Frustrated that people complaining are getting threads deleted

[MaggieFS]

To be clear, I am not talking about any threads relating to the situation in Gaza or Israel.

Twice in recent days, threads which I have been on have been deleted, by the looks of it because posters who didn't like one point of view have shouted that posters are disableist or racist. They aren't engaging in the debate, they aren't expanding why posts are (if indeed they are, IMHO they haven't been), they aren't educating anyone. They are just hijacking's threads.

Does anyone else feel as if topics are being stifled? Mumsnet has a lot of articulate posters able to offer insightful and educational contributions, from various points of view (with which they don't necessarily agree). It just feels like the balance is a bit off at the moment.

Mn decides what threads are deleted, any poster can complain if they want something deleted but at the end of the day its up to the moderators so your beef is with them

That’s presumably why this is posted in Site Stuff?

I’ve noticed more deletions recently. Generally it seems to be when a few posters keep arguing and it’s derailing the thread a bit. Not sure what can be done about that, really, on a site that depends on reactive modding - although I’d personally welcome persistent derailing being considered against Talk Guidelines.

I just saw that two threads I commented on were deleted.

One was about how to deal with an autistic kid next door who was being loud--the kind of issue that affects many people one way or another and that should be aired.

The other one was deleted and a message left that the OP had previously been banned. But the issue was that the OP's sister's kids may be at risk. The OP was wondering whether to report the situation. I was shocked to see that an issue so important (not only for the OP, but probably for readers who know bad parents) was taken down.

It's also disrespectful to commenters who take time to help and write thoughtful advice.

Was just about to post about this. Was very interested in the latter thread you mentioned,went away to do stuff came back and whoosh...thread deleted. It's happening so many times lately. Very annoying indeed.

The other one was deleted and a message left that the OP had previously been banned. But the issue was that the OP's sister's kids may be at risk. The OP was wondering whether to report the situation. I was shocked to see that an issue so important (not only for the OP, but probably for readers who know bad parents) was taken down

If its a pbp the chances are they're a troll too

It's also disrespectful to commenters who take time to help and write thoughtful advice

Surely making up threads about scenarios like that are disrespectful to posters who are taking time to post advice when the children referred to probably dont exist

Yes, I don't understand why it's happening. It's the threads that are about important issues that people should be thinking about!

Oh well, I shouldn't be wasting time writing here anyway. I should be working. Certainly feel more inclined to spend my time more wisely when threads are being deleted.

There's no evidence whatsoever that the scenario wasn't real. Anyway, it's a common enough scenario (whether or not to report a parent) that the comments could have benefitted other people.

The autistic neighbour was one of the ones I was referring to. I don't want this to become a TAAT though, just my perception of late that if you disagree loudly enough you can effectively "cancel" discussion.

Even if the OP is making it up, the advice given can be helpful to other people in similar situations. I wish MNHQ weren't so quick to pull threads.

There's no evidence whatsoever that the scenario wasn't real. Anyway, it's a common enough scenario (whether or not to report a parent) that the comments could have benefitted other people

There's no evidence whatsoever that a poster is a troll in most cases - that's how they hook people in.

Yes, I see that happening too. I find it very off-putting indeed. Mumsnet can provide such a valuable service in getting diverse people to work through complicated issues, but anything complex is being shut down.

It's an accurate reflection of what's going on offline though. I spent years overseas and have been shocked to find out (after lecturing people in the US that they're not the only ones who can speak freely!) that people can actually get into legal trouble here for expressing opinions about what's going on in the news.

Who cares though? People aren't giving them money. Most aren't even communicating on a personal level, but discussing issues. The issues that are relevant to the most people are the ones that attract the most comments. The comments can be helpful for anyone. I don't care if there's a troll involved.

At any rate, many people probably don't describe their problems the way other people involved in the situations would describe them. Most posts are probably very biased. The difference between this and troll posts is only obvious to the posters! We deal with what we see.

I think perhaps threads should stop accepting further comments. When 2 people derail the thread and go on and on. That way the thread still exists but has been frozen.

I completely agree with you it is so mind numbingly frustrating, other reasons include someone not believing that a posters story is real. Just because it's not your reality doesn't mean it isn't true and even if it wasn't those threads usually contain a lot of useful information for anyone reading it.
Quite a few times I've seen an interesting thread and thought "I'll read that later when I have time" only for it to be gone.
Obviously sometimes threads should be deleted or Mumsnet would be clogged up with spam and extreme hate posts but as a site Mumsnet definitely goes way overboard with thread deletion

I find it interesting that fake threads written by a real person will be deleted, but MNHQ have no problems with threads or replies written by AI and chatGPT.

thats easy, ban the ones that just argue without adding any new information the thread, sometimes it seems the default option is to delete the thread rather than ban the posters etc.

on that one, i can understand a thread being deleted if its started in bad faith.
but if a thread is asking for accurate information eg the history of x country and a poster uses chatgpt, to create an answer, why do some posters prefer fully human responses ?

No I disagree. It's about time MN got with the times and stopped accepting ablist, racist and antisemitic rhetoric that, when called out in-thread, totally derails the thread with lots of racist, ablist antisemites responding in wide-eyed faux-innocence with "what racism/ablism/antisemitism? Can you point to a post that has said this? I can't see any on this thread."

Or, on one recent extremely racist thread, where I, a brown woman, was told to "grow up" for pointing out the racism.

And no we don't need more troll "should I report child abuse" threads. There are billions of genuine "should I report child abuse" threads with appropriate advice people will easily find if searching to decide whether to report child abuse and the genuine ones have the advantage of not encouraging trolls to make shit up for drama.

if your on pc you can save them or if its tablet or mobile using the website sometimes the browser will let you add the thread to your reading list or it downloads it

I think these should be treated as trolls since a human has to make an account and copy and paste from the AI text generator or Chat GPT to Mumsnet. AFAIK there are no actual scripts that enable Chat GPT or similar to actually navigate MN, create an account and create threads etc without human assistance.
Maybe they need an AI sandbox to move those threads into or something if they're not going to ban them as trolls and are happy for devs to test the waters on MN without any users' informed consent.

I am glad to hear MN is taking ableism seriously. There are some godawful hateful things posted here and I always report when I see that rubbish. It doesn't need or deserve a platform imo.

I think it's tricky now. It used to be that MN wouldn't delete just at user request but now that you get scummy journalists looking for tabloid clickbait, I think they're probably right to be a bit easier with the delete requests.

It's a shame but the situation has changed.

I see a lot that some commenters CALL "ableism" that's nothing of the sort.

thats the other side of things when posters seems to be unsure of the facts before they begin debating and it then ends up being a free for all,.

Tolerance is very low if you have a different opinion on Mumsnet and what I've noticed is that the forum caters for only one type of view.