Please give an automatic ban to trollhunters

[catsrus]

There's some appalling troll hunting tonight on a DV thread. If the only consequence of troll hunting is a deleted post people will carry on doing it. Instead of the ubiquitous "please read our guidelines..." Type message I would like to see "This poster is now under a one week suspension for troll hunting" .

We know some women live in situations that are so extreme they are hard to believe - surely MN should err on the side of believing?

[exLtEveDallas]

If it does turn out to be a troll then actually is it VERY damaging to a DV sufferer - what with the "police told me to stay" "WA wouldn't talk to me" "No-one will believe me" and "He'll get more violent if I try to leave" statements.

[Anastasie]

LtEve

lots of us 'longer serving' members do indeed remember those incidents.

Not all of us seek to be the first to point out a possible non genuine post.

That's part self-promotion, though I agree it is partly in the public interest, but the trouble is, they don't have the authority or tools to make that call, they can only guess -

MNHQ could act in the public interest if they were on the case quickly enough - and the massive, huge problem with that is that they aren't.


On the thread Spark linked to, I suggested that they need more staff.

This morning it is patently clear that they do NOT have enough cover and if they sorted that little issue out, it would instantly take away about 90% of the troll hunting we see on here, if not all of it.

I'd be a volunteer mod if they would take me on. Loads of us would I'm sure. I think they could probably pay people though given the size of the site now.

[Prettyinblue]

True or not I worked with families fleeing domestic violence. I had many large (over 7 children) families present. It's quite common for abusers to make women pregnant and dependent again and again. Some of the women suffered far worse than a broken arm (not that that isn't horrific) . So even if the Op is not true in a particular DV thread, they should never not be believed because someone else reading will be suffering similar or worse and will take the troll hunting to back up their abusers threats that no one will believe them. As for the police, I have heard far worse advise.

[wannaBe]

Have just seen the thread in question. it will be deleted before this one is. As for "someone may benefit from advice given on a troll thread," bullshit. Because if you read a thread and people give advice on it, there is never any way to go back to that advice when the thread is deleted due to the fact that someone decided to get their kicks by trolling about something which is so incredibly sensitive.

I am actually surprised that anyone is gullible enough to believe that thread.

And reality is this is the internet. If you post on the internet then the risk is that you have no idea who is reading and who will believe and who won't.


And sorry but "I believe you" has become a bit of a cliche now....

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

The reason we have troll hunting is because of the many times that MNers have been trolled into giving too much personal info/money/time and emotion.

You can't really protect vulnerable users from themselves. This is an entirely public site, anyone anywhere in the world can view posts. Pages are cached so that if threads are deleted it is still out there. No-one should be giving out money/time/emotion if they can't afford to lose it. It's basic internet safety.

Trolls are a pain in the arse, but are inevitable. Troll hunting on thread is also a pain in the arse and has no benefit whatsoever.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeG0es]

I don't agree with a blanket ban for troll-hunting, it should be looked at case by case, as are the trolls. And reports need to be acted on more quickly, if people felt confident about that there would be far less need for trollhunting. Some posters are far better at spotting trolls than others (I'm not one of them), I imagine it's very hard not to post when you are 100% convinced it's not true but others are getting deeply sucked in.

[wannaBe]

"The reason we have troll hunting is because of the many times that MNers have been trolled into giving too much personal info/money/time and emotion." and because mn hq are not quick enough to act on reports, meaning that by the time they actually get round to looking at the thread it's already hundreds of posts long and has either descended into a bunfight between the "we believe you's" and the troll hunters, or is full of people who are sharing their often very personal accounts in order to help the op.

Historically the majority of serious trolls that have been outed on mn have been outed publicly after weeks and weeks of reports, and the outings have happened because mn hq have failed to do anything. And while it's very easy to say that people shouldn't share more than they can afford to lose, if someone has been in a similar situation then they will often identify with a poster who claims to be doing the same. Especially when it comes to such emotive subjects as dv or child bereavement, for instance.

And to post "we believe you" on a thread which claims that someone was told not to leave an abusive relationship for fear of the situation escalating is incredibly dangerous to other posters who are genuinely in that situation and afraid to leave.

