Why is it suddenly ok to make multiple threads on the same subject over and over again?

[DayBath]

I'm talking about the Feminism board. Please could MN explain why it's ok for the same poster to keep starting new threads on the same topic repeatedly without the previous ones filling up or reaching any limit?

Surely there's a point where this is considered "not in the spirit" as you love to say. By all means this person should be allowed to post but why are repeated threads within hours of each other being allowed to cause Groundhog Day over there?

@Winesalot

Actually *@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet*, could you please clarify at what point

a) we can post to alert others that posts are being screenshot and posted to twitter, or that, such in this case, we had seen on twitter that this person was saying that they were reporting back?

b) it ended up last night that my user name got bandied around twitter by this poster stating false information about my posts. Can I clarify, if this happens and the poster can be identified as being the same, do they get banned from doing this or is this activity allowable?

On b) I think it may be a good time for a name-change. Some very hateful people on Twitter (punch a terf types) will be searching all posts to get a clue as to area you live, your age, marital status, field of employment, number and age of kids etc. If you used this name only on FWR and have shared no personal details could be fine, but if is one you have discussed anything at all with clues to your identity , definitely change it. Women have had to deal with police intimidation, hate speech charges, doxing and harassment when this has happened before. Better safe than sorry.

Also on b) we know it is same person as shared their twitter account to invite us for a chat to try and link Twitter/Mumsnet handles and get us banned from both places.

Thats outrgeous @WanderinWomb, if they've started a campaign on other social media to harass our members this is surely where MNHQ should step in to protect women! Ive reported your post as a way to ask them to reply to us on this matter, (not because you've said anything wrong) .

Its nice to say want a balance but as on the 'rapists in women's prison' thread 97/98% of site users agree with the FWR position. Trying to amplify the 2/3% so we can have an equal debate seems... I have no words...seems....hmm

Seems like the voices MN wants to privilege and amplify are the same voices that the rest of social media, mainstream media, government institutions, the NHS, universities, arts institutions, sporting bodies, schools, the BBC, the Bank of sodding England, prisons and Penny Mordaunt all want to privilege and amplify.

WanderinWomb, that is a very good point regarding the necessity of name change after yesterday. I hope posters follow this advice.

I have name changed. It is sad because I do love to see the poster names I know pop up and I love the discussions with familiar posters. It feels a bit like starting over as I now am “just another new poster” here. And I will miss familiar names if they name change.

@OwBist

This whole thing feels a bit like the regular posters have been held up as exhibits in a circus to curious Twitterers - roll-up, roll-up, come in and see the infamous Feminists! They're nice and friendly! You can even call them names they don't like and they won't react! Oh, that one did. Don't worry, we'll remove her. Plenty more to go round.

100% agree with this.

@MaudTheInvincible

Its nice to say want a balance but as on the 'rapists in women's prison' thread 97/98% of site users agree with the FWR position. Trying to amplify the 2/3% so we can have an equal debate seems... I have no words...seems....hmm

Seems like the voices MN wants to privilege and amplify are the same voices that the rest of social media, mainstream media, government institutions, the NHS, universities, arts institutions, sporting bodies, schools, the BBC, the Bank of sodding England, prisons and Penny Mordaunt all want to privilege and amplify.

That's exactly the impression I have too, which was also my impression at the time of the Spartacus threads. This time, it wouldn't surprise me to hear from MNHQ fairly soon that posters with a certain viewpoint are no longer welcome.

There's no running away from the fact that in some circles FWR is regarded as being hostile to trans people and we're determined to show that we are not.

At all costs? I'm sure that you are aware by now that for some people, no amount of compromise or accommodation will ever be enough. Some people just want the whole discussion shut down.

@DayBath

Thats outrgeous *@WanderinWomb*, if they've started a campaign on other social media to harass our members this is surely where MNHQ should step in to protect women! Ive reported your post as a way to ask them to reply to us on this matter, (not because you've said anything wrong) .

It has happened many times over the years. Trying to identify FWR posters. They have spent years trying with the wonderful Datun and Barracker and LangCleg amongst others.

Having your account name shared with the group our new friend tagged in is an invitation to start attempted doxing.
MN will say happens anyway, which it does, but for us small names who aren't prepared and have shared some personal info over the years to be thrown to the lions at MN invitation is terrifying.

I haven't been on Twitter recently so not seen it with Wines but it will be happening, some were called out by decent transpeople before for making them look bad so now they do it privately by DM.

Anyone who had screenshots shared by our new friend needs to name-change as soon as possible and ask MN to delete any previous posts with the slightesr bit of identifiable information.

However the flip side of that is that it's absolutely crucial for us to be inclusive to voices from both 'sides' - because if we aren't, we're not hosting a discussion: we're hosting a filter bubble.

But it wasn’t a discussion. Most attempts to put an alternative reasoning were met with incorrect or similar. And it was admitted as being an experiment.

