Cynicism

There was a man called, I think, something like Michael1234 who used to start threads asking us to support petitions for all pensioners to have pensions twice the national wage with fuel bills and community tax paid by the government.and similar such ideas. He disappeared after a while because no-one agreed with him.

Yes, but that sort of thread is obviously dodgy. It's the ones that start off plausible, then after a few responses from concerned GN posters the OP's story starts to lose credibility when he/she comes back and adds a few more details which don't fit in with the original version.

Usually spotted pretty quickly, and we haven't had any of those for quite a while, thank goodness!

Then of course there are the school plimsoll threads

I think I have been a social worker for too long and I have developed something of a radar for stories which don't sound quite plausible.

The vast majority of posts on here do seem genuine.

What are school plimsoll threads?

Yes, there were a few political threads like the one you mentioned M0nica where someone was posting under several different names - gave him/herself away by certain very recognisable spelling mistakes! I got told off by another of our more gullible kind posters for drawing this to his/her attention

And then there's the plimsole threads of course Jane

BB most half terms a bored teenager comes on, pretending to be a grandmother who's worried that her DD won't buy designer trainers for the GC or something like that.
A variant is that the school uniform has been changed & they don't like the new version.
I don't follow them very closely

Well who would have thought it? Thanks janeains.