Troll hunting, why it's not a good idea and why we deleted the Rarebird thread

[JustineMumsnet]

Hi all,
We've just deleted the Rarebird thread as it had deteriorated into a bunfighting trollhunt. As we've said in previous posts we do think it's better to work on the assumption that posters are telling the truth and after a lot of digging we have found nothing to suggest that Rarebird is anything other than genuine.

Of course you can never be sure of any poster's real identity but we think it's better to err on the side of being occasionally taken in than on the side of being sceptical of genuine posters. If you take a different view (and we do understand that some folk do) then quite simply it's best not to get involved in threads such as these and we'd rather you did that than post suspicions on the thread. Mumsnet will be a worse place if folks routinely assume that any unusual post is a troll making it up.

Of course anyone who has genuine concerns please do tell us - we'll always take a look.

Many thanks,
Justine

I think deleting the thread was completely the right thing to do on this one.

x

vg justine

Very glad to see that thread gone. Hopefully the Miss Marple types will go off to carry on with their knitting and the OP of the other thread gets some genuine RL support.

you bloody caaawww! you started it ELEANOR

Thanks. Really pleased it was deleted.

People with problems aren't there for the primary purpose of entertaining the bored masses.

And now we have a thread in 'chat' that will end the same?

Posters are already summing up from the first two Rarebird threads........

Round and round and round...

Hear hear, MN. The reaction of some people on those threads was appalling - never seen trollhunting quite like it and has left a nasty taste in my mouth.

Kerrymumbles - couldn't have put it better myself. FFS indeed.

Trollhunting to that extreme (phoning a hospital to check out a story so you can be first to prove trolling or not - wtf?) is at least as bad as being a troll in the first place, and makes genuine posters with unusual stories even less likely to want to post.

oh come on...those of you complaining the thread was there....you were all rubbernecking anyway!!!

fair enough. but

A person's rl identity was obtained from that thread (and others by the original op)

Is it possible for mn hq to contact that specific individual to establish that it is indeed her posting on those threads? Because if it isn't then the individual posting as her has stolen her identity, and surely that needs to be established for the sake of the real person?

Please don't make me apologise for phoning the hospital again; I was not one of the trollhunters, I was trying to prove she was genuine.

Regardless, I'm sorry I perpetuated the whole sorry mess in any way. Glad it was deleted. Hope the OP gets the help she needs.

Absolutely MN, totally agree.

A terrible shame for the poster that it had to be deleted, and an embarassment for MN.

ILT - I went onto a thread that had 100s of posts to see what it was about, as I usually do check out anything that popular/fast moving, and was appalled at what I did read. I closed it and didn't open it again because I thought what people were doing/saying was sickening really. You can call it rubbernecking if you want, I don't really care, but I do think choosing to leave well alone was a much more appropriate thing to do than start hounding the OP and giving all and sundry clues as to who she may or may not be in RL.

So did the poster request that it should be deleted?????

Bloody hell ...Someone phoned the hospital OMG thats a bit extreme ... get a life springs to mind

what was it all about then, i totally ignored it for some reason

Good idea MN - I think it's such a shame that some people with bizarre and sad stories receive a lot of support and advice where others end up bing treated like this.

You're probably right. DD was taking a long nap, I was bored. I don't have many friends round here.

was the usual troll hysteria SEA ....

KM me neitehr

Last time I asked for some- post budget when we were worried that we would lose our home (we still might, although we'll go down fighting) I was told to stop over reacting.

Never going to bother again tbh.

insania