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Original poster

Word of advice to MNHQ

45 replies

Hahahahaha123 · 23/08/2017 17:35

The next time you send an email about a poster to that poster by mistake. Probably best not to refer to your users as 'these people'

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MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 23/08/2017 19:44

Evening all,

I'm going to go through and read this thread now but just wanted to pop in and say that we are reading this, we are aware of our mistake and did apologise to the PBP at the time. It was human error and we did massively. It was not brilliant on our part - apologies.

We do not read PMs as standard at all, we'd only look if we were concerned about a specific issue. We do have the ability to look but don't unless really necessary.

If you have any questions, please do ask and we'll get to them in a mo, just going back to read in full now.

MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 23/08/2017 19:48

@Saucery

I'd be a bit worried about Reporting in future tbh. With emails going to the wrong people, who is to say your details wouldn't end up with the person you had Reported?

There is no one button in our system that would do that, we would have to go and find the email address, press forward and put the email address in. Obviously, we are human and errors happen but this would be very very unlikely.

MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 23/08/2017 19:50

@Saucery

Hi Rebecca, thanks for stepping up to tackle this.

Can you give us any reassurance that procedures will be tightened up so that email pathways can't cross like this? I know it has happened in the past and we were told things had been changed so that data risks were minimised.
In itself it shows a dismissive and rude attitude to a poster, which isn't acceptable. The wider implication is that private operational emails can go astray and this can have serious consequences.

Yes, we have looked into this and tightened things up

MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 23/08/2017 19:57

@WorraLiberty

Unless I've totally misunderstood, all HQ meant by 'these people', was 'these people who re-register while suspended/banned'? Confused

That's correct Worra - not great but that is the context.

MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 23/08/2017 20:04

@LineysRun

it's pretty clear cut, surely? Must we get into a dialogue with these people, can't we just ban and ignore?

Question: I thought MNHQ said that they didn't do this? (ie 'ban and ignore'). I've read posts from them saying they don't, regarding longstanding posters (which the OP is).

No two cases are the same. Generally, we will attempt to keep as many posters as possible, we'd be silly not to. However, there has to be a line no matter how long a poster has been around. Otherwise, what's the point in guidelines?

We do engage when questioned about bannings from long standing posters but if we find we are getting nowhere and the issues keep happening, we will reach a point when engaging is not helpful to anyone.

MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 23/08/2017 20:11

@NerrSnerr

But people must realise that no private messages on any webpage is completely private. Facebook can access your messages, twitter can, etc etc.

That's correct, we really do not look unless we have strong cause to.

MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 23/08/2017 20:16

@LineysRun

Of course they can. But what motivates a website owner to do?

If a poster is reported and their posting history/IP and email are 'clean' but we keep getting reports then we may have a look when we have a more thorough dig.

Often if many poster's spidey senses are going off, it is worth a look to see if the reported poster is being consistent and a high percentage are not.

It is one of the tools that we have that we use when needs be, not all that often at all.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 11:36

Hello all,
I'm popping in because I think reading this there's clearly some stuff we need to respond to/ discuss.

First, to address the trollhunting thing...

We have a rule about troll hunting for good reasons, I believe. If you allow troll hunting then there is a strong likelihood that genuine posters, often in need of immediate support, will be met with suspicion and disbelief. That's not to say I think Trollhunters are worse that Trolls (that would be silly) but it's true that Trollhunting can be as big a problem as Trolls when you're trying to moderate a forum. Hence why we've always asked users to report suspicions instead of airing them on the boards.

I know some disagree with that stance and I can understand the desire to unmask someone you think is telling a pack of lies. It seems that that's landed some longstanding Mnetters in some hot water and eventually ended up in them being banned - which is a shame. Some of those posters seem pretty miffed (putting it mildly judging by Reddit!) and some of those return periodically under new IDs often, it seems from our perspective, to put the boot into HQ, which clearly is not an ideal outcome.

Secondly we've always believed in treating posters equally - that's not to say we don't value the many brilliant Mumsnetters who've posted regularly and wisely over the years - but that we want mumsnet to be unthreatening/ welcoming to newbies and not a closed shop. So we've eschewed all the "royalty" stuff you'll find on some other forums like showing number of posts etc. partly for that reason (and partly for reasons of preserving anonymity - ie folks who name change to say something personal etc). But if we've given the impression that we don't value long standing users because of that, then I'm truly sorry and it's something we will give some thought to.

