Repeated troll damaging thread

[DancesWithDucks]

Hello Mumsnet.

We have a long running thread ( https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4950365-ukraine-invasion-part-46?page=24) that is being crapped on by a troll who has re-registered literally tens of times over the months. Today it's 4 times so far and he's going strong.

This is really not helpful, in fact it's destructive.

Is there any way the Tech side can look at this - either by improving registration checks or by putting a delay on so that you have to be registered for a few days before posting, in some threads/ areas?

Any other ideas would be great too.

At the moment it's really unpleasant on a thread that (while we, certainly I, have made some mistakes) has generally been a good resource and support for people who support Ukraine in one of the more politically dangerous ongoing events in the world.

100% agree, it’s really ruining what has been an excellent thread.

Agree, this is not someone arguing in good faith but a determined troll trying to constantly derail a serious series of threads.

I very much support anything that will stop this type of poster whose malevolent intention is to disrupt and distress.

Very much in agreement.

I'm all for debate but that doesn't seem to be the intent of at least one (could be more I guess) individual.

Well the Previously Banned Poster has been busy today, hasn't s/he?

I didn't see today's posts before MNHQ arrived with the banhammer, but yesterday's had the usual pattern: start off pretending to have some point to discuss (moderately politely expressed, even though factually wrong), then quickly deteriorate into nastiness, insults, and obvious nonsense.

We've got pretty good at identifying this particular nuisance, but it's a chore having to, and this warped individual uses up the thread on insult and nastiness which several of the people there really do not need to hear from someone malicious, especially if they have friends or family stuck in a war-zone.

I agree with all the above. They are literally rejoining to mock the thread and posters now, multiple times today and not even trying to hide their identity.

I support all that has been said here. This particular troll is vicious, persistent and very nasty. Anything that could be done would be welcomed.

As you can see from the PBP troll's latest posts, it is making a mockery of the thread and ultimately the site, if mn does not respond fast enough.

This is time wasting for everyone and mn to have to patrol and be alert for such unwelcome repeat visitors who pop up sporadically in bad faith.

It would be great if MN Towers could explore ways that, once a poster has been banned, to prevent them from re-registering under another name, to prevent the need to report from even arising.

The technology will not only be useful for the Ukraine threads but also the Israel/Hamas and other threads where it is known there are state-sponsored actors that seek to distort truth and discredit the information space. It will help to keep the thread and site a safer space to discuss world issues of political importance.

Might I suggest designating some threads that are habitually trolled with a restriction that only allows handles of a minimum age to post? Reddit does similar and it seems to work quite well.

This particular troll is very persistent and responded to the accusation that he was the usual time waster under a different name with:

It only takes a minute to make a throwaway account so I'll catch up with you in about 6 months 😆

Although 6 months would be a blessed relief it's more like 6 minutes.

If MN can do anything to effectively ban this individual from setting up accounts it would be much appreciated.

Agree with previous posters. It's one persistent specific troll.

Hello @DancesWithDucks thanks for posting. We hear you on this one. He is determined to post and is hugely annoying. The issue with very determined trolls is that we can't do a massive amount to prevent them from re-registering but we will certainly have a discussion about how we can make it harder for them. When you start a new thread, please drop us a line at [email protected] as there are a few tweaks we can make on an individual thread level.

I took from this that he might be creating accounts in advance and keeping them to use once they've reached any set time.

He's not a very nice piece of work, but he does fairly quickly get deleted and blocked each time.

I think there's a risk that any time-limit measure brought in to deal with this troll might (a) not affect him drastically, and (b) could have more impact on genuine new users than on the troll.

Thanks very much - Ill pass that on to @MagicFox, who is the thread curator =)

Thanks, I'll absolutely do this at the beginning of the next thread. Thanks @DancesWithDucks for escalating this!

Thank you @DancesWithDucks for this.
@BeckyAMumsnet that would be fabulous, thank you. We've got pretty good at spotting them early now and I think would happily call them on their bollocks, except we may get banned.

We want the thread to be somewhere that people can find good sources of information, but when this person has no desire to engage properly, it can make the thread appear incredibly one sided and could actually undermine the space and our aims.

Yes, the majority of contractors are routing for Ukraine, but we also have to be able to dicuss all information, good and bad to be able to follow events. Someone posting disingenuously and without good evidence based arguments makes this difficult.

They really are tiresome.

I agree. It's not much more than an inconvenience to a determined troll. I think Reddit's use of karma points (cumulative community upvotes) as a troll filter on sensitive threads is more effective. It takes time and effort to accumulate karma points.