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Original poster

Dealing with inflammatory posts re Trans on MN

3 replies

womanformallyknownaswoman · 07/04/2018 17:37

I am concerned to see the message below from MNHQ at the end of the T thread. Regarding posts that I consider "goady", I have a personal policy of not feeding them, not engaging and not rising to the bait. I ignore them. OPs looking for conflict as a way to feed themselves won't get it from me. Firstly, it's exhausting-they are not interested in dialogue, despite what they say, and secondly the best way to deal with them, imo, is to starve them of attention and not rise to the bait. Don't give them what they want i.e. a fight and conflict.

My concern is I predict there will be a lot more new threads and OPs looking for a fight, as the public becomes more aware of the issues and the tide starts to turn against TRAs. They will want to try and get this Place closed down for discussion, and none of us want that to happen.

Personally I have found it empowering to learn how not to engage and to turn it back on them if absolutely necessary, by the use of ridicule and short rebuttals of their nonsense. I am happy to share some techniques if it will help plus learn more from others. There's no point in trying to score points and win all the arguments they make as it's the engagement down their rabbit holes they want - they literally feed off conflict. They're anti-social remember, so any attention is better than none. They want to keep you coming back and arguing, so they can derail, prolong, provoke and generally make life difficult for MNHQ - to force them to take action. The negative attention "turns on" those looking for a fight….so please don't feed them, ignore them and lets keep this place open.

Message for MN:

Hi all

Since this thread is getting near its end, this seems like a good moment to make a really serious point.

We've just made some more deletions on this thread, and we're pretty exasperated tbh - we feel we're running out of ways to say 'please stick within the TGs or risk losing MN as a place to discuss this issue.'

We're really proud of our commitment to free speech, and we put a huge amount of time and resources to enabling this debate to take place - as many of you have pointed out, it's one of the few places left.

To those who haven't yet been able to stop and look at things from our end of the barrel - please understand that you're risking this space for everyone; if you really can't debate civilly with those you disagree with, it might be time to consider that MN is no longer the place for you. We're sorry to have to say this - we don't like it one bit - but tbh nothing else seems to have got through so far: we're at a point of last resort.

Thanks to all those who modify their first instincts and manage to make their points in a calm, considered and civilised manner - even in the face of goadiness. We appreciate it (and so would Michelle.)

Thanks all

MNHQ

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MNHQ

KateMumsnet · 07/04/2018 18:25

Hey all - really sorry to post and bail but I'm not technically 'on' on the weekends and family is calling. Briefly though - honestly think that the best thing is either to engage calmly with a measured response, or, when you just don't feel able to do so, to not post at all. Biscuits do often seem pretty antagonistic (aware how bloody ridiculous that sounds) and it's the general atmosphere of antagonism that makes it harder for MNHQ to hold the line, as it were.

Off to wrangle, but rhanks for engaging with our post, everyone - really do appreciate it.

MNHQ

KateMumsnet · 07/04/2018 18:28

@DarthArts

Good post OP.

I think when we see threads that are potentially trying to invite an angry response from our side, the first person who can just posts a quick message reminding everyone to keep it civil and points out that responding negatively does not help promote the GC cause.

Whilst many people already know this, new members may not and also its a gentle reminder to us all - it can be all to easy to lose your temper on some threads, but ultimately its not helpful.

This is such a good idea, thanks Darth

MNHQ

KateMumsnet · 07/04/2018 22:15

Hi again all

Ach. The truth is, we're just not going to be able to describe the 'line' beyond which we'd consider a non-gender-critical poster to be goady - and tbh, the fact that you're focusing on that aspect of things makes us a bit worried that you've still not really understood the problem.

The bottom line is that we can't continue to host the debate if the tone is as antagonistic as it has been - it just confirms the prejudices of our critics and leaves us in an impossible position.

We think the acronym is brilliant and so is the idea of reminding one another not to rise - but there needs to be a general shift in the tone regardless of who else is on the threads, so that deletions are really, really rare. It is possible, because we see hundreds of extremely cogent expressions of a gender-critical position which don't go anywhere near crossing the line.

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