With regard to this particularly issue - as RebeccaMumsnet said last night - it was a mistake, of course, to send an internal mail direct to the user in question and we're sorry for that. But the expression "these people" was not referring to Mumsnetters in general but rather to a few previously banned users who keep returning under pseudonyms to troll hunt and/or, to put it bluntly, slag us off. As you'd imagine, that causes our mod team lots of work and a deal of frustration - hence the use of the not particularly friendly term "these people". (As some have pointed out it could have been worse Smile.

Contrary to some views expressed here - MN's purpose and vision hasn't really changed at all since we've started 17+ years ago. We've tinkered with our moderation as we've learned some things along the way but the principles remain the same as they always were: we think that pooling knowledge, experience and advice makes parents' lives easier we want to be a place that facilitates civilised debate and diverse opinion, as we think that contributes to understanding and empathy - again making parents' lives easier. We've always put that purpose before profit and we continue to do so.

So, we'd love to move things forward because it's genuinely saddening that a group of people who've contributed so much to the site over the years are so disenchanted that they collect on an alternative forum to give MNHQ a kicking and come back periodically to stir things up. And of course it's not great for the mod team's morale to constantly be thought the worse of. We would love to hear any thoughts on how we might move on (although obviously some banned posters may not be able to contribute directly - but please feel do free to drop me a line via [email protected])

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 11:51

[quote MadMags]@JustineMumsnet to be brutally honest, some of your mods are downright rude, sneery and passive aggressive and it's not helping to create a community spirit.

In short; there are a few who are developing quite the God complex!

Perhaps they need to shadow the likes of Rowan, Olivia et al to find out how not to patronise, insult and seriously annoy the people who are, after all, the reason you have advertising revenue![/quote]

That's not how it appears from my end MadMags but if you have specific egs then feel free to send. What I would say that if pushed we all have our limits. It's hard to meet consistent anger and aggression without the occasional retort...

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 11:54

@PandorasXbox

Justine I understand why troll hunting isn't allowed but the amount of troll threads on the board seems to be huge. Many posters aren't taking such threads seriously myself included. I see certain threads and think "bollocks" and yes I report and try not to troll hunt but it's almost laughable at what's left to stand these days but we aren't allowed to say " hang on that can't be right? " because that's seen a troll hunting. Please give us some allowances for querying the content of an iffy post.

As said - the rule's there for a reason. Persistent trollhunting can ruin a forum. But of course if it's 100% obviously a troll/ returning then you'd not expect folks to say nowt (but the key is 100%). In the end though it still may be better ignore the thread than bump it to the top of active by posting?

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 12:02

@LostGarden

OP wasnt a previously banned poster , she was suspended. A big difference.

@endehors

Yes, that's right she was suspended. It's been mentioned on this thread many times. Still doesn't justify speaking about posters in such a manner, suspended or not. It's unprofessional.

As said, given intention of banned/suspended is often to come back on MN under pseudonyms to cause trouble/slag off MN and given how we're spoken about on Reddit - I think it was pretty mild. Plus of course it was only shared in error and mistakes are pretty human.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 12:05

@YesEinsteinsMumDid

Justine - I think what has upset a lot of people is that the bar for evidence that a poster is a troll appears to have been moved so far up it feels that some trolls are being allowed to stomp all over mn without being challenged. I know that you probably changed the policy wrt evidence of trollery after the poster who was banned for troll turned up on the tv program and real but the policy on the whole seemed a lot fairer prior to the bar being moved. Could you have a look at how much evidence you need before removing possible troll posts again and see if some sort of middle ground can be gained? I understand that you don't want to unnecessary delete threads but it is the appearance that the trolls are getting free run of the site due to "just in case they are real" which has upset a lot of people. Especially as if you post HQ's policy on not giving more than can lose/being careful (even word for word or link) you are viewed as troll hunting.

Ok thanks that's useful feedback - I'm not aware of any policy change but we can certainly look at that.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 12:10

@endehors

It's hard to meet consistent anger and aggression without the occasional retort... Is it really? Mumsnet is a business, and not a small one. I'd expect better than that.

Oh come on - folks constantly (rightly) ask for us to engage like human beings and not like a business - then if we do we're told off for not being businesslike enough. But I'd like to see evidence of folks who've are "downright rude, sneery and passive aggressive" - an occasional comment perhaps but more than that?

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 12:17

@meditrina

"a group of people who've contributed so much to the site over the years are so disenchanted that they collect on an alternative forum"

800+ of them?

