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

Give it a rest SGB. That's party's well and truly over.

Oh for goodness sake - stop slanging the poor woman! Justine has said they don't know for sure either way - so please let's leave it.

Or do you want this thread to go the way of the other one?

The justification for troll hunting is always "oh, we must protect the poor innocents who might be sucked in by the story".

Well fine - there can't be a single person on mumsnet now who doesn't know that there were doubts about this thread. Job done. Can we just leave her alone now?

I don't know if I missed lots of stuff but it didn't sound particularly far-fetched to me, any of it, apart from maybe the royal prince. But hey, someone has to go out with them, I suppose!

I'm really glad the thread was deleted as it was getting increasingly unpleasant, but I do wish you had done it earlier, MNHQ, though I appreciate you are busy. Whatever the truth of the situation (and I don't suppose any of us posters will ever know what that was), it didn't seem to be at all a good idea to leave it all there where anyone could read it. I know individual posts were being deleted, but there was still enough information there to make it very easy to find out who (IRL) was possibly being talked about without much difficulty. Yes, I googled, and I'm not particularly proud of myself for it but I am nosy and I sort of couldn't not do it. Stupid, but there you are. Whether the OP is or isn't the person who was being suggested, it wasn't okay for the potentially damaging stuff to stand.

I really hope the OP is all right and getting some help with the things that are troubling her.

sorry - x-posted with TinaSparkles who said what I was trying to, but much more succinctly.

God knows what that was all about.

I was incredibly nonplussed at it all - posted in a rather confused fashion and pissed about trying to defuse nonsense by rambling on.

I wish I hadn't posted at all to be honest and just stayed well away - I got drawn in to the drama shamefully.

I have absolutely no idea if she was a troll or not and couldn't give a shit anyway. I certainly wasn't going to google the woman. I thought the nadir was reached when the MNer telephoned the hospital.

I thought we all behaved like shrieking harpies. Has put me off mumsnet rather, and I am nota hysteric flouncer type. But my god I would rather ask the cat for advice than come on here if I had a problem.

Come on then what was it all about? I've guessed so far someone with a baby in SCBU what the rest?

getorf - I agree. I didn't post on the thread because I hate the car-crash mentality of watching someone in trouble (for whatever reason) being poked and gawped at.

However having stumbled on it I did report it, and I am bloody glad it was deleted.

Most playground bullies have more integrity and humanity.

I only posted on the thread to point out that whatever the truth of the matter, the whole thread ought to be deleted pronto. And yes, it was totally car crash stuff. I sort of wish I hadn't bothered as it didn't seem to help and everyone just carried on. And I feel a bit ashamed of googling

FWIW, I think the poster who phoned the hospital honestly wasn't doing it out of any base motives, from what she said. She just got caught up in the mystery of it all and thought 'well, I'll sort this out for everyone right now'. I think she said she was a relatively new MNer, so is probably feeling a bit got at now. She seemed like a nice sort.

Agree with those who say that if people don't know you then they are too quick to pile in with accusations of trolling. Once any well known poster has made her mind up everyone else seems to join in.
I posted a few times that I believed rarebird and so did others and they were shouted down.
Now I don't care whether you agree with me but if I was emotionally vulnerable it would be crushing to see some of the things being posted.
Its not just this thread, there seems to be a lot of bullying at the moment (or maybe I'm just reading the wrong threads).
I know everyone is free to post whatever they want but I wonder what good people think they do by being aggressive.

i still wondered if people were shouting troll behide my back at time. Its not good that even geinue posters get worried.

Yep lots more accusations of trolling these days; as a veritable oldie I changed my name and was shocked to see accusations a plenty flooding in.

A taste of what it's like for the newbies who can't just go 'oh but I used to be ....'

TBH it's not a supportive forum any more and the nice MN bits are ebbing away. Why? It's sad.

If you see a thread that you feel is dodgy back off, tell MN and don't post.

Don't ever offer mroe support than you can cope with if it all goes tits up.

After that there shouldn't be any problems should there?

I ahve flounced / walked off upset twice in the past eyar and never in the nine years before that. Has to be something in that.

I have been on here only 4 years and it has become a lot harsher in that time I think.

I only stay on here because of the MNers I 'know' and can laugh with. I like MN becasue of the trivial threads. Venture on a thread where discussion is even slightly serious and it has a tendency to go tits up/be nasty/people cut and pasting circular arguments.

Perhaps it was always like this and I am just getting a bit sick of it.

Not just today's thread, but many others recently where a LIGHTHEARTED thread has gone awry, and I end up thinking oh for fucks sake and turning the pc off in disgust.

But lenin - there are three possibilities

1. the person is genuine
2. the person is not genuine but is trolling for deep-seated personal reasons and has some other kind of problem
3. the person is not genuine and is hoping for a reaction.

NONE of these cases is served by the kind of sustained, gleeful witch-hunt that we saw on the other thread.

If the person is in some kind of trouble, whatever that might be, it certainly doesn't help them. We've all stood round, knitting needles clacking, while some poor sod destroys themselves for our gratification.

If the person is out for a reaction, well, we bloody well gave it to them didn't we? 600+ posts of reaction. And they'll probably be back to rile us some more.

Yes, if you have concerns by all means do something. Report the thread. If you see someone being sucked in, say so. But honestly - do you think anything deserves 600 posts of speculation, tattle, gawping, and hand-rubbing?

The worst behaviour on that thread was not coming from newbies. That's all I'm saying. And guess what - being right is not a justification for abandoning your humanity and dignity at the door. Surely we can express concerns in a better way than we did today?

If the thread was real..and all her old ones that are still up, I would say it is all harmful stuff for someone in that position. Someone in that position with an intense need to vent would be much better off emailing the Samaritans rather than posting so much identifiable information, including information that would identify their children and the "lover's" children on open internet forums. If I was one of the Mumsnet "operators" I'd be asking myself if I was doing as much harm as any troll hunter might be by enabling someone in a weak mental state to wash every last piece of dirty linen in a public forum read by journalists.

Im horrified that for whatever reason someone felt it necessary to phone the hospital!!![shock Totally and utally wrong on every count!!!!!

The thread should have been reported much sooner. It descended into a frenzy of speculation.

I feel sorry for the OP. She came here looking for support - which she was having difficulty getting in RL - for whatever reason.

I hope she is able to come back at some point as there are people here who genuinely do want to offer support and perspective.