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 find it very ironic that many people are posting in outrage. The only reason you are able to post is the vast amount of work their staff put in. You are posting on THEIR platform. It does not belong to you, regardless of whether you provide the content or not.

Blah blah. When your personal email address and password and username are published on the dark web for any nutter to use, or your details including IP address are copied and passed on by a shitty intern, you might feel a bit differently.
Can we use a pre-purchased visa that’s not linked to a name? I have zero interest in the likes of our litigious friends being able to access my identity and bank account.
And yes. The idea of paying for the privilege of being forced to lie is faintly nauseating.

That’s bull. If I post here, I am a product. MNHQ sells my presence to advertisers who advertise their wares to me. That’s how MNHQ makes money. Currently. MNHQ are asking that we pay. Will that mean we cease to be product? It’s not like it’s MNHQ ball and they can take it home if they don’t want to play anymore. They need us, either to give something advertisers want access to and are willing to pay for, or to get money from so they don’t need advertisers.

If staff don’t want to put in so much work because it’s so tough, how about starting with not moderating people whose posts call male people men? Would be win-win: save them work, and happy posters here who don’t feel like they’re walking on egg shells and will be more willing to pay.

People are outraged because MNHQ has dome cap in hand to the people it’s been telling off for ages. It says, in the extra special rules on sex and gender:

If you cannot accept the above principles and persistently ignore them, then I’m afraid you need to accept that Mumsnet isn’t the right place for you.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable for individuals to consider a) if they can or can’t accept the principles and post for free and b) if things change, if they don’t want to pay for the “privilege” of accepting those principles.

I will accept those principles (begrudgingly) for free, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for it.

MNHQ can take their ball home and talk amongst themselves about how amazing their ball is, and how privileged we are supposed to feel from being allowed to play with their ball, and they can do that while sitting at home and having no one to play with, see how that works out for them. They’ll probably get by without me, but it’s bad enough I have to butcher the English language for free, let alone for a monthly fee.

I already dereg and rereg with different email addresses regularly. These guys are proper nuts.

@BadLad posted this on another thread and I LMAO so thought I would bring it over here:

Shouldn't Justine's begging thread have this on it?

Hi all,

Just a reminder to all our members to be aware that not everyone on t'internet is who they say they are, and that, although we're awed daily by the astonishing support our members give each other through life's trickier twists and turns, we'd always caution anyone never to give more of themselves to another poster, emotionally or financially, than they can afford to spare.

Why can't they use the same donation method as The Guardian and Spiked?

Both of these have the option of regular monthly payments or one off by credit/debit card or PayPal. I have made several one off payments to Spike.

The safest method for members is for MNHQ to post details of the account money can be paid in to but failing that the Guardian or Spiked one off options would be acceptable.

Sorry, I missed something (and have only read page one) but where and when have we been requested to subscribe, and pay? I am not aware of such a request.

Spike accepts cheques too.

I could live with the doxxing risk, I’m pretty open about my views under my own name on other platforms. But along with several others, I’ve been asking repeatedly if Justine would cut off the Twitter misogynists from being able to report remotely and she’s actively ignoring us.

I’d pay if the FWR rules banning correct sexing of men who claim to be women was lifted. Otherwise, like others, I see a clear risk that I will pay, then be banned.

Indeed, if the premium membership is visible in any way (an ability to edit posts might be visible, for example, to obsessive watchers) I suspect any regular FWR posters paying the premium would be specially targeted.

To all those saying they’d pay if external reporting was stopped... it was made reasonably clear by MNHQ that when Lang was banned, most of the reports came from signed-up members. Suspect many of the Twitter monitors have accounts and sock accounts set up so that’s possible. Seems likely to me that part of the reason transactivism has been so successful is that a tiny minority of them shriek very loudly and use their extensive tech knowledge to do so.

And no refund if I am banned? You have got to be fucking kidding me? That is charging for a service whilst refusing service. Possibly illegal.

It might possibly be illegal if continued payments were taken but, even then, it would depend on the terms and conditions. Provided that you in some way agree to abide by the rules (even continued use or the act of paying can be taken as agreement, no tick box is necessary), if you break those, it's quite reasonable to ban you without refunding your money and definitely legal.

