There is a poster that seems to be here just to harvest replies. What should I do?

[Another2Cats]

Very much as the title.

There is a poster here who made her (their?) first post on 25th April.

Since then, she (they) has made 57 posts, of which 55 are starting threads that appear to be just there for soliciting engagement. This is done by way of asking a question and providing a three or four word opening post. Or sometimes only a single word in the opening post.

Should I highlight this to @MNHQ and, if so, should I link to all the 55 threads that they have started since 25th April?

For context, I am often on the Genealogy board and it was only after seeing two threads started by this person there that I took notice and realised that they had also started multiple threads on other boards as well.

This included Chat, Other Subjects, Tech Tips, AIBU, Property/DIY, Music, Sports, UK Travel, Education, Baby Names, Living Overseas, Style and Beauty, True crime and unsolved mysteries, Bullying, Parenting, Pets, Food/Recipes, Wildlife nature & conservation, and Telly Addicts.

Starting 55 new threads in the space of two and a half weeks which appear to be very much about soliciting engagement doesn't seem to really be in line with what MN is really all about.

Just to add to that, the username of this person is a direct reference to a thread that the newspapers back then picked up on. It was a thread from 2013 that people who were here then would likely remember and the poster is likely purporting to be somebody with a history dating back to then (despite their first post being on the 25th April this year).

Without giving the name of this poster, it would be like if she had called herself something like "Isle of Wight bollards" or "stacking goats".

Am I even right to call out this sort of harvesting of replies?

Are MNHQ likely to do anything about this even if I do make a complaint?

I found one of their posts. Definitely seems like an info harvesting bot to break passwords. I can only assume MN is seeing something behind the scenes that we don’t to make this okay? I would imagine if you answer one of these threads, you become a target, yes, but it still sucks that it happened to you. And yes, the username has definitely been chosen based on limited MN outsider knowledge and news searches.

These types of threads have been going on for ages - at least two years. Always the same type of us,Essex shit such as “what did your childhood home have that you do t have now”. Followed by a three word answer. Followed by hundreds of replies, but no further interaction from the OP.

I got really peed off with it, so called the person out on all the threads. Didn’t end well for me (rightly so, in the spirit of the guidelines, but they really annoyed me 😂).

I still see that type of thread so often, can usually guess just by the title, but now I just ignore and move on. Still amazes me, though, how many people are willing to spill their guts on a thread with so little input on the opening post and no further interaction from the OP.

If you have posted on a whole variety of threads over a number of years, it can be worked out how old you are, whether you have kids, their sexes and ages, if you have pets, what your job is, what your DH/DP does for a hobby, that your parent has x medical condition, you can't stand olives and that you live in a house with x bedrooms and within walking distance of an Aldi. When you post about your disagreement with a close friend about their wedding arrangements, they or someone else you know can search your posting history and work out exactly who you are from information gleaned over all those previous posts of yours.

If you have mentioned the name of the small town you were born in and have lived all your life, that area has only a few primary schools, the name of one of which could be your bank's security question. If you have also answered a 'What was no 1 in the charts on the day you were born?' thread on here, and have also gaily mentioned in telly addicts that you share a first name with an Eastenders actress, someone could send for your birth certificate and find out your exact date of birth - especially if your birth announcement was in your local paper. With your surname.

Your new kitten has been posted (with pics) on the litter tray board and you've asked for names, and happen to mention that you can't use x name as it was the name of your childhood pet. Another bank security question answered.

Do I need to go on?

Something I noticed about that poster is that despite me only following 5 boards on here when they posted on Sports which i don’t follow it appeared on my Active list

A few years ago, an MNer challenged people to identify her from her threads.

It was possible to work out her full name, her DC’s names & ages, where she lived & their school.

She was pretty shocked.

Perhaps be more consistent with ‘poster has not returned ‘ comments

There was a spare of this a few months ago, always the same poster, eventually that user name went away. I can understand harvesting to a degree but some of the questions are so stupid that wouldn't be the reason, what brand of kettle to do you have it what colour is your toothbrush

Mixed in with the random questions are those that are often used as memorable words on personal accounts eg what’s your mother’s maiden / name of first pet etc. So despite the apparent randomness of the posts there could be an ulterior motive and they could be harvesting the responses for profile building. If the Mumsnet database of registered users was hacked they’d presumably also have more identifiable information on these individuals. Sounds far fetched but cyber criminality is definitely a thing.

Well make sure you post nonsense reply to confuse the bots

I see the one asking about childhood home differences has gone this morning - citing breaking site guidelines

I think all the threads have gone

Great. I think that’s a cue to report any future ones, then.

I’ve seen a lot of the post titles mentioned but not read any of them. Now I feel like I am missing out on a plot twist!

I was kind of hoping that poster would come on this thread to explain her / himself.

There were two of those.

Wossssshhhhhh that’s a very good point. I hadn’t considered that before

does name changing every so often “undo” this?

Yes, there was ‘what did you have?’ and ‘what didn’t you have?’ type questions. They were obviously grubbing for personal data about where posters were born and brought up, and when they were born.

I never give my location on here. Not accurately anyway! Same with age, size of family.

Trust nae fucker <taps nose>

It does look like they have all gone.

There were three threads on the Genealogy board that have all been deleted.

They had titles 'Do you like your mum's maiden name?', 'Your most recent discoveries' and 'Have you ever been mistaken for a race/ethnicity/ancestry that you are not?'

I got the feeling in this case the poster was trying to identify a particular person on here rather than general phishing for information. Questions like, what were you like when you were 13 and the questions about race seemed quite targeted.

I've been following this thread since last night and whilst the threads appear to have now been removed I'm quite surprised there's been no message from MNHQ to explain what action they are taking.

"Trust nae fucker <taps nose>" @MyAutumnCrow

I miss the laugh reaction so much.😂

I'm also interested to know if name changing puts a spanner in their works.

Name changing will greatly lessen the amount that can be found, depending how often it's changed.

if they were looking for one person you could easily put any poster that matched a couple of answers you wanted into advance search

On a thread the other day, some idiot made what he considered a gotcha comment about my social media accounts.

Except none of my social media names anywhere bear any resemblance to any of my MN usernames, & what he was saying didn’t match with any of my social posts either, so whoever he thought he was looking at it wasn’t me.

It’s another thing to consider though - variety is good.

100% this. ^