Page 34 | If you (still) feel the need to discuss Moldies [part 2]

YetMoreTech · 2008-12-31T11:29:56+00:00

This thread is a continuation of this one. That one had become too big for its own boots the system to handle.

Cadelaide · 02/01/2009 23:44

Thanks ever so DaddyJ.

Big, isn't it?

oopsagain · 02/01/2009 23:46

onebatmotherofgoditschilly · 02/01/2009 23:48

And, before I really do fark off (Christ, it's like cutting off your own gangrenous hand) there was a general attempt to make the idea of democracy seem rather gauche. 'This isn't a democracy you know".

Ach, Aitch, I'm not sure that this Truth and Reconciliation Committee was such a good idea after all. Though an hour ago I think I would have been right behind it.

FairLadyRantALot · 02/01/2009 23:48

that forum seems to be like the deutsche-in-london one, from the way it is described to look....

welliemum · 02/01/2009 23:49

Excellent analysis aitch - it very much chimes with my own experience.

I was invited and then went and had a baby so the recruitment discussions were just noise somewhere off my radar, but I certainly had the impression that it was an evolving, rather haphazard thing with people disagreeing about the best way to go forward, and especially, trying to work out the best way to avoid hurting feelings.

Which is an important point. A closed site has to have some way of recruiting members, or it isn't closed. The only discussion one can have is to decide what is the "least worst" way of deciding membership.

You could start a splinter site and invite everyone on Mumsnet and it would be lovely, but there's no point, is there, because we already have a site like that. It's called Mumsnet.

TheFallenMadonna · 02/01/2009 23:49

Ah, a benign (?) dictatorship.

Threadworm · 02/01/2009 23:50

Do cut off your gangrenous hand onebat, otherwise you really will be a mouldy. Irreversibly.

Aitch · 02/01/2009 23:52

soapy that would make sense, in fact i now remember i started one of those threads. MP, that must be it, not discussing as i recall it, the actual nominees, but the fact that there were no votes being cast which didn't seem like cricket. onebat knows that too, evidently, which is why she doesn't want to name names which is decent of her. i adore her, clearly.

however, mrs onebat, i think what shocked me and to borrow iorek's phrase, made my skin itch, was the realisation that no, not everyone does feel that way. seemed to me the majority were very wearied of the yelling and stamping of feet on MN (and a fair few acknowledged that they were the yellers and stampers and didn't want to be like that) and so relished the idea of having somewhere where the decisions would be made by others. not hugely my cup of tea, or yours, but we are not all the same.

Threadworm · 02/01/2009 23:52

It's not going to stop being confused, full of mutual misunderstanding, hurtful, etc. But it can just stop. At 1000. Please?

onebatmotherofgoditschilly · 02/01/2009 23:53

"The only discussion one can have is to decide what is the "least worst" way of deciding membership."

Well, there's a valid ethical position which says that anything which needs the 'least worst' option to be chosen is unethical, unless the act of NOT choosing so is ethically even worse.

So NO-ONE was going to be hurt if MOldies didn't come into existence.

But SOME-ONE was going to be hurt if it did.

Option One is the ethical choice, if one buys this argument.

IorekByrnison · 02/01/2009 23:53

Onebat - sorry to have brought this all up again. I know you have been caught painfully in the middle of it all (and from what I can see have acted with exceptional integrity throughout).

As an outsider mumsnetter who is not really involved and who missed it all while it was happening, it is irresistably fascinating. If you did want to continue the discussion, could you not just obscure the names in your examples: penguin a nominated penguin b, but penguin c said b was a c*/never heard of her/didn't like the cut of her jib etc.

Aitch thanks for your demystification. It is sounding less like a satanic cult already. Regarding the poll threads though, I'm not sure I understand the distinction between "debating the merits and demerits of people on the threads" and using them as "de facto polls". What's the difference?

IorekByrnison · 02/01/2009 23:53

Onebat - sorry to have brought this all up again. I know you have been caught painfully in the middle of it all (and from what I can see have acted with exceptional integrity throughout).

