Why was the ‘toxic site’ thread deleted??

[NiqueNique]

It was shaping up to be a perfectly reasonable discussion and quite a few people had made very considered comments. I really dislike this trigger happy deletion thing you seem to have going on right now. Just because something is critical, or goady, even, at first glance doesn’t mean it should be deleted, in my view. This is a discussion forum! It hadn’t turned into a bunfight and actually it could have been an important discussion. Ridiculous to delete at this early stage IMO.

It's not in the spirit of the site to start throwing insults at the users of said site.

Sure, but we’re all adults here, hopefully capable of holding our own against criticism, and don’t need the ‘be kind’ philosophy stuffed down our throats by virtue of overly enthusiastic deletions.

And for the avoidance of doubt I was/am very much on the opposing side to the OP. However I prefer not to live in a world where every ‘insult’ is treated like some kind of mortal wounding and where adults can discuss things freely without everything being deleted every two seconds because someone was mean.

A while back, we had a fairly persistent troll who used to go in for 'you're all bitches' threads. Either they got off on people agreeing that they were part of a toxic community, or they were actively seeking to denigrate a site where women are not expected to conform to stereotypes of niceness.

Perhaps he's back?

(And the answer is always 'take it uo on the thread concerned, don't start threads which bang on about MN and MNetters being horrible)

Perhaps. But then I’d like an accurate deletion message saying that it’s a troll/PBP.

If it isn’t then the thread should stand IMO as it’s absolutely ridiculous to just delete it at such an early stage. Since when are we all toddlers (disservice to toddlers, really) who need protecting from hurts feelings by big nanny MNHQ??

*hurt. This confounded ‘autocorrect’ that keeps ‘correcting’ my PERFECTLY CORRECT words really gets on my tits!!

It is interesting though. I did click YANBU, but it occurred to me afterwards that I am MN, or a tiny part of it.

Whenever there are threads like it, we all agree it can be pretty unpleasant on here. So why doesn’t it change?

NiqueNique

If the person believes that the site is toxic then why are they even posting on it?
Other than to goad and generally troll the only other reason is to virtue signal and get screen grabs for their own site and biased fan base.

It was definitely a troll. No one is that unhinged. We were all feeding the troll which is the worst thing you can do.

@Ifyoudid Because people are individuals, MN is not a hive mind and the idiots/goady fuckers aren’t going to change are they. It’s part and parcel of having a discussion forum. If every bit of even vague unpleasantness is deleted then we're just feeding right into a very toxic cancel culture and that’s highly undesirable for a vast array of reasons.

@FrippEnos well yes that’s true, in one way...Or they could be new to this forum, without much insight into how MN works, deeply entrenched in the ‘girls must always be kind/women who speak plainly and have boundaries are bitches/You mums are all so toxic and mean’ thinking that seems so widespread atm. Challenging that and making that expectant mother (taking OP at face value) aware of it is likely to be of great value to her and others long term. Deleting the whole discussion means OP doesn’t get robustly challenged, which is actually less helpful to the wider demographic of the site.

3.2.1 … poof

I’m not convinced it was a troll. But in any case it could happily have sat until it was clear that the person was acting in bad faith and/or until the discussion became untenable.

If it was a troll (or if MNHQ deemed it likely) then as I said, I want that to be stated in the deletion message. These things matter.

‘They were mean (if it’s not toward anyone in particular)’ is not a good enough rationale for automatic deletion.

And MNHQ I would very much appreciate an answer/comment from you as to the rationale behind it before you delete this thread, thanks. ‘It isn’t in the spirit of the site’ isn’t good enough IMO unless you’ve had some kind of shift in your moderation guidelines. Since when is a clearly very silly comment like that, which wasn’t even particularly inflammatory, grounds for deletion?

Mumsnet has received unprecedented hostility, attack and attempts to damage it’s financial viability because of it’s continuing position of being one of the very last public platforms that allow women to discuss, support and organise around certain women rights and children safeguarding issues. More so than many of us probably realise.

It’s not unreasonable to consider that some ‘trolls’ and bad faith posters appear on a number of boards where they hope to gain traction and cause problems, denigrating Mumsnet users in some type of self-soothing validation exercise that we are all nasty, evil witches.

I’m not saying that was the case in terms of the recently deleted thread, but there have been many where the aim has been clear, and in some cases screenshots then appear on other public platforms as ‘evidence’ of Mumsnet ‘toxicity’ in order to justify discredit and mock Mumsnet users.

Moderation is a tough balancing act. Sometimes a decision feels wrong, sometimes it feels correct. But ultimately Mumsnet has to make a call, and in the current environment I think they do a decent job.

Yes they do a decent job, absolutely. 💐 for MNHQ

Maybe I’m just too used to robust discussion. I mean, come on, that OP was ridiculous and their premise was weeeeeak. We could have taken it apart in 5 minutes. And we had.

@Fluffymule of course. However not all of the women of this site are even aware of FWR, for example, or think it’s a topic or group of topics that’s for them or relevant to them on any level. If OP was genuine the ensuing discussion could have been valuable for her and others.

TBH I think if a troll was looking for screenshots they’d go straight to the witches’ coven, wouldn’t they? Don’t suppose they’d be messing about with AIBU.

Anyway. I’ve probably given this as much headspace as it deserves and MNHQ can do what they want, at the end of the day.

Mind you we have had the odd harvesting thread in AIBU lately so who knows.

Meh that’s my last comment on the thread I promise! I’m going to relax now and watch Roman Holiday! ❤️

Hi there NiqueNique. Hope we aren't interrupting Roman Holiday!

Just in case you still wanted a bit more information about this, we have gone back to the thread to have a look and it was deleted for several reasons.

In the main it just seemed like a fairly goady thing to have posted, both in tone and content, which would always ring alarm bells with us, though we don't always delete for that. It also felt a bit like a 'group personal attack', in that it was name-cally and a bit aggressive. While we couldn't ascertain for sure that the OP was a troll, it certainly didn't feel as though they were here to engage in a genuine discussion, so we did suspend their posting ability. And, while there were some useful and interesting posts, there were also a lot of posts replying in the same inflammatory tone. When we can see it's likely that a thread is heading towards being a binfire (and it's also not bringing anything useful to the site) we do often nip them in the bud.

If we were wrong and the OP was genuine, and maybe just misjudged the room a bit when posting for the first time, we'd encourage them to get back in touch. We're always happy to have a chat if there's been a misunderstanding and give people a second chance.

Hope that answers your question anyway.

Thank you @HebeMumsnet for getting back to me. Fair enough, someone has to make that call.

and to the moderation team; I hope you can understand why I queried it!