Mumsnet Talk

Hello Tsarinas,

Can you help us to make local better?
We would love to hear your feedback both good and bad on local and what you think of it.

What would you like to see that we haven't got? What would you get rid of that we have? How can we make it more relevant to you?

If you could try and look at it as both a MNetter and a Tsarina we would very much appreciate it.

Please don't hold back, be as brutal honest as you can.

in advance

The thing is that MN isn't really known for its local content - and it's a vicious circle. The less there is on the local pages, the fewer people use them, so the less there is on them etc... I have to say that I get the local emails from Netmums (not that I've ever posted on there) and they are actually pretty useful (though I get them from mine and from a neighbouring borough and they are exactly the same!). Having something dropping into my inbox which tells me about local soft play areas, local events etc is really useful. The trouble is that they obviously invest a lot of money/staff time into their local content, plus people actually leave helpful reviews, so they have a good feedback loop going on. It's hard to know what to suggest for where MN should go with the local pages!

Hello
What about listing baby and toddler activities by area ie: gymboree, monkey musi etc etc - or would this only be done if they paid for advertising?
As a new mum it has been really hard finding our what is going on in my local area.

Can you not offer local businesses the chance to advertise as you do on the central advertising threads? I am guessing that then people will manage their own entries (easier on the Tsarinas) and this will build up an offering to drive up people to go to those pages.

The netmums email is great, it it the only experience I have of them though since moving across to the dark better side!

Thanks Watersign, duly noted.

Adverts are something that we are looking at along with many other aspects of local.

All suggestions welcome.

Is there any chance of making the events overlap other local's. Bath and Bristol are good examples or areas very close and I can't be arsed haven't got the time to duplicate posts across areas. Could there be an option that only tsarina's can access to post a copy of the listing in another local area. Possibly the same with Directory listings?

Having an e-mail would be great, but not sure how fab this will be for Local's that aren't updated by a Tsarina very much.

I have been posting onto our Local Board every now and then when I've done some major updating. Like this evening, I listed lots of local events that I'd snipped out and kept in a clip. Could we maybe have some template posts to use for encouraging them to list events or update the directory.