuckersHavent]

I had one of those a couple of years ago curlew - turned out 'lots of complaints about your robust style of posting' was ONE goady fucker who had been targeting me.

[wannaBe]

trolling/goading is very subjective though.

What to one is trolling is unpleasantness to another and is legitimate expression to someone else.

Not everyone has the same level of elequant posting style, not everyone thinks before they hit the post button, and not everyone feels they should keep away from some boards out of common courtesy.

While there will always be posters who deliberately set out to cause offense, I think that we ought to be careful not to head down the route of presuming that anyone who voices a particularly vicious opposing view is a troll or deliberately goading. some may be, equally some may not.

Not everyone agrees with the tone of some of the posts on the feminism board. I don't and have feminism hidden for that reason and I don't feel the need to go in there and voice my opinions. But others may feel more strongly than that and feel the need to express them. And if you round on someone for those views it is going to cause conflict. But is there really any difference in aggression between calling someone with strong feminist views names, and that person calling the oppoer a c?

Not everyone agrees with the views on relationships. In fact my personal view is that while there is a lot of good advice on relationships, it has become a very one-sided viewpoint where women are very much given the impression that any behaviour beyond what they want is abusive and that they are all victims who should be seeking red flags at every turn. I would be more inclined to voice my views on a relationships thread, and many of those views would not be along the trend of the threads themselves. would I then be considered a troll? quite possibly, or at the very least ops would be told to ignore my views (such as poster yesterday who has been snooping on her h to prove his infidelity even though she has found nothing and he is being very up-front about things).

The risk you run when silencing opposing views with shouts of "troll," is that those boards to become a very one-sided view not because the views on that board are all the same, but because anyone with an opposing view is shouted down, and so eventually people stop posting and in fact ignore those boards altogether.

[HoneyDragonFucker]

It's little things for me that concern. I went back to refer to a thread that had lots of useful information on and it's disappeared. No deletion message, nothing. It's just gone . There was a fracas on it yes, but if they have deleted it its another example of baby with the bath water.

[BeyondAnyFuckingJoke]

I don't think goading should be deleted. But then, I think if it is obvious you have been goaded and post a PA, by all means delete the post, but don't ban the poster. No-one posts in a vacuum and reported posts should always be looked at in context and not on their own.

[HoneyDragonFucker]

I agree with MNHQ though, it the post is deliberately inflammatory it should go.

I also think all troll hunting posts should go.

I have noticed a huge decline in people apologising, or accepting apologies from posters when they have perhaps said something they shouldn't. I suspect this is partly due to Mumsnets own promotion of being a robust site and the AIBU board.

Which makes it easier for the trolls and the goady to run rough shod over more sensitive boards. The majority of posters may be lucky enough not to need the support from them, so don't give a damn when people are worried and think its all just whiny nonsense from a few posters.

[NomDeClavier]

I think if MN wants to maintain its reputation but make it a place where everyone feels included they're onto a loser. Part of MN was the marmite factor. If you didn't like it there were other sites out there, and that meant the people who were here were happy about the way it was run and the way conversation flows.

Part of that reputation is the perception that MN is where the witty, intelligent and opinionated women hang out - and that when their opinion is wanted MN is the way to get it. It's made MN a target and to prevent negative press the moderation has changed with the aim of making the site nicey-nicey. There are plenty of sites like that out there targeting parents. MN doesn't need to be another.

You can't have both. Either it's a nicey-nicey-there-there-hun site or it's somewhere you can actually have a discussion. If MNHQ took a stand and screw the bad press they'd gain a lot of respect for it.

I'm not talking about AF here - I don't now the ins and outs, it's possible she consistently went too far - but I want MNHQ to make a statement saying this is the site for real opinions and real discussion and sometimes that gets heated and we're okay with that.

[Wellwobbly]

"the deliberate goady fuckers, whiners and foot stampers who appear from nowhere, whine and foot stamp cause tremendous upset and then disappear again, - only to reappear on a different subject but with exactly the same manner of twisty turning slippery sucker pa goady fucker posting."

THAT'S THE ONE, Wannabe!

You know her too, eh? (Actually there are two of them, but one is extreme)

[ButThereAgain]

I think the real difficulty with Mumsnet isn't the moderating at all but the unsustainability of its management wanting it to be both a supportive community website and a mass site that is flogged hard on social media and at every possible opportunity in the press -- often using women's heartfelt disclosures and profound concerns as grist for ever more publicity.

Twitter and facebook in particular, which Mumsnet rely on very heavily, are all about the endless outward ripple; and a community site has to be more about deepening inward communication so that there is empathy, shared values, shared exploration. Once that shared territory is lost thanks to determined expansion via social media and the press (as it certainly has been on MN) you can't reproduce the same level of mutual support by means of moderation rules. You have something different and poorer, which the moderators and the posters have to make the best of by clinging to the basic courtesy of not allowing personal attack. That rule really does make it still possible to talk and support in a worthwhile way. I suspect that things will continue to get worse and worse, but we might as well make the most of it before it sinks.

