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MNHQ

OFFICIAL MNHQ THREAD on posts about suicide, troll-hunting and related matters

84 replies

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:10

Hello

There have been so many threads about this over the past few days, and so many divergent points of view - and so much upset - that we'd really like to have the discussion in one place rather than in many different threads all over the boards.

For those who haven't heard yet: we are actively reviewing our policy about threads regarding suicidal feelings and suicidal intent. We are seeking expert input from outside organisations including the Samaritans. Once we have that we will come back and have a further discussion with MNers about the way forward.

We'll be here to talk on the thread throughout the day, but do please note that we WILL delete troll-hunting posts for all the obvious reasons. So PLEASE do not use this thread to make insinuations about identifiable posters - keep it general please.

Re: Wombat: we understand that some reporters had concerns, but at the same time this poster had been around for years with a very consistent posting history. We absolutely do not have any concrete reason to disbelieve her. However, her thread had been immensely upsetting and triggering for many users, and has prompted a site-wide discussion about how we handle these threads. Once her husband had posted that she was at home with him and under the care of RL professionals it really seemed best all round to delete the thread.

We contacted Wombat at the time to explain our deletion and we still feel that for many very good reasons this is best sorted out off-board between us and her; we've asked her again to reply to our email and we will happily take it from there.

We also think that this whole case is a very good illustration of why we have no-trollhunting rules. We understand that some of you find them frustrating, but for every correct troll-call, there's an incorrect one. Being called a troll in public when you're giving an honest account of deeply upsetting real-life circumstances can be devastating for people.

Equally, we do 'get' that there are a lot posters and threads at the moment that seem deeply suspicious. We are on the front foot with this and have been being pretty pro-active at closing things down when they are reported to us and when we can see that things aren't adding up, particularly if they are new users.

So we need you to keep reporting and NOT break troll-hunting rules on the boards unless MNHQ itself has said publicly that we are confident that someone was a deliberate trouble-maker.

The namechange/sock-puppeting thing is extremely easy for us to spot when it's reported. It's not a judgement call - it's black and white and it's the work of a moment for us to spot it and deal with it.

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MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:22

@wooooosualsuspect

There's no point reporting any more.

The Trolls are winning.

That's just not true Usual. We've banned scores of people recently off the back of users' reports.

And the real trolls are presumably very much enjoying seeing perfectly innocent users being accused of trolling, to the extent that anyone posting under a new name runs the risk of being openly disbelieved.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:27

@MrsVamoOOOOOOOOOOs

Not good. Sad

Name changing/ sock-puppeting is easy for HQ to spot, not us.

How can we report when you are more likely to be admonished for suspecting a troll than being one ?

We're not saying don't report - we're saying don't say it on the thread. Not sure if we understand your point?

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:28

Nobody has ever been admonished for reporting to MNHQ for any reason!

Thanks Chilling, we will do and we will read them Brew

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:30

@GilesGirl

And look! I can name change right in the middle of a thread! What shall I sock as today?

If what Justine said the other day is true? That Mumsnet is a moderated forum? Then you don't have enough moderators.

If it is self moderating, as we've been told for years, then let the users self moderate.

As we used to.

What a load of bollocks. Say good bye to Mumsnet, the trolls have taken over the asylum.

If you had namechanged a little box would have popped up on the thread to tell MNHQ so and to direct us to each of your posts in turn.

It's lightly moderated. We have rules, but not loads. We do rely on our users to stick to them.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:32

Sangria we are actively reviewing our policy on suicidal posts right now.

And yes, we do ban people who use the namechange policy to deliberately mislead.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:34

@ElliotLovesGrub

It is hard not to troll hunt when they are so blatant sometimes and you watch their story contradicting itself and people being sucked in regardless. Like with the thread that is still being seen as real, it's very hard to see that and know that there are women out there reading it and getting upset by it and missing the parts where it doesn't match up. It's like long term trolls are an unspoken thing here, like they don't exist. I understand that those are the hardest to spot but we can't pretend they don't happen.

We do know it's bloody hard at times. The hardest cases are those in which nobody knows for sure, including us.

We aren't asking for people to pretend they're not happening - but we are asking you to keep on-board discussions general and report specific concerns to MNHQ.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:38

@MrsVamoOOOOOOOOOOs

Rowan

You are telling us to report and let you deal with things.

The thing is, with no HQ around over night, things don't get dealt with. Genuine posters are hurt at accusations, and real trolls are having a fine old time.

Its got completely out of hand. Sad

We've got the Night Watch, who are there to zap egregious overnight stuff and have mostly been doing a good job of it as far as we can see - but we're happy to beef this up if there's a consensus that there need to be more of them.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:43

@TantrumsAndBalloons

I have to agree with giles

You can't be a self moderating forum and a moderated one at the same time. It seems slightly ridiculous to say it can work.

It's so fucking easy to troll here. It's a joke. And day after day people get taken in and offer real life help, share emotional stories, experiences because they want to help someone. People are giving out their phone numbers ffs because they want to help.

