... to wonder if there are other forums worth reading?

[CelticSpring]

I really like MN, it's great. But I think half the reason I come here isn't about the parenting stuff (I'm not a parent but TTC), it's the general chat about books, politics and just daily life. Are there any other forums (fora?) that are good for this kind of stuff, but isn't a parenting website?

[TheFantasticFixit]

There are OTHER forums?!

[BelleDameSansMerci]

Why? Why would you want to go "out there"?

Seriously, not found anything else worthwhile.

[empirestateofmind]

I like dropping in on b3ta.com for funny stories and a bit of a laugh.

[bananasplitz]

i like digital spy (General and advice), there is a nice balance of men and women, loons and normals :)

[bananasplitz]

i used to enjoy handbag.com until they screwed up the layout and not been back since that day :(

[CelticSpring]

I really like MN, I just feel that the reasons I (and so many other) like it so much have nothing to do with parenting. It's a big forum that covers everything, it's fast moving and responses are usually pretty good.

[TeenieLeek]

Take a look at the BBC archers messageboard - there us a sub-board called " the Bull" that is for discussions that are not about the programme, lots of interesting chat on there about anything and everything- radio 4 listeners are a pretty eclectic bunch.

[Glitterknickaz]

mse
digital spy
ukcampsite

and another parenting one....

[BelleDameSansMerci]

I know what you mean, Celtic. I wish I'd discovered MN before having a child...

[LemonDifficult]

YABU and you know it

[kenobi]

jezebel's excellent. It's a current affairs site for women but the noticeboards are good fun.

I like digital spy as well (and they like MN).

[izzywhizzyletsgetbusy]

Do you think MN could be part of a conspiracy to reduce poulation growth Belle?

[maras2]

The Bull is great.Lots of spats between DMail and Guardian readers.Usually good humoured but quite heavily modded.Very generous advice given for cat and dog and mental health questions in a section called The Village Hall.

[InstantAtom]

BBC Messageboards

The Daily Mail message boards are good for challenging views you disagree with too :o

[Pedanticmum]

I used iVillage.co.uk a lot when I was pregnant with my third child and still pop back from time to time, especially if I've got an issue that's quite delicate and I need more of a cup of tea and a 'hug'.

[ditziness]

Urban 75

[EauRouge]

I used to go on iVillage years ago until I got told by a few people that I deserved to get raped for using a men's loo once Bunch of loons on there.

I used to go on Handbag too but I got banned

The only other fora I use now are geek specialist ones.

[BertieBotts]

The other sites I tend to go on, discussion-wise:

Aven - the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network - discovered this when I was having a bit of an identity crisis a few years back, I worked out in the end I'm not asexual after all, but I still hang around the site because I find the subject matter interesting, you get some really unusual/intelligent debates on there as well, mostly centring around relationships/sexuality etc, but quite different to other sites I've found.

B3ta - haven't been on here in a while but as someone above said, the question of the week section attracts some extremely funny stories, touching ones, and then a load of puns, toilet humour and sick jokes. If you can look past those the rest are worth it, but I got fed up of the immature stuff so am giving it a miss for a bit.

Mark Reads/Mark Watches - this is utterly brilliant, just some random guy called Mark who reads through various books and watches series, one episode or chapter at a time and reviews each one by one. He's very funny, very aware of various issues, and usually has a really interesting take on things. They have a fantastic policy in that they will allow swearing, discussion on almost any subject, but things like ableist, sexist, any kind of discriminatory humour are not allowed. Rape jokes are immediately deleted, for example. Somehow the discussions can range from discussing a character's clothing in one episode, to heavy subjects like feminism, politics or religion.

MoneySavingExpert - again used to go here a lot. I drifted away from it when I found MN though. The money-saving advice is good and the sense of community on certain boards is nice, but I find the conversation in general more intellectual here (even though that sounds awful and wanky)

Simbology - specialist forum for the game "The Sims 2". Probably of little interest to most people.

[AnyFuleKno]

B3ta is brilliant. ESP the question of the week. Not forth faint hearted though

[ShoutyBag]

could you do a link for the Mark one, as I've googled and come up with various hits. Thanks

[fluffygal]

Bananasplitz- I go on a forum which a lot of ex-handbaggers frequent, although I never was on handbag. Have you found it? Don't want to say the name though....

[BertieBotts]

markreads.net and markwatches.net - they're actually set up as blogs and all the discussion is in the comment threads, but it makes it easier to find series/books you're interested in.

[BertieBotts]

try again - markreads.net/ markwatches.net/

[BertieBotts]

There is a link to each one on the other site as well, so you can easily switch between them.