Anti-Religious Trolling On Mumsnet

[DioneTheDiabolist]

I get that not everyone is religious and that some people are very anti-religious (some with good reasons).

But some MNetters are religious, others are simply curious. So how come so many threads are allowed to be derailed by anti-religious trolls? Today a thread about Good Friday was deleted because a troll came on. FFS, it's Easter! Threads about Islam are regularly derailed by Islamophobes. On a thread seeking information on Judaism in the Philosophy & Religion topic, a troll has posted LMFAO. Ok, serious question, why does the Jewish God make all men wear a funny beards? She continues venting for a few posts before eventually exiting the thread saying that she is on drugs because It's Easter, party time.

She is a MN regular, like most of the anti-religious trolls here. I have reported her posts but they still stand.

Trolls are not interested in knowing what other people think or believe. They have no desire to discuss the point of actual threads and rarely start threads of their own regarding their issues with religion or belief. They just derail threads in the hope of driving all talk of religion and different beliefs off MN. And they are succeeding.

Why are MNHQ allowing this to happen? Deleting threads instead of dealing with posters? Allowing blatant anti-religious trolling to derail threads that people may find supportive or informative? Is MN a religion free zone? Because if it is, that's ok. I just think that religious posters should be told. Then they can go elsewhere if they wish to discuss their beliefs.

pearly, yes, I'm complicit, guilty if I engage. The thread gets derailed. I also am complicit if I ignore, the poster, purposely derailing, does not get challenged and is given a platform to continue. So I am guilty if I do not engage, in order to challenge what they are saying, guilty in doing nothing. This is why I feel moderation would be helpful.

So is the bile and vitriol we're talking about the same as the "sky fairy" "imaginary friend" stuff?

Because I still don't know what we're talking about. I also have a bit of an issue with being expected to be kind and considerate all the time. I couldn't promise that because there are elements of religions that make me very angry, and which I genuinely believe are unacceptable. Would the new regime, for example, expect me to stay silent about infant male circumcision? Anti abortion protesters?

^not engaging with a poster seeking to derail feels especially awful when other posters gleefully pile in, to support the poster derailing, in their derailment, from the original discussion, the OP raised.

It also feels especially awful when the conversation is successfully steered towards the derailleur's agenda and the posters discussing the points raised in the OP leave the thread.

Bertrand even with derailment moderation, you can discuss what you like, within talk guidelines, if it relates to the OP. You can also start any new thread you like, within talk guidelines.

OK. But if I was to object to,say, infant male circumcision, I would be criticising all the adherents of several major world religions. And I am so very strongly opposed to it I do not feel inclined to be kind and understanding about it. Would I be deleted?

And the Christians who have questioned my moral compass, sense of wonder and charitable instincts? Who have told me to "get over myself" for not wanting religion in schools? Deletable?

So basically challenge and question- but only in terms previously approved by the people you are challenging and questioning.......

"I don't agree with that, you're all a bunch of deluded people stuck in archaic rituals". But that's what I think of, say infant male circumcision.

I do understand the difference. Sometimes I want to be able to use the second sentence. When I'm talking about infant male circumcision for example.

I just read the Lahore thread. There are deleted posts which I presume are the offensive ones. Which surely shows that the system we have works pretty well? The rest of the thread is an interesting and robust debate- probably not for the faint hearted, but the thread title is surely a clue there!

I think there are a number of different issues that some people seem to want to be addressed and I am not too clear what solution or mechanism could work to resolve all the perceived issues. If it's OK with Capsium and she doesn't feel this is a derailment in some way I will summarise the issues and my personal views.

Trolls we have rules already about trolling and MNHQ deals effectively with persistent offenders or people who deliberately come to MN to cause trouble. I suspect they do a lot of stuff behind the scenes asking people by email to calm it down or they will need to take further action. In order to do this they rely on people using the Report button each and every time. Extreme and persistent trolling & goading is usually easy to spot. There are of course grey areas where someone's sarcastic, ironic or witty comment is another person's definition of goading, but ultimately a high volume of reports for a specific poster will flag up to MN if someone is persistently over stepping the line.

