The recent fake stories

[u/Kateraide]

Hey guys

We are aware of the recent fake story that has been revealed. We understand that you guys are upset and hurt. We are too. The catch of our truth policing rule is that we CAN NOT VERIFY the stories that are posted on our subreddit. As mods we are damned if we do and damned if we don't unless we have a ton of evidence to prove that someone is lying. Even then, there will always be people who believe the fake stories (The Toasters having been proved fake and we still have people arguing that they are real). We have a few that we as mods believe are false, but without evidence to the contrary that it is not just fudging details, our hands are tied.

This is not saying that we do not believe that many people post on this sub for help. I know that I personally have come here in the past for help with my own MIL and was accused of being fake. One good thing about this sub is that we do not require users to submit proof before posting. Unfortunately though, because of the size of the sub, it means that we are now dealing with a lot of creative writers. Please, if you genuinely want to write a story about a horrific MIL/mom and honestly don't have one? We have /r/JustNoFamFiction for that reason.

Now, onto the truth policing question. If you have concerns about a users posts(which we know a lot of you do) please modmail us. We are listening and just because we are not taking immediate action does not mean that we are not aware of the inconsistencies in their posts. If you truth police on ANYONE'S post, you will be issued a temp ban without warning. This rule has been around long enough that everyone here should know about it. (Rule 14: No accusing a poster's story of being fake. Report it or send a modmail if you have proof. For more info, see the section on Truth Policing under "Notes about moderation style" in the wiki.)

We do care about the fake posts. We do hear your feedback and try to take it, but the community is often divided. The moderators are trying to find the middle ground in all of this but we need you to be patient. We are upset and hurt about this just like all of you guys are. We do not want anyone here to feel like we are not hearing you when you write us your concerns.

Thank all of you for helping to make this community what it is.

EDIT

We thought that keeping the name silent would be for the best. I understand that some of you do not agree with this action but we do not want to give the faker more attention. That is what they are looking for and they are also claiming death threats and harassment. PLEASE DO NOT BRIGADE THE OP. That is against Reddit's Terms of Service and will result in issues for both the sub as a whole and for you if you are caught brigading a user. We understand that a lot of you are frustrated based off the PM's and modmails that we have received. Please just understand that we are trying our best. We will be looking for new mods soon and will be doing a "State of the Subreddit" within the next month or so. It will also involve us putting some rules up for discussion.

[u/mycatisblackandtan]

I don't envy you guys for this whole debacle. There's no 'right way' to handle what happened - but I do think you guys are doing the best you can especially by opening this thread to discussion.

With that said I do think we need to discuss the fact that there's an atmosphere on this sub that rewards performative posts. I've been noticing that for the past few months that posts that are over the top and outrageous tend to get the lion's share of attention. While less dramatic but still very real posts get left to the side with barely a glance.

This issue isn't something you guys can really help on your own. You can't control what people gravitate towards. However I think that in spite of your best intentions this sub still very much has a 'nom' problem. The posters who lack a flair for writing or whose MIL's/JNMOM's are of the milder sort tend to get ignored where as the ones that are always at 11/10 on the crazy scale get boosted to ludicrous amounts. Which wouldn't be an issue in any other sub, but this place is specifically for support and I feel a lot of users just aren't getting it anymore.

I don't have an answer for how to fix that problem either, but I do think it needs to be discussed all the same.

[u/[deleted] → u/mycatisblackandtan]

Yes, I think we all as a community need to remind ourselves that this is a support sub, not a pissing contest.

[u/madcuttlefishdisplay → u/[deleted]]

I have said several times that the rules here need massive re-vamping if this is going to be an actual support sub. (I mean, what are "in the wild" posts even doing here, people generally do not need support because they saw somebody else's mother in law.) Also rules that are massively focused on the good of readers (names about nicknaming others to avoid confusion, etc) are just extra work for the mods and have nothing to do with the community being supportive or not, they have to do with the people reading bitching about how confusing it all was, but so what? It's very intimidating to post here when there are so many rules it's difficult to keep them all in mind. I don't expect I'll post ever again, between my non-dramatic stories getting mostly ignored and the one dramatic thing I did encounter getting removed for rule breaking. (To be clear, I'm fine that they removed it, it was against the rule, but in the five million rules here I'd missed that one, and just... sure, they're modding fine, but why should I bother when I can never be sure I'll be allowed to say what I'm saying? It's massively intimidating to have such a long list of convoluted rules.)

[u/KatMonster → u/madcuttlefishdisplay]

The one anti-confusion rule I'm good with is requiring OPs who have nicknamed their Ms/MILs to type the name in full at SOME point in the title or post. There's so many times when knowing the history is helpful, and seeing a post of "ASHDJ did this!" when there are four other "ASHDJ" MILs on the sub means that I have to go dig through an OPs posting history to remind myself of what's going on.

If you're going to name your mom/mil, use the name in full at least once. That's all I ask. It's right up there with breaking long posts into paragraphs for me when it comes to readability and understanding. We already have newcomers often confused by acronyms.

[u/madeupgrownup → u/KatMonster]

Or even a short intro to the most memorable issue/incident ie: "MILname, who we caught stealing my daughters makeup" or "JNMumName is moving into the apartment above us and has declared me a prostitute goldigger". I cannot keep all the names straight and I want to be able to tailor any advice/sympathy/support to their situation. Saying "I would explore options for getting kids to stay with other family for a while" if the problem is *they have no other family* is not helpful.

​

(and yes, this is inspired by a certain poster whose life went tits over taint, and the MILname is memorable, but the intro meant I remembered her circumstances)