Username search not allowed now

[CarefreeMe]

I believe I’ve just had a thread deleted by accident (sorry!!!) as myself and another poster recognised the username and mentioned something in her previous thread.

MNHQ deleted the thread as they said doxxing is against the talk guidelines.

Is this a new thing?
As I wasn’t aware of it and assumed that’s why you could search usernames.

Sorry to the OP who started the thread, although her thread was very misleading and completely different to her other ones, which is going to affect posters advice.

Can you reproduce the exact text, of the deletion, if possible? There used to be something about if you had concerns to make a report direct to HQ, not on the thread in question.

...because posting 'hey you were posting about this under your previous username of PreviousUsername' or whatever on the thread would be classed as troll-hunting.

I didn’t have concerns as such.

They created a thread saying X, Y, Z and after a few pages another poster said weren’t you the poster who said …… and I agreed saying that I remember their last thread in which she was saying very different things about the situation.

The usernames were exactly the same and I did a username search to see if it was the same person or someone very similar and it was the exact same person.

But I thought this was allowed so I just wanted to check.

@TinFoilHatty

This thread has been deleted
We've agreed to remove this thread as people are doxxing the OP which breaks our Talk Guidelines for civil debate.

This is the deletion message.

That's the puzzlement if people start one thread saying x, but then start another thread, saying y, it's a different odd one, therefore I would presume it's ok to ask the op, what is the real reality etc

I believe they.were still.using the same name, but different stories on the thread

But that’s not what doxxing is if the poster was using the same username for both threads? Doesn’t make sense

Exactly, it's an odden

"Doxing or doxxing (originally spelled d0xing) is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the Internet."

How odd. Didn't see this, but are you saying it's something like:

ABC123 posts on Monday saying she is a widow with five children
ABC123 posts on Tuesday saying she is a GCSE student trying to decide what to do for A level

Other people say 'Hold on a minute, what about what you said about yourself yesterday?' and MNHQ say this is doxxing? I think they've got confused between doxxing and trollhunting.

I assumed it was fine to do as that’s why there’s a username search function and I always read posters saying about the OP’s previous threads.

And no one spread any identifying information as it’s an anonymous forum.

Myself and another poster just said what she said in her previous thread a couple weeks ago, which anyone could have read themselves.

So it was something similar to:

OP in this thread:
Me and my DH are very happy and in love and we have no trust issues.

OP in the previous thread:
Me and my DH are very unhappy and he’s been cheating on me again.

I pointed out that she’d said the what she said in the previous thread which was under the same username and then the thread got deleted.

So I’m assuming it’s banned now to bring up previous threads.

Wow that IS weird.

I actually checked the thread I did this on tonight but it must have been another thread.

I don't understand why this is a problem? Like you said, the username is the same and it stops other posters wasting their time.

If that is indeed banned it’s nonsense, anyone can search for previous posts and should be able to.

Information can be identifying if it's put together with other information. So perhaps thing X (current thread) plus thing Y (previous thread) was publicly outing? I personally don't think you should be able to search by username for this reason.

I wondered this, but, it would seem that the OP on both of those threads posted contradictory stuff - where both can't be true -

OP in this thread:
Me and my DH are very happy and in love and we have no trust issues.

OP in the previous thread:
Me and my DH are very unhappy and he’s been cheating on me again.

Unless it's a total ban on doing it now regardless of content?
I've seen it done plenty of times where a poster clocks something contradictory from an OP or another poster and brings it up and tbh I think that's fair enough because there's a good chance that poster isn't doing so in good faith, but I guess that could be considered troll hunting?

I did wonder if it was outing but there was no information that could have been outing, as it had no identifying information at all.

And I’m sure the deletion message says that the OP is concerned about being identified in real life or something.

If it is banned then surely they would get rid of the function for searching usernames.

I did think it could have been troll hunting but then if it’s there in black and white with the same username, then I don’t know if that would be classed as troll hunting.

If people want to post stuff on MN anonymously, they have to use a different username for each identifying fact. It's very easy to change username on MN. You can do it for every post you make, if you can be bothered.

Having said that, a lot of posters who say they are worried about posting identifying stuff seem to think that would include admitting their husband goes cycling at the weekends or they have a son as opposed to a daughter.

I am an inveterate nosey parker of the very highest water, AS will be prised from my cold, dead hand <dramatic face>

But surely the poster in question has put this information on a public forum for anybody to read. If the info given is identifying then the onus is on themselves to moderate what they put out for all to see.

If a poster has posted inconsistencies under the same username then others having realised are going to question this and rightly so.

It’s not troll hunting and certainly not “doxing’ if you are just repeating what they have already written.
if we aren’t allowed to question or challenge anything that’s been said at all then what’s the point in having a username search at all.

Is it possible there was a post in the thread which included actual doxxing?

I am an inveterate nosey parker of the very highest water, AS will be prised from my cold, dead hand

😂😂

Is it possible there was a post in the thread which included actual doxxing?

I did think of that but I didn’t see anything and MN would have taken it down really quickly as I believe mine was the last comment.

There was also no identifying information so I don’t know how anyone would have found out anything from the internet that was outing.