Thread derailment

[Temporaryusernamefortoday]

Wondering if I am the only one that’s noticed more and more thread derailments. I’m not talking about TRA taking a TWAW stance but an individual being deliberately obtuse or missing the point of an individuals posts to create an argument about a tangential element. It just seems rather insidious and designed to prevent proper conversation.

This is not a TAT but a thread about a phenomenon.

It's all over MN. I cant tell if comprehension is getting worse, people have fully embraced the internet culture of pretending the people you're talking to aren't actual human beings, it's mostly bots, or mostly trolls, or some mix of all of them. It's made it a very shitty place.

I have a feeling it's bots. I've been guilty of engaging in the past but honestly we all should just ignore them. Regardless if bots or just robot-brained there's really no point to engage.

In a way I would be happier is it were bots.

But for some reason individuals who are very fixated on some concept try and swing every thread round to be able to relentlessly go on about their obsession.

Its one thing having threads on FWR that are only tangentially a feminist issue, but enough on the board are interested in discussing it (from a feminist view point?).

I thought at one time it was maybe because the slur about "terfs" all being right wing extremists had attracted right wingers to come and promote their doom laden western democracy is under attack on a forum meant to be about Feminism and Women's Rights.

But wasn't aware it was happening else where on mumsnet.

It definitely feels that at best this is therapy to say stuff they would never say out loud.

It started a while ago but now its seems dominant.

I remember from when I used to just be a reader of FWR, some years ago, and if anything there were so many interesting and informative threads on a range of issues that impact on women, it was hard to keep up.

Now it seems either a thread never takes off, or if it does get lots of posts it will be sort of ground hog day, endless bringing back the thread to making an assertion over and over again.

Thanks OP for starting this thread. I wanted to start something similar but could think how to express it. Or rather I did think it was that FWR is now seen as a forum for right wing views.

But whatever, with so many issues that do impact of women, not just the TRAs, its strange so few crop up.

Or maybe it is the twitterisation of mumsnet.

No you’re not alone - as I've commented on this on a few threads. It seems deliberate derailment. It degenerates into "it's all about meeeee!!" in familiar tra style. 🙄

Report and explain it's the posting pattern, rather than an individual post. I've found MNHQ very willing to investigate such posters.

I must admit I find FWR to be like some wing of the Reform Party or a Tommy Robinson fan club and that is just over the last couple of years. Nearly everyone seems to hate 1.8 billion Muslims

Do you think the reason FWR is seen as right-wing could be because so many posters complain about Labour, Starmer, the Democrats, or ‘Lefties’ in general and blame them for near about everything?

Hmm thread about derailers attracts derailers.

It's nothing new. It's what 'trolling' used to mean before that encompassed making up stories or just being outright abusive.

There may be dedicated "community disruptors" who don't post in good faith but post repeatedly about some minor issue or squabble with another poster.... as seen all over MN!

The best way to deal with keeping the thread on topic is to go back to the last relevant post and respond to that. Make your own posts be what the thread is about and there is no harm making a separate thread if someone really wants to discuss a tangential point in good faith.

Also if you want to address a point without engaging them or replying directly, we can say that "although some might think xyz, that would be incorrect because.... "

Sometimes people plop just to see what sticks and other times people derail by being focused on one aspect which isn't really the main point of the thread - they're entitled to but I try and consider what part of the discussion is worth my energy. Otherwise all threads end up having the same argument.

And as always, report and explain if they are breaking Talk guidelines.

Worth a read here - check out the date!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3691023-Bunburys-guide-to-community-disruptors-part-4

Re: derailment, I don’t really find this. Most threads have their own natural genesis. I don’t think any poster should be shut down automatically because their views or ideology may not strictly align with yours.

I didn’t answer a question on another thread recently as I knew it would lead to a derail (and said so). Meaning, I would be interrogated by 10 people at the same time, dragging the thread away from the topic at hand. Even this was seen as wrong.

I don’t think any poster should be shut down automatically because their views or ideology may not strictly align with yours.

No-one's talking about that - we all disagree on many things.

It's about people who are here solely to sealion and not engaging in good faith. You learn to see it, after many years on here!

A common one, for example, is insisting that it's wrong to say that woman = female, but refusing to say what it does mean to that poster, or what differentiation they are making when they specify women, as opposed to men, or vice-versa. Clearly no-one can tell what they mean if they say 'women are more likely to do xyz' if we don't know whether they mean female people, people who wish they were female, people who are feminine, people who are left-handed, etc.

If someone was interested in communicating their point of view then they would have a stab at trying to get across what they mean.

