Oh look, it's those guidelines making no sense whatsoever again!

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

So, I got an email about a comment in which I said that I wanted to know why genderists keep comparing trans identified males to black women and lesbians being deleted. I think this is absolutely barmy, and have said so to HQ. I'm also baffled as to how this breaks any guidelines and thought perhaps it was time for us as a group to revisit the guidelines and explain once more to MNHQ why they're not working.

What's actually happening here is the the obsessive trans activists who monitor this site are attempting to pick off posters one by one. We lost Orchid last week, and she was just the most recent of many. I'm not sure in MNHQ realize that's happening and welcome it or if it's somehow escaped their notice, but it's a pretty messed up thing for them to be allowing to happen to their users, in my opinion. Are they going to allow this to continue until the only commenters left in this forum are the TRAs who want the entire site shut down?

I know the people who despise the women here would very much like this to all happen under the radar, and that's exactly why I'm not allowing it to play out that way.

Thank you Becky

I am more confused than before.
How can the mods recognize vexatious reporting by people who brag they have dozens of accounts?
I can't think how many times I have said to an OP 'I am sorry ...' only to find it is banworthy to express sympathy.
Bothsiderism is a stunning position for MN to take with regard to safeguarding.
Poor mouthing and self praise seems inappropriately self serving from a UK company that has monitzed the conflict created by the ongoing effort to strip women and girls of their rights.

Rapists in female prisons are expressing their trans identity. Men beating women at sports, are expressing their trans identity. Men ejaculating into women's underwear at Marks & Spencer's, are expressing their trans identity, according to them.

Indeed. It's a question of context.

That was a very disappointing response.

I'm going on a search for somewhere that can host a conversation about womens rights without slowly degrading our right to free speech in order to cover their own backs. We can't reclaim our rights if we can't find our voices and we can't find our voices if we are allowed to be silenced and that is what you are allowing.

I refuse to concede that the safety of women and girls are of lesser importance and should be jepordised for the sake of identity. There are ways in which both groups of people can have equal fair rights and quite honestly it disgusts me that more people aren't considering the implications this will have for women. Ensuring the safety of one vulnerable group by taking away the safety of another is not equality.

I am very sad to see that the issue of Orchid’s suspension for a post that was so innocuous, that was not intended in any sense that would break the guidelines - far from it - has been completely ignored

This. Especially given that it was a troll thread it happened on.

I’d certainly be interested to know (being a lifer myself!) if I were mnhq, why given a 14 year posting history and - afaik - a clean record, and then given that Orchid’s opinion on the subject hasn’t changed recently, what has changed to suddenly have her ratchet up three strikes in such a short period of time?

We don’t allow vexatious reporting and can spot it pretty quickly. Our guidelines make it clear that anyone who repeatedly reports similar types of posts that aren’t worthy of deletion will be suspended.

Hi Becky. Thanks for posting. The above is another failure to understand/take in what we have been saying to you. Just as we did not suggest you guys were coercive controllers but were being used as proxies by coercive controllers, we are not suggesting that single people are sending you hundreds of reports. We are saying that the reporting system is being gamed via offsite organisation using multiple people. We know this to be true because a) the people doing it write blogs about it and b) boast openly about it on Twitter. I can't understand why you refuse to acknowledge this.

It really would be nice to get a response to what we said, not what we haven't said.

We are saying that the reporting system is being gamed via offsite organisation using multiple people

Yep...and either they pick on certain posters

Or MNHQ have the weirdest deletion coincidences

One of those mathematical impossibility things

For the record i think its the first one

I feel disappointed by this response too. I got a deleted recently for being 'uncivil' and the moderator said I had 'implied trans people don't exist' because I used apostrophes around the word transwoman. I did this to highlight the linguistic term transwoman as opposed to transgender or transsexual, because I was making a point about language. It was really odd to be accused of implying they don't exist. Of course trans people exist, that's why we are having this debate. However, by existing, I see trans people as either male or female and identifying as the opposite sex, because I don't support the 'born in the wrong body theory' ie. I'm gender critical. So it looked like I was deleted for having a gender critical viewpoint as opposed to believing in trans ideology.

I was also chastised for pointing out how some transwomen have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, even though this is true.

It felt very much that intention was read in my post that simply wasn't there. That's one of the big problems, is that ill-intention of feminists is assumed. I wrote back to explain this but nobody got back to me.

It does feel like we are being censored and coerced into saying things we don't agree with to avoid being banned.

Why is there a three strikes and you're out policy for FWR? This doesn't happen over the rest of the site does it? It certainly doesn't seem fair - quite the opposite.

It also plays right into the hands of TRAs who want women on Mumsnet who talk about trans, silenced.

Like naughty step. Ffs

There was also Justine's claim that people think trans people are "weird".

