FWR

[MarsScarlet]

FYI: I've name changed for this to avoid a pile-on.

This post is about the overwhelming negativity and hostility with the FWR board that new posters and posters with a differing viewpoint face if they attempt to use the board.

There is a persistent group within the board that are, to put it simply, hateful towards others. Despite posting there on and off for more than 4 years, I have never felt welcome, despite not holding any particular extreme views or being abusive to others. Without exception, I am accused of being another poster, or a man, a TRA, or some kind of paid activist. This occurs again and again until I leave a thread in frustration.

I’ve seen this happen to many other new posters. Few return. Why would they? Such an acidic atmosphere doesn’t encourage healthy discussion. I’d just like to discuss women’s rights, but this board makes discussion impossible.

I’m not exactly sure what the answer is, except for @MNHQ to request the board to tone down the rhetoric a bit and back off on any new names they may see on the board. Let people engage with you rather than actively drive them away.

Some of us can recognise posters when they've name changed by there posting style and remember their previous posts.
So much so that I'm certain that I could give at least 3 previous names for 1 poster on this thread and 1 or more for a couple of other's without having done any kind of searching(obviously, I won't do that as we all deserve our anonymity).

Yeah, this is the frustrating thing, and why I never used to report posts so that they could stand for everyone to see and get a true idea of the hostility on FWR. But yeah the more abusive ones are often reported by others instead.

Reported posts being deleted is surely a demonstration of the board being looked at by moderators and people who read the posts there being prepared to report things that break the talk guidelines. A positive, not a negative.

What I've gleaned from the OP is that FWR Sex and Gender must be tone policed, posters must argue in a more feminine manner (whatever that is and however that is to be policed I know not), posters such as Hellofabore must not post peer reviewed evidence or proven facts nor used their lived experience and knowledge.

Authoritarian much?

It's a negative that they are being posted in the first place, and the person who is being attacked by FWR posters has usually read them before Mumsnet moderators get round to deleting.

That takes me back. The holy threads that were used as a stick to beat us with “just look at all the deletions if you don’t believe what a horrible bunch of transphobes they all are”. Except when you had been reading the threads in real time the deleted posts were not usually from the FWR regulars. Oh and we had the ones posting as a raging transphobe and funnily those posts were instantly screen shot and put up on twitter in the two minutes it took to delete them.

Yes, of course that's the case OP, the hostile culture to alternative views of FWR has been well established for a long time now, and the personal attacks on dissenting voices are inevitable and invariable.

So you'll get the usual posters calling you a man, or a TRA, then you'll get others who lie about what you have said, then you'll get the further pile on of those who are replying to those lies, and not what you have actually said. It's wearying.

HAahahahHAHAHAhahaa - talk about hoisted on your own petard. This is a lovely DARVO against FWR, beautiful, and all in the same post so I didn't even have to quote from separate ones.

Sounds like it to me, apparently her knowledge and the fact she uses evidence and proven facts is hostile to people who don't or won't.

I remember grim homophobic posts from some posters who have recently joined this thread. They were rightly challenged. However like Farage et al they just drop these vague statements that seem on the face of it homophobic but won't clarify when asked what they actually meant, so you're just left with this nasty undercurrent of quiet homophobia.

Yes, I think it's been established that the FWR board attracts trolls.

Regular posters tend to report them.

Ones ‘attacked’ is another’s ’debunked your harmful statement with stats and evidence that proves otherwise’.

"It's a negative that they are being posted in the first place, and the person who is being attacked by FWR posters has usually read them before Mumsnet moderators get round to deleting."

And the exact same can be said for those posters who repeatedly personally attack and make negative generalisations about regulars on FWR. Last week a PBP spent the night attacking regular posters before the mods could establish they were a previously banned poster who constantly rejoins to attack posters. They then complain about it on another platform that they have been banned again while naming the posters they have specifically targeted.

No poster should be personally attacking others or making negative generalisations on posts. But as others have pointed out, if we did an analysis (and I remember a poster did just that not that long ago on a thread) it is usually posters who are the ones arguing that they are not allowed to post an alternative view point while their posts are actually attacking others. ie. not posters constantly grouped as 'FWR regulars' for the purposes of demonisation and derision.

No, these are not generally trolls, in the established sense of the word anyway. These are posts by longstanding members of FWR.

"No, these are not generally trolls, in the established sense of the word anyway. These are posts by longstanding members of FWR."

That's your perception. It's not mine, and it is a matter of perception as we have no way of verifying your claim or mine. So, perhaps we can simply report posts that break the guidelines, and respond to those that are debating appropriately, the same as you would do anywhere else on site.

What's the proportion of deleted posts by regular names vs others? That sounds entirely at odds with what I've seen over the years.

I would say to anyone reading this thread and feeling unsure to look over FWR and read some threads first hand to make their minds up.

This ^^

There is also that 'negative engagement farming' issue that I have noted before. Where there is a post, it is posted to get push back and then the poster declares they have been abused when they have merely been disagreed with. The pattern can be picked up over time and across threads.

Fully agree @suggestionsplease1 - everyone should make up their own mind.

How pompous of you to conclude i have been indoctrinated. I don't really care what you “think” of me but that was insulting.

It’s a cesspit. I have it hidden

Nobody has been mean, or unpleasant or uncivil, or hostile.

So why make this comment?

Nothing on this thread has made me want to unhide the FWR topics 😂

I certainly don't mean any insult against you personally. It's only that the words you used to describe how you'd been 'educated' make me feel uneasy.

FWR isnt a uniquely difficult board. If you want your feelings hurt go to baby names, or to feel a failure as a parent try primary education.

Whats really going on here is people dont want anyone to talk about gender issues.

FRW was quiet until trans became an issue, then gender threads filled up quickly, and more people stopped lurking and joined in. They were and are more popular than other feminist issues, maybe because there was more to discuss, or women felt more strongly about it.

FRW became an activist board - where women discussed how to fight against TRA. Therefore when posters come on to say theres no issue with TRA, theyre a bit late. The danger to women and children has already been established, and the discussion has moved on to how to stop it.

At this point its like going onto the pets board and saying keeping pets is a bad idea.

There are different ways to fight with or live with TRA, but simply going on FWR and saying theres no issues and expecting everyone to agree and stop talking is just wasting everyones time.

So, seems that people who don't like FWR and disagree with it hide the topic and never go there. This seems a sensible approach.

Otherwise, I find it a bit baffling that a series of posters are lining up to complain about a board that they don't visit.