Can MN (or someone) clarify…

[CreamC]

I quite rightly can’t say “you are a twat,” as this is a personal attack.

But I thought it was alright to say “don’t be a twat,” as this is more like general advice to a poster who’s making rather rude comments and assumptions about another poster.

Have the rules changed over the past fifteen years and I’ve missed them? 😁

Morning @CreamC . As with everything, this sort of thing depends almost entirely on context and whether we thought it was intended as a personal attack or not. Someone saying 'Gently, OP, this thing you said was a bit of a twat move by the sounds of it' from a poster who is generally helpful and has otherwise been kind on the thread might not get a deletion. Someone who has form and perhaps even obvious beef with the OP saying 'Don't be a twat. #justsaying' sounds a bit more inflammatory and would probably get a deletion.

Hopefully that explains things a bit further but if this is about a specific deletion on a thread, you're probably best to hit 'report' on the post and ask us about it through the reports system. We can give you more specifics that way.

Does Mumsnet HQ own a 'twat-o-meter' , if so when was it last calibrated?

@TheCadoganArms If only... If only.

I used to be on a board that automatically deleted some letter combinations, so Scunthorpe was always 'SXXXXhorpe;.

I was on one that used to automatically change certain swears or insults.

Slut changed to sweety (so sweety always sounds antagonistic to me now).

Bitch changed to bunny, which made the pet section interesting.

Annoyed now that I can't remember the others!

I'm on another forum and you simply can't swear at all on there as someone will get an attack of the vapours and report your post to the moderators, who will also get an attack of the vapours and remove it. And send you a slapped wrist message into the bargain. It can be very dull on there sometimes!

I used to work for a software company. Part of the software involved auto-generating a six letter access code for users to use. Unfortunately no-one had the forethought to auto block out certain letter combinations.

For years this was fine, until one day a user from Essex gets SXCUNT, and kicked off absolutely royally. They would not believe that this hadn't been done deliberately.

We then had a most entertaining day in the office compiling a block list of swear words to ensure it didn't happen again.