Bunbury's guide to community disruptors part 5

[ItsLateHumpty]

The useful Bunbury Guide to Spotting Community Disruptors is constantly evolving.

The best research and advice is not to engage with community disruptors and trolls. As ever, if you suspect troll activity, report it to MNHQ.

Remember our monitors would like to silence us by fair means or foul.

This is a continuation of the Public Service Announcement thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3691023-Bunburys-guide-to-community-disruptors-part-4

If and when you see threads plopped into FWR, especially a curious repeat of well worn topics, maybe check for poster history before engaging. AS is your friend.

There are a number of posts/posters/threads that are reproduced on Twitter or Facebook to foment controversy using screen shots & flagging to either MNHQ to have threads or posters deleted.. Sometimes, it’s used to approach commissioning editors with ideas for articles. It’s a tiresome tactic that we always have community disruptor posters who themselves post the comments that they then highlight elsewhere as purported evidence of racism, religious intolerance, anti-men sentiments, or transphobia.

Some helpful links can be found in the ‘Break it Down for me’ and ‘It never happens’ threads but in essence FermatsTheorem recommended “that in the absence of a block/hide poster button, I suggest the following strategy (given that you're talking to the lurkers).

Do not name check the sealion. Instead, respond to a depersonalised paraphrase:

"It is sometimes erroneously suggested that blah. Blah is wrong for the following reasons (short and pithy). If you need more information re. debunking blah, here's a link."

Then (this next step is important to combat derailment) go back up thread to the last useful contribution to the discussion, make sure you do name check that contributor, and pick up the discussion from that point.”

Go well Witches

You ask 'be kind to whom'?

'what about the kindness to female people and children?'

Deathly hush. No ability to process. Not in the script. Inconvenient facts don't exist.

YY, Michelle.

The speakers corner thread was useful and important. The irony of these free speech threads being zapped..

I suspect that's exactly why they get targeted chatty - a visitor will arrive to derail, goad, sea-lion, jaq-off, rinse and repeat until they get people sufficiently annoyed that it turns into a bunfight, then the thread gets pulled. I think it's a quite deliberate tactic.

I’m sure you’re right.

And yes, it is a certain subset of threads in particular - defence of free speech, and women's first hand testimony of suffering abuse seem to be the threads that attract this sort of attention in particular.

Another one gone in a blink. I had a really good post, too

If it was the "I'm ashamed" one, though, it was pretty predictable that it would go, and not like it was a particularly edifying thread... In fact I reckon I recognised the style of posting. I'm going with PBP on that one.

No, the threads I don't like to see go "poof" are the ones which were actually about a substantive issue and had some good, well-thought out posts on them, only to end up pulled because someone had gone on there to troll them deliberately and turn them into swiss cheese.

I know I know, you are right. But I could have had some fun. I was earlier missing the speaker's corner thread-- I was out having a real life (children, garden, feeding chickens) and it just disappeared. I was cross at being unable to find out what had happened (it's ok, went elsewhere) but in this and many other ways women are silenced and/or kept in the dark. Just cross at the "ashamed" because I had a good come back that I could not use. Meh.

Is it me or is there an uptick in the threads that make you go poof (sung to things that make you go mmmmm-mmm)?

Late catching up, but I have a burning essay in my head entitled ‘Fugitivism in the Stanford Industrial Complex’.

It hurts my head that supposed intellectuals understand so little of that which they pontificate over. Intellectual masturbation of the very worst kind. It would be way more interesting if they would only engage. But that would presumably not be meta enough. And TWAW has become so facile it isn’t, like, even worth addressing, it’s, like, so not even the question. Never has been. Notes of condescension towards white TW there.
Dripping with misinformation. So deep you could splash in it.
I need a JCJ shower before I get too despondent about the academy.

Another zombie thread, resurrected with a fairly pointless post. Just-- why?

I think there's a spate of it going on Jelly.

Posted on the other thread, but meant to post here...

Someone (or several someones) are on a bumping-zombie-threads mission. Quite to what end, I'm not sure. But making up transphobic looking shit for the screenshots while pretending to be GC feminists might be one possibility.

Here comes the weekend DianasLasso!

I'd quietly report if it's breaking talk guidelines and let it quietly slip down the list of active threads, unanswered...

I’d just like to point out that I was guilty of posting on a zombie thread the other day, I’m quite new to all this stuff and have been avidly reading many threads which quite often contain links to even more threads, some of these are old threads but they’re new to me so you don’t always realise that they’re old and there was no ill intention on my part when commenting on them

It's not necessarily obvious to people new to this forum that posting on old threads is discouraged. Many moons ago when I first joined, wanting to ask about a specific parenting issue, I searched for a relevant thread - it didn't occur to me that I should start my own.

So possibly best if one person replies to let the newbie know not to do it, and warn others it's a zombie. If the person carries on resuscitating lots of old threads after that then seems likely they should be reported for goady behaviour.

(The content of the post I saw did look suspect though... certainly not someone who'd bothered to read the talk guidelines)

I think it's ok in principle, but often best to start a new one linking to the old one if possible. (I'm on other forums where starting new threads on existing topics is frowned upon, and I'm inclined to agree, but MN is just too big).

This one in particular on FWR had very obvious goady hateful language in the new post.

My concern would be that someone was trying to get rid of certain threads by resurrecting them and then goad people into a fight resulting in the thread being deleted. But maybe I am grumpy and suspicious....

Coffee I think you might have an excellent point there. The Superdrug thread was an old one and it’s in the daily mail today so it could just be lazy journos stirring the pot for a story.

CoffeeTeaChocolate that's me too-- grumpy and suspicious

Me too. A state that has sadly arisen from bitter experience that happens again.... and again.... and again....

female people having basic pattern recognition is one of those things we're not supposed to mention, isn't it?

If I am not allowed to point out trolls, can I point out trolls disquising themselves as wet blankets?

There's definitely signs of people digging in for a weekend of goading in the hope of getting women to lose their rag so they notch up deletions.

"Run silent, run deep" is my advice. Keep it impersonal, stick to the issues.

And remember the advice in the opening post - don't name check the goader, answer the substantive issue if absolutely necessary, but in a detached way, and then re-engage with more constructive comments further upthread.

Well 'my son is a complete dickhead' is a new one.