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.

Agree it should be made very clear why posts have been deleted.

Half the problem is people's disablist attitudes are so ingrained they can't see they are doing wrong. And others with similar views get all indignant on their behalf too.

"God people are so touchy. Why is it wrong to say it doesn't matter if someone is disabled, they have to live by society's norms just like the rest of us" etc etc ad infinitum.

MNHQ thank you for the reply it has been difficult to understand why things have been left, I for one appreciate the reason given and that you are trying.

All we want is to feel supported, none of us are campaigners by choice we have far more boring mundan stuff that could do with our attention. But only so much of a kicking you can feel you get before you try and stand up for yourself. Ends up small group feeling they have to single handily fire fight against thousands and thousands of people. Who may not have any experience of Disabilites and therefore see us all as aggressive anti- normal kind of people. We just want some basic respect and dignity other people take for granted and occasional nod that our lives are more difficult , not automatically kicked to back of line for being over sensitive, expecting to much and expecting people to uphold law and basic social norms. Everything that non disabled people ask for and no one bats an eye lid.

Appreciate this is the long haul and need much more social change and education for people to understand it but every little does help. We just don't want feel it's just our job to do all teaching here, when frankly everytime we leave the house, go to the shops or hospital or deal with public services we have to do the whole thing all bloody time!

On other forums I have posted on, if you got your message deleted, a copy would automatically be sent to your email/inbox, so you could re-read it and understand why it broke the guidelines.

It was no extra hassle for the moderators, because it was an auto thing that was sent when they hit delete.

It was quite handy for posters to know where they went wrong. Or to refresh their memories on a Sunday morning, if they'd been drunk posting on a Saturday night.

I don't actually believe any of us have posted from a point of hatred but from exasperation and anger that nothing is being done, nobody is listening and some of us have had this going on for years. Right now it's troll and goady fucker free for all on disabled people.

It's really, really not nice to feel targeted and some of us just aren't doing this any more.

On other forums I have posted on, if you got your message deleted, a copy would automatically be sent to your email/inbox, so you could re-read it and understand why it broke the guidelines

I think this would be a really good idea. I've been deleted for quoting a poster using a disablist word and calling them out on it. I'd forgotten I'd structured it like that I couldn't for the life of me figure what I'd done wrong. When I emailed it was the quoted bit that was the issue. If I'd had a copy of the post it would have been obvious what was the problem.

I am sure they used to do that. If you wanted further discussion on it you could email, but the default was that you got your post automatically upon deletion.

I think that sounds like a brilliant idea.

Yes, I'm sure there used to be an automatic email when you got deleted.

Maybe it was never automatic, and it was MNHQ taking the long, slow way to do it, which doesn't make sense as surely an automated system is the easiest way to go about it, and they definitely have automated systems in place since it doesn't seem that easy to change the deleted post message.

Tbh, I am more than a little astonished to be being told, yet again, what is it 3? 4? years after the last big protest by posters with disabilities/with dc with disabilities, that MNHQ are just so busy and doing their best and not meaning to upset us

It rather begs the question, when are MNHQ actually going to get their act together? Clearly this is not a new problem - this is easily the third massive blow up with discussions rumbling on for days/weeks during my time here - so exactly what is going to change? If you couldn't sort it out when the site was smaller, how are you going to a mange it now? I'd really like an answer to that, and not just a wishy-washy 'well, our intentions are to X,Y,Z' (since we've already been told that, and oh, look, nothing has actually changed).

MNHQ, you can't hide behind 'please do keep flagging it up to us and we'll deal with it' - you can't keep up with the reports, which leaves us feeling as though MNHQ must disagree with the reporting being done, since no deletions are happening. The report system appears to be very low down on a list of priorities at MN towers - in the last couple of years it's taken a couple of days to get back to a report, always with the same 'oh, terribly sorry, we're very busy' excuse. It's just not good enough.

I already suggested it upthread, but i think a three tier reporting system (as it is already two tier with spam/other), adding in an option for this post breaks the law re racism/ablism/etc that is flagged as higher priority than the general reports.

And i do think it would help to show that a post has been reported on the post itself, maybe just a little (!) in the corner or something, so that others know the post isnt deemed okay before it disappears and can consider whether they want to post in agreement. Hopefully preventing six million deletions on the one thread? Also, if there was a way to show they had reported, people might not be so keen to trollhunt and argue on the thread itself?

I can't think of a situation where it would be OK for people to start threads or post about why legal rights acquired by a minority group should be disallowed and all the associated whataboutery. Yet this is allowed on MN when it's the legal rights of disabled people. Another issue is the blatant and acknowledged name changing to post this - surely this proves the poster knows it's inflammatory (and by inflammatory I mean goady fuckery).

On the disabled changing room thread MN said they won't ever stifle debate (I think this was the wording) but at what point does debate become hate speech at the worst and goady fuckery at best?

I agree it's so disheartening to keep reading "sorry but we are busy" and leaving disablist posts up whilst silencing those protesting about disablist posts (exactly what happened on the changing room thread). There is so much of it around at the moment (as MN acknowledge) that it's pretty obvious some people have a disablist agenda. Yet no action is being taken by MNHQ, or the action is slow or the action is wrong.

If I name changed to start a thread (for example) saying that Jews have a synagogue on my road and I parked in their car park to go to the shops and got shouted at, AIBU, and encouraged posters to share tales of the Jew brigade having chips on their shoulders and they should be grateful to be allowed a synagogue but they shouldn't expect special treatment and just because they're a Jew doesn't mean they're not a cunt and maybe you should have just punched them or told them to fuck off...would that be deleted?