So not a discussion at all.

And the only filtering was filtering out posters who were merely being factual.

I am all for an exchange of views but this wasn’t it. As well you know sadly.

Yes, you are right. I ended up with a couple of screenshot posts and at least one personal mention. But I am nobody really. And if that poster hadn’t done the call out to the twatterati, I wouldn’t worry. But, better to be safe. Thanks for the advice.

@Datun

On 'cis', we think it's deletable when it's being used deliberately to inflame, but we also recognise that for a lot of trans-friendly voices it's a crucial piece of language, so that's the context in which we consider reports about that.

It's a crucial in terms of language for women friendly voices to be able to accurately explain why they view the risk of men who identify as women as exactly the same as those who don't.

A major concession to this was accepting that some of these individuals had a trans identity, even though many women not only don't subscribe to it, but find it sexist.

Hence the term 'TIM'. A term that includes an acknowledgment that the person has a transgender identity, but is not only accurate, but is used to demonstrate why sex is important as a marker.

If someone is using cis because it is a 'crucial piece of language' for them, can the same courtesy please be extended to women regarding TIM.

I completely agree with this as well.

I understand why 'TIM' might be hurtful - it sound's like a man's name. I would suggest MTI (male with a trans identity) as an alternative.

Not all male people with a trans identity identify as women. Many identify as NB or something similar. Some of this group also want access to women's spaces and services. We no longer have a permitted term for 'the group of male people who claim a right to access women's spaces and services because of how they identify.'

For all woman-friendly voices this is a crucial piece of language that we are no longer permitted to use and it's far more cumbersome for us to work around this than it is for people to say 'women who identify as women' instead of 'cis women'.

I don't care how anybody identifies. What goes on in our own heads is surely our own business. I just care about the rights, safety and wellbeing of women and children and in order to secure those we need to be able to name males as males.

I can see what everybody is pissed off about.

I feel though

A. Incredibly grateful to @mnhq for allowing these discussions. They don't have to. The shit they must get because of it doesn't bear thinking about. Remember, they've not anonymous

B. Threads like this are kind of eye opening. And people come to look and some of them stay

C. Binning them all gives weight to the echo chamber arguments (which I find odd as anyone can post and you can't block people etc)

I've been called a lot of shit in my time. Usually by aggressive men. The tactics of oohh call them c* till they break(?!?!) are shit as effective as the old school, bet you're ugly, dried up prude etc etc ie I personally couldn't give a toss. I'm not c* nor any of those other things. Water off a ducks back tbh.

I know others feel differently, that's my view though.

I'm a long term lurker who generally agrees with the decisions taken by MNHQ as I appreciate that they have a difficult line to tread, but I had to delurk to say how disappointed I am by the response by them on this thread.

I watched the thread about the use of Cis, where hundreds of posters stated that they found the use of cis deeply offensive and gave detailed, reasoned explanations as to why this was. The OP constantly ignored the request to stop using this word, despite these objections. This really can't be seen as anything but deliberately goady and rude by that OP.

When I saw this thread, I honestly thought any response from MNHQ would be along the lines of 'we want to make sure that we host an environment where dissenting opinions can be heard so we made the decision to invite people over from Twitter. We realise that this caused a situation where the regular posters on FWR felt goaded, particularly when we realised that screenshots were being shared over on Twitter, with specific posters being named and targeted. This created a 'bad faith' situation and we are sorry about this.'

What I did NOT expect was a response which states that the offensive use of cis is permitted because it's easier for those who believe TWAW when I have seen regular posters on here twist themselves into linguistic gymnastics trying to say things which, by RL standards, would be considered perfectly innocuous things to say, in order to abide by a nebulous ever-changing set of talk standards.

I also agree with a pp that this exercise felt like a 'come see those nasty feminists!'.

It is really quite disappointing.

My vote is to hold the line on women.

Whatever has been tried is not good enough.

First it was woman / girl. The current line seems to be these were never any more than social roles and it's some mean women who want to change them to mean female sex (?!?!?)

Next was c** woman and female. Some transwomen use these words for themselves.

The latest is womxn. We were told it was to include black women who were never considered women by feminists (??!!? Huh? When? In all countries in the world?) and trans women. Recently when this was used there was a big backlash because apparently mean women invented it to exclude transwomen. TWAW you see. The fact that everyone remembers the first use and there's all sorts of stuff saying womxn is inclusive on the net...

Also trying people in knots over language as old as the human race, distracts from the issues. Which is stuff like prisons, sports etc.

If all the women in the world said ok you can have the words for woman, girl, in all the languages. And the word for cunty people can be freghyfhj or whatever. Then they would want to be included in that.

The words aren't the issue. Whichever ones. The point is that females all over the world may not have a word or words to describe just us. Just- half the global population with specific issues that arise because of our sex.

And thanked them on Twitter for coming on to post!

