Thanks for all the constructive ideas. We take on board your points and promise to give them full consideration at our next meeting. We are a bit wary, though, at mumsnet hq of too much intervention. For one, whether a thread is deleted or not can begin to dominate the conversation. Secondly, mumsnet is in fact wonderfully "self-policing". More often than not a banal or silly comment (by a troll or otherwise) unleashes a whole rash of postings full of sane, sensible, advice that can make people (even sometimes the orginal poster) really think and see things differently. In our experience discussion (so long as no one's being personally attacked) is a good thing and we want to encourage it - quite apart from anything else it's fairly hard to know where to draw the line if you take an aggressive stance on moderating. One member's humour can often be taken the wrong way and seen as offensive by another. Our broad guidelines are these: we will not tolerate personal or racist attacks but people must be allowed contrary and controversial views - or discussion will die. We ask people to respect others opinions and to be supportive on our talk home page. Inevitably posters won't always follow this request and can be a bit brusque or tactless but we don't feel this warrants censorship.
Yes some threads get very heated: SAHM v working mums is always liable to be sparky, GF routines v demand feeders the same and then there's grapes in the supermarket - twas ever thus really. We've had a few one-off type blow-ups recently too (GF, colluscum,etc). These could happen at any time in our opinion and whilst they're unedifying there's nothing particular sinister about them. Finally we've had a few (and we stress, only a few) trolls as well. And as has been wisely said by many on this thread and others the best way of dealing with trolls is to starve them of attention. (The opposite of what we are doing now, in fact). Oh and don't worry you'll know one when you see one!
On specific points raised:
We can and do delete individual postings on threads - we don't have to delete a whole thread. Although in the heat of the moment it can be hard to decide what to do and we undoubtedly sometimes get this wrong - apologies.
We reiterate that this is a public forum so therefore it's advisable not to expose personal details or post on things that you think could well be seen by someone you don't want to see them.
People do have to supply a valid email address which receives a welcome message before they can post.
We're not keen on compulsorary subscription for exactly the reasons Hula mentioned - we want everybody to have access, not just those who can afford it and we don't want to put people off joining in - the more users the better the chance that they'll be someone who comes up with just the answer, or who's been through the same thing and can really empathise. For the same reason we don't want to make it difficult to register. Nor are we fans of invitation only - it's the constant inflow of new members that stops mumsnet becoming too cliquey, we believe.
Sorry to have banged on a bit. It is something we think about a lot and at the end of the day this is your forum as much as ours so there's no question that if the majority disagree with our stance or think they'd like some changes then we will get onto it.
Thanks again for the suggestions.
Justine, Carrie, Rachel and Tech