To be done with this forum..

Surely not!

I think the site became a victim of its own ‘nest of vipers’ reputation. It used to say what you needed to hear not what you wanted to hear and be straight talking. Now it’s often just mean.

Ot doesn’t really help that the less easy it is to find or navigate to the other parts of the forum it gets the more people just post in AIBU. And that’s always been risky.

I still find MNs very helpful but have noticed a shift. Some posters are deliberately contrary but I assume they are bored & then some are just mean & I assume they lead small life’s. Why would you waste time being horrible or arguing with a stranger on the internet?

True. I forget how genuinely sad these people are to want to get their kicks from being a troll. I also believe that poster to be a man, well, boy.

I’ve been on Mumsnet for years