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Why has Mumsnet HQ retroactively edited four deleted messages?

3 replies

DaemonPantalaemon · 07/08/2017 18:11

I do not want to start a thread about a thread. But I am in a Catch-22 logical bind here in that I cannot ask my question on the thread itself because the thread has been deleted.

So I am asking it here.

Why has Mumsnet edited its deletion messages on at least 4 threads? When the threads were initially deleted, they had deletion messages that said, among other things, our heart goes out to Poster X at this difficult time, and he assures us the support from Mumsunet has been helpful to him.

Another thread said it was important to give Poster X the benefit of the doubt.

Those deletion messages have now been edited with a generic "its time to stop talking about this".

So my question is, why is MNHQ so keen to gaslight the members of his forum by retroactively editing deletion messages?

Thank you.

IonaMumsnet · 07/08/2017 20:38

Evening all, and hello, OP. We're really sorry but we're genuinely confused about this one. We did make one edit to a thread title this morning (we had typed 'are' when we meant to type 'as') but that was all. You'd barely have noticed. We've just been through and checked this with everyone who has been working today and no one has edited thread titles in the way you are describing, so this is very odd indeed.

Could we ask you exactly which ones the thread titles were? We'll go back and double check but this might be a Tech query. You are sure they are the same threads? We did delete a lot of threads with similar titles in the last 24 hours, and they would probably have had different deletion messages. Is it possible you're looking at different threads?

If you have screengrabs you can send us that would be brilliant and we'll look into it further.

IonaMumsnet · 07/08/2017 21:13

Hi Daemon. OK. So, sorry to be slow here but just want to make sure we're absolutely clear at this end on the weirdness going on here... so you saw another deletion message on this exact thread (definitely thread five not one of the other many threads called 'David and Caroline') that was more 'fawning' than this one, and at some point today the deletion message on this thread changed?

If that's the case we will ask Tech to have a look as they'll have a record in some magic place of exactly what happened. But to answer your question, no, as far as we are aware we haven't edited any thread deletion messages in that way today. It isn't something we would generally do for any reason. There'd be no point really.

As mentioned, there were many threads with similar names, and they were all deleted with different deletion messages (there's no 'policy' as such here, you understand, they would just have been deleted by different MNHQ staff who tried to summarise the reason for deletion at the time). So it couldn't be that could it? That you were looking at David and Caroline thread one and then David and Caroline thread four, which had different deletion messages?

Sorry if this sounds patronising - we just want to be absolutely clear as this is all very strange. If you have any of the threads you mentioned you copied and can screenshot them for us that would be really helpful.

Obviously we are quite snowed under currently with all this but we will try to get to the bottom of it.

IonaMumsnet · 07/08/2017 22:23

Hi again OP. Sorry - we're with you now. So yes, no one thread has had the deletion message we posted edited retrospectively then, but yes there are different deletion messages in each thread and they address different issues. We're sorry if they have given mixed messages. There was no intention there to change the message we were giving out. They simply reflect the fact that the threads were all slightly different in content and tone and were deleted by different people.

What might help clear things up a bit is this post from KateMumsnet tonight on another thread:

"Hi all

We're going to post on this thread rather than the others to keep it all in one place, and also because it cuts to the heart of the issue, we think.

The answer is, of course, yes - if we had evidence that a fraud had taken place, we would certainly pass that on to the police. Unless and until we had that information we simply couldn't act; so we'd always ask people to get in touch if they had it.

It's worth bearing in mind that a JustGiving page which doesn't benefit a registered charity isn't fraudulent in itself. Also that people who've been bereaved do often behave in ways that can seem, for want of a better word, odd. We can't vouch 100%, but as we've said on the other thread, we don't have anything that leads us to conclude that the fundamental, desperately sad aspects of this case aren't as stated - a wife who is very recently dead after a tragic illness, leaving a bereaved father and son.

We understand that some of you don't agree - and if you do think you've got something which would change our view, or you personally have been approached in an upsetting way, please get in touch. What we can't let you do is to speculate on the thread without evidence - that's troll hunting and is against TGs, so we'll have to act on that.

We also feel we'd be remiss if we didn't remind everyone that fraud is a very serious thing (obviously, sorry) - and that, when you post on a public forum you are legally responsible for your own words, should the person in question wish to take it further.

Generally, we're honestly trying to do the right thing in often cloudy circumstances - to balance the need to remind people to protect themselves, with the need not to impugn, without solid justification, the integrity of a possibly very vulnerable individual, for whom the consequences could be devastating.

But we hope that most of you can understand that we're just not set up to do forensic detective work. Usually all we can say is 'we've had a dig, and all looks okay as far as we can see'. In this instance it looks like some posters weren't convinced, so we followed up with the equivalent of 'yes, we've had a real proper dig, and we honestly can't see anything wrong'.

With hindsight, we should probably have just left it at the first post - and as I said on the other thread, we're going to think further here about how we can give MNers the kind of steer that they often request without appearing either to endorse individuals unreservedly or damn them with faint praise.

We're also going to change the rules so that only registered charities can be promoted on the charities' noticeboard - it's a shame because the board was in part set up for MNers to give a push to unofficial stuff along the lines of 'My child's doing a half marathon to raise money for his school' - but it's probably better this way. Clearly, our moving one of the original threads to that board appeared to many to be an endorsement - it wasn't intended to be anything other than neutral, but we can see that it was confusing and we're really sorry about that.

Once again, if you've got any evidence that you think would make us change our view, or you've been personally involved, please do get in touch via [email protected], but please don't speculate on this thread otherwise.

Thanks all

MNHQ"

Hopefully that answers a few other posters' questions, too. If you have any further queries, that's the thread to head to. We just think it might be easier to keep it all in one place for the sake of clarity.

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