Public Service Announcement

[TensionWheelsCoolHeels]

When you see threads plopped into FWR, especially the curious repeat of well worn subjects, I recommend you check for poster history before engaging.

There are a number of posts/posters/threads being referenced on twitter with screen shots & flagging in either MNHQ or outlets to try & get articles commissioned.

I've just @'d someone who offered to let me know about a change of venue if Westminster Magistrates is over before I get there.

I rarely @ someone tho'...

What's really funny (though still annoying) is how some of the people posting 'weekend' threads (which can pop up not on a weekend!) clearly think they're very clever.

I've just @'d someone who offered to let me know about a change of venue if Westminster Magistrates is over before I get there

Don't worry, that's a perfectly reasonable use of it! You weren't trying to create handy posts where it looks like the person you @ said something they didn't. Not that anyone would ever do that, of course.

Saturday night and they walk amongst us...

Wagons in a circle...

(To tune War of the worlds) And still they come...

Just a quick bump for a vair busy Saturday evening.

Another Saturday night and they ain't got nobody...

ho hum. that time again.

I'm using the paper I mentioned upthread as a lens to view the posts from users - particularly the researchers' discussion of the work they did to predict FBUs (Future Banned Users).

In fact, we only need to observe 5 to 10 user’s posts before a classifier is able to make a reliable prediction. Further, cross- domain classification performance remains high, suggesting that the features indicative of antisocial behavior that we discover are not community-specific.

Quoting again from the paper, in an interesting example of the secondary gain of anti-social behaviour in online discussion groups, it seems that this behaviour is rewarded by the community.

We find that such users tend to concentrate their efforts in a small number of threads...and are more successful at garnering responses from other users.

great advice and thx for link Arran - I always ignore because they crave the attention - negative attention is a delicacy they love - so I don't feed 'em-they go elsewhere eventually if they don't get their food

I sometimes wish we had a generally understood code word for use when a goader or derailer shows up - inspired by the use of 'Basingstoke' in Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore, I was thinking maybe 'Woking' would fit the bill. Unfortunately it would probably generate 'eh?'.

We could use Bunbury - the angry blokes (frocked or otherwise) won't recognize the reference, and the woke kids who do will be paranoid that we're subtly insulting their authenticity.

Bunbury - sounds good to me!!

The problem with codes might be if they're obvious they'll be deleted as hunting. If they're not well known then they're just baffling.

Anyhoo, I spy a thread inviting speculation and discord by someone with a username with no prior history...

Hmm, I may not exactly be winning the subtlety prize today. Also, whenever I read the sprouty one's tweets I imagine the smell of flatulence wafting through the air.

The problem with the 'troll hunting' ban - which in general I completely agree with - is that the correct solution of reporting can take a while to be acted on (especially at night and weekends though I'm pleased to see there do seem to be some mods on duty now) and also isn't so straightforward in the case of posts which individually may not break talk guidelines but you can be pretty sure are going to cause a derail unless all other posters catch on quickly and ignore.

I think the research is spot-on that it's pretty straightforward to spot some posts that aren't made in good faith within the first 5-10 posts (or even earlier).

But, yes, ErrolTheDragon - MN is a fascinating example of a thriving community that relies upon MN moderators rather than community moderators so the impact is different.

I'm wondering about creating a poster who never was adapting the 'farmer' rhyme.

Poster Brown has been and gone,
alas they post no more
They thought Mumsnet was H20
It's H2SO4

I inadvertently responded on a thread where I failed to clock the OP's name (it looks like someone else's).

Mea culpa.

Nice to see DonnaB has taken time out of their busy schedule to post random dismissals and vaguely threatening lies.

Twitter link I would post there if it wouldn't be rewarding the social-disrupter with attention. Re: a recent note to Michael Conroy about gender neutral loos and why we actually have sex-separated loos in the UK.

Conroy tweet: twitter.com/MichaelConroy68/status/1043531943520944128

Appleby exploration of history:

twitter.com/jackappleby/status/1043685794408484864

The reference to the internal exams done while unconscious thread was goady fuckery of the highest order. Awful person.

I don't think there is anything useful to be gained by playing the game of chess with a pigeon.

www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pigeon%20chess

Memes: me.me/t/like-playing-chess-with-a-pigeon

MN is a fascinating community because of the Name Change facility. When this is claimed, it seems that there has to be benefit of the doubt - however, it would still seem that it is possible to use the 5-10 initial posts of the NC to assess the likelihood of whether the poster is posting:

i) in good faith;
ii) with a view to disruption.

Oh it got zapped what was the deletion message?