Personal Attacks again we have rules about this. The question being raised on this thread is at what point in a discussion about someone's dearly held faith it becomes a personal attack. IMHO Telling someone they are stupid for believing X is in my opinion a personal attack, but saying that they find to hard to understand why an educated person is able to believe in ghosts/homeopathy or any other Woo is not. Again posters should use the Report button if they feel under Personal Attack

Derailment/Staying on Topic There are no rules for this at moment other than the more general ones about being nice, polite, courteous and so on. Deliberate unpleasant derailment and general nasty behaviour can still be reported as trolling and goading. And MNHQ do step in when discussions are becoming a bun-fight or unpleasant, again posters need to use the Report button when this happens.

I personally cannot see why (or how) we could control the development and flow of a thread as different posters come in to a thread, add their opinion, develop the discussion, add a humourous aside. MN would be a far duller and less colourful place. All sorts of people, with a huge range of posting styles, intellect and abilities, populate the forum. I think it would be very dangerous and divisive to say only people who can clearly interpret the meaning & purpose of a discussion, and are articulate & perceptive are permitted to contribute.

Silver I think you might be misinterpreting how closely moderated derailment would be, if there were guidelines on this. Humorous asides, natural development of discussion, occasional misinterpreting of topic subject would most likely be tolerated by other posters and the MN moderators. Posters wouldn't report and MN wouldn't act in these case scenarios of well meaning and often fruitful diversion.

I, personally, expect it would only be the persistent and purposeful derailments that would be reported and then initially, what they would receive, would be a warning to desist or de camp to another thread, before any deletion occurred.

But here's the thing, capsium, I don't want MN to be moderated any more than it is now. Regardless of which board I'm reading/posting on. I value the fact that we're treated like adults here, and we're allowed to say what we want - as long as it's within Talk guidelines, obviously.

I don't mean that I condone nastiness, but it does mean that I accept that sometimes posts might be robust and challenging. Sometimes that might be difficult to deal with. But I really don't want MN to suddenly become somewhere where we are treated like children, with MNHQ moderating what we can and can't say. That would totally change what the site is all about.

Well, I wouldn't have said "fucking"

But are you saying that people of faith are allowed to say that their God and the stories about their gods are factual because that is what they believe, but I am not allowed to say that they are myths because that is what I believe? I presume you aren't objecting to the assertion that people are dying in the name of religion?

"With any luck, people might start exercising their fucking brains, realise that people are dying because of very ancient myths"

As this isn't a personal attack, then of course it won't have been deleted.

I haven't seen that comment (haven't finished reading all of that thread yet), but it strikes me that it's someone expressing a strong opinion, who is angry about something. Surely we're allowed to express emotional responses? As long as it's not a personal attack? We don't always have to tiptoe around people for fear of upsetting them, do we?

Silver you say 'deliberate unpleasant derailment' could be reported as trolling. However I'm not sure it would fall into this category. MN definition of trolling is this:

"(For those who don't know, a troll is someone who poses as someone else in order to stir up trouble, fulfil their own perverted agenda, or just for the hell of it.)"

BIWI I think it depends upon how derailment was moderated and reported as to whether it meant we were being treated like children or not. Sometimes moderation can aid communication if it prevents dysfunctional posting behaviours which deter genuine, well meaning posters from posting.

I have started the thread below if anyone would like to discuss the idea of Christian Privilege, which was referred to earlier.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/2602806-Does-Christian-privilege-exist-in-the-UK-If-so-why-and-what-impact-does-it-have

Itsmine- the thread you took that quotation from was about religiously inspired terrorism.
The discussion was heated. People are allowed to be angry. People are allowed to express themselves strongly. We're grown ups.