As an outsider mumsnetter who is not really involved and who missed it all while it was happening, it is irresistably fascinating. If you did want to continue the discussion, could you not just obscure the names in your examples: penguin a nominated penguin b, but penguin c said b was a c*/never heard of her/didn't like the cut of her jib etc.

Aitch thanks for your demystification. It is sounding less like a satanic cult already. Regarding the poll threads though, I'm not sure I understand the distinction between "debating the merits and demerits of people on the threads" and using them as "de facto polls". What's the difference?

Aitch · 02/01/2009 23:54

TFM, yes, a benign dictatorship seemed to be exactly what a lot of tired people wanted.

Northernlurker · 02/01/2009 23:54

Threadworm - I issued an impassioned plea for it all to stop last night. The post was totally ignored. It'll stop when it stops - that's all that can be said I'm afraid.

IorekByrnison · 02/01/2009 23:55

Aargh. I say everything twice. Sorry. Will stop asking questions now.

soapbox · 02/01/2009 23:55

In fairness Aitch it tried to be democratic about how things were run. There was poll after poll after poll asking for members' views. However, almost as soon as the decision was made 'democratically' the next volley of 'discussions' started.

onebatmotherofgoditschilly · 02/01/2009 23:56

Yes that is very true, Mrs A, re: the general take-it-leave-it attitude to democracy - in that Moldies only reflects the wider world.

ClausImWorthIt · 02/01/2009 23:58

So whilst we're picking scabs, still no-one has answered my question as to who actually made the decisions as to who was in/out.

Aitch · 02/01/2009 23:59

no, iorek. there was never any open 'don't like the cut of their jib' going on, nor any [yes] or [no] with a name attached (i realise i suggested that with the de facto polls thing but it couldn't have happened that way, tehre would have been uproar at the attaching of names to votes, so i steered you wrong there). soapy has explained what MP and i are remembering, that there was an expression of distaste for the results that 'penguin a' was getting because penguin a was generally known to be a good MNer of long-standing and therefore there must be some exercising of grudges going on which is nasty and unbecoming of a lady. at least i think that's right.

ClausImWorthIt · 02/01/2009 23:59

Or was it really as simple as deciding it on the basis of the polls?

Quattrocento · 03/01/2009 00:00

But see the moldies wanted a different type of forum to the one they had here. As others have posted, a benign dictatorship as opposed to a democracy. And you know (repeats herself) isn't it good that they have the forum that they want?

You're looking at this hurts issue in isolation onebat. If the mouldies had stayed on here and carried on undertaking prefects duties etc - which not all of them did but a fair few - then the possibility of hurt is not isolated to the creation of moldies. Just look at all those negative threads started about MN ...

Aitch · 03/01/2009 00:01

see i'd disagree with you there, soapy. but that's cos we is all different. to my mind a system that can exclude someone on the basis of a few negative votes can't be democratic. i may have whinged on about that at the time.

but certainly people wanted to do the right thing, and to find a fair and decent system, no question about that. it's just that there probably isn't one, really, and there's the rub.

ruty · 03/01/2009 00:01

well i've said on the other thread that i wish MNHQ would make MN posts only accessible to those who register, but that idea seems to have been rejected because of those who want advice only by googling. At least then we would gain some of the benefits that Moldies have.

DaddyJ · 03/01/2009 00:05

truth and reconcilliation, quattro

we have had 7000 post of bile and bitterness already

Aitch · 03/01/2009 00:06

forget the polls, BIWI. that was over in a day.

think vetoes. a list is put up, you veto via CAT. i don't know how many vetoes it took before a person would be excluded but i asked and was told it was more than one. there are a few mods as well and it was agreed that if there was any dubiety i think that they would just decide. but don't for a minute think that the admin was conducted by a professional pollster, people seem to have fallen through cracks all over the place. but given the furore and hurt of the last fortnight (yikes), it might be difficult to contact people now. thank fuck i have nothign to do with that, i wouldn't fancy sorting that out.

anyway, really, all i wanted to do was de-mystify the process... i hope i've gone some way to achievinig that.