Do threads sometimes disappear from the Forum?

The thread about trolls things we're not allowed to talk about has been deleted by GNHQ, isthis

Woof

I have a bad feeling about this! You mean there are things we aren't allowed to talk about?

But surely they usually tell us?

Has it been deleted or has it just stopped coming up in active or wherever? I don't know what the thread was called or which forum it was in, so can't check and say for certain one way or the other. We know that there have been problems for a while when threads seem to disappear. I don't think GNHQ censors things willy nilly.

No it has been deleted.

isthis yes, there are some things we are not allowed to talk about.

So now, of course, we all want to know why! Or I do, anyway.

Yes, it seems that it has. I was mistaken. This was the first thread I looked at this morning and then read Gracesmum's thread about being in the doghouse. There have been issues about calling legitimate posters the t word in the past but I don't now enough about what was said this time to comment. So I'll shut up.

OK!

The t***l word was mentioned several times, so KatGransnet explained it's against forum etiquette and she gave notice that she would need to delete the thread because of it. Concerns about t***ls have to be reported, not challenged by Gransnetters, so that'll be why it's gone.

So the lesson is.....you can eff and blind as much as you like, just don't mention trolls! Oops!

Perhaps we could find a substitute for the t word which we could use with impunity. Maybe something ironic like angel.

but of course their halo would be choking them.

Very Machiavellian! How about the word 'halo' then? An alert cous go out something like this....

Hallo, halo what have we here?

Can we now not mention the three Billy Goats Gruff? Who's that going trip trap over my bridge!

I wonder if there are actually legal reasons for this given the recent fuss about certain allegations and names posted on twitter.
Could posters on here be prosecuted for possibly adverse comments made about a named person?

I would guess Gransnet might have been thinking of people's feelings. It must be hurtful to be accused of being a troll.

Unless of course one is. Then it would just be annoying.

I think their reasoning is that it is better to ignore a troll than accuse a non-troll.

Several frequent and respected posters started their Gransnet career with a heated first post. That surprised some regular posters into thinking that because they had never seen the username before and the message was full of rather intemperate language it could well be a fake. They reacted accordingly, the poster got upset and there were tears before bedtime. When it all died down, everyone was friends again (and the same posters can be very alert to new trollisms)

The thread/posters who have vanished had a dodgy feel from the start. Several very similar new posters appeared at the same time, with the same preoccupations. The posts were full of designer miss-spellings, crude and unfunny humour and lurid tales of deprivation. Some of them were looking for "companionship" of the opposite sex with hints of more. I don't mean here the kind of joshing that makes Lil's Bar hilarious either.

Well put Elegran. While we do have to be careful of the feelings of new posters we also have to be alert to these invaders.
If it is bored school children then we have to be very careful how we engage with them and not reply in a manner that might be vaguely encouraging and slightly sexual. Child abuse is a very touchy subject at the moment, well at any time, I've put that badly but you get my drift.
If this is an older person looking for 'companionship' as Elegran so tactfully puts it, then they can become habitual visitors to our forums, when they need 'companionship' and this is not to be encouraged. Some of us have experience with callers like this when manning crisis lines and they are a constant nuisance and source of distress to some.
I don't have the same capacity with words that others have but I hope this post is helpful.

If the powers that be at gransnet are so worried about trolls then they should moderate more efficiently. I made a point last night [which has disappeared] that I hadn't been on the site as much as usual over the past few days and despaired at what was happening to it; very much a case of lunatics taking over the asylum and dragging the tone of the site down with them. I can't believe that things have happened on here that the moderators have ignored and yet gracesmum is, as she says 'in the doghouse'. Then I guess I should be in the doghouse as well because, even though the thread has gone missing I would imagine that I agree totally with everything she has said. If one of the most eloquent and trusted members of gransnet is in trouble over something she's said, then there's something badly wrong somewhere. Some of us care very deeply about this forum and don't like to see this sort of thing happen.

BTW this isn't a new thing. Sometimes single posts making accusations of tr*lling are deleted, occasionally a whole thread. GNHQ tell us beforehand (as they did last night) if a thread is going to be deleted.

I'm a fairly new and infrequent poster but I did lurk last night and was surprised at the tone of one thread in particular. Both Elegran, Nanadog and crimson have raised issues which are important.

I mentioned earlier that these Billy Goats Gruff (BGG) can become habitual visitors and he/she/they appear to be back disguised as the next door neighbour.

Can we call them Shreks so we can have a Shrek alert?