Civility, reasonableness, and those rules

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

So, since I'm most likely on my way out anyway, why not start a conversation about this? I just received a warning/threat for posting a Widow Twanky joke (not directed at any specific person) in a thread. Not sure which one, because the very keen to enforce deference upon women person who sent it forgot to include a link to the thread they were complaining about, maybe Munroe Bergdorf and the silly FB ad? Anyway, apparently this breaks the guidelines, which does rather raise the point of whether those guidelines are in any way fit for purpose. You're trying to ban jokes? On this site? On any British site? You are aware that our pointed humor is somewhat of a national trait and something we're often admired for in other parts of the world?

I think that this is neither reasonable nor constructive, and I do not agree that it in any way helps to facilitate debate. I also do not think it's reasonable or constructive to have moderation that enables the targeting and therefore harassment of specific users with the aim of preventing them from participating in the debate. Numerous longtime commenters have been picked off this way, the most recent one being Lass (a person who I often disagreed with but respected, and who deserved the right to speak). This space is less interesting and less useful as a result of their being removed at the behest of angry TRAs and/or regular old blokes who don't like women critiquing the sex industry (which I assume is what happened to Lass).

Apparently MNHQ recently had a big internal conversation about this (or at least they said they were going to), and what has emerged is a continuance of the special rules that only apply to feminists being applied in a way that censors women's opinions and stifles debate in order to avoid upsetting male people with delicate egos. Do we think this is reasonable?

(If I vanish you know why - suspended for insubordination. If I can peak a few more people on the way out then I'm absolutely fine with that. I am still Spartacus.)

*oops, extra “only” got in there somehow

It’s also harder for women to post here, who use other boards for support or advice. You don’t want to risk getting summarily banned, as this would also cut you off from that source of support.

Also I really don't think HQ get the social dynamic of this board. There's disagreement and arguing but any time there's an outside attack people will tend to drop that and have each others backs. What HQ have done with those rules and the arbitrary enforcement of them is set themselves up as the outside force that's attacking the regulars, which is just a horrible dynamic to have (and inevitably results in more Spartacus threads).

As in, to put it bluntly, you have actively alienated a significant percentage of your own users. Why? What are you gaining from this?

I've just reported a post calling Samantha Markel a series of sweary names. It was depressingly easy to find a post which does make a deliberate, derogatory and aggressive attack on a named individual. I imagine it would be an interesting afternoon to skim the boards and do the same with any more I find...

GirlDownUnder
So, banned terms now include

Yawn
Bless
Panto
Special men
Silly
?
_

I've had a post deleted for a 'yawn', and for saying 'bring on the violins'

I have mentioned to MNHQ before that this board has felt user hostile for a while because of everything said on this thread.

But of course I tempered my ‘feedback’ with the usual knee bent in gratitude to be ‘allowed’ to post at all.

The relationship is now an ‘us’ and ‘them’ which feels awful on a FWR board, on a woman run site.

Juells blimey!

Our monitors are very sensitive and MN seem to promote non-members which is a strange chat board model.

That dynamic really is obvious, and unpleasant, when you've been gone for a while and come back.

why don’t you all just pack your views into little spotted hankies, tie them to a stick and set off to find a new home where you can exist in peace?

it’s win/win, really. you get a new place to live, and we get a forum without endless posts designed to spark outrage from people who spend their lives waiting to be outraged.

note that i’m not accusing anyone of transphobia, nor am i suggesting that feminism is bad. i’m just suggesting that if you all hate this place so much, go find somewhere else.

I know I’m stating the bleeding obvious here, but one of the things feminists do is analyse the interactions between men and women

Therefore in cases where men are trying to annexe women’s spaces and services, their sex is very relevant

By making it difficult to talk about these men (will I get deleted if I say this? How about if I word it like this? Or temper my point like this?), feminist conversation, analysis, is stifled

The sex of the individuals involved is the main point really

It’s also harder for women to post here, who use other boards for support or advice. You don’t want to risk getting summarily banned, as this would also cut you off from that source of support.

^^ This - I do end up self censoring and not posting here. It doesn't change my views reduce my concerns or stop me talking about this in RL.