That's a lot of posters to have banned.

Or perhaps the disenchantment with MN's current direction is not limited to a handful of troublesome posters. But instead is quite a lot of your longstanding (possibly once prolific) posters.

Well we have over 10 million monthly unique users and have been going a long time and we've had some disenchanted users who've had other forums before too (moldies anyone?) and possibly there's some overlap of those.

Sometimes you also have to accept that people will disagree with how you run things and do get disenchanted.

But I agree, as said, the vitriol felt by some is far from ideal and we'd love to mend some fences if at all possible - hence this discussion.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 12:24

@AccrualIntentions

I'm new and don't know the background about banned posters/troll hunting/whatever. But it seems to me MN is a bit torn between wanting to be a community and wanting to be a professional business. You can't have it both ways. You can have a supportive community, informal moderation and accept that mistakes like this happen. Or you can be a business raking in advertising income, profiting from your users and have a professional back office/customer service set up. At the moment it all seems to be somewhere in the middle and feels uncomfortable.

I'd be (rightly) livid if I had an email indirectly slagging me off from, say, facebook. The fact I may have been a massive PITA wouldn't make that ok. Either your site users are customers/product and require coresponding professionalism, or they're valuable members of a community whose contributions are recognised and championed...and it doesn't quite feel like either of these is the case at the moment.

Ok it's a fair point but I'd like to ask what's wrong with running a good community website and making a profit? If it's a useful service, why shouldn't it be a business. Bear in mind we spent the first 8 years or so not even earning a salary. MN makes about £7m in revenues and £2m in profit. Our wage bill is £4.5m so we do like to have something over in case things go tits up to pay our people but we could make no profits and just grow grow and probably make the enterprise more valuable not less (but we'd have to be more comfortable with hiring and firing).

I'd be livid too I guess if I received that mail but mistakes do happen even in the biggest businesses (and I think you're unrealistic expecting us to respect banned posters who constantly return to flout our rules/slag us off even if they've contributed to MN previously).

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 12:31

@TheNiffler

Oh dear. The Product is unhappy, and the Salesman can't understand why.

I think the Salesman needs to have a good long think about what's being said on Reddit. Because what's being said on there is merely what's being thought on here, difference is you can say it on Reddit.

This is all very Ratners.

The advertisers might well be your customers, but if you e got no product, or the product falls in value, you're going to lose this customers.

Last thing I want to do is belittle the criticism and I'm quite sure there are some things we can work on and improve in the way we moderate the site - as said I'd like to mend fences and many of those criticising us I have enormous respect for. But MN has and is been growing it's user base by on average 30% per annum for the last 5 five years and our return visitors are higher than ever, so it's a jump to say people aren't buying into "the product'.

It is in the nature of communities that there is a life-cycle for some of the very invested people and that can end in disenchantment. As said that's normal and I don't think there's a lot we can do about that but I'm sad it appears to have spilled into vitriol - I don't think that's great for anyone concerned and would love to discuss how to move things on.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 12:45

@Maryz

Justine, I've been a massive supporter of mnhq for over 15 years now. I'm usually the first to step in and say "hang on a sec, don't be rude to the HQers, they have a tough job". But I think in an effort to try to be fair to everyone HQ are currently (and have been for a while) taking the side of the troll vs everyone else.

I've said it many times: if a hugely sensitive thread is started, and it's felt by MNHQ that there is a 50/50 chance of it being a troll, then there are two options:

Delete - with a 50/50 chance of upsetting/hurting/disbelieving ONE genuine poster: OR
Leave - with a 50/50 chance of it being a troll, and thus upsetting/hurting 200 or more posters on the thread, and even more lurkers.

It makes me very cynical to see HQ deliberately leaving clickbait troll threads up that I know, 100% , are bollocks. And I know MNHQ know they are bollocks. And in the end they are deleted, sometimes weeks later. It brings me back to the question of whether MNHQ, as they are now, really want to get rid of trolls.