[ThenLaterWhenItGotDark]

They don't need more staff. They need their bullshit filter cleaning.

As do about 99% of the members at the moment.

One thing is true though. The self-aggrandizement on the poor-me and relationships threads is astonishing. I'm sure there are, at any given time, a thousand post-doc psych theses waiting to be written about MN users alone.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

I do agree that MNHQ need to have a proper look at how they handle trolls - however, I still don't think on thread troll hunting is justified.

Some posters are far better at spotting trolls than others

Some posters think they are far better at spotting trolls...

And while it's very easy to say that people shouldn't share more than they can afford to lose, if someone has been in a similar situation then they will often identify with a poster who claims to be doing the same. Especially when it comes to such emotive subjects as dv or child bereavement, for instance

I'm sorry, but people need to have more judgement when it comes to the internet. If you are going to be devastated if the person you are "helping" is a troll, then really you shouldn't be posting..

[Whoknewitcouldbeso]

I am still mindful of the MNer who posted on here regarding her being in hospital and asking for support as she was expected to deliver her baby very prematurely and was terrified. The thread was amazingly supportive until someone started calling troll, suddenly lots of people started doubting the poster and eventually even MN suspected it was a fabrication and closed the thread.

That poster was on OBEM weeks later having indeed given birth and her baby unfortunately passed away. Just horrific all round and whilst it is the trolls that end up causing suspicion for everyone, I don't think anyone is that clever to be 100% sure that any poster is lying. Best to report and let the admin staff at least check ip numbers or something.

[ThenLaterWhenItGotDark]

The thread everyone is talking about is Swiss Cheese it's so full of holes.

She even ballsed up her own sockpuppeting about 3 posts in.

Wake up FFS.

[wannaBe]

I wasn't on the prem baby thread but iirc nobody actually called troll on the thread? in fact the responses to the deletion were of shock that it had been deleted. And this is the thing - if nobody calls troll on the thread and reports and mn hq delete and it turns out to have been true, what then? should mn hq not delete either just in case?

Also, there is a difference between a thread which appears to be an attention seeking/vampiric troll which may or may not have an element of truth to it and one which is so blatantly a crock of shite that anyone who can't see it clearly needs to question how they are so easily taken in.

I regularly report threads on relationships which seem a bit suspect, an op making some shock discovery and then rising to the occasion and coming out a super hero at the end of it all with their band of supporters as they start thread after thread after thread with ever increasingly shocking revelations which they deal with with the utmost dignity and courage yada yada. Sometimes mn hq say they have no reason to suspect, sometimes they say they've had numerous reports and are watching carefully, and sometimes the thread disappears in a puff of smoke... either way the reports happen behind the scenes, and often those threads are as much about people needing to be seen to be a supporter as they are about the person needing the attention.

But there is absolutely no way that that dv thread was real. None what so ever. It's not about the ability to spot a troll it's about the ability to realise that it's such a crock of bullshit that it's even been written in a way to make it look unbelievable. In which case I actually question why anyone feels the need to defend it.... There should only be one of two ways to respond to that thread - either ignore and move on, or call it on the crock of shite that it is.

[Whoknewitcouldbeso]

I was on the thread and at the end there were lots of unpleasant posts saying they knew it was a wind up from the beginning and discussing the OP in disparaging terms.

[wannaBe]

so has the dv one gone yet?

[Whoknewitcouldbeso]

X posts. It may have been a TAAT but still people were allowed to go on for pages calling a genuine poster a troll.

[ThenLaterWhenItGotDark]

i'm talking about last night's offering btw.

[wannaBe]

"It may have been a TAAT but still people were allowed to go on for pages calling a genuine poster a troll." that's not the same thing at all. If someone has been banned for trolling by mn hq and posters have invested in that poster then it is inevitable that it will be discussed. At the time she wasn't known as a genuine poster, she was known as a troll as confirmed by mn hq. so it is disingenuous to suggest that people were allowed to call a genuine poster a troll, they were talking about a confirmed troll who it then transpired was genuine. Not the same thing at all.