MNHQ want money from us

[JellySlice]

Perhaps now is the time to tell MNHQ what we want from them.

eg
Relaxation of the anti-women censorship rules.
Reinstating banned respected posters like LangCleg.

I seem to remember there were, I read all the threads in FWR and Site Stuff at the time. But I could easily be wrong!

Just re-reading Barraker's thread raising concern with MNHQ & it includes post about 4 members potentially impacted (this seems to refer to twitter posts rather than the blog)

BarrackerBarmer Wed 18-Apr-18 15:30:40
I've now DMd 3 out of the 4 posters who appeared to have been screengrabbed whilst Emma Healey was logged in as a mod with user detail access like IP addresses. The 4th poster can't be reached by DM but I hope she finds this thread herself and can contact MNHQ about it herself.

I obviously have no idea how many other screengrabs Emma took whilst in her role, only the ones she publicised on twitter."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3225517-The-MNHQ-Moderation-team

Possibly I misread Justine's comment in the begging thread but I can't be bothered to go look for it.

From the thread linked above,

JustineMumsnet (MNHQ) wrote Wed 18-Apr-18 15:47:58
"Hi everyone.
Emma was an intern in the press office for 6 months until March and for a good portion of that time she did have access to the information in our user accounts pages. This is because part of her role involved occasionally contacting Mumsnetters to pass on media requests etc. In February we streamlined the number of people with access to those accounts beyond the community team hers (and others) access was removed.

Her contract expressly forbids the passing on of any third-party data and clearly, she's in breach of contract so we'll be contacting her as a matter of urgency.

Given what she's said on Twitter about this being a mistake and that she's now deleted her Twitter account, plus what we know about her from her time at MNHQ, we believe further breaches are unlikely.

We're really sorry for any anxiety caused and will of course be in touch with the three posters that we can see who are directly affected."

Barracker on 18/04/2018 (it was Barracker who brought it to the attention of MNHQ)

I've now DMd 3 out of the 4 posters who appeared to have been screengrabbed whilst Emma Healey was logged in as a mod with user detail access like IP addresses. The 4th poster can't be reached by DM but I hope she finds this thread herself and can contact MNHQ about it herself.

I obviously have no idea how many other screengrabs Emma took whilst in her role, only the ones she publicised on twitter.

You pipped me R0

From Justine’s words on the other thread , I definitely got the impression that only one users’ personal data was posted online. If you posted 4 in succession, how could it be unintentional?

This was all before my time though, and I might be misunderstanding.

Ok, it was worrying me so I went and checked the other (site stuff) thread, and it clearly refers to just one user being (accidentally) doxxed... concluding that “no data was breached except that one IP address very briefly.” (on Page 32)

Ro eresh thank you both!

This is all quite alarming to me. Where I am (not the UK) this would have been seen as deadly serious and MN would have been fined or warned and required to remediate .. but MN seems to have responded very casually!

I’m not in the UK though and not familiar with privacy laws there

It was definitely more than one user. I remember it being 3 at least. All posted on a really spiteful blog written by Emma - which is why nobody could understand why MNHQ were being so protective of her.

She put in screenshots of several Mumsnetters posts - but clearly taken from the MNHQ moderation system - because they had user's IP addresses, and other info on them.

I think the "it was just a mistake" came from Emma saying she "hadn't realised" that the were personal IP addresses on there, and hadn't meant to put personal details on her nasty little blog.

Emma also gloated that she had "further evidence of Mumsnet transphobia" which she would be publishing soon, and that she had friends still working at MNHQ, and would be "keeping an eye on things" or some such threats.

It was a serious breach IMHO - an Intern released user's personal IP addresses onto the internet, linked to their usernames. We know that when certain TRAs went after women here and on Twitter, it was often from IP address tracing.

x-posted with loads there!

Its important to be aware that Emma Healey's actions took place the same week as Justine Roberts went public about TRA bullying behaviour:

15/4/18 Times
'Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts: Transgender activists try to curb free speech on site'

concludes:
"Roberts said: “A significant minority of our users feel very strongly about women’s rights and very uneasy [about the proposals]. This is an issue that needs to be discussed and that’s why we’re prepared to take any potential advertising hit.”

Mumsnet reported pre-tax profits of £2.1m on a turnover of £7.2m last year.

Roberts said no advertiser had yet pulled out. “There is a section of the hardline trans side which thinks that any discussion at all is by definition transphobic, but we’ve explained we’re working very hard to keep it civil,” she said.

“We have some guidelines, we keep people within [them], we ban anyone that’s persistently mean and that’s the way we’re handling it for now. Hopefully we’ll be able to hold that line because we think it’s important.”

