The departure of dittany

[Pan]

I only know that she has left, and in her post she didn't say much as to why, though some people can speculate and imagine why.

Quite a few days ago (last weekend I think) there were threads that pinpointed the lack of consideration that MNHQ has toward the sort of trolls that infest the FS section from time to time - different in nature and purpose to your average troll that infects MN from time to time.

It may well be that d. is in contact with regular posters whom she trusts. I don't know.

What I do know is that d. was a fabulous source of invigoration and illumination to a lot of posters, myself included, though we didn't always agree with her.

I would like a review from MNHQ of their current "talk guidlines" policy, in order that the FS is provided with a consideration that recognises the particular vulnerability that it experiences.

D. left for her own reasons - but this presents itself as a sort of 'test case' for MN to respond sensitively.

Would anyone agree and post here in support of this?

Who was the bereavement troll? Are they still here?!

Wasn't she called Sassy-something or other?
That was a very strange poster.

Thank fuck for that.

it was SassySusan who turned out to have been WashWithCare.

Oh, I remember her. I didn't know that the fem board was up and running then.

The thing is, MN as a whole is nice because it's really refreshing to post and not constantly be conscious that male experience is the default. I think a lot of us find that in RL, we're used to 'women's stuff' being considered a minority thing and often something you're expected to justify or apologize for if you discuss it. I like MN because I don't constantly get questioned for the pronoun I'm using. That's not a characteristic of the feminism section, it's a characteristic of the site as a whole and one of the reasons I'm sure why the feminism section is so big and so busy. I like that there a few men on here and I like that you can't know who's male and who's female online, but I also like that mostly on this site you can assume women's experience is the norm, and it's nice.

A 'hide poster' button means if I use it, I won't see people who have a problem with a site full of women (which seems to describe a lot of trolls all over MN). But I think it would also change the nature of the site, because anyone who doesn't 'hide' will get used to people helpfully reminding us never to forget about men and never to talk about women without mentioning men. And they'll be conscious of those reminders, and we'll be conscious we're only having our conversation because we're making the effort to block out another conversation going on between everyone else. I can get that down my local pub.

Yes, I'd support that Pan. Very thoughtful post.

The feminist section does seem to be the target of harassment by particularly nasty pieces of work, who aren't just provoking debate or disagreement, but determined to ruin any discussion. They do run foul of MN's line about personal attacks IMO. I would generally say people are perfectly capable of defending their ideas, but the attackers aren't interested in the exchange of ideas, they are determined to stop people posting at all.

Yes, exactly.

I know it's really obvious, but I was losing sight of it with all of this. Then I got another round of 'hmm, you use 'she' in this paragraph and you haven't explained why you know it's a woman' from someone proofreading something for me ... and I remembered.

Oh, there's loads of ways around it - it's just nice to be here where it's not a question I have to answer constantly. In this case I've explained why I use 'she' but it still gets challenged as a deviation from the norm, and that's just something we all end up working against.

(I'm thinking of you btw with it all - best of luck! ).

LRD - I'd ask the person who made that comment how they know the person referred to is 'he' where gender is not specified.

My solution is to use 'they' but if you are writing about issues that are particularly to do with women, then it makes sense to use 'she' except where it's clearly not applicable. (Some people object to 'they' as it used to be restricted to the plural, but I say words can evolve and 'they' rather than 'he or she' uses fewer letters and avoids sexism.)

How would hide poster work?

Would you get blank spaces in the thread where their post was missing?

What if you hid three, or more, and they all posted on the same thread, but other people had hidden a different two or three? Would you all have different looking threads with bits missing? How would there be any coherent discussion?

edam - FWIW, I'm writing about a profession, most of whose members were women, so where we don't know 'she' is a natural default. I've explained this, but it always gets brought up again. This is sort of beside the point - I only brought it up as an example to show why I really like MN being a place where most posters are women.

yes, I am a bit fik and how hide poster would work would need some explaining to me - the situation Hully describes would be bit daft.

Hully, I think you just get a line that says "you have chosen to hide this poster" or similar. Lots of other boards use it with no problems. Another thing you also see is "post hidden due to low comment rating, click to view", where I presume moderators or users give the thumbs down to abusive posts.

Exactly, SAF. It would be very useful if judiciously applied.

Yes, a few people have. But HQ don't like it. I asked before I NC'd (nothing to do with trolling, something else), and then said no, but they'd delete individual threads/posts if I went looking and reported all of them.