MNHQ - please help

[Thegreatestoftheseislove]

New Year’s best wishes to all of those in charge at @MNHQ and do their best to herd cats. Please could I respectfully request that, in line with other religious boards, Christian Mumsnetters does not appear on Active Discussions?

I have spent some time reporting several disruptive posts on a particular thread today … I’ve lost the will to report them all. A number of participants are unwilling to take notice of the statement at the top of the Christian Mumsnetters’ board and are simply using it as their own personal extension of the Philosophy and Religion board. A number of members, Christians and non-believers alike have politely asked them to desist, but, well, clearly they do not want to.

Herding cats is a challenging and thankless task at times. Please could the Christians amongst ask that you help in keeping our meeting place free from disrespectful disruption. It is not, or should not be the place to discuss whether or not God exists or if Jesus is Divine, as there are other places to take those arguments and discussions.

They are doing an online version of bursting into a church mid-meeting and shouting ‘it’s all a load of rubbish!’ It is rude, disrespectful and disruptive. They are entitled to their opinion, but there is a time and a place: Christian Mumsnetters is not it.

Thank you 💐🙏

I am an atheist and have clicked on a couple of the threads in Active recently, not noticing that they were under the Christian Mumsnetters heading. Some of the comments were very disrespectful (and some downright nasty) from non Christians. I believe in freedom of speech and I don't believe that religions should enjoy special privileges, but I also believe that if a safe space has been created for similarly minded people to have discussions, then others should butt out. There are plenty of other places on Mumsnet to discuss the question of God's existence etc. I hope the OP's request is met with approval. I think it was when someone mentioned that nobody goes barging in and challenging other religions in their particular spaces that made me think more deeply about the unfairness of it.

My atheist position is to challenge the existence of God, and to not give faith any privileges over none, as @Funnywonder says. That doesn't mean us hardarse atheists smash like a bull in a china shop in the Christian Mumsnetter's board. It's not our space, atheists/humanists/agnostic sand the ungodly. Leave the Christians alone!

I’m atheist as they come, but demanding access and equal rights to a board designed as a safe space for discussion for any particular group when you clearly don’t share the characteristics it was designed for is behaving like the worst of the radical trans rights activists. (ie is a Bad Thing)

It's very disappointing that nobody from MN has responded to this thread.

I'm not sure MN will have more than a skeleton team right now, if that - I expect they'll maybe start dealing with all the complaints once the normality resumes (maybe Monday 6th?).
Perhaps keeping the religious stuff in it's own safe little bubble is a good idea - I certainly don't go looking but it currently appears on active, and folk may not realise how protected some posters feel it needs to be. Does the Muslim MN appear on active too?

To be honest, the thread concerned has been turned so nasty by a couple of posters I think it should be deleted and forgotten about.

I've agreed with a lot of your comments.
I also hold my hands up to being an atheist, however I expressed my opinions respectfully. A couple of posters really made me feel glad all over again to have left christianity, if I'm completey honest. The policing of the thread was a tad worrying too.

You can go to the Muslim mumsnetters board and find yourself immediately disproven on this. In fact every thread devolves into non Muslims patronising and attacking us.

OP, you have my full sympathy and I really hope Mumsnet sorts this out for you.

Maybe it should be removed from active too?
The only downside is that active is how some people find out that a board exists.

It would be nice!

We’ve been trying for ages to get the MNers without children board taken out of active, because of inappropriate, irrelevant & unhelpful posts. HQ have flatly refused so I wouldn’t hold your breath.

I know people on the Muslim board have tried for a while to get it taken out of active too. I don't know if their wish has been granted. I am beginning to question the running of MN.

Another atheist here, but with Christian family members and friends of other faiths.

I fully support your request, and agree that for non-Christians (or non-muslims) to start arguments on those branches is akin to walking into a church or mosque to rant.

I believe that other branches have been successful in being removed from active, and this seems like an obvious and sensible move.

I think @Thegreatestoftheseislove's request is very reasonable and also support it 👍

@Yazzi
That's really bad - I’m sorry to hear that.
You should start a thread similar to this one, and maybe we can pressure MNHQ to do something about both chats.

We've tried :) and I'm not trying to hijack this thread- genuinely just supporting the Christian mumsnetters on this because I feel the frustration!

I'm sorry to hear that @Yazzi I didn't realise they haven't done anything about the issue for the Muslim board. It does make you wonder why they bothered making those boards in the first place.

I hate the knee jerk responses like this one.
There’s no way the rude comments would be tolerated on a board dedicated to discussing the Islamic Faith.
It would only have taken you a minute to click on the Muslim board to check before coming out with such a false accusation.

And for the record, I'm not Muslim. I'm atheist.

@saraclara Bit of a strong rebuff.
The poster who is actually Muslim was kinder.

Christians should stop claiming to be uniquely criticised.They aren't. And when addressing the thread under consideration, it might be worth some of them thinking about the motes in their own eyes

I think it's clear it's not unique to Christians. Muslims on their board are having the same issue, and clearly members of certain other boards are too. It's not a good look on MN.

Also throwing my voice behind the religion boards being hidden from active. I didn’t realise Muslim MN board also showed in active. Perhaps the philosophy / religion board could remain active.

@ChristmasStars "It's not a good look on MN."

Neither is the empathy and forgiveness free approach of some Christians.

Do you accept that some people who don't share the Christian faith are being unkind or do you just think the Christians are guilty of this?

I’m certainly happy to stand corrected @Yazzi . I didn’t realise that the Muslim Mumsnetters board was suffering similar issues as I genuinely have never seen it come up on Active, so have not clicked on any discussions. And it wouldn’t occur to me to go looking. But my support for Christians to have their safe space respected definitely extends to Muslims and other religious groups. If anyone wants a general discussion encompassing all religions and none, there are other topic headings to choose.