I'm always interested to talk to someone who disagrees and see where exactly we agree and where our views start to diverge.

There was a mod post the other day warning about posters who suggest to other posters to not engage trolls. So, mumsnet seems to sensitive to anti-troll collective action.

But it is notable that most of the people who I identify as trolls do not compulsively sea-lion. They're relatively good at only responding if their own comments have been responded to. So, the observation still stands that if you find their obdurate unwillingness to comprehend anything annoying, the best thing to do is to not engage them and ignore them on threads. If everyone did that their presence would be highly muted.

To put it another way, they're highly prevalent in MN because we collectively indicate we want them to be by interacting with them - that's how discussion forums work. Hopefully that observation isn't breaking MN guidelines.

There used to be a few men hanging around here. I don't even mean men pretending to be women. I mean men openly saying there were here to mansplain to women. They at least seem to have gone away.

But it is notable that most of the people who I identify as trolls do not compulsively sea-lion. They're relatively good at only responding if their own comments have been responded to. So, the observation still stands that if you find their obdurate unwillingness to comprehend anything annoying, the best thing to do is to not engage them and ignore them on threads. If everyone did that their presence would be highly muted

yes agreed, the trouble is it only takes one person to respond and before you know it the whole thread has become focused on them.

There’s been an area of Reddit that was specifically for ppl who had been accused of trolls by mn so they went over there to discuss if posters were real or not.

it’s evolved into a base for more general trolling now - not sure how much but I did get that impression last time I looked at it.

So, the observation still stands that if you find their obdurate unwillingness to comprehend anything annoying, the best thing to do is to not engage them and ignore them on threads. If everyone did that their presence would be highly muted.

Agree.

Quite a lot of them definitely have “transphobia”
as their hobby horse, hate read FWR and are often wanging on about it. It must be deathly dull for the posters who want to discuss if an outlandish CF thread is made up.

Agree. But when everyone else is responding it takes a lot of will power not to respond to something egregiously wrong or awful. The trolls know how to wind people up, and most of us are guilty of enabling them at some point or other.

I agree. One thing that really makes me cross is when a stepmother refers to the children's mother as their BM (birth mother). It's an accepted form on many forums but there are those who cannot wait to leap in reprimanding the OP for using a common term. Not helpful just stirring and derailing.

So rude and unnecessary.

Do you ever consider that actually you are derailing by insisting that poster answer?

It very much seems like you're saying that unless someone answers in the way that you want, they are disruptive.

I think overall, everyone is ironically blind to the fact that they are as influenced by their biases as the people they are speaking about.

Do you ever consider that actually you are derailing by insisting that poster answer?

That's a possibility - sure. And obviously big threads often have mini-discussions branching off by their nature. But I like to assume good faith - if I don't understand what someone is saying I'll ask for clarification, fully open to the fact this could be my neurodivergent brain not 'getting' something. But if they're not interested in communicating - that's fine, it just suggests I'm not going to understand them or why they believe what they do.

It very much seems like you're saying that unless someone answers in the way that you want, they are disruptive.

I'm not sure what I've said that suggests the "way" in which they provide an answer is disruptive.

I'm saying that if someone comes and says 'well women are just here to extract money from men', or 'women display certain behaviours, we all know it, and we all use that knowledge when determining who's male and female' or - one example from recently - 'I guarantee that most people on UC have never worked' and we ask for what they're basing that on - they're either interested in discussing their reasoning or they're not.

If they just keep repeating circular statements like 'I know it because women are gold-diggers' or 'I know it because we all know what women are like' or 'I know it because people on benefits only want an easy ride' without ever getting into the reasoning behind their views - it suggests that they're not actually interested in an exchange of views. It's not really 'the way' in which they answer, it's whether they engage in good faith or not.

Hope that clears it up a bit.

a few years ago a group of TRA spoke about their intention to infiltrate and destroy gender critical communities. It was around the time of a substantial GC win: might have been Maya’s win, can’t remember exact details. They all piled on, desperately trying to salvage the remnants of their ideology. This feels quite similar: redditers piling on here, desperately trying to claw back some power or influence from what is a disintegrating philosophy. It’s a bit like someone putting their thumb in a gaping hole in a ship’s hull. It won’t work.

That's good to hear. I've done this but unfortunately had the opposite result. At the time I reported the posting pattern it felt like this board was being spammed! I honestly don't know how they couldn't see it. Perhaps now they've tightened things up a bit if they realise it's driving people away.

Where do you (general you) draw the line though? There are a couple of posts on this very thread that I would challenge because they're just so....laughable.

But maybe it's better to let them just hang there.

A lot of the posting style seems very Reddit to me I agree.