Jeez they really did didn't they? All the chaos, the deletions, the strikes and the OP waltzes back to Twatter saying MN really 'isn't quite the platform for her' and MN fucking thank her for visiting. MNHQ do not give a shiny shit about us do they.

I'm going. I've had enough of this gaslighting by MNHQ.

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet
So to clarify.

If I’m new to a board, it’s ok for me to make mistakes, even if regular posters find what I say offensive. And if they accuse me of trolling, you’ll delete them, not me, because I’m just learning. And if they get cross and I screenshot their posts and share on other platforms, that’s ok, because it’s inclusive.

Ok, got it.

So tomorrow I’ll go to the doghouse. I don’t own a dog. I don’t know anything about dogs. So you’ll have to be really understanding while I learn the rules.
I’m going to start a thread ‘there’s no such thing as a responsible dog owner’
Then I’ll start another thread ‘dog owners don’t care about children’s safety from dog attacks’
Then I’ll post a thread entitled ‘dog owners only pretend to care about animals’

Maybe then I can go to the lone parent board and start a thread about how I identify as a lone parent when my husband goes out for the day and leaves me with the kids. It’s so hard for meeeeee. So much harder than for them because I don’t have the practice.

Tbh there are loads of boards I’ve never ventured onto that could probably benefit from my ignorance.

Is this the Mumsnet you want, Becky?

Or can we have the same rules for everyone?

Bravo MNHQ thank you !! And another thank you for the very nice message I received directly from you on Thursday.

This is so reassuring.

It won't be news to anyone reading this that MNHQ's commitment to hosting conversations on this difficult issue has been costly for us in lots of ways. It would be much easier for us to throw up our hands and say we won't host these discussions anymore, but we carry on because we believe it's the right thing to do.

'conversations on this difficult issue'
'these discussions'

I would like MNHQ to be upfront about what conversations and discussions they are aiming to host here because I don't think there's a shared understanding.

My impression is that the vast majority of posters on FWR are interested in discussing feminism and women's rights. The only reason we are discussing anything about trans is because it impinges on women's rights and child safeguarding.

My impression is that for MNHQ, 'these discussions' means 'the trans debate' and while that may be costly to host in lots of ways, it's actually quite lucrative in other ways. It generates a fuckton of clicks and a fuckton of attention on other platforms.

The trouble is a lot of us don't want to have 'the trans debate' we just want to discuss women's rights. It's not possible to have those discussions if we have to frame everything in a way that is acceptable to adherents of gender ideology because we need to be able to name sex and we need words like 'woman' to actually mean something. We can't have conversations or discussions if we don't have any words left.

I think it's been really refreshing to see some new voices on FWR. It's shaken up the echo chamber a bit. Can only be a good thing.

Well said LangClegsInSpace.

@peachgreen

I think it's been really refreshing to see some new voices on FWR. It's shaken up the echo chamber a bit. Can only be a good thing.

Agree

I would like MNHQ to be upfront about what conversations and discussions they are aiming to host here because I don't think there's a shared understanding.

They've already said, and commented on this very thread in case you haven't seen it.
They basically said they're a place for free speech, and want to host both "sides| and not create an echo chamber, that makes it hostile to other viewpoints.

Respect to the ladies persevering with generating the kind of educated, reality based terfy content that keeps so many women clicking but I'm finding it impossible and am feeling ovarit.

@LangClegsInSpace

It won't be news to anyone reading this that MNHQ's commitment to hosting conversations on this difficult issue has been costly for us in lots of ways. It would be much easier for us to throw up our hands and say we won't host these discussions anymore, but we carry on because we believe it's the right thing to do.

'conversations on this difficult issue'
'these discussions'

I would like MNHQ to be upfront about what conversations and discussions they are aiming to host here because I don't think there's a shared understanding.

My impression is that the vast majority of posters on FWR are interested in discussing feminism and women's rights. The only reason we are discussing anything about trans is because it impinges on women's rights and child safeguarding.

My impression is that for MNHQ, 'these discussions' means 'the trans debate' and while that may be costly to host in lots of ways, it's actually quite lucrative in other ways. It generates a fuckton of clicks and a fuckton of attention on other platforms.

The trouble is a lot of us don't want to have 'the trans debate' we just want to discuss women's rights. It's not possible to have those discussions if we have to frame everything in a way that is acceptable to adherents of gender ideology because we need to be able to name sex and we need words like 'woman' to actually mean something. We can't have conversations or discussions if we don't have any words left.

Agree

QueenCoconut

You even asked a question about

Is it evidenced that the original poster is one of the group , what if they don’t want to destroy easy thing and genuinely want to have a conversation.

And you were told people couldn’t answer honestly without being deleted and a strike issued. Yet, they were one of the group and there had been tweets stating if that OP had deleted conveniently (but still there if you know where to look).

Do you think that the way this was handled was reassuring? Can you explain why you think this is a good thing please?