When you want to start a conversation on Mumsnet - how do you do it?

[bibbitybobbityhat]

Please explain as if speaking to a toddler. Thanks .

[SuePurblybilt]

Eh? I am not sure I understand the question. Please explain as if to a toddler . Are you asking the way to post a new thread (shurely not)

[SuePurblybilt]

With a ? on the end there, pesky sticky keys.

[DontGoCurly]

You just did it!!!

[DrPolidori]

you click on start a new thread and then you fill in the boxes with your question and then you click post.

And hope someone replies.

[PortBlacksandIsLovelyInAutumn]

BeerTricks - i think you are thinking of the brain-vomit that is Twitter

What did you want to talk about Bibbity?

[rushofbloodtothefeet]

[bibbitybobbityhat]

So you're on Mumsnet mooching/pontificating/sharing/poncing about.

Suddenly, it pops into your head - a question. A question for your fellow mumsnetters.

How do you go about asking it? Describe as if to a loon, if not a toddler, how you can get a question in to active convos. Thanks.

(straight up q, honestly, no agenda or nothing. And I'm only about 1/4 of the way down the bottle)

[InfestationofLannisters]

I know!

You put it in Chat or the appropriate specialist board.

If you want a debate, it goes here, yes?

[Andrewofgg]

Get further down the bottle and all will be clearer. Or if not you won't mind.

[Paschaelina]

I dont know, most of my thread questions end up in unanswered. I don't care, I'll talk to myself instead.

[SaulGood]

I decide whether I know which topic it should be in and if I do go straight to it. If not, I click on 'topics' and have a mooch through looking for the appropriate topic. I then open the topic and click on 'start a new thread'.

Is that what you mean?

[SuePurblybilt]

As in how to make it popular? I've noticed the ones saying 'what food was best in your childhood?', 'describe your decor', 'lets talk about you' get the most responses, in general anyway.

So if I wanted a busy thread I'd cunningly ask people to talk about themselves

[Hassled]

Response rate to a thread is in direct correlation to how many people happen to recognise the poster - not necessarily popularity, just recognition. Unless you go for the totally outlandish/nail-biting type thing which really strikes a chord with people or flushes out the troll-hunters.

Be careful what you wish for, though - my longest thread (some years ago) was re the PTA. I just wanted it to end, and it bloody wouldn't. It turns out people have strong opinions on the PTA :o.

[bibbitybobbityhat]

Saul - you are goooooooood, baby.

[bibbitybobbityhat]

Oh Hassled .

I so know about the PTA. I've been on most of those threads with you!

[InfestationofLannisters]

Oh I was wrong but then I have all but drained am much further down the bottle having had to come home from a three-day holiday a day early because of DS being atrocious / not coping.

Will try harder

[Hassled]

Saul - a poster after my own heart. Filing matters. Don't start something in Food when it should clearly be in Good Housekeeping, etc.

[KurriKurri]

I once told Gabby off for posting about the English Cricket team under adult fiction.

Afterwards he completely mended his ways

[Hassled]

Oh I miss Gabby. I could excuse Cricket filed under Adult Fiction for him.

[KurriKurri]

I miss him too Hassled, but suspect he may be back one day

[SaulGood]

I get irrationally cross at misfiled threads (I am a qualified librarian though so it's a flaw I'm well aware of). Particularly the bugger it, I'll bung it in aibu mentality.

I wouldn't start a thread in aibu, largely because I don't give a monkey's flying left testicle whether I'm reasonable. Why are we so bogged down in the dull mire that is reasonable? If you can file 98% of your life into a debate over how reasonable you are, you've failed at life frankly. Why reasonable? Why not am I being bucolic or am I being discombobulating or am I being facetious. I refuse to contract down my online behaviour into something so utterly irrelevant and unimportant.

[bibbitybobbityhat]

Do you have aibu hidden Saul?

Cos I think I am getting to the bottom of why so many posts, especially those by newbs, are started in aibu. Its just not all that obvious how to find a topic and start a new post in it. It is patently obvious that there is a whole host of mumsnetters who do not realise that aibu is not the only place to start a converstation on here (including Gabby, may I say).

I have my own one-woman anti-aibu campaign and it is starting to get tiresome. Especially when I alert mnhq that someone has started an aibu about how many toilet rolls their family uses per week, and mnhq come back to say thanks for alerting us, we are going to leave it in aibu.

Really? leave it forever more?? Isn't it a chat topic at the very most???

[Paschaelina]

Actually, although I agree with you I understand the mentality

[Hassled]

bibbity - that's a good point. Some of the AIBU (but not) threads are clearly for traffic, and sometimes that's fair enough, but it has occurred to me before that maybe they just don't know where the topics actually are.