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Original poster

Suggestion: A not in the spirit of Mumsnet report function

2 replies

Bloodyscarymary · 31/08/2025 20:10

I have noticed that there are a number of deeply unpleasant posters across a lot of threads, people with no interest in supporting an OP with advice or even very strongly held opinions of their own, but rather focused on being goady, insulting and aggressive.

These posters don’t veer into the realm of personal attack but they do shut discussion down and I imagine make OPs who have to experience them less willing to post in the future.

Does there exist a way to report these posters?

And if not, might I suggest a “posts not in the spirit of Mumsnet” report function. One report wouldn’t be enough for mumsnet to take action but perhaps if a user gets say, 20 such reports, then they get a time out from using their account?

Perhaps Mumsnet feels that that these posters keep engagement up because they cause arguments but I think the beauty of the site is cheerful, principled or even heated disagreement and debate whereas these poisonous posters aren’t trying to make a case, they’re just nitpicking and bitter and serve to derail threads or simply silence the OP so other users don’t get anymore updates.

Reddit has the upvote and downvote function where posters like this would just get downvoted until their posts were hidden from view. I think mumsnet needs a way to deal with them too.

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MNHQ

HebeMumsnet · 01/09/2025 11:37

Hi there @Bloodyscarymary. Thanks for starting the thread. There are lots of really interesting ideas here and we'll keep reading in case anyone else wants to share their thoughts.

The discussion has widened quite a bit over the course of the thread but to answer your original question, we probably can't see us implementing a ban or suspend system based on number of reports. While volume of reports is certainly a heads up for us that there's a problem, we try to moderate by our Talk guidelines in the main and not be swayed by opinion and we would worry that the range of views might suffer and the site end up as an echo chamber. We quite regularly see threads where someone has posted a very unpopular view that gets people's backs up and gains lots of reports yet the post hasn't actually broken Talk guidelines, and we think that in some ways that's one of the positive things about Mumsnet. There are precious few places these days where you can encounter a view you don't share and have the opportunity to change your mind, change theirs, or simply have a civil discussion about it.

On the subject of 'not in the spirit', that's not something that actually appears verbatim in our guidelines, but has definitely been mentioned a lot over the years. As several people here have mentioned, it's very hard to quantify but it probably is summed up by the paragraph in our guidelines that says:

"We'd appreciate it if you could use the same courtesy when posting messages on Talk as you would use when speaking to someone face to face. Please do bear in mind how difficult this parenting business can be, and if there's one thing all of us could do with, it's some moral support."

Posts that aren't courteous or you wouldn't say to someone's face are not really what we're hoping to host, so if someone does that repeatedly they'll probably get some deletions or we might have a word behind the scenes.

Hope that answers some of your questions and, as we say, we'll keep reading others' ideas here with interest, too.

Mumsnet's Talk Guidelines | Mumsnet

A guide to using Mumsnet's discussion boards (Talk), including netiquette, rules of use and how to stay on the right side of the moderating team!

https://www.mumsnet.com/i/netiquette

MNHQ

HopeMumsnet · 02/09/2025 13:46

Hi all,
We're keeping a weather eye on this thread - as you know we are always keen on feedback - and will be interested to see the conclusion.
We do need to take issue, though, with the idea that posters can over-report. Reporting is not something that we consider a negative, indeed we would re-iterate here that if there are any posts that concern you, we very much want to hear about them via the reports system. Our response will be guided by the very ancient Mumsnet Netiquette (that's how ancient, our guidelines are called Netiquette) and our guiding principle of letting conversation flow.
Apologies for the interruption, we will leave you to get on with your discussion now.

Mumsnet's Talk Guidelines | Mumsnet

A guide to using Mumsnet's discussion boards (Talk), including netiquette, rules of use and how to stay on the right side of the moderating team!

https://www.mumsnet.com/i/netiquette

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