Reducing Moderation Load for MN (continuation of Dealing with Inflammatory Posts)

[womanformallyknownaswoman]

I'm starting another thread - which is really a continuation of the previous post re dealing with inflammatory posts and comments. On Site Stuff, MNHQ have revealed more about their issues with FWR - i.e. the moderation workload. They need that reducing.

Please do also take on board the fact that the combative tone isn’t just in relation to goady posts or trolls - the majority of deletions take place in discussions where there isn’t a debate or conflict. It’s a root and branch problem.

What's the nature of the root and branch problem - is there a pattern to the deletions? Are they from certain OPs? Without fully understanding the problem, I am unsure what solutions to focus on - ie. will self policing the tone work as that assumes it's our comments that are the problem? Or is it, as I suspect, trolling that is increasing the mod workload?

I personally don't report much as I am conscious of their workload. Am I alone in this? Thus, I have asked them if they have analysed which accounts are doing the reporting (to see if Sealion and troll accounts are swamping them). Or is it the mods trawling through comments policing the tone??? Or is it us?

BTW @Datun has suggested pinning a post emphasising self policing. Great idea if it is us - but if so, what phrasing is OK and not? Would I be right in thinking saying "self id doesn't take sufficient account of concerns about women and children is fine"? But what is off limits? I still come back to what is that the root cause of the mod workload increase?

Secondly, I keep pointing out that Sealions/concern trolls use covert bullying so the pattern of someone's comments is important, not just a one off remark. As with coercive control in DV, each individual incident can seem inconsequential, but over time the drip, drip cumulative effect leaves women alternating between enraged and cowering. And with Sealions it's not just the comment reported but a pattern of covert bullying remarks consisting of dismissing others concerns, falsely accusing others(Transphobia), criticism that is based on distortion, misrepresentation or fabrication.

Where I think we may need to be smarter is in dealing with Sealions. I have heard it argued that the debate is needed. But if one is wasting one's time on Sealions, it just gives them more ammunition to report and complain about. It feeds them. Hence more mod workload. The only way I have found effective is not to engage with known Sealions. I just ignore them. I don't engage personally with them. So we potentially have a conflict between those who want to have the debate and yet at the same time needing to call time and IGNORE Sealions, after they have demonstrated an unwillingness to engage healthily. For example on the Inflammatory post - I would have preferred to call time on certain Sealions much earlier - there's no point in being nice if it defeats the object ie having debate with someone who wants to engage plus not increasing the mod workload.
Would love some of your thoughts…..

This is really disturbing. I think FWR is an important resource for women of all kinds - why hide it? What does it mean that there is a 'combative tone'? What on earth does that mean, and can MNHQ be more specific? Does that just mean people disagreeing with each other because that's actually just free speech (have you heard the House of Commons? If that's not awash with a 'combative tone' I don't know what is). I've mostly seen people on here being respectful to be honest.

I came to MN as a second time new mum. As a new mum to a baby with a minor but time consuming health problem, I was averaging a few hours sleep a night. Add in problems with other parts of the family and there was no way I could be politically active in any way in RL. MN gave me one way to be politically / intellectually active thanks to simply interacting with the amazing women on here who provide evidence I can follow up from the laptop, and suggestions of petitions I can sign and letters I can write.

There must be loads of lurkers and posters like me - we've found a place we can discuss feminism whilst also juggling doing all that mountain of unpaid caring that means we really, really need feminism.

Probably not putting this well, still chronically sleep deprived.

I think that's meant to be tea but since we don't seem to have a coffee smiley it'll have to do! It identifies as a big cup of artisanal super strong coffee.

Have you never seen how nasty the threads about Gypsies can get?
Ew. No.

Hiding the "Adoption" board from Active worked well, because it meant that posters who were on MN searching for somewhere to be troll-y tend not to find us so much. You have to know where to look to even be aware that such a board exists.

Hiding FWR from Active will make it a bit harder for those troll-y GF to find it to post on, but I suspect a lot of TRAs come here direct from other places and I wonder if MNHQ analytics are able to tell how many come from, say, Twitter and how many get here through navigating the Talk topic list or by clicking on an active thread.

I know that since the Adoption board was hidden I dont' post on there nearly as much, and tend to pop in from time to time and then see a long and interesting thread that has been running for a while without me knowing. It feels as if the pace of posting on there has slowed right down, though perhaps that's an inaccurate perception. (Again, perhaps MNHQ have data on activity pre- and post-hiding for the Adoption board and the others that are similarly protected from the casual user)

Of course hiding FWR is nothing at all to do with the Maria McLachlan case in the courts at the moment. Or is it a coincidence that MN take it out of active for just that week I wonder?

