They scraped Mumsnet again.

[ArabellaSaurus]

archive.ph/e0u3Z

https://bulletin.appliedtransstudies.org/article/4/1-3/7/

Another data scrape. I'd say it's also defamatory against Mumsnet.

I've archived.

Article is a load of tedious wank, as you'd expect.

'In this study, however, we excavate what it means to write like a GC by analyzing how GC forum users rely on reactionary language and deploy storytelling practices in ways that calcify their anti-trans ideologies as personal and natural while rendering transgender people as anti-feminist, dangerous, and monstrous. To identify how GC groups perform political mythmaking and construct extremist identities, we undertook a computationally assisted discursive analysis of two popular GC forums: Ovarit and Mumsnet’s “Feminism: Sex & Gender” board (abbreviated to “FSG”). Through comparative platform discourse analysis, we analyzed over 80k posts and comments scraped from Ovarit and over 60k posts and comments scraped from Mumsnet (Burgess and Matamoros-Fernández 2016; Lewis and Marwick 2017)'

The only mildly amusing thing about it is the name of the Journal.

BATS.

It does make me realise that there are a hell of lot of people out there who really, really, wished MN didn't exist.

Absolutely!

But at the same time some of them just can't keep away. Hmm, why is that? 🤔

God bless chatGPT:

Sure — here’s a Lehrer-style piece that fits your description: a jaunty, sardonic patter song with his typical blend of academic wordplay, internal rhyme, and surgical wit. It’s written to fit his usual musical style (think “The Elements” or “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”) — light piano accompaniment, brisk tempo, smiling delivery masking razor irony.

---

“Pronouns for the People”

(A lost song by the late, great Tom Lehrer — circa 2025)

Verse 1
I used to think that English was a friend,
A faithful chum on whom one could depend.
But lately syntax gives me fits,
Each sentence now has umpteen bits,
And gender’s just a social construct — the grammar never ends!

Chorus
Oh, call me “they” or “ze” or “tree,”
Or “fae” or “ey” or “xe” or “we.”
I’ll answer to most anything that rhymes with “me.”
But if you dare to conjugate,
I’ll check your privilege while you wait —
For I’m progressive and pedantic, simultaneously!

Verse 2
Now teachers cry, “Agreement is the rule!”
But rules are just oppression dressed for school.
I said “They is,” she said “They are,”
I said, “My truth’s the grammar bar!”
She marked me wrong but gave me points for being cool.

Chorus
Oh, plural’s singular, night is day,
Reality’s a mood, not a DNA.
My nouns are free, my verbs are gay,
And adjectives can self-identify their way!

Bridge (spoken, Lehreresque patter)
Now I’m not here to mock inclusion — heaven forfend!
I merely note that when “I am who I say I am”
meets “subject agrees with predicate,”
something’s bound to bend.
And it’s usually the predicate.

Verse 3
The lexicographers are all in tears,
They’ve had to add twelve genders in two years.
And Shakespeare’s ghost sits up at night,
To rewrite “To thine own self be right,”
And sighs, “Good lord, I can’t keep track of all the peers!”

Final Chorus
So bless the brave linguistic fight,
May everyone be titled right —
Though sentences grow longer overnight.
For every “she” that morphs to “they,”
Another comma fades away —
But I’ll still diagram my heart out — come what may!

Coda (spoken, dry Lehreresque tag):

> After all… words may hurt,
but dangling participles wound the soul.

It's getting better.

Marvelous❤️
I don't know too much of Tom Lehrer but a witty ditty is a thing of beauty.

Yes, I know about Aston, it was part of the anonymity debate I mentioned earlier, which was the issue in the Aston case. So you mean MN is including universities in its T&Cs. But, that doesn't override the public interest rights of academic researchers to gather data from Mumsnet's public-facing content if the gathering complies with ethical academic protocols, which includes proper use of software.

I don't know much about TL either, remember a few of his most famous routines, but an interesting thing was, apparently after his death, he'd ordained that his entire back catalogue should be free to download for a limited period (I can't remember exactly how long, maybe a month or two). AndI guess you take that as a desperate last bid of posthumous fame, or a decent gesture that more artists should repeat. I did download it. But I've barely dipped in. Perhaps I seldom find myself in a Tom Lehrer mood.

hyper disgust of challenges to traditional social norms that's perceived as 'degeneracy'

Quotes with attribution or GTFO.

The opposite is true. I've lost count of the number of posters who've said things to the effect of "wear a dress if you like, but use the gents if you have, or ever had, a penis". We accept people's unorthodox behaviours as long as they respect the rights of others.

Unless, of course, by "challenges to traditional social norms" you refer to flashing your wang in front of girls in swimming pool changing rooms, wanking under your desk at the office (recall Jess Bradley), or dressing in puppy fetish attire at Pride for children to pat your head, in which case I am proud to be hyper-disgusted.

Does not seem a very effective way of anonymizing a poster's identity

It's not. One of the ethical considerations when using anonymised or pseudonymised data is how easy it would be to deanonymise it. The ICO guidance concerning GDPR compliance specifically mentions this as a consideration when deciding the lawfulness of processing anonymised data.

@haXXor honestly, it's not worth it. That poster tried to explain what he meant by GCs being "all fine with gender non conforming as long as it's not where the non conforming behaviours are more associated to the opposite sex".

He couldn't. Because it's incoherent.

It is how it works if you are making a public interest case for academic freedom to comment on published material.

