can the MN philosophy include a reminder that it is a PUBLIC forum?

[hatwoman]

On the one hand it could seem like stating the bleeding obvious. Unfortuntely though I don't think it is that obvious to some people. mn sometimes feels like a private conversation, and I think people sometimes post without asking themselves whether they would say what they are saying directly to certain people. personally I think a reminder - in the philosophy - would be a useful thing. it works two ways - a reminder to protect your own privacy, but also a reminder that you are responsible for what you write, a reminder to ask yourself if you would stand by it to all and sundry (because that's who's reading it) - a reminder to think twice about what exactly you write.

Rowan - I suggest you have a look at the topic ' IN the news' and scroll down the thread titles - is the crash on the M25 last night anything to do with us ? No but there is a thread on it.

MN has a topic ' In the news' this is unfortunately news and some people wish to discuss it and believe it or not are capable of not being offensive or hurtful to the family concerned.

Well actually I think that the M25 thread is also a little ghoulish, but at least some of the people posting on there actually use that section of the M25, and are saying that they have always found it to be dangerous.

I'm not trying to imply that people are being deliberately offenseive, I just really don't understand how it helps anybody to be constantly picking over scraps of news.

Well, bugger me. Is this out-of-date speculation, but wasn't it just this sort of irresponsible "private conversation" view that landed MN in a pile of poo?? Or am I missing the point here, possibly?

It isn't a private conversation. It is in public, and one doesn't have to have an over-inflated ego to be careful and respectful, moondog.

Because we are human and 'there for the grace of God go I ' , MN are parenst mainly ( I assume) with young children, we/they can be affected by the news and this is a way of dealing with it and discssuing it amongst a 'community' to try and make sense of it all.

It will be talkied about at the school agte tomorrow, it will be talked aboout when pople go back to work tomorrow , human nature , Hopefully all the inital offensive & nasty commenst have now gone. But wnating to ' pick ' over the news helps some people try to undestand what the hell is going on and makes you really feel for the family concerned.

Some pople may have a differnt angel on ti , some mayt be involved in Law enforcement in thsi country and are curious or wnat to help people understand what the investigation may be like esoecailly if they ahve been involved in one in this couuntry.

A lot of what is on 'those' threads feels ike voyeurism to me.

All thats on most peoples minds right now is that little girl HW.

I understand that you have been upset today, but equally some of the stuff on here could have been a conversation overhead on a bus, in the pub, at M&T group, listening to a phone in on the radio. Yes of course MN is a public forum but people do have a right to post what is on their minds really. Otherwise what is the point of an online chatroom which, lets face it, MN is.

I have talked about this to my neighbours, one of my friends on the phone and discussed it in detail with my friend who was down for the weekend, and yes of course we got onto the question of whether we would leave our kids on holiday( I should add that we have actually been on holiday together and I am sure I wondered on one whether there was a babysitting service blah blah blah). It's natural to talk about it especially on here as we are all mums.

Ahem, I believe that one thing that happened legally on here was because it detracted business from other sites because this is free tbh.

LL - you were the first on this thread to mention the family in question and see Op further posting at 20.42 you will see that it is all about the situiation abroad and how upsetting she is finding it .

The thing is that alot of pople have been postin things that they would say in RL and which are not offneisve or insulting but are still being told to STOP IT . So what is all that about ? Censorship ?

the family will doubtless be feeling ... guilty.. we always do when something happens to those we love.. and imo i hardly think they are going to be reading mn, or even googling their story..

But the daft thing is that the more 'spin off'threads there are about the situation it makes the chance of finding something on a search on the internet more likely aswell.

So we are all as bad as one another !

gosh
just did the link!
i quite agree.. emphasis should be that this is a PUBLIC forum... not in any way a private chat..

Good night , sleep tight and pray for a better tomorrow

what moondog said

hatwoman - i know you are upset, it is os emotive. I have felt like this only a few days ago. The thing with MN is that it is so real and personal and at the same time so remote and private. Things are typed by people simply sitting them alone at a computer in an air of privacy but the wonders of the WWW mean it is instantly public and it is hard to remember that at times.

DT you said "in an air of privacy but the wonders of the WWW mean it is instantly public and it is hard to remember that at times. " that's exactly my point. I want them to be reminded.

LL - re conversations in pubs etc - spot on. it isn;t the same. It's public, it's permanent.

UCM - yep. people do have a "right" to post what's on their minds. (as long as it's legal etc) but my point about taking responsibility is to get people to think very carefully about the extent to which they, personally, want to exercise that right. Having a right to do something doesn;t always mean you ought to.

Anyway I'm off to bed now. night all.

Technically it?s no-one?s business but the media have made it people?s business. We don?t really need to know that a child has been abducted in Portugal, it has no bearing on our lives so maybe it shouldn?t actually be in the news at all. And that way no-one would discuss it. In fact maybe we should all live in our own bubbles and pay no attention to what is going on in the outside world because the majority of it has no bearing on our lives.

Hiya,
We think this is a useful suggestion and we're due a bit of a re-write to the Mumsnet talk home page anyway, so we'll stick this in too.
Thanks for the input,
M Towers

ooo Justine - thank you! I wasn;t sure if you'd see this or not. I was going to alert you to it. I don't expect it would have a miraculous effect but it might have a wee one.

mn with all its private little quiches.

FFF what have quiches got to do with the price of fish?