And then we have to have 17 spin off threads after its deleted just to rehash the whole sorry mess all over again.

And- posting history? Means nothing. Sorry but it doesn't.

We're not self-moderated - we're moderated. Every single report gets dealt with and replied to, and tbh while we work hard it doesn't feel from this end as though we have more reports than we can handle.

There is simply no such thing, anywhere on the internet, as a public forum that doesn't attract its share of trolls, inflammatory posters and posters who attract disbelief. And there is no magic way of getting rid of them. It's not that there are tools MNHQ could be using and aren't.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:46

@MrsLettuce

There was a big discussion about this in '09 (I think), the circumstances weren't dissimilar. I could have sworn that MNHQ had taken advice / revised their policy / made A Plan at the time. Allegedly lessons were learnt, but here we are again.

We've had the discussion several times MrsLettuce and as far as we know we've implemented the policies we came up with at the time.

One of the problems is there is absolutely no consensus, among posters, about how these threads should be dealt with. Many MNers feel VERY strongly that genuine users who feel suicidal should be able to use MN as a source of support and help. Others feel VERY strongly that they should not.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:47

@WannaBe

"We've got the Night Watch, who are there to zap egregious overnight stuff and have mostly been doing a good job of it as far as we can see - but we're happy to beef this up if there's a consensus that there need to be more of them." that thread from last night was still there this morning. I reported it at around 12:30 and it was being discussed openly on that nightwatch thread and yet it's only just gone.

So are you telling us that the night watch team are so busy deleting general spammy threads that it took eight hours to get round to one which was hugely triggering at best because it was reminiscent of the previous thread, and deeply dubious at worst and contained a completely different version of events to the previous one and would have been a good indication as to its authenticity?

We'll have a look

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:52

Here's the thread on which we announced and explained Night Watch. It's been working very well so far and egregious overnight stuff has been getting zapped very quickly.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:53

@BettyMoody

I would say NOT. I am sure Samaritans should be our/your default reference in this case. No one knows of other MH issues the person has. It should be thread locked with the Samaritans no posted on it

And night watch people should be able to lock.

Thanks Betty. NW do lock things until we can have a look. To be fair they were probably genuinely unsure what to do about last night's thread - this is a very tricky situation.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 10:58

@CuttedUpPear

I totally agree with what bettymoody said about nightwatch being able to lock threads, and posting the Samaritans' contact on it.

MNHQ what do you think this?

yy they can and do lock threads. We can absolutely ask them to routinely lock suicidal threads and add a link to the Samaritans - but of course that will mean that any user (including absolutely nailed-on long-term MNers) will not be able to use MN to talk to people if they're feeling suicidal overnight.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 11:00

@WannaBe

tbh it doesn't take a lot of training to become a forum moderator and to be able to look for the things which would make someone potentially identifyable as a fake, or to be able to lock threads etc. I imagine that the likes of rowan etc who work at mn hq by day have the moderation side as a small part of their role, whereas the night watch team will be essentially on call to do just that. so I can see why they wouldn't necessarily be paid individuals - they are most likely members themselves who happen to be around overnight rather than people who spend their entire night just looking at threads.

Nearly WannaBe, but me and the rest of the team are full-time on community/site duties (ie purely on replying to reports and looking at Talk-related issues) all day every day. We are also on call up until late in the evening.

We don't have paid mods overnight, no - never have had. We did have a big discussion about this before we started the Night Watch and sod's law can't find the thread to link to right now

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 11:03

[quote BettyMoody]i don't think this is part of the Mn remit, talking people down. And is a dangerous path to tread. They might be long term mumsnetters but they cannot, CANNOT rely on advice from strangers on here. ( unless about mum boots obv Grin )

It is very dangerous indeed.

www.samaritans.org/[/quote]

Thanks Betty and we know lots of people agree with you on that one. There are also some who feel very strongly that it has helped them in the past though. And this is the cleft stick we are stuck in at the moment (and why we want to know what people think, so that once we've got expert advice from the Samaritans we can put it together with what users have said and try to come up with something measured and sensible.)

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 11:10

@BettyMoody

it might have helped them- but look at the shit its caused now. Think MN needs to decide WHAT it is, and not be something to everyone?

It's really tricky. On the one hand we have users who are in with the bricks (either because they're long-term MNers or because they just become part of MN very quickly) and who probably broadly share similar ideas of what MN is. Those users tend to form fast friendships and use MN for lots of different things, from school-run dresses to MH support.

But we are also a truly massive community now with many disparate voices and many different opinions about how things like this should be handled.

And also, alongside that, some persistent re-regging trouble-makers and drive-by irritants.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 11:13

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

Does MN get a lot of suicide threads? If so is there any way MNHQ could liaise with Samaritans to offer on thread support by a trained Samaritans volunteer with other users locked out, and the thread hidden to all but the OP and Samaritans bod?

