Hey MNHQ. Would it be possible to have a discussion about how SN issues/threads are handled on the main boards.

[Pagwatch]

I know you are fire fighting a bit and I'm not trying to stir things up.

I just think that there are endless threads that require you to get involved and try to (for the sake of a better word) mediate between pissed of posters with no real experience of SN/disability and pissed off member of the SN/disability community.

I think you try really really hard to be fair and even handed. It's an understandable response but I have growing doubts about it.
There have been half a dozen threads recently where posters I recognise as living with SN/disability issues deal with a continuous stream of posts from any random who pops up on a thread making the same stupid, ill informed or frankly goady post.
It's like swimming through a tidal wave of shit.
Then, as posters get increasingly exasperated by each arriving poster saying 'well I'm not putting my buggy away if my baby is asleep' or 'why can't I use the disabled toilet if it's empty' or 'but people with SN can be violent. I know of stabbing someone and attacks all the time' they get rude and the thread descends into eurrgh.

I'm still reading constant posts where anyone affected by disability is berated if they are angry, the message being 'be nice, be grateful or we don't have to be fair'

It seems to me that the status quo of 'fairness' is simply unfair.
Posters already dealing with immense difficulty shouldn't be forced to defend themselves against every person who turns up and says unpleasant things under the umbrella of debate. You said a long time ago it was not our responsibility to educate but the reality is that, with no palpable support from you guys, we are endlessly having to educate.

I am not pretending to have the answer but is it possible to contemplate methods by which you could actually say to posters saying 'if someone in a wheelchair can't use their space because I'm not putting my buggy away' that their comments are wrong and not in the spirit of the site?

You link to the This Is My Child campaign but the posters who are the problem won't care and won't read it.

I don't know - I just wonder if you could think about this.
Sometimes there are not two sides to a debate because only one side is directly affected, exhausted, distressed and having their lives and their children's lives made harder.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine.

With respect I think I will be comfortable with MNHQ struggling with the smallish percentage of threads where parents are arguing amongst themselves if they get involved in the huge number of occasions when it's just clueless people posting rubbish.

It would reduce the shite by about 90% which would be a win in my book.

Totally agree with Pag

It's also become increasing apparent (to me) on here that some posters view parents of children who are disabled/Sen as humourless shrews come forth to ruin everyones happy.

I'll never forget a thread once which was started by a poster mocking a mother she has seen making a hand gesture and comment to her child. A few other posters (myself included) posted to say it was something we did ourselves with our children and perhaps the child in question had SEN. No one roasted her. The comments that were posted back by various other posters included;

Here's the SEN brigade come to piss on the OPs chips.

Do you all put a call out to come these threads and bully the OP.

The thread was eventually deleted but ran in a similar way for ages.

That thread really affected my enjoyment of MN for a long time.

The "SN brigade" type comments are just another way to ignore the uncomfortable possibility that they have been a bit of a twat.

People struggle to recognise they have been a bit of a twat. I am a bit of a twat quite often and usually learn something from recognising that.

The last buggies on buses thread was a bit of an eye opener for me. I guess combined with some fairly shit attitudes to be faced in rl, I am just a bit tired of it all tbh.

I (nearly) always try to be fair, and calm, and post links to campaigns etc, but then posters come on battering you with the same stick, of, 'but it's so unfair......' and I feel relief when the posters who manage to combine eloquence with anger, turn up and then they get battered with the samestick and get called nasty'.

Well boo fucking hoo

As I said on the bugies thread,I think mumsnet should make it a rule that you can't join unless you have read the This Is My Child campaign, and a piece written by one of the many eloquent posters who are disabled on their experience negotiating through a thoughtless world.

No, Pag, you miss the point. Those two parents of children with SN shouldn't have been violently disagreeing at all. They, more than most, should have known to be polite, courteous, and considering of someone else's viewpoint.

Because they learned that from the 'welcome to disability' pack they got issued with. The one which also points out you should never complain, and certainly not do so of it wider community. I mean, however would MNHQ be able to intervene on a thread where people with disabilities/parents of children with disabilities disagree? They'd have to treat those posters like all the other ones, rather than as a special case...

Oh. Hang on, there might be something in that...

by the way I have no idea what 'bugies' are.

I think that when an issue is clear cut and unarguable then folk should be allowed one twatty question, and then further questions in the same vein should be deleted - In general SN threads in chat would benefit from heavy handed rather than light touch moderation.

