Disability

[BeyondStrongAndStable]

I know a lot of posters with disabilities avoid toilet/car parking threads, so I thought those that do might want to see this response to the thread in aibu.

It's certainly different to the usual reponse that signposts 'this is my child'. What do you think? Better or worse?

its a joke
mn hq said a while back that they would stamp out disablist posts. yet that thread is full of them. there is no point reporting,

Some of the posts in that thread are awful and seemingly being ignored by mn

That's ridiculous.

MNHQ said they would step up and not let disablism run rife. And now this. Speaks volumes.

No poster should ever be worried about raising an issue/asking questions. If the language or attitude shown is disablist (or plain disgusting) then yes, you'll get your Arden handed to you, but with a genuine query? There are many posters willing to help.

This is just licence to spout pure bullocks whenever, with impunity.

I agree with MNHQ on that, I think. It doesn't help anything for a subject to be closed down without discussion and just rubber stamped. If people feel the need to discuss it then it's far better that it is discussed and they come to understand why their original stance isn't as reasonable as they thought it was than simply having a position statement imposed on them and the conversation shut down.

If they are going to take that stance then they need to be keeping an extra close eye on the thread though and deleting the disablist posts which appear. Not leaving it as a free for all as they currently are

its not a case of "closing it down"
its a case of not letting hate speech stand.
its a case of mn hq standing by their TIMC Campaign and not allowing disablism.
they said they would stop leaving stuff up to educate. and would deal with this.

Sirzy, like they do with the trans threads? It's almost like men take priority over disabled women.

I assume based on the response in my OP that this is an official decision that they have come to following meetings on the subject? That's how it comes across to me?

The problem is that no other 'ism' is treated this way by MNHQ.

There is no leeway given to 'debate' racism, or homophobia, or many other abhorrent views.

Either them it ALL stand and be discussed, whatever the view, or don't.

But don't say (what, a year ago?) that you'll deal with it and take a harder line, then come out with crap like the OP quoted.

there are over 900 posts on the current thread. I wonder how many will be deleted?

Quite a few of mine have been, I think they may have counted as troll hunting though rather than PAs or disabilism. Wish they still commented on a deleted post why it was deleted (do I remember it existing or am I making that up?)

17 deletions, only two are mine (thought I'd seen more than that ). Quite a few seem to be by posters who have stated in the thread that they're disabled.

It's almost as if they are responding to the feeling that the whole thread is a PA on them?

Hi all - thanks for this.

There hasn't been any change in our moderation policy - we still try to tread the line between deleting posts which most people would agree are offensive, while also allowing the discussion to flow.

We do understand that it can be frustrating to be told that we'd rather allow the debate to continue than delete threads like this. But we believe, ultimately, that everyone has more to gain by Mumsnet's choice to be a broad church rather than a narrow one, and by our tendency to err on the side of free speech. We think this gives people the opportunity to deepen their understanding and perhaps change their thinking - many Mumsnetters have told us they've had their minds broadened by posts they've seen on Mumsnet and have become more tolerant and understanding as a result. That's where we are, and in truth it's unlikely that that's going to change in the near future.

Having said that, we've now seen some reports of posts which should have been deleted, so we're doing that now. Apols for the delay - it was a rather busy weekend so we've been a bit slow.

Thanks all.

Can you advise if, as was stated on another thread, someone who posts disablist stuff 3 times will be banned?

how sad, so we have now gone backwards and disablism is ok??
whilst deleting a thread or stopping a topic being discussed would be daft. why allow the horrid disablist stuff to stay up?

We do understand that it can be frustrating to be told that we'd rather allow the debate to continue than delete threads like this. But we believe, ultimately, that everyone has more to gain by Mumsnet's choice to be a broad church rather than a narrow one, and by our tendency to err on the side of free speech.

The DDA is unique in British anti discrimination law in that you are allowed to discriminate in favour of people with disabilities.

Perhaps MNHQ could adopt a policy of erring on the side of disabled people? We are under attack from all sides at the moment, a little bit of support would go a long way.

@mychilddoesntlookdisabled

Can you advise if, as was stated on another thread, someone who posts disablist stuff 3 times will be banned?

Hi there - yes, if someone were to be deleted three times for disablism they'd be banned. When it happens for the first time, we mail the poster to let them know that's the basis for the deletion - we hope they'll take the opportunity to rethink their approach, but if not we'd take action.

Thanks. Can I suggest you take a look at the Aibu thread then because there's some really close to the bone stuff.

Hi there - yes, if someone were to be deleted three times for disablism they'd be banned.

What rubbish.

The whole system is flawed. if someoen want an honest debate they wouldn't do it on AIBU for a start.

Your site and these posts are causing genuine upset to many of your members, do you actually realise people in these threads are people,m who are getting their lives criticised and picked apart to 'educate' others who don't even want to be educated?

You wouldn't leave a thread about rape up for victims to to educate
you wouldn't leave a thread about dolling out domestic abuse up so suffers can educate the abusers...

It's a joke and a fucking disgusting one at that.

You are being abused on our site, never mind take all they dish out, you can then educate them like the nice second class citizens you are.

I and i'm sure others would like to know how much money a thread like that actually makes for your site.

What's our abuse worth in the eyes of MNHQ's pocket?

If it's really not about money and you really want the suffering of the few to educate the masses, why not move the "emotive" thread to a less active part of the site which doesn't show up in trending?

why keep it in the most viewed part of the website where the worst bandwagon jumping posters hang out?

I can only think of one answer, the pageviews mean more than people and their lives.

user7r01112345: Blah blah blah i hate disabled toilets

REPORT REORT

Mumsnet: "we are moving this to SN chat so discussion can continue in a more appropriate enviroment""" blah blah blah this is my child.

user7r01112345: oh now i'm sad i can't masterbate everytime my thread get's in to trending this suck .

At the risk of setting myself up for a flaming...

What about a big red stamp across posts to mark them as disablist but leave them visible? Honestly, those of us who don't get it won't ever understand if we don't get to see what's wrong. Until that thread (I didn't read all of it, as it's grown since I saw it) I thought it was ok to use disabled loos when they were unoccupied, if there was a real need, if it didn't cause delay to anyone.

I recognise disablism where unpleasant comments are made about people with disabilities because of their disabilities, obviously.

Why is it disablist to discuss using a vacant toilet? Some of them are often multi purpose- the cubicle in the row with rails and a door hinged differently for example, or the ones which have baby change in with them. If there is a queue in a toilet block, should the disabled one be left unused? Or can it be used until a disabled person arrives to use it?

Sorry, I didn't mean this to be about toilets but about understanding disablism.