We've always had these threads, although there does seem to have been a bit of an uptick recently. What we can't tell is whether they're being reported more (because people are shaken up), whether there are just more genuine threads (because we're bigger than we used to be), or whether this is (in SOME cases) part of what seems to be a nasty influx of inflammatory trolls over the last couple of months. Probably a combo of all three.

Thanks for the suggestion. We will absolutely add that to our list of things to discuss with them.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 11:20

@InfinitySeven

This isn't just a suicide problem, though.

I mentioned MN to someone last week, because I couldn't offer them any advice. I probably shouldn't have, because of the current troll issues, but I thought they'd get some help.

They didn't. Their first and only post was deleted, because a lot of people reported it. To be fair, it wasn't a standard situation, but there was so much troll hunting that I shouldn't think she'll ever be back. And I know her, in real life, and can vouch that the situation was true.

Oh blimey, sorry to hear this. If you email us the details off-board we will have a look. And (sorry, too many balls) right now I can't think who the poster you're referring to was (when you're asking why she didn't get a ban) and on-thread really isn't the place to go into it in all honesty - but do please add the details to your mail as well?

Thanks very much re the info on MIND - we will get in contact with them (or again do please mail us with the links and we will get on it).

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 11:21

@AuntieStella

The trouble with the NightWatch is that it is public.

If you want to report a post during working hours (and none of us are sure which are the working v silent hours, and IIRC that's deliberate so trolls don't know when to start) you have to make a post about it. Now, if it's spam, a poster might not be too bothered about a username being public to the spammer. But if it's a thread about which you have concerns, being unable to report anonymously means that what you are doing is, in effect, starting a troll-hunting TAAT, visible to the whole world and a user you think is Not Quite What They Seem (or, as here, is unusually vulnerable). Either way, it draws attention.

Is the way ahead a behind-the-scenes divert to the 'report' function so, whenever used, it pings for someone who is awake and can deal with things. Proper MNHQers whenever possible, or volunteers who can lock threads until MNHQ can deal (including a 'call out' procedure for difficult issues)?

Actually (and apols for not letting people know this) NWers now get alerts when a post or poster or thread is reported multiple times. So just reporting as normal will get through to them so long as enough people (and it's not a very high number) do it.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 11:24

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

With regards to continual TAATs being started to ask what has happened to deleted threads, I suggest MN sets up a deleted threads topic that only they can post in, and move deleted threads there. Would also stop all the "marking place for deletion message" thread bumping that goes on.

Would also suggest new policy of sanctioning those who trollhunt on thread with eg temp suspension to try and make it unacceptable.

Thanks. We do sometimes warn and ban people for troll-hunting but we will check that we're doing this as diligently as we should.

The deletion messages were partly an attempt to solve this problem (by putting as much info as possible in there) but annoyingly, at the moment they're not viewable on mobile. Hopefully once that is sorted there will be fewer threads about deleted threads.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 11:25

Haven't heard 'mogglers' for years...

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 11:29

@SleepySuitcaseSheepie

Is there not a way when a regular posts but name changes - it can say how many posts that person has done (despite name change) so if a new poster or 3 posts in the last 5 years since they have registered you can tell?

Thanks - this has been suggested a few times recently.

Whaddya all think? OTOH, it's creating a bit of 'them and us' - newbies vs oldies - and implying that a new-ish user is less valid/trustworthy than an oldie. OTOH, lots of people think it would be one way of addressing the troll-hunting problem. It's only really worth considering if it would really act as a way of stopping people calling troll on threads. We do hold it to be self-evident that all MNers are created equal apart from the fecking trolls

@SleepySuitcaseSheepie

It's not Rowans fault - she is just letting us know what's happening - thanks for that Thanks and maybe a glass or two? Wine

Thanks Grin

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 11:33

Infinity - we've just dug up the case we think you're talking about, and that user was banned.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 11:43

@InfinitySeven

Rowan Thanks, I must have missed that. It was fast moving!

I'll send you an email with MIND stuff, so you can have a look. It's worth considering, or maybe doing a trial period?

Thanks for reading that, too. I didn't realise it was so long...Wine

No worries and thank you, it's very useful. Please do mail!

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 23/10/2014 11:50

@ScreamingSmegs

Long term posters can troll just like new posters. I don't see how knowing whether someone was a long term poster would have helped in the case of, say, TDWP.

I seem to have reached a state of resigned cynicism on MN. Rather sad about it. I wish I could approach each thread in a more positive frame of mind.

Yes. It's very sticky. And the catch-all 'troll' isn't really covering the many possible scenarios. Over the years we've seen some users who have started off absolutely fine nailed-on MNers but have become deeply concerning/inflammatory/inconsistent only after really quite a long period of time.

The resigned cynicism is a shame. The internet is what it is and as we said before, not a single site that we know of has managed to solve this particular problem, unless it's a closed private site that pre-vets members.

That's why our approach is to ask people to only give of themselves what they can afford. If you know that a particular topic is really difficult or costly for you, and you know that a subsequent realisation that someone wasn't genuine is likely to deeply upset you, then you might like to consider giving it a swerve.

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