The MN Mail Column - what we think, and what we plan to do next... part 2

[whataboutthisone]

Firstly, I am a regular but have created a new name for this.

My thoughts about what I know so far:

1. In a much earlier post there was a discussion about a change in T&Cs and whether they are valid or not. Several years ago I took a company to court for a breach of their T&Cs. Their argument was that they had changed T&Cs and my complaint was therefore no longer valid. However, the judge said that because I had not specifically been asked to accept the new T&Cs, I was entitled to rely on the ones I had accepted and therefore I won my case.

1. I choose to post on MN in the knowledge that the details I give are probably just obscure enough to anyone I may know in RL who also posts, so that what I say still effectively remains private. However, that doesn't mean that the same could be said of, for instance, my mother, who reads the DM (!) There is probably just enough about my circumstances that would enable her to put 2+2 together. I would like the option to choose whether or not I let my Mum ( or anyone else in RL) in on certain areas of my life, and there is a real possibility that this hack, has taken that choice away from me.

1. I have never ( and now will never) post asking for advice, but I will also be very careful about offering advice in the future. I, along with many others, occasionally use examples from my life to explain where I am coming from. If I continue to do that, as I said earlier, it is possible that some people would be able to work out who I am. Now, I am not so big-headed as to believe that any advice I offer is worth taking, however, there are many fantastic posters on here who do give amazing and insightful advice based on their own experiences. It would be a real shame if that was to stop because they, like me, do not want to share some of those experiences with the folk they are close to in RL. It would also be a real tragedy if others were prevented from asking for help for the same reasons.

I am very disappointed that any MNer would feel it is acceptable to violate the trust we place in each other on this forum. I do not know who she is. I do not want to know who she is. But I hope she is hanging her head in shame for breaching the trust that has been placed in her by everyone whose words she has stolen to make a few bucks!

how funny, was my fave album for years and years and I was re-listening to it just the other day so your name leapt out at me I adore Bewlay Bros.

[ponders name change as LadyGrinningSoul]

Hello Justa (very much agree with what you, stripey and MP have been saying on here about MNHQ) - Ile de Re, near La Rochelle. It was very nice but I imagine it's even nicer out of season!

I'm sure he is stripey

Donkey wardrobe has progressed to trousers. Disconcerting.

priyag

I was a specialist intellectual property litigation solicitor from 1995 to 2004 and for the past five years have run my own intellectual property consultancy solving copyright, patent and trade mark disputes cheaply and without recourse to litigation. I have dealt with hundreds of disputes of this kind.

trousers

I have no idea what the justification is, I steered well clear.

Oh Beanie you immediately made me think of the benefits thread- damn! So much wasted effort, course that's what is going on!

See,i'm not savvy enough to spot trolls or rumbke a set up. Which I am willing to risk atm but first time someone says to me'isn'tMN that Dm website' I am panicking!

was the benefits one a troll?

I ain't no troll. I'm a bit new though...

have only been able to glance at these DM threads...has someone said already that the DM must hate mumsnet as much as (most??)mners apparently hate the DM?-imagine how appalled the likes of Dacre must be to think about articulate, funny women/mothers getting together, talking freely and frankly, supporting each other, even sometimes using bad words ..etc etc.

Good god, some of them might even have jobs. Or read the Guardian [Dacre pukes in waste paper basket swiftly proffered by desperate hack]

..so is it that much of a stretch to think that this is policy?- eg they must know what sort of a stir something like this would cause here, and it's not exactly going to stretch some journo to find some random thread and lift it, is it? and there you go-minimum effort for maximum bother!

..or am I merely being twitchy and paraniod??

...sorry. realise there have been nearly a million posts on this subject so sure this must've been pretty well covered. does anyone care to update us Johnny-come-latelys too lazy to read the full thread??

I had wondered where you all were

Have also just got back from 2 lovely weeks in the Vendee, St Gilles Croix de Vie.

Couldn't believe all the DM stuff. In fact I thought it was a wind up

and

I think the benefits woman was more DM 'advert' recruit than troll, tbh.

I think it's right about how much DM must love us; not the least becuase one week before the article there was a massive proliferation of articles about how crap the DM is

Hello BIWI - St Gilles looks lovely.

I don't seem to have much of an opinion about all this - maybe because, unlike most MNetters, I don't actually read the Daily Mail . MNHQ's explanations about legal costs and so on seem perfectly plausible to me.

As for the privacy aspect - if anybody thought that posting on here was a private activity accessible only to other MNetters then this episode will have done them a favour. You shouldn't post anything on here (under your normal name) that you wouldn't want your mum/boss/husband/children to know about. Harsh but true.

It must be doing some serious damage though. From my pov, cos I'm a bit new I'm avoiding some threads (like this one, for a while) because I'm aware that I might appear troll-like. It does mean that a lot of people will be looking over their shoulders and thinking twice- not just because they're worried about posts leaking out into RL, but because of a general ill-feeling and paranoia ie that they might get the Troll Finger pointed at them...bits of mn have become a bit weird for people like me, not least because the name changes are confusing.

In fact if the DM wanted to fuck up the site this would be a great -and easy- way to do it!

I think it will result in a slightly strange atmosphere in the short term, but like all these things - Moldies, Cod-hounding, infamous trolls - most of us will forget about it and return to normal pretty quickly, I reckon.

policy wonk- you're right. Now off to read my free copy of DM that I got with my shopping delivery.

(DM-Lefty Porn)

PW you are right it IS true, but the amount of people on SN I have had to contact to say 'sorry we cant discuss this on here now but if you'd like to contact me irectly I can help' uis saddening. I am bound to miss someone, or someone else not bother returning because the support they receive is based around generalisations with none of the important empathy and shared experience that used to exist.

I've come to accept that I can no longer post like that any more, but it is exactly that sort of posting that got me 2 dx's, a school hnit place, sattements, DLA and just through the apst few years.

So even if unchangeable, I do think it is lamentable.