I really don't think that is a point of view that any feminist on FWR would hold. So who is she thinking of?

Excellent point dreich

I don’t know anyone on the boards who thinks that

(Ive not memorised every thread so i may well have missed something...but thats a fairly big something to miss)

Well, there are occasional horrible posts which get reported by FWR regulars and deleted pronto, as they should be. Maybe Justine mentioned that sort of thing more for the benefit of watchers as examples of what should be reported.

It was an excellent response to a straw man argument that no one here made.

Respectfully adding my vote that Orchid be reinstated.

Moderators are in an impossible situation. Some activists will be satisfied unless FWR (or even all of MN) is gone. It doesn’t matter how tightly you moderate, they want this board gone.

Radical idea: why not tell everyone on both sides to FOH because you’re sick of it.

Write a list of banned words, even if its a mile long, and pin it to the top. Regular users can explain to bewildered visitors why their posts vanished - now that we know deletion messages are not sent, we can step up to fill this gap. This board can be very intimidating for newcomers to post on.

Write a macro that auto-deletes posts containing those specific banned words (sorry everyone!) and then just let the board go.

Do not actively moderate the board. It must be a massive time and cost suck, and everyone on both sides is upset, whatever the mods do.

People will still be upset under this other regime but MN will no longer be expending 80% of costs on a board which generates 20% of income (or whatever).

Once activists realise they can no longer use moderators to control the discussion - yes they will meltdown and it will be nasty, even scary for a while. This is to be expected.

But if they know mods are no longer actively involved, they have no basis to target mods.

When safeguarding is dismantled, vulnerable children are hurt. I saw this first hand growing up in the Church. I am seeing it again now. This is a parenting site, if we don’t discuss it who will?

But MN need to make money and hands-on moderation of this board makes that harder. Hence a set-and-forget approach would help, in my opinion.

will not* be satisfied

If you think we’ve made a mistake and not mailed you, let us know as we can check this out.

But how would you know? As far as I’m aware I’ve never had a strike. But I’ve had deletions. If I check the email account regularly and there’s nothing so say a deletion I’ve had is a strike how do I know if it’s meant to be? I’ve gone back to threads and seen messages deleted but had no email, some of which have been for quoting which I understand but others that haven’t. We’re they an unrecognised and non-notified strike?

I think there needs to be
a) a consideration of why this sub-board needs a three strike policy compared to everywhere else and
b) a clean slate wiped for all users with strikes until it's clear the strike notification policy is working consistently

Hear hear, NotBadCOnsdering and everyone else on this thread.

Why do the feminists get strikes, but not those posting stuff that breaches guidelines on AIBU or anywhere else?

Could we have a bit of EQUALITY please? God knows, we won't get it anywhere else, but on a site called Mumsnet I think we're entitled to expect it.

You do ourself bad with unequal guidelines for protected characteristics, MNHQ. You know this, don't you? All those months ago, you acquiesced to the twitterstorm. You should never have done that.

*yourself

Protected Characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership and pregnancy and maternity.

Do you apply the moderation rules equally across these protected characteristics, @MNHQ ?

Wrt referring to the sex of a person - when someone’s biological sex is inherent to the discussion and part of a reasoned debate, we’re unlikely to delete terms that refer to it - but it should be civil and not intended to belittle.

Referring to male people as male or as men is not uncivil or intended to belittle. It is reality. Forcing women to call male people women or female because you have removed every other way of referring to the people they're trying to refer to is not civil at all, and is why people are telling you that what the mod team is doing to them feels like coercive control. This is imposing coerced speech - they can either refer to male people as women or not refer to them at all. That's not a debate, that's you accepting the way trans activist frame the issue and then attempting to impose it on your users.

My comment that didn't just get deleted, it earned a strike, was about the racism and homophobia inherent in trans activists repeatedly implying that black women and lesbians aren't female in the same way male people aren't female. If you, collectively, think it's uncivil and intended to belittle to point that out then that's very worrying.

Which also brings up the fact that based on Justine's comment apparently not all comments that are deleted (not just for quoting a deleted comment) are strike worthy, I guess some just get deleted but no strike? But my comment got a strike when apparently it could just have been deleted. Why? And what in general are the criteria for strike versus simple deletion?

we really don’t wish to be punitive

That may not be the intent but it's the way it's working in practice.

Also, as 2BthatUnnoticed said, the problem here is that this board is being over moderated. The solution is to take a step back and just let people talk it out. If you can do that with the Brexit threads, which are often at full screeching rage and paranoia mode, then can do it with this other contentious issue too.

It's odd that on other parts of mumsnet you can have posts directly targeting an individual saying all kinds of things about them, and they are allowed to stand.

So, you can be 'uncivil' about an individual person, but you cant be factual about a trans person.