FAO Night Watch: please stop letting Mumsnet exploit you!

[myotherusernamesarebetter]

Mumsnet is a business, not a charity or voluntary organisation. There is no justification for using volunteers.

I urge the Night Watch to rethink their choice to help out a commercial business who should be using paid moderators.

Someone suggested on another thread - can't remember which so can't credit them - that the day-time moderators put an 'out of office' message on the Report page handing over to Night Watch with a link to them

Seems nice and simple

I disagree. Effective communication requires sensible placement. Hiding the information on a sub-section many people don’t even know exists isn’t effective communication.

If you are offered a ‘report’ button which works one way during certain hours and a different way at others, you should make this clear to users.

Something as important as reporting CSA images shouldn’t be a ‘read the small print’ situation.

Yes and/or a banner across the top of the site directing people to the night watch section

This is a fairly torturous workaround when really they should just have people reading the reports any time the site is open.

I knew there was a night watch system, but didn't know that it was separate to the main mods.
Sounds ineffective.

We obviously have a different definition of 'fairly torturous'

In the absence of employing more moderators which MNHQ haven't even responded to despite 2 threads asking about this

IMO it's a simple way of addressing a messy system and informing posters of the correct course of action

Tho' do think it would risk driving more traffic to NW and maybe overwhelm them

Well this is the problem isn’t it? The NW system would work even less well if it was widely known about.

Suggesting the system will break down if more people know about it is akin to Boris Johnson refusing to declare misogyny a hate crime because it would overwhelm the police.

If it can’t cope with the job it is designed to do, it needs to be changed to something that can.

Agreed. When I reported the other night, I didn't know about the existence of the Night Watch team.

@BIWI I've honestly been here for years - off and on - and not known or stumbled across this. I've seen reference to the Nightwatch but just assumed it was something like chat space for insomniacs, which I feel embarrassed about now... I have checked the 'talk' policies before though, which is where I would expect to find info about moderation. So maybe it's not so much that MNHQ is deliberately hiding this as just not being deliberately organised and open?

I reported too but didn't know about NW either. Though I did question why someone was posting as user "NightWatch" because they didn't have an official MN handle? I assume they were genuine?

One of the things that was suggested some time ago, by me as well as others, was that the Night Watch team should have their posts in a different colour, so you know that they're official, like MNHQ. Despite the fact that a number of trolls started using similar Night Watch-type names, to disrupt things, MNHQ never adopted it. It would be a simple thing, a way to reassure people that they ARE genuine. It was clear on Sunday/Monday that many posters just didn't trust any of the NW to be actually who they said they were.

I think that they were. I was a bit puzzled too.

It's a shame that was never followed through

Sorry missed this.

Yes they exist in UK based companies and also jurisdictions with much tighter labour laws. Historically its commoner than not for online communities.

I'm not advocating it or otherwise - simply stating that the fact of it is commonplace. Ultimately its up to individuals if they choose to give their time in this way.

Less common is a pattern of paid at time X, unpaid at time Y. More common is volunteers of differing levels of experience or and volunteers supplemented by staff but the same staffing/shift pattern 24*7.

Something I posted on this thread has ended up in the Daily Mail and I’m actually pleased about it: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14361117/urgent-warning-popular-parenting-website-targeted-trolls-child-sex-abuse.html

I can’t believe MN are claiming this would have unfolded differently during the day.

Considering the seriousness of what happened I'm surprised directors weren't called in the night in order for urgent decisions to be made. Of course AI should be used to control images, but a robust team overnight is also needed. Yes people would have seen the images with paid staff, but if there was a properly staffed team, paid to do the job, then it's hard to believe the response wouldn't have been faster.

I guess the NW wouldn’t have a way to contact them.

I’m just so, so unimpressed that MN are claiming things unfolded just as they would during the day.

Can someone please tell me what happened the other night

FFS @paulyispoorly there are several threads about it on Site Stuff (including this one) read them and use your brain. There's no need for anyone to re-hash it. (Unless you're agitating, of course?)

Ive literally just posted a link to a news article about it, go and read that.

Or, you could, as @myotherusernamesarebetter suggests @paulyispoorly, JUST RTFT.

Why people don't bother to read threads/posts, but then demand others to tell them what's going on is frustrating as well as rude.

I'm getting a new laptop and I'm worried this will come up when I hand the old one in!

Actually our systems are so heavily filtered, I'm amazed the image came up in the first place!

Not sure I’d risk going on MN on a work laptop even before all this happened.

There are other time zones around the globe you know!