I too would love to know what the pressures on MNHQ are and how they are exerted by whom.

I also think it is important to be really conscious of what is actually happening here. I know you all know but I'm going to spell it out anyway. This dynamic was pointed out by Sarah Ditum a long time ago. The WHOLE FWR board - a consciousness raising resource for and by women on feminism in general - is now hidden from the wider public. Further marginalising these issues and further limiting their discussion.

Trans issues are being used as a LEVER by [whom? don't know - don't know what these pressures are] to shut down FEMINISM IN GENERAL

Do MNHQ grasp this? (I know you all do) (Do they care?)

Again - this is personal - I am out of a long abusive relationship in which one of the repeated motifs was that I did not express myself suitably to deserve to express myself at all. I apologised for getting angry, I apologised for raising the issue at the wrong time, too indirectly, not clearly enough, too directly, too loudly, too humourously and too humourlessly, and I sobbed "but WHEN can we talk about this? You can tell my all my faults now, again, if you want and I will listen and I will try to be better but WHEN can we talk about how desperately some things aren't working for me?" the answer of course, was NEVER

Meanwhile, in the rest of my life, NO ONE. literally NO ONE has told me that there are problems with how I express myself; that it is impolite, unclear, or even inelegant. This applies at work, in academia, in shops, talking to my children's school, chatting on the bus.

There are two situations ONLY in which I live under this "bad communication style" cloud:

1 when in an abusive relationship with a man
2 when trans issues intersecting with feminism are afoot

That is a button hit for me too, anti , that this is the unequal standards of behaviour, treatment, entitlements and respect absolutely central to a m/f abusive relationship. I've always thought Lundy Bancroft would have no trouble understanding all this. That dynamic is a very familiar one to women, and it can feel like being forced to co operate with abusE.

But if MN is pushed to end this conversation altogether it doesn't help us. I think this a bide our time and keep on keeping on as many women here understand the meaning of when quietly planning to escape an abusive relationship. Abusers are at their most dangerous when they know you are escaping them.

And that's why TRAs are lashing out on social media now, because they can see how many women are getting ready to leave (their ideology behind).

Antigrinch I've been in a similar situation and feel exactly the same. These tactics are abusive.

While I identify with posters who say there is a certain satisfaction in skillful and unexceptionable forms of expression, I worry that this is itself exclusionary

I said on another thread that I have literally made a career out of burying unpalatable truths in enough cotton wool that I haven't given sensitive men justification to go on the attack and discount the content of what I am saying.

Like everyone who is 46, I do the work I do to a very high standard because I've been practising for decades.

(Meanwhile, I can't do ballet, nursing, translation, bricklaying, accountancy, or anything else that other people have been getting better at for decades.)

It is horrifying to think that you have to be THIS good at talking to be allowed to talk at all

Well said, AntiGrinch.

We are seeing a lot of DARVO, coercive control and other behaviour straight from the Duluth wheel. It is very worrying that naming it as such is becoming forbidden.

i once read an interesting guide to making comments online ... something along the lines of summarising the other person's POV to show you understood, stating where you are in agreement and only then putting forth your opposition.

My head reeled when I read that. It's the kind of thing counsellors do, and it's not only patronising, life's too short. I don't have a notion of summarising 'the other person's POV'.

The idea that a feminist forum should function like couples therapy is pretty weird.

It is horrifying to think that you have to be THIS good at talking to be allowed to talk at all

Excellent point.

The idea that a feminist forum should function like couples therapy is pretty weird.

🤣 'They' would like that, wouldn't they? 🤣

It is horrifying to think that you have to be THIS good at talking to be allowed to talk at all

The idea that a feminist forum should function like couples therapy is pretty weird.

Fuck me, yes. It's completely true. (and I'm the advocate for talking mindfully).

You won't be listened to unless you tread carefully.

That entire sentence means you're not worth listening to, and you never will be. Having your turn at talking should be conditional on nothing.

People have said over and over on these threads that women's voices don't count, and that male allies are useful, on that basis.

I hope some of them are reading this and they they work for a newspaper.