I have been reading the FWR board for a while and its become very clear that the rules around what we can and cannot say are changed on the spur of the moment and are not applied consistently. The fact that people are now getting emails about deleted posts that don't even reference the thread the post was or give a clear reason why its being deleted is disturbing. Its in breach of the rules is not clear unless you state which rule and why the pose breached it.
The fact that these rules only seem to apply to FWR and not the rest of the boards is even more disturbing.
Lets not even get on to the fact that Mumsnet HQ now allow targeted harassment of well know posters by allowing reporting from outside the site (through twitter) and within the site without proper investigation.
Mumsnet HQ you need to ask yourself some serious questions about why this is allowed to continue

I don't hate this place exWifebeginsAgainat46, I bloody love it.

It's unique on the internet as far as I know. The only place where women's voices dominate

If I hadn't loved this place at one point I wouldn't be so disappointed in what's happened to it. I suspect that's the case for many.

Women being told to post nicely is like women being told to smile. It's not our job to smile just to make other people feel better.

Why are women expected to post nicely against the tactics of the opposing side?

No point in turning up to a weaponised debate with fluff.

Why should feminists give up yet another space to appease the TRAs and their flying monkeys?

If I hadn't loved this place at one point I wouldn't be so disappointed in what's happened to it. I suspect that's the case for many.

I wholeheartedly agree Kittens

Love it when someone who isn't a regular poster, and who is clearly delighted that women's rights are under threat, tells all the feminists who are angry about coercive control dressed up as moderation that they should leave the forum to all the people who don't bother posting about women's rights or any of that shit. Yeah, MNHQ, observe the long queue of misogynistists just waiting to fill FWR with fabulous content to really make your brand distinctively shine.

You know, at some point TRAs are going to insist that the name of the site is itself transphobic.

I mean, midwives are now being made to stop using the word “mother” and NHS staff have been instructed to stop using it.

Males are now claiming they too are mothers, while females who’ve given birth are insisting they are NOT mothers.

So how can Mum be allowed to stand?

At what point will this site be made to rename itself Gestators.net?

That IS the future facing this site if women will not stop ceding language and actual physical ground to male insistence that women “be nice.”

and so the forum loses the voices of women who are legally trained, or safeguarding experts, or who have lived through enough abuse to be able to warn us of techniques like gaslighting and pronouns being a word we're not allowed to say.

Yes, these are the ones the outside reporters are targeting. The ones who really have the skills to help other women overcome abuse of all kinds, to assert boundaries, and help them understand safeguarding so they can protect their kids. Lisa Muggeridge being banned is an example, there are many more (Offred springs to mind). And that is why I stay, because there are women struggling out there and this is one of the places where they can find help from other women.

It is weird that MNHQ go along with the outside reporters who are men who hate women because these outside reporters would like nothing more than the whole of MN to shut down because they simply don't like large numbers of women talking.

Also, why aren't pantomime dames actual transpeople? Under the stonewall definition they are. What's the difference between a pantomime dame and Pips Bunce who is only a woman part-time? I don't see what's rude about comparing them, I honestly categorically cannot see the difference, to me they seem entirely the same. How on earth are we supposed to differentiate?

Another thought: a lot of women on here have said they don't believe in gender and are genderfree, so technically they're trans. Which would make MNHQ messages to such women which say they're being 'rude' and 'aggressive' for making jokes quite 'rude' to trans people right?

Oh wait, I forgot it doesn't matter if anyone's rude to people who are XX and trans, it's only the men. Silly me.

Telling women off for being against the exploitation of women on a feminist forum on a parenting site. Do you even hear yourselves, MN?

Very well said. I just play about on AIBU these days and am getting more and more bored with MN. I stay for FWR and the politics threads. Everything else here is pointless and ephemeral; passes the time.

MNHQ, I used to respect you but I suppose Carrie and Justine had a tighter hold on the reins. I cry "shame" at you (I know you couldn't give a shit).

If Mumsnet could just tell me the acceptable, courteous, constructive way to call a man, a man, I would gladly use it.

But their position seems to be that we may not speak of what is patently true. In any way. We are disallowed and consequences will be meted out to those who do speak of the truth, no matter how neutrally, courteously, or deferentially they try to say it.

And as I type that I can't believe I'm in the UK and it's 2019. That women are punished for stating fact. And a huge influential forum called Mumsnet has decided this is a good thing.

I have loved Mumsnet, and I still think it has influence. But making truth a punishable offence is a horrifying state of affairs. And I wish MNHQ could just take a moment to realise what they are doing to that Overton window.

As far as I'm concerned, it's an Ovary window, and I'm shoving it back in the other direction as hard as I can, alongside thousands of other women.

Be the change you want to see.
I want the truth to be sayable again.