In more contentious threads obviously twattish comments should be deleted with a heavy hand, but I think you still need discussion. That zip line thread I think was quite interesting between the two arguments of child with SN needs to realistically interact in a non SN world, and therefore needs to be taught the "rules" even though it is hard, and that the non SN world needs to bend the "rules" for folk with SN. That thread obviously turned into a total bunfight hence why I never saw the conclusion. And there were parents with experience in both sides of the argument.

Maybe a SN FAQ section would be an idea? People could post the link and then hide the thread. These discussions tend to, understandably, become very emotional, but bar banning discussion of SN I don't think they can be avoided.

But folk repeating an obviously twatty argument over and over again should obviously be deleted.

Pagwatch I agree with all you've said.

Also wanted to add, the 'This is my child' campaign is all well and good. as it is, but it's about children. It's not about those posters with SN/Disabilities who are adults. So the TIMC campaign only goes so far.

The discussion about whether a child with SN should be taught the rules or not may be interesting off Aibu but in a situation where the bulk of the thread was huge speculation about where the mother was, did the child actually have a SN, why was she alone etc etc it was less so.

The point that some children with SN simply cannot learn rules because that is actually part of their disability became linked with 'well if she can't learn why was she on her own'

There isn't really a discussion outside of Aibu hysteria. If a child's disability prevents them learning rules then they can't learn them. That's it.

i reported the zip wire one when the op named the town and park.....yet it still stayed.
parents of kids with disabilities will fall out and disagree.......cos we are just people

LastFirstEverything thank you and it doesnt include over 18"s so your adult child is not included.

YY *Samcro.

The problem with the MNHQ link is that it is not immediately obviously relevant:

I've had a quick look through and there is nothing (obvious) about buggies in buses, disabled toilets, funny enough people, 9 year olds having meltdowns...

A lot of the stuff on the link ( except for the way too short "myths " section) is more for parents of children with SN than your standard ignoramus who needs it explained why wheelchairs have priority over buggies etc.

TIMC is also useless as its not just about children.

I posted 'live' on the wheelchair/bus thread to illustrate what it's like at the sharp end. Anxieties about whether I would be able to access public transport. Related how a bus user wanted to use the space for a buggy containing a DOLL ffs and yes it's honestly true and happened yesterday morning in Metrobus route 53.

Someone who has actual zero idea of what it's like to be a wheelchair user accused me of making non disabled people feel bad! That actually an able bodied poster deserved sympathy as some kind of 'victim' of mine!

I mean - what actual planet is someone on who can behave like that?

Why is it allowed to stand?

I'm not a child, I'm a parent. I've been on this forum about 10 years and poked up with the prejudice and goading around my children because in RL I'm isolated and it's nice to have social contact. But now I'm significantly disabled myself as well as parent to 3 disabled children and even more in line for attack.

Why is it acceptable in this online community?

Is there an adult with SN campaign that can be linked alongside the child's one?

bishop I once had to miss a bus because someone refused to move their pram from my very obviously disable brother. The pram had a DOG in it.

And also TIMC is very woolly and doesn't address the actual stuff that's thrown at the disabled community here.

I think asking MNHQ to take a stance on this is like banging our heads against a brick wall.

Remember the media request about families with ADHD the other day? Don't media requests actually have to be authorised by someone at MNHQ? Yes, it was finally deleted, but only after posters had been upset and angered by it. It should have been rejected before it even made it onto the boards.

Great post Pagwatch.

I agree with Fanjo that, It's about what is right not one side against another.

I am weary of all the disabilist shite on here, a quick link to TIMC does nothing. My child's is now an adult and there's nothing to support those of us with a disability or those who are the parent of a disabled adult, or in my case those of us who are both.

MN should look at what sort of culture it wants to be a part of.

The idea of linking to ThisIsMyChild was a good one.
The theory should have worked.

The sad reality though is that the vast majority of posters simply don't read it. They don't read it off their own bat. They don't read it when MNHQ link to it.
They just don't.m

So 'please take a look at the ThisIsMyChild link' actually just means 'could you take 15 minutes to read why you should be nicer to people than you want to be' .
It's not having the effect we all hoped it would because most posters who are not directly affected don't care. They don't want to know what it is they don't know. They don't want to read something designed to educate them slightly because they already think they know it all.

I've just read today's offerings on the Buggy in wheelchair space thread which was on my TIO and I just feel depressed.

I got told off for using cunt on a thread the other day. By someone saying it was ok to call someone with mental health issues a loony.
She said it wasn't very nice.

That was a doozie