Is discussion of Englishness banned?

[GeneralPeter]

Two thread deletions in quick succession on the topic of “Is everyone born in England English?”

These were young threads that were not abusive.

I started the second one because the first got zapped and I felt it’s something that can be discussed without breaking the talk guidelines.

The second got to about five posts, all (that I saw) basically saying “yes, barring some odd edge cases everyone born and brought up in England is English”.

Was this opinion considered a breach of guidelines, or is the whole topic banned?

The talk guidelines ask not to set up new threads “rehashing”
old banned ones. That to me sounds like a rule against picking up old fights on new threads, not that a topic becomes banned.

Am I wrong on that? Does a whole topic become banned? For how long? What other topics are currently banned under the same rule?

Guidance would be helpful here @mnhq

Was the first one about English vs Nigerian? If so, that's because it was a troll. Not really sure why they like to troll about such things, but they do!

And I'm guessing that your thread was deleted as a TAAT

Personally I feel if you had started a thread on the broader topic about what constitutes a person's legal and emotional identity when it comes to nationality then fair enough. There have been previous interesting threads about this.

But whatever your motives, and those of the other OP of the thread you mention here, were for talking about Englishness in the current overtly racist climate then it comes over as being an invitation to posters to express racist views

I didn't personally see anything on Nigerian-ness (though I might have missed it while I was writing my own contribution). There was comparison of English to Chinese-ness. All seemed fairly level-headed, at least the stuff I saw.

The second thread was indeed inspired by the first one getting deleted. Not really "about" the earlier thread though (unlike this thread of course!), just the same topic in the hope we could discuss it.

I don't know who the troll is you are referencing, so don't take this as a defence of them in case they are indeed awful. But asking a question that seems to be motivated by a particular stance and is seen as awkward shouldn't be grounds for banning.

Parallel to: 'why is blackface bad but womenface good'. Always asked to make a point. Not invalid or offensive to ask though.

(I'm on the 'Englishness has very broad boundaries and that's fine' camp, btw, but I think these things should all be debatable).

The timing of such threads makes it seem like political bots trying to sow discourse.

Possibly, yes. And I didn't see every post in the first thread so don't want to be too full-throated in my defence of it.

But we must allow topics to be debated regardless of the climate.

Consider: "in this climate of transphobia, debating sex based rights is an invitation for people to express transphobic views, ergo we should ban the topic".

So, if people are allowed to be transphobic on here, racism should be allowed to?

Your thread wasn’t even a genuine, good faith thread. You openly admitted it.

I'm not sure what you mean.

My view is that Englishness is a very broad concept and that's fine, and that virtually everyone born and brought up in England is English, on my view.

And I think it's good to be able to discuss the issues. That's why I started the second thread (I hadn't posted on the first one, but wrote a long post and then found the thread had been zapped. I don't want these things to be discussed in an abusive manner, not that I'd seen any abuse myself, so wanted to create a space to discuss the issue in a way that conforms with talk guidelines).

What made my thread 'bad faith' in your view? (or any thread).

Also, what do you mean by "allowed to be transphobic on here" and do you see discussing Englishness as akin to transphobia?

What boundaries would you set up on what threads are allowed? Should some topics be banned completely, or views, or is it the manner of debate?

(Trying not to get into a debate on Englishness here, which is the Site Stuff board, so steering to your views on appropriate site rules).

I’m pretty sure you mentioned skin colour in your posts. You definitely mentioned race.

There is an interesting conversation to be had, but it’s not easy to have at the moment. To be honest, MN isn’t really a great place for reasoned discussion on sensitive topics. It’s too easy for large numbers to turn it into a bunfight, and frankly why should the team at MN have to moderate it when there are other subjects that are less inflammatory.

@PrizedPickledPopcorn You must be mistaking me for someone else. I created the second thread but didn’t post on the first one. I didn’t mention race or skin colour.

That said, I don’t think it’s illegitimate to discuss those things, or even to have a conception of Englishness that is race based (mine isn’t, but I don’t think it’s illegitimate, especially as we have an identity, British, which is almost universally agreed to be non-race-based).

Anyway, we are in danger of making this a debate on Englishness which isn’t the purpose of this board.

I don’t agree that just because something is sensitive it shouldn’t be discussed (or sensitive ‘now’). That’s when debate is most needed. It
should never be an excuse for abuse.

MN trod a careful line on trans when many were calling the GC position as being akin to racism. That’s what made MN incredibly valuable: it was prepared to hold an arena for debate. That’s a principle that I think it should stick to generally.

I don’t believe that anyone starts these threads innocently.

Bit too much word salad there.

Didn’t see either thread.

But if the fist one was zapped because either the OP was a racist troll or the thread itself was getting loads of deletions for racism, it doesn’t surprise me that a second one set up immediately afterwards to continue in the same vein also got zapped. Maybe try again in a day or two?

Which bits didn’t you understand? I’ll explain them.

I don’t know the first OP’s record so maybe they are a well-known abusive poster.

The thread itself wasn’t (unless I missed some final posts that took a sudden very nasty turn).

I’m never surprised to see a thread deleted that has turned abusive. What surprised me was that that one hadn’t, but still was zapped.

That’s why I wondered if the topic itself was what did it. The fact my (very mild, all of us taking the English-is-inclusive line) thread also got zapped made me suspect the debate itself is seen by MN as inherently wrong. That I strongly object to because I think there should be no topics inherently verboten, and on this specific topic that the ‘opposite’ side to mine isn’t inherently offensive either. Abuse should never be tolerated, but that wasn’t the issue here.

How very condescending and patronising of you to think it was a lack of understanding on my part that was the problem rather than the ill-thought-out mess of words you posted.

So you understood it but just posted to criticise my writing style? Why?

If the first post was started by a troll, regardless whether you think it was a subject that should be able to be discussed, then it would have been zapped.

Then if you started a thread about it, that's a TAAT (thread about a thread), and they aren't allowed on MN, hence being zapped.

Yes, I hope that’s the explanation.

If you started the thread as a test to see if it would be deleted, that is bad faith imo. Apologies if not.

In my post, I was questioning you on whether that is what you meant, not making the point.

I don’t really have an opinion on what parameters should be in place for such a discussion. I suppose at the point where the discussion crosses the line into jingoism or racism. Which, let’s face it, wouldn’t take long on here.

Ah I see what you mean. No it wasn’t a test in that sense.

I mainly started it because I thought it was an interesting topic that, like all interesting topics, should be debatable, not resolved by shutting down either the topic or one side of it, provided there is no abuse.

Sure, Jan 😃

Are you suggesting that I started a thread pushing an inclusive conception of Englishness because I wanted to open the door to others to argue the opposite?

In which case I plead guilty.

That’s the core of discussion, and it’s a good and healthy thing to do.

If that’s now seen as shifty we might as well shut down the MN boards.

Thanks for posting - we’ve looked into this.

The original thread was removed because it was started by a previously banned poster who has repeatedly returned to the site to post near-identical threads on the same issue. Where we see a clear pattern of a banned account reappearing to push the same thing, we're likely to remove those threads.

In relation to your other point, discussion of Englishness isn’t banned on Mumsnet. Your thread was removed because it was effectively a repost of one that had just been deleted and so it became a thread about a thread. We may remove new threads that rehash recently removed ones, as that often leads to further escalation.

We don’t operate a list of banned topics and the context matters including posting patterns and account history. Moderation decisions are made on that basis rather than on subject matter alone.

We hope that clarifies things but do feel free to ask away if you've more questions.

Thanks very much — much appreciated.