The rules have to be clear, consistent & accountable surely? Posters have been deleted and then had the post reviewed and decisions have been reversed. If those yielding deletions or even bans don’t understand the rules what hope do we have?

The rules have to be clear, consistent & accountable surely?

They are:

We have the right to publish, edit or reject any User Content that you send us either via email, via the site or in writing via post for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without payment to you - unless we have specifically agreed otherwise in writing prior to submission.

(The whole model of MN never made sense to me anyway in relation to the “we have to delete things to keep advertisers happy”. WE are the product MNHQ is selling to advertisers. Unfettered access to millions of unique users. If an advertiser wants to remove themselves from being able to access those millions of unique users because some of us refuse to pronoun-pander, what sort of advertisers are they? Pretty rubbish ones I would imagine.)

Very true Notbad.

Sorry, I missed something (and have only read page one) but where and when have we been requested to subscribe, and pay? I am not aware of such a request.

It is pinned at the top of Active Convos, and at or near the top of
many other boards.

I’m happy to donate, but don’t want any of my details linked to MN by paying a sub.

What MN is offering for the £5 a month doesn’t give me anything. I don’t care about the ads. The upgrade required (search facility, editing) should have been something they invested in during the good years, but I can live without all of that.

What I care about is an FWR board, where discussion should take place without fear of being reprimanded, or losing amazing women (Lang), or being doxed, all for simply typing the truth.

Crowd fund, and I will be there, Not as happy to pay as I would be if you fixed the above, but would pay something anyway.

What I care about is an FWR board, where discussion should take place without fear of being reprimanded, or losing amazing women (Lang), or being doxed, all for simply typing the truth.

Yep.

I'm not paying anything for the privilege of being forced to lie and accept the erasure of female biological reality. However, I do pay attention to which advertisers stop using MN because pesky women think they exist and have rights and not only stop lending them my custom but also chat and gossip with others about the negative impression the brands have left me with. I very much doubt I'm the only one to do this.

@Dyrne well shit me, that's awful.
And not out of the realms of possibility to happen again, TRAs seem to have many people with good understanding of this sort of thing amongst their number.

Like fuck am I handing my details over.

Allthepretty where would we find such information..?

PertEllaTitsahoy (that is a cool name!) It generally all kicks off on twitter when there's been a TRA campaign against a particular company.

@NotNowPlzz Of course the platform does not belong to posters. But MN do need posters. There are lots of other platforms out there including Spinster.
Mn has actually been very good at inspiring a sense of loyalty and making posters feel as if the platform does belong to them. MN needs that sense of belonging to survive. Because without that loyalty, there are lots of other platforms that provide better functionality and with much better data protection, that posters can simply go to instead.
So criticising posters for feeling the platform belongs to them is counter productive. MN needs users to feel it belongs to them. They need that sense of loyalty.
And without the FWR board MN really do not have anything unique anymore. The parenting advice topics are not well used. Most posts are petty chat topics or outraged posts that would just as well sit in a wide variety of other active platforms.

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

Problem with statements like this is that it makes it sound like it's everyone.
It's not a hive mind.
I certainly don't want some of the revered posters mentioned back, as they could be vile..
People are making out it's a case of "us versus creepy spies from Twitter" when a lot of the time there's regular, normal, perfectly legit MN users who have just finally had their eyes opened and got disgusted with (some) of the stuff they see on here.
Also people are making out that MN owes them, or something.
Er, they're a business!
At the end of the day we're lucky to have a free to use space.

And without the FWR board MN really do not have anything unique anymore.

Just seen this - there's a lot more to MN than the FWR boards - AIBU and Chat are both heavily used for example!
Loads of traffic and posts.
Same with telly Addicts, threads fill up quickly on there

I certainly don't want some of the revered posters mentioned back, as they could be vile..
People are making out it's a case of "us versus creepy spies from Twitter" when a lot of the time there's regular, normal, perfectly legit MN users who have just finally had their eyes opened and got disgusted with (some) of the stuff they see on here.