Thread deletions

[Radrover]

What is Mumsnet’s policy when a poster requests a thread deletion when they feel they have maybe said too much and their post is outing and will cause more trouble for the OP.
i asked to have a thread deleted from Adult children for this reason and I was told that it wasn’t going to happen because it wasn’t fair on people who have commented - so I was told I could move the thread to 30days and make a request that it didn’t appear on Trending.
I notice today that a poster in AIBU stated that they had made a similar request and the post was removed. So which is it? What is the policy?

Hi OP,

Where possible, we'll usually see if there's another solution before deleting a thread altogether - for example, moving it to 30 Days Only or taking steps to reduce its visibility. That's because deleting an entire thread can affect everyone who's taken the time to contribute to it.

That said, if someone remains genuinely concerned after we've talked through the alternatives, we're not in the business of making anyone's life more difficult than it needs to be.

If you're still worried about your thread, please do report it again and we'll be happy to review it.

Hi @LilyMumsnet youve just removed a thread about a woman whose neighbouring children are playing football in their garden, it doesn’t seem to fit any of the criteria you’ve mentioned here.

moving it to 30 Days Only or taking steps to reduce its visibility. That's because deleting an entire thread can affect everyone who's taken the time to contribute to it.

I contributed to that thread, so did other people, now it’s gone. What is the reason please? I do need to ask - would you rather people didn’t post?

Hi @LilyMumsnet, just wanted to find out the difference so it is clear in my mind and for general transparency really.

@Radrover asked you to delete a thread about a close relative and you didn’t.

A different poster asked you to delete a thread about small children playing football in their own garden and you did delete that despite quite a few posters (including me) having contributed to it.

What is the difference please?

I was very distressed when one of your team told me that there were no circumstances that you wouldn't delete it. It wasn't a discussion, I was given no options despite explaining the circumstances. Thing is I really needed advice and I needed other people's point of view, I needed help. What I really didn't need was for the post to stay up increasing the likelihood that my dd would find it causing all sorts of problems.

That post went viral - it felt like you kept it up as it was getting lots of views, you didn't want to take it down because it was keeping members clicking driving up those ad stats - maybe I'm being cynical but something had changed - on previous occasions I'd been able to get sensitive things deleted but not that time - not when it drew in 200 replies in 30 mins.

I reported a thread three times I was very distressed about. Nothing was done and I got no feedback from MN about why.

Perhaps the football in the garden thread wasn’t as ‘juicy’ as real people’s real distress? Wasn’t pulling in as many views?

I’ve never understood why threads can be deleted due to privacy

obv the poster knows it will be seen and replied on and some give major details that to some reading they must thing omg I know this person

I do think trending and sharing on fb should be stopped as thats where many issues start and then get deleted

It seems mysterious and inconsistent the reasons given for deletion.

I've seen someone recently making a thread where they slagged off a specific generation and blanket blamed them for their unpleasant holiday.

When multiple people questioned this in a measured and non rude manner, she had the whole thing taken down because it 'hurt her feelings' being told respectfully she was being ageist.

I don't understand the reasoning behind that whatsoever.

increasing the likelihood that my dd would find it causing all sorts of problems.

I think this is a really good reason to both request a post to be deleted, and in fact to have it deleted. Posters sometimes need advice and need to put a certain amount of detail in a post to receive relevant advice.

But there are two posters on this thread who have used the word ‘distressed’ re asking for their threads to be deleted and still Mumsnet have chosen not to answer them or delete the threads concerned.

It’s just a shame a post about children playing football can be deleted immediately, whereas these posts weren’t.

It does strengthen my feelings that occasionally a poster can come here with a distressing situation, get incredible help from multiple people, then can have the post containing all sorts of private distressing information deleted and consigned to the internet shredder.

But mostly that does not happen. Their threads to descends into snipping, correcting grammar, nastiness, individual posts are not deleted despite reporting, the poster can even come on their own thread and ask people not to make things worse, ask them to not cause harm, and still the thread stays up for anyone to see in the future.

Mumsnet is not a good place currently (and hasn’t been for a long time actually). You might get help and you might not, it’s a game of roulette and no one should think this is a place of shelter.

But at the same time, Mumsnet should not declare themselves to be a place of support, they should drop all the talk of “Make parents’ lives easier by pooling knowledge, advice and support” and “We try, as far as possible to let the conversation flow and not to over-moderate. Mumsnet is a site for grown-ups.”

So bearing that in mind, can you let us know why you deleted the football in the garden thread and not the other two mentioned on this thread @LilyMumsnet?

Sorry, that last bit should have been together.

and “We try, as far as possible to let the conversation flow and not to over-moderate. Mumsnet is a site for grown-ups.”
So bearing that in mind, can you let us know why you deleted the football in the garden thread and not the other two mentioned on this thread?

Mumsnet is a site for grown-ups ups so let us talk about children playing football in gardens and delete the threads where the OPs are distressed by your repeated refusal to delete.

We can see why this looks inconsistent! We don’t automatically delete a thread because an OP asks us to, but nor is it the case that we would never do so once other people have replied. We look at the circumstances of each request, including how identifying the thread is, the likely impact on the OP or anyone else mentioned, and whether there are other steps we can take first, such as removing details, moving it to 30 days only or taking it off Trending.

@Radrover it sounds as though the response you received was too absolute and didn’t properly reflect the discretion we should be using in cases like this. We'll review this at MNHQ.

So why was the football thread deleted then? You could have moved it like you've just said.

Some forums don’t allow thread deletions at a posters request at all. Though I can understand why people would be annoyed about inconsistent policy.

That's because deleting an entire thread can affect everyone who's taken the time to contribute to it.

For those of us who have taken time to answer an OP or just offer support it's not really anything more than disappointing that a thread has been removed, but the decent among us will understand it's because the person who started the thread is not in the best place and they'll have their reasons. Then there will be those who will be disappointed not to get an update 🙄

Is there another way can it affect everyone @LilyMumsnet ? I'm genuinely interested to know.

This is the exchange.

Reason for deletion:

I'm worried this post is outing and I don't want to make the relationship worse by dd becoming aware of it.

MN response:

We don't usually delete threads unless they break our Talk guidelines, or pose a serious privacy concern. As Mumsnetters have spent time posting on the thread and sharing their views, they don't take kindly to seeing threads deleted, so we really only try to delete threads in exceptional circumstances.

What we can do is make sure the thread doesn't appear in trending conversations. We'd also recommend turning off notifications and hiding the thread, for your own peace of mind. (The option to hide is at the very top of the thread.)

We can also move it to our 30 Days Only section, where it will auto-delete after that time.

Also, if there are particular posts you are worried about, rather than the whole thread, please report them using the 'report' button - we're always happy to take a look.

We could also offer you a retrospective name change just for that thread - that way, the thread won't be linked to any of your other posts on Mumsnet.

Let us know if any of this would help.

I responded

That is a disappointing response. I do sincerely regret reaching out to MN for support, I'll know better in future - let's hope my regret does not go further than this email.

Please move it to the 30 Days Only section
Please do not put it on Facebook or Trending

MN response
Consider it done.
Best wishes,

If there was room for discussion it was very subtle.

Apologies @Blondeshavemorefun I didn't mean to quote you.

@Radrover I’m still waiting to see why the two threads (yours and the football one) were treated so differently.

Other than saying ‘we fucked up and have no consistency’ then I’m still not clear. And if that is the reason, then why can’t Mumsnet just say that? 😵‍💫

Becky has just said some words, that’s all. But those words were irrelevant to the questions asked.

When a newspaper or other social media picks up threads it's like a runaway train. You're no longer on Mumsnet but on other areas. That must be distressing. To be honest if a member is distressed it should be deleted even if others are invested in it.

The problem is distressing posts, if they catch the public's interest go straight to trending where the OP's issues are ripped apart like a pack of wild hyenas. They have posted in one of the less well visited forums for support and suddenly it's being treated as an AIBU - because it's hit trending, it's really is quite viscous, bruising and exposing when you are caught up in the middle of it.

@Radrover I think the real answer is that could Mumsnet do something about it? Yes. Should they do something about it? Also yes. But they don’t care. They don’t care about you and they don’t care about your daughter and your relationship in the future with her is also something they don’t care about. They care about Facebook and putting peoples personal and private business (that they chose to share only on Mumsnet) onto a global site with many more members. That’s good. That’s free advertising. They care about the newspapers because that’s free advertising. Also good. When they say they are here to support people, they mean it the same way Elon Musk means it and the same way Mark Zuckerberg means it. But the only difference is that Mumsnet can’t even run a smooth website without crashing and all the problems that are there on Site Stuff every day.

I would like MN to publish a clear deletion policy. One they’ll train their teams to stick to, one their members can understand and know where they stand. You can delete something g one week and refuse to delete in the second, it leaves members vulnerable and they should care about that!

That completely contradicts what you've said. It literally says they don't usually delete threads. It wasn't subtle.

A clear deletion policy should be there anyway. Again, they could do it if they wanted to! Sometimes I think maybe they’re not actually women? I would find this more believable if it was a bunch of male employees sitting in an office somewhere deleting or not deleting threads. That’s how it feels like. Cold and impersonal. No concern for women, just doing the basics so they don’t get called into the boss’s office.

Is Becky really Steve, a 27 year old fella who really wanted to go into banking but failed the interviews?!

I said what I needed to say, there was nothing more to add - did they expect me to beg and plead?

Should I have asked 6 more times? Threaten self-harm? - what did the other posters say that got their thread deleted, where did I fail did make my point? - is it a secret word?