[FairyJen]

There are some very odd things going on at preset. On an xmas thread of all places there was a poster deliberately goading another, lots of deletions and MNHQ comment that they are dealing with it but nothing is done

Then you get posters like af suspended for a week. If HQ dealt with the instigators the good eggs wouldn't end up getting worked up. If you poke someone long enough they are bound to snap but moderators should not let it get that far.

[IceBeing]

This is what I think (if anyone is interested).

I think that there are certain categories of post that are very easy to identify as inappropriate and are very damaging to be left up for even a small amount of time. I would include in this:

rape myths
disablist posts
racist posts
sexist posts (in the FWR area anyway)
post that actually contain the word troll in reference to another poster

There are many valuable sensible posters on here with a lot of experience in recognising posts of these natures.

I think MNHQ should give those posters the right to dump a post into an 'awaiting moderation' state. MNHQ would have the final say (as it does currently) but we wouldn't have to spend even a minute looking at obviously hurtful, malicious and in some cases dangerous posts.

Clearly as MNHQ still sees every decision, anyone overstepping their authority would have this privilege removed.

I can think off the top of my head of a handful of posters I would trust to do this (different for the different categories obviously).

So MNHQ, why not crowd source your moderation problem within a limited scope and entirely relating the post types that can cause active damage to MNers?

[HoneyDragonFucker]

ButThereAgain you have spot on. I'm glad your here as you've said it better than I can.

And I'd like to know, if they can be bothered to tell us if this is what's happening.

I think of late, MNHQ and particularly Justine are giving out contradictory statements.

If we are Mumsnet are going in that direction than I think it's time Justine backs out and stops telling people what she wants from them. It's a site for grown ups, people know how to behave and should do so or leave. That obvious.

But if Justine wants to keep telling the press this is a safe nurturing place for venerable people than ghosted areas should be moderated and protected.

I am not here to court advertisers for Mnet. They have staff for that. I'm meant to utilise the site and occasionally spend money because of it.

Justine cannot be everything to all men, it'd a ridiculous business model that will ultimately fail.

[HoneyDragonFucker]

Yes I'd like to see them gone quicker, they still insist it's our job to educate on the disablist posts, despite saying they'd stop.

And I've been bewildered of late by clearly racist posts being allowed to stand because they have to reason to believe the poster isn't genuine

[IceBeing]

Do you think outsourcing some of the easy moderating could work?

[HoneyDragonFucker]

I assume they pay their marketing team Kotinka, it's a pretty big assumption I know

[MilllyMollyMully]

I think if there were pre-moderation for just three topics - AIBU, Chat and Relationships - then the whole ambience of the site would improve vastly.

It would be very cost-effective to pay a member of staff to pre-moderate those topics, because the number of reports would plummet.

The mods would have to be paid a reasonable salary, however, because their job would require a lot of intelligent analysis, and a lot of emotional intelligence. And it would not be a job to be done in haste while swigging gin

[MilllyMollyMully]

Actually, I'm not sure I mean pre-moderation, cos I'm not sure what that is.

Just moderation, like you get on TheStudentRoom, where moderation seems really good.

[ScreamingNaanAndGoryOn]

I've been thinking about this as well.

There's just been a flow of threads recently from people who don't like the way that MN is run. The bullying threads, the wah wah wah we don't like the xmas appeal threads are two big examples.

The fact is that the majority of people on MN Talk are happy how things are. They like the fact there's straight talking. They like the fact that the xmas appeal is unique in its ethos, and they like the fact that a lot of the hideous misogyny that haunts the internet is challenged here.

MN isn't like other sites. I know, I've been loitering on the internet since it was a baby. Its not all bubz and hun. It supports women and challenges disablism. I wish HQ would turn to the whingers and the gripers and the wah wah wah-ers and say, you know what, if you don't like it, sod off.

New posters complaining about being invisible or about how 'known' posters are given preferential treatment is just ridiculous. Its like someone walking into a pub for the first time and demanding that the groups of friends in there stop talking to each other because its mean, and suggesting that the bar tender poured a pint for someone else because they were a regular. Its stupid.

I like MN. I like MN how it is. I don't want it to change to fit the needs of a very vocal whingy minority. HQ, its fine as it is.

[OhAntiChristFENTON]

I agree with that. Every.Word.

[ScreamingNaanAndGoryOn]

And NO NO NO! to pre-moderation. Sheesh - there's 1000's of posts every hour - nowt would appear on the boards it would take so long.

Seriously. Doesn't work.

And HQ may get things wrong at times, but I do notice that they are willing to come back and apologise when that happens and that has to be one of the most unique things about this site I've ever come across.
No other forum, to my knowledge, has EVER had a mod come on and apologise.

[MilllyMollyMully]

I thought the whole point of all these squillions of threads was: "We don't like MN any more, MN gorn to dogs, sack the new mods, etc etc"

[ScaryNutellaFucker]

I think that Relationships and Feminism are the two main areas that need on-thread moderation.

From what I read, these are the two areas of the site that are targeted most by people trying to get their jollies by upsetting people.