Ban the poster, keep the thread

[Ohalrightthen]

After seeing several threads get deleted recently due to some form of phobia or ism or another, I've been thinking a lot about whether there's a better way to deal with it.

There are a lot of really good people on MN who call out racism and homophobia and transphobia, biphobia etc when they see it, and threads started with these issues in the forefront often don't go well for the OP, who gets accused of being a bigot, and the thread is eventually reported and taken down.

The issue i have with this is that it basically erases the problem, and the discussion that follows. Instead of people being able to engage in the discussion and hear other points of view, the whole platform for any kind of learning is just shut down. It may be the simplest way to deal with bigotry but it's not very helpful in terms of progress.

Why not just ban the bigots and keep the discussions?

Sounds good to me.

@Mysa74

Sounds good to me.

Good to know! IMO deleting the threads feels like hiding the issue under the rug, rather than owning up to the fact that bigotry does exist on MN and should be addressed.

who decides what "ism" is ok?
mn hq rightly take down disablist/racist threads.

Why not just remove the posts that are “ personal attacks” and leave the rest which are informative? One disappeared last night for example.

@Samcro

who decides what "ism" is ok? mn hq rightly take down disablist/racist threads.

The thing is for me, that taking them down when they're full of good counter points, information and discussion is just sweeping it under the rug.

Maybe MN could close comments, and leave the thread up? Happens a lot of reddit.

but for instance the sn community have spent years to get the idea that they need to educate stopped.
yet you want this to start again.
their are all kinds of ways that people can educate themselves, that does not involve nasty threads being left up.
(I am using disablist threads as an example.)

@Samcro

but for instance the sn community have spent years to get the idea that they need to educate stopped. yet you want this to start again. their are all kinds of ways that people can educate themselves, that does not involve nasty threads being left up. (I am using disablist threads as an example.)

I completely see your point there, it is a good one.

From my point of view, taking last night's biphobic thread as an example, it was very frustrating to me that a load of posters were able to spew bile all over the thread, and then have it taken down so they can continue about their nasty bigoted business without it on their AS record. Also, all the opinions from myself and other bi people, the experiences and perspectives and discussions, which were hugely valuable, are also gone now.

I suppose it's similar to the "reclaiming" of words - you'll always have a split within the community itself.

Talk to HQ. I can understand why they don’t want to leave the threads up but there’s nothing to stop them eg gathering the posts from that thread by bi MNers about their experiences and perspectives and turning it into an article (that’s not open to comments) that’s pinned to the top of Chat or linked from the homepage.

There are enough posters here that you could pick pretty much any topic and get a selection of posters who’ve got that experience.

Hi - just popping in to say that if anyone has any queries about threads, they're welcome to drop us a line at: [email protected]

@soniamumsnet its not so much a query about a theead, more wondering if the current protocol of "delete and move on" is the correct way to handle pervasive bigotry. It just feels a bit like sweeping it under the rug, rather than addressing it.

I'd much prefer this.

I also think the OP's post should be retrospectively shown in, what as children, my siblings and I referred to, as Runny Poo Colour - an unpleasant mustard/browny yellow.

This change of colour would be the first port of call in telling a poster that they're out of order. Any posts from that email/IP or whatever will automatically be that colour to warn everyone that this person is a bad faith poster.