The problem with internet media is that user-generated content is published - made public - by monetising platforms which is why the anonymity debate arises. But platforms can't just override public interest with T&Cs. If content is properly anonymised, it should be discussable and subject to academic research with or without MN's explicit permission.

I understand this is not the view you or MN takes.

No. A thread may, however, contain a perverse portrayal of the kind of man who wants to enter women's single-sex spaces. That's because such a man, unless he's a plumber come to fix the sink, is there for no good reason and should be in the men's.

You can be a fantasy nerd without trying to turn the world into your personal 24/7 video game or immersive LARP session.

That I know about the cursed Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity would be a clue that I myself am such a nerd.

There's no way for the content to be properly anonymised when the "researchers" are quoting entire posts verbatim. Put quotes around the post and chuck it into Google and you've got the username.

Mumsnet have gatekept Advanced Search to logged-in users. It's a near-certainty that such searches are also logged. This, and other aspects of the web user interface, provide some safeguard against "jigsaw identification" of users and a fairly strong safeguard against dealiasing of posters who have used the name-change function. When someone constructs a database of postings by scraping the site, they can run arbitrary queries in a way that they can't with AS, facilitating jigsaw identification and the dealiasing of name-changers. They can also automate their queries in a way that they can't with the web user interface, speeding up their analysis.

Women on this site use name-changing for everything from fleeing violent spouses to soliciting feedback about their Rightmove listings when selling their houses. Creating a dataset of postings and offering to share it is irresponsible, because the scrapers have no idea what the people they share the dataset with will use it for.

Creating a dataset of postings and offering to share it is irresponsible, because the scrapers have no idea what the people they share the dataset with will use it for.

And before anyone says "but Russian hacking gangs could do this", I know they can. "Criminals can do it anyway" is not an adequate basis for university ethics committee decisions.

You do need to re-read it, as you say, as that is not at all what the analysis says about FWR.

"If content is properly anonymised' is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

This is our issue.

And when you combine the dodgy approach to users anonymity with the personal issues discussed on here AND the determination to pain everyone here as some kind of bigot, I think there is s problem. Its not the harmless, neutral situation you describe.

And I know it is users choice to share, but women have precious few opportunities to connect in this way; why should this be taken away because of aggressive data grabs by entities who are supposed to be ethical Ie universities

Edit to add:it's not just 'commenting' on the material, it's attempting to paint everyone who posts here in a negative light (and in Aston's case, identity us).

I do understand. And it's up to academic institutions to ensure their own research practices are ethically robust - I know there is space for public input on that. Unfortunately, bad actors of all kinds can do what they like in grabbing data, I honestly don't think universities are trying to act badly and if individuals within them do, they can ruin their careers or even be prosecuted.

All I was saying is that if a researcher is recording public (not hidden or back-end) data, and storing it correctly, and following protocols on anonymising, it would not be up to site owners to say whether it could be studied or not. AFAIK there's no legal or necessarily ethical impediment to that. I assume MNs T&Cs are trying to discourage the misuse of commercial software like NVIVO. I don't think it is or should be possible to prevent academic research of the public internet and I don't imagine MN would want to do that.

I don't do this kind of research and I don't work in HEIs any more - but I think we need good studies of the public internet. I don't intend to upset or be argumentative for no reason.

Public interest case? What is that and where are the published guidelines on it? Without offering evidence, this term sounds like something out of newspaper speak.

However, academic research is held to higher standards than journalism.

You may want to argue that data "should" be scraped without the platform’s consent, but all research ethics guidelines - for reputable researchers and universities - informed consent is one key aspect in using data, even internet data. Even the association of internet researchers highlights the ethical imperative in obtaining consent when a direct quote is used.

If you are an academic researcher, then I very much hope that you revisit your understanding of research ethics, your university’s ethical guidelines, and the UK Research Integrity Office. ‘Want to’ does not override legal and ethical research requirements involving real people.

https://ukrio.org/wp-content/uploads/UKRIO-Code-of-Practice-for-Research.pdf#page17

https://aoir.org/reports/ethics3.pdf

Edited to add: it would not be up to site owners to say whether it could be studied or not. AFAIK there's no legal or necessarily ethical impediment to that

Your opinion is not in alignment with most reputable guidelines on ethical and legal use of internet data. There are some exemptions but you are making too sweeping of an opinion here. Informed consent of those whose data is being used - including whole direct quotes - is still a key ethical issue. I’m shocked that you are arguing otherwise. There are good reasons for being aware of and sensitive to potentially dangerous outcomes in using such data. Hence the need for guidelines.

While we might celebrate the closure of openly hateful communities on major social platforms, a side-effect of the dispersal of GC internet users is that activity in anti-trans spaces has become increasingly obfuscated and insular.

Sorry boys, you might have bullied other sites into submission, but Ovarit and MN will keep telling you to fuck right off to the far side of fuck, and then fuck off some more.

Oh bugger, Ovarit is no more.

Well, Ovarit has closed. And MN FWR is not what it was since the Supreme Court ruling. I’m not really interested in ‘telling people to fuck off’ in principle, or endlessly rehashing recent fights.

I came on this thread this morning to see if there was any response from MNHQ yet. Do they know / care about this?

There's a thread on this in Site Stuff, so MNHQ must be aware.

Isn’t this just the digital version of eavesdropping on conversations which you know you won’t like so you can use them to back up whatever point of view you’ve already decided on?

How very incel!

“othering narratives,essentializing narratives, and authenticating narratives”

Note not false or incorrect information.

I bet they were gutted at that result. No lies just well crafted rhetoric that doesn’t agree with trans ideology.