(PS Apologies as I know that's awful reading that back but this is exactly how it feels, reading that thread (amongst others) as a disabled person makes me feel exactly how I feel when I see posts saying Jews are evil and plotting to take over the world. As was actually said on that Freemen thread - and swiftly deleted incidentally).

MNHQ need to take action to address this issue. At the moment this outweighs the "good parts" of MN for me and it doesn't feel like a place I feel welcome.

PS I've just realised that my post is not a good anology as Jews usually walk to synagogue

One thing i want to add (to preempt anyone thinking this!), is that i think there is a large difference between threads setting disabled people (disadvantaged group protected by law) against parents (not a protected group) and those regarding the current situation re women (disadvantaged group protected by law) and transactivists (also a legally protected group).

I dont want this discussion backfiring on feminism threads as they are very different situations, yet i'm sure it will occur to someone as "not fair".

most carers of disabled people are women
a lot of disabled people are women.

Love the way you put miffle. Sometimes I try insert the word black, Asian, etc into disabled word see how awful it sounds and you can bet would get deleted quicker.

Can't believe still poster on wheelchair thread shouting that her needs of newborn and toddler out weigh yours. Even if as a wheelchair user IF you allow her to over ride your rights then it applies to the next 5 buses too. There no point arguing it's law and decent common sense but fight still goes on.

@Akire

If your post gets deleted do you get a message? Or can you stil be in blissful ignorance?

No. But if we have too many reports about a particular poster we will get in touch with them before we wield the ban hammer.
HTH

@MiffleTheIntrovert

I can't think of a situation where it would be OK for people to start threads or post about why legal rights acquired by a minority group should be disallowed and all the associated whataboutery. Yet this is allowed on MN when it's the legal rights of disabled people. Another issue is the blatant and acknowledged name changing to post this - surely this proves the poster knows it's inflammatory (and by inflammatory I mean goady fuckery).

On the disabled changing room thread MN said they won't ever stifle debate (I think this was the wording) but at what point does debate become hate speech at the worst and goady fuckery at best?

I agree it's so disheartening to keep reading "sorry but we are busy" and leaving disablist posts up whilst silencing those protesting about disablist posts (exactly what happened on the changing room thread). There is so much of it around at the moment (as MN acknowledge) that it's pretty obvious some people have a disablist agenda. Yet no action is being taken by MNHQ, or the action is slow or the action is wrong.

If I name changed to start a thread (for example) saying that Jews have a synagogue on my road and I parked in their car park to go to the shops and got shouted at, AIBU, and encouraged posters to share tales of the Jew brigade having chips on their shoulders and they should be grateful to be allowed a synagogue but they shouldn't expect special treatment and just because they're a Jew doesn't mean they're not a cunt and maybe you should have just punched them or told them to fuck off...would that be deleted?

(PS Apologies as I know that's awful reading that back but this is exactly how it feels, reading that thread (amongst others) as a disabled person makes me feel exactly how I feel when I see posts saying Jews are evil and plotting to take over the world. As was actually said on that Freemen thread - and swiftly deleted incidentally).

MNHQ need to take action to address this issue. At the moment this outweighs the "good parts" of MN for me and it doesn't feel like a place I feel welcome.

Please can we direct you to Rebecca's post of last night at 22:59:32
Thanks

I'm surprised the mail has picked up on all of this

"Mn members against HQ!"

Do you mean 'hasnt'?

They could even angle it as "entitled disabled people want mnhq to change mumsnet for them" to suit their demographic...

That's what I meant yes

And it wouldn't read that headline. It's not shocking enough for the daily mail

As someone upthread suggested (sorry, memory low today), if we had an option to report a thread specifically for being racist/disablist/sexist - illegal basically - perhaps it could be programmed that any post reported for this option could automatically be suspended until it can be reviewed?
Or X number of separate posts reported by a poster over a certain poster over a period of time, the poster could be suspended until MNHQ has a chance to either speak with them, or to ban them completely?

I would like to apologise for my aggression that came across with my anger yesterday. We are one week away from the end of term, and I'm sure that any parents of children with SN understand this an especially difficult time of the year. I also am struggling with my own disabilities at the moment, and had my first appointment with clinical genetics, which is obviously never cookies and cream either! I allowed my own issues to affect the way I was treating other people and that is never acceptable. MNHQ, I'm sure you understand our frustration over how difficult this is all being, but you didn't deserve to be attacked, and for that I do sincerely apologise.

HahahaCleverNN you had me panicked there for a minute. My parents are Daily Mail readers (I know ) and not quite sure I would want to be sharing this with them at the moment.

Mine are too alice (for shame). I have no idea where me or my youngest sister came from. The middle one, not so much...

Meh, both my brothers have pretty consistent dailymail-esque attitudes too, sadly

It would appear quite fashionable at present to be of a mail-esque attitude. Even if people express the attitude a little tongue in cheek. My mum is an avid reader and quoter of the Mail - yet also a hugely compassionate, charitable person. Fortunately, my dad is a brilliant, calm redresser of the headlines balance on her.

I have a slightly revised username and an aim of the day to post on more threads that are less contentious so my threads I'm on is not just a long list of stressful emotionally fueled threads.

Doing the real life stress instead, off to an National Autistic Society (NAS) meeting talking tactics on how to manage DS1's anxiety that WW3 is about to happen due to some of the fab headlines he's read lately.