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mumsnet-founder-justine-roberts-transgender-activists-try-to-curb-free-speech-on-site-z3sr3nf6q?shareToken=b2eb62822dd26aecc0f88653978ed23a

Justine had been interviewed by Julia Hartley-Brewer with India Willoughby that week:
'Major row erupts while talking about transgender activists and Mumsnet'

R0wantrees - "Its important to be aware that Emma Healey's actions took place the same week as Justine Roberts went public about TRA bullying behaviour"

What an astonishing "coincidence" !

Hell hath no fury . . . ?

So according to Justine the FWR is a loss leader. That makes sense.

I wondered about the claim that they are committed to have the only mainstream place for Feminism "debate", since that has not been true for years.

I can't help but wonder what people expected to happen when women's rights were declared to be anti-trans by the gender advocacy organizations.
Helen Saxby: Women are not just expected to be nice whilst fighting for our rights, we're expected to be nice instead of fighting for our rights.

Your user name is a weird thing to spell wrong bewilderness

It's my alternate typo name for when a website tells me I can't use my correctly spelled name.

Stupid website

How can the wages bill be GBP 350,000 per month and yet no moderation over the weekend? And only volunteer unpaid moderators after 10pm (I think?) week nights?

"But the site has changed, accelerated partly by penis beaker. It’s bigger and attracts a different demographic, discussions have changed and most of the original posters are long gone. FWR though retains some of the early spirit. Feisty, intelligent discussion, advice to other women and updates on campaigns and legal proceedings. It’s no surprise that posters - and I’m one - who joined during mat leave have gravitated over here. So yes, I think FWR does matter to brand Mumsnet, because they need the quality of discussion here, and just as importantly, the income, of posters to sell to advertisers.

We are most definitely a product."

This

"You dont have to subscribe.
Lets be honest they could just close the feminist section down.
Probably only 5% of MN users would even notice."

Hahahahaha.

Oh, bless.

The FWR section exists because pweeples (bless 'em) were upset that women were 'Feministing' all over the Legal/Chat/Relationships/Money/Parenting Boards for the past two ish decades. The FWR board is a relative newbie board. Get it straight geeze.

I mean, come on now: supporting women on how to stand up for themselves, and get on track knowing their legal, moral and ethical Rights.

Upsets - others.

I’m starting to think they are polishing up the site in order to sell it. There does not appear to be a genuine attempt to engage with the various concerns of the user base. More so,
just to get the site more attractive to sell.

I could be wrong - hope so.

2BthatUnnoticed - "How can the wages bill be GBP 350,000 per month "

From original thread:

We have around 100 employees earning approx 35k a year. Many of them are highly skilled in sought after roles.

"Yes (working at Mumsnet) and Gransnet. And they are running the site - tech, product, community management. We have a team running the jobsite. A team running gransnet, a video team, a small data and analytics team, an offers and deals team, a team that runs insight and product tests, a sales team, a finance/admin team, a team that produces mumsnet editorial content, a press team, hr, seo and email management etc..."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/3874618-Mumsnet-Premium-membership-please-support-us-if-you-can?msgid=95444516

I don't think it was clarified anywhere in the thread how many people and staff hours are assigned to moderating the Talk Boards

Although Justine said "earnings" it was later suggested that this was the total employee costs / wages bill so it included "on costs" (national insurance, pension contributions, etc.) - so less approx 20% to give average pay = £28K

However, I don't know if this was confirmed by Mumsnet - that is one hell of a thread to trawl through and I think there were others from MNHQ responding as well as Justine.

Whatever, 100 seems to be a "head count" rather than "whole time equivalent" so some staff might well be part time. Though I might wrong

No idea what full-time hours are but the number of "productive" hours actually available will keep dropping as you factor in: training and development, annual leave, Public Holidays, Parental Leave (if not covered by temporary appointments), sick leave, etc.

Apologies if I am teaching my granny to suck eggs. I used to manage a small team that provided a range of discrete services. Service-users always assumed that all staff worked full-time, were dedicated to delivering whichever service they used and worked 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

Once you knock off all the time that is not "productive", ie. not spent actually delivering a service, you could be down to as little as 30 weeks a year depending on leave, training time, etc.

100 staff might sound a lot but the productive time equivalent might be 60 - 80 staff - and we don't even know whether they all work full-time.

No idea what the Terms & Conditions are but there are some basic clues here, eg "London Living Wage employer."

jobs.mumsnet.com/employer/80/mumsnet/

TBH I have not given, and do not intend to give, the slightest thought to critiquing management or Business practices and costs. I can't see the point because there are far too many "unknowns" and it is clearly a very complex business.

The only things that have bothered me are to do with the operation and features of the Premium Membership scheme, especially data security.

Did you see that there has been a new site set up with an edit function (if that is important) and admin the site info section says you can use people’s sex to identify them?

Feminist section on there as well although not much on there at the moment... a lot have migrated. Posts and threads are getting deleted who mention it.

And it’s free...

Called mums.chat

Yes, I saw that. Can't find any info on who runs it, though. I would be wary sharing anything on a site with so little info.