Meanwhile, in the nothing to do with trans issues part of the forum, we have a man calling himself patriarchy personified trying to sneakily undermine the credibility of rape victims, as he does on every thread where rape is the subject. And that? Is fine, apparently. But god forbid a woman not preface every comment she makes with a summation of the ways in which the person she's disagreeing with is actually right.

Agree completely. The very idea of tone policing is antithetical to genuine discussion.

Outright abuse and guideline breaches have always been moderated on MN. But to say we can only discuss this if we are nice about it is a slippery slope. When factual scientific words are deemed hateful we have a massive problem - because it stops us discussing reality.
We can’t have discussion restricted to those with the linguistic fancy footwork. It’s not an academic seminar, it’s a public discussion board.

And I’ll say it again - this is the ONLY topic to be treated like this. Respectful but robust discussion is fine on any other topic on any other board.

WHO is pressurising MNHQ and HOW?

It is horrifying to think that you have to be THIS good at talking to be allowed to talk at all.

Yes. It also feels a little bit classist to me - where is the room for the more direct working class way of speaking? (Thinking again of what the Deptford People's Project said).

Yes Lang. I (rather clumsily) tried to make this point on another thread. The way the debate is currently framed you need to be steeped in a background of post modern academia to navigate it.

The average person new to this is going to be tarred and feathered as a bigot from the off because even using standard biological terms counts as phobic in all this.

Thanks AntiGrinch

It is horrifying to think that you have to be THIS good at talking to be allowed to talk at all

That is really what I was trying to get at when I was talking about newborns and caring. If we're held to an impossible standard that
will exclude tired women with non-perfect non-sleeping babies, or caring for elderly relations, or just trying to juggle work and caring. I know what I write is less clear than many of you, I've been struggling with various postpartum stuff this past year, but I still want to engage (respectfully of course), I want to write letters, I don't want to be completely invisible in society. What does it say if a new mum feels excluded from feminist discourse on mumsnet because she has to walk on eggshells and get the right 'tone'. This discussion is heading that way, it puts me off posting to be honest, and I've learned so much on here.

The point of this thread is to work out how to support MNHQ in keeping this open and I just don't know how to help because:

I don't know what the problem is. "root and branch" is too general; "goady" is too general; I'm honestly lost

I don't know where the pressure is coming from

And I don't know how they can shut this down. I am really interested and confused about the mechanics of this. We've seen women being threatened with violence and physically assaulted. Presumably not that? People outside Justine's house with baseball bats? I don't think so. What's going on?

Antigrinch your post at 7.35 is amazingly insightful. I never thought about that before and you are so right.

This is a huge concern and one we really need to keep an eye on this. Clearly Mumsnet is under a lot of pressure to close this debate down.

For me there are a few things we really need to be aware of:

1 - Even discussing the idea that TRAs are spamming the boards and reporting everything fuels the fire. It's a bit catch-22. Anyone reading who is of this inclination will increase their efforts now that they are aware that the forum could be on the line.

2 - Free speech. This is what it ALL boils down to. We should be able to speak freely. It's an vital right to protect. Unfortunately this is a private forum, and ultimately the owners get to choose who speaks. It's not a public space.

3 - Policing tone is ridiculously subjective (and that's assuming it should even be done. Answer: it shouldn't). It's a bit like the debate on being offended; anyone can be offended by anything.

4 - I do think the key lies in self-policing. Maybe we should put together a group of women willing to act as, someone else said, another tier of mods. However this will only be possible if Mumsnet are willing to talk to us about what exactly they are requiring moderation of. Is it a matter of dealing with masses of spam reports (that don't really go anywhere but require time to check out) or a more subtle moderation of certain phrases, words, angles, opinions that someone at the top is considering "just too much". If this is the case, it's a bit closer to shutting down debate, which is a separate issue in itself.

5 - Making the forum invisible. I think this is an incredibly heavy handed tactic if it's being done in the name of "making it harder for goady people/trolls" to find us. Anyone coming here with the intention of being goady/a troll only needs to google the forum. They won't be prevented from posting. The people who WILL be prevented from posting are those curious about the trans issues because they are new to it. Those are the people who need to be led a little, so they can navigate the huge amount of information and come to their own decisions. We will lose them. We will lose the ability to gain in number.

It would be a massive shame if we lost this forum as it is one of the few places we have available that are so well-known. It's unfortunate that Mumsnet are under this pressure as they have worked incredibly hard to keep our voices being heard. But it does seem to be a slippery slope right now.

Mumsnet - work with us. What can we do to help?