MN hq, please can we have a refugee crisis topic?

[wannaBe]

I realise that it's an emotive topic, and that there will likely be some who feel that people shouldn't have the option to hide it etc.

However there are numerous threads popping up constantly, to talk about what can be done/what should be done/who should be ashamed of what opinion they hold, and invariably emotions are running high both because there is very much polarised opinion on the subject but there are also those who would rather just not see a dozen migrant/refugee threads in active at any one time.

A specific topic would not only give people the option to not read if they didn't want, but it would also bring all of the threads together in one place so if people did want to talk about/start a new thread it would be easy to go and see in the topic whether there was already one without then running the risk of duplicating.

So ... please - mn hq?

good luck with that.

Hi wannaBe

Thanks for your suggestion.

We're pleased to tell you this new topic is now up and running - please follow this link www.mumsnet.com/Talk/refugee_crisis

so why havn't the treads been moved into it?

Hi there Samcro

We're in the process of moving threads over, but before we did we wanted to check that the OP of each thread would be happy for us to do so.

As and when we hear back from the OPs we'll make sure threads are moved to the new topic as soon as possible.

I think that the idea of a refugee crisis topic is a good one but I agree with Maryz, why is it up to the OP to decide? MNhq, develop a backbone, you're in charge of a business not a focus group.

Hopefully MNhq might actually pick up on more of the 'bigot', 'thick' etc words being thrown about if all the threads were in the same place.

what MaryZ said

Oh please just sweep 'em into the new topic.
And thank you for the new topic.

Thank you but agree with maryz. why do the ops need to give permission first - usually it's easy enough to report a thread and get it moved - why is this different?

This is the case for all threads across all topics; we offer topic areas, but don't force users to stick to them (otherwise we'd move everyone who says 'I'm posting in AIBU/chat for the traffic', and that would basically be all of our time, every day).

As someone says, the refugee crisis is also news, so people could legitimately post in there, for example - but they may choose to post in chat or AIBU about specific questions, too.

We've provided the topic, and invited the OPs to have their threads moved., and we'll also post on the most popular current threads letting everyone know that there's a refugee topic, but we're not going to police this. As ever, people are free to post where they like.

so pointless then

Hopefully not, Samcro - at the very least, the topic provides a first port of call for people wishing to discuss the issue. Several of the main threads of the last few days have been moved over and, as with most topics, it's likely that the they'll exert a gravitational pull on other users, and the bulk of discussion will now take place over here.

But the topics are a means of organisation for users, not a hard-and-fast rule. Even if we wanted to oblige people to only post on pregnancy, say, in the pregnancy topic, we couldn't enforce that - firstly, because of the size of the site and the sheer number of threads that are started every day, and secondly because, as AmyGMumsnet says, threads regularly straddle several topics at once. Hope that explains things.

It's a balancing act, Maryz. As I said, they're useful for organisation and navigation from a user pov, and they are by and large adhered to, with the exception of chat and aibu. If you look in the refugee crisis topic, you'll see that most of the OPs who recently started threads on the subject did agree to have them moved. Users generally like them and often request new ones (we've ushered in 'cycling' and 'academics' corner' this week). But too many can hinder navigation rather than help it, so we audit them once or twice a year and cull any that aren't used.

The only other option would be to get rid of chat and AIBU and oblige everyone to post in subject-specific topics, but I imagine if we suggested that we'd have an insurrection on our hands