Hi Mary,
Hope all's well with you - it's a while since we chatted but suspect it was on this very topic Smile. I can absolutely promise we wouldn't ever leave a troll post that could cause damage up for clickbait purposes.
And we'd most likely step in if we were any more than 50-50 sure it was a troll. The grey area/ trouble comes when it's potentially vulnerable person and we're less than 50% certain it's a troll/ need to do some more digging. But look, I'm not at the coalface of modding these days so it's wrong of me to talk about recent cases without discussing with the team in a bit more detail. But I promise we will have a sit down and look carefully at the evidence of how we are dealing with trolls as a team.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 12:49

@Somerville

I don't know the background of all this because it occurred while I was on a social media break. So purely from this thread alone, the big issue to me is that a suspended MNer emailed the contact address, which is what I have read many times on here is the correct response?? (Aside from anything else, there are occasionally accidental suspensions/bannings)

To quote Cote who put it well:

Imho it's not the use of the phrase "these people", but the condescension in "Why waste our time replying to MNers we no longer like?...

I totally understand HQ not engaging with, say, a newly registered loser who posts something racist. But not engaging with long-term posters is counterproductive because we all find out about it when they rereg and post here on Site Stuff, or contact their MN friends on FB (I'm noticing increasing crossover) or indeed, now, take it to the subreddit.

Not engaging with a previously banned posters who comes back under a pseudonym to flout the rule she was banned for though?

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 12:52

@Maryz

And we are back to the question of

Is MN (the talk board, not the main site) a place for support or purely a money-making business?

If it's for support, then knowledgeable supportive posters are valuable. If it's for money making, then trolls are valuable.

I too don't get the "unique user" numbers - surely in these days of mobile IP addresses the term is meaningless?

Google uses cookies i think. Of course knowledgable, supportive posters are valuable - would never suggest otherwise. Disenchanted posters who don't accept the site rules and constantly slag the site and moderators off are less valuable.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 12:54

@FaithHopeCharityDesperation

Not engaging with a previously banned posters who comes back under a pseudonym to flout the rule she was banned for though?

But there's no engagement with non-PBP who follow the rules & email either.

Who is this you speak of?

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 12:55

@Somerville

Not engaging with a previously banned posters who comes back under a pseudonym to flout the rule she was banned for though?

I thought she was suspended, rather than banned? Confused
Maybe I've got the wrong end of the stick. Sure, if someone has been banned, it's been explained to them (if they ask) that it's not in error and is permanent, and then they later rereg then I can see that they'll be banned again, and probably ignored. But there seems to be an awful lot of this kind of situation occurring, and they are not all PBP. A good pal of mine was accidentally suspended, but it took a week of emails for her to get a response and be reinstated. I can totally see the temptation of reregging and posting on site stuff out of frustration.

I believe we're talking about a pbp (although i know that's disputed on reddit)

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 12:58

@Maryz

Sorry - one other point:

"The grey area/ trouble comes when it's potentially vulnerable person" - the thing is that sometimes you are going to have to risk hurting or damaging a vulnerable person for the sake of the many other vulnerable people on the thread.

It seems that when MNHQ look at a thread that we all think is an emotional troll, they only look at the op. They worry (rightly) about upsetting/damaging the op by their actions. But should you not also be very worried about all the other posters, and the even more numerous lurkers on that same thread. Many of whom will be just as (if not more than) vulnerable as the op.

More decisions should be made, imo, in favour of the many not the few.

And that's assuming the op is genuine, which I'm sure many are not Hmm

It's a fair point - and one I promise we'll discuss further. I've got to head off for a bit but will ask team to respond to specific recent moderation questions and will look in later.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 12:59

@Maudgonnemad

Didn't the poster in question state that she wasn't a PBP, merely suspended? And hasn't re-regged at the time the MNHQ email was sent?

I've been here 5 years, and I agree that there's a quite nasty tone creeping in the last while from MNHQ. Also evident on this thread.

Sorry can you be more specific? Genuinely confused about the nasty tone?

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 13:00

@FaithHopeCharityDesperation

Who is this you speak of?

Me.

See my previous post re days of unanswered emails to MNHQ querying why I couldn't log in.

Ah I see, sorry, I don't know the answer Faith I'm sorry, but will find out and get back or one of the team will.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/08/2017 13:08

@AccrualIntentions

JustineMumsnet I don't think there is anything wrong at all with building a business or making a profit, that certainly wasn't the point of my post. But with that comes an expectation of a higher level of professionalism in terms of site organisation, back office, customer service, whatever. And I think that does mean respecting the posters (because they're your product) that you find annoying as well as the ones who meekly click and raise ad revenue while contributing nothing to the "community".

Even the ones who've flouted the rules persistently - so much so they've ended up being banned? I'm sorry but I think you're being unrealistic. It's like asking Boots to respect shoplifters because they're regular customers...

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