What’s going on with the weird MNHQ bumbling?

[MrsTerryPratchett]

A couple of threads have been bumped by MNHQ specifically @FlissMumsnetor whatever the naming convention is. It’s early on, contentious and therefore clickbaity stuff.

Is this a new thing? It’s weird and frankly seems manipulative. Are MNHQ at least checking if these bumped threads are legit posters, because one seemed very suss.

I was thinking the same. But thought I’d let someone else say it so I didn’t look all Full Mel Gibson LOL.

Noticed it earlier on a thread about a book so one was searching for. It was practically the first response

I'm wearing a tin foil hat 🤣

I saw that and thought it was really weird!

A quick advance search shows she's made 6 posts this evening and 5 of them were to bump a thread, the first post on each thread.

She/he/it has a posting history from 2016.

But if people are openly querying if it’s a bot or AI, don’t you think the sensible thing would be to come here and say something?

Why not just own itt?

@MumsnetAIBot.

@FlissMumsnetXChatGPT

@ClaudeMumsnet

I'm pretty sure the usernames are available!

I think MN 'footfall' is definitely down

I didn't search back further than just today but am curious as to whether any of the other posts made before today were to bump threads? As that appears to be pretty much all they've done this evening.

ETA - it seems to be just in October this year.

I have chatted with Fliss by email before and I did not get any bot vibes! She was very helpful.

Maybe AI has gone rogue and taken over MN.

Lots of bumping, but lots of other stuff too, putting the MH bit at least once (the ‘trickier twists and turns’ bit).

The less she posts as an explanation, the weirder it looks though.

MN has gone really weird lately.

Trying to bump up that revenue

It must be a policy of using bots to bump things that they think would be interesting but aren’t getting enough views

The two who started this business said they did that in the beginning, make up stories, post them, change names, answer in a combative way, change names, answer in a different way, and so on.

AI

I saw that on that on that weird racist post as well and curious as to why this post has been up longer, poster has been tagged and yet still no response/explanation?

Edited to clarify, this post has been up longer than the posts were up before they got bumped/bumbled!

It's odd because before October Fliss seemed to be a standard MN employee who deleted comments, signposted to advice, popped in to give reminders etc but since October it's been predominantly bumping threads after least than an hour.

Actually, there was a super weird post on or about the Elderly Parents board, or maybe just about the topic of elderly ? and I think a few people asked if it was AI related. I can’t recall who it was but that’s the only reason the name Fliss is familiar.

It was a really odd post because it talked as if all the problems and the information on that board weren’t actually there, or as if the poster had never looked at it or didn’t know it was there. Which is very strange for someone who actually works for MNHQ.

I couldn't see it in advance search maybe it was deleted? Either way something is definitely amiss.

It's very notable that this particular MN employee posted like a normal member of MN staff for years and yet since October most of the posts have been to bump a thread.

Yes, I thought it was really odd (and unnecessary) for it to be bumped.

No, I just looked for it too

To be fair, I think it may have been deleted at the time because we were puzzled and quite cross… I mean those of us who have regular issues with elderly parent care.

Has it just disappeared??

Racism thread OP ‘might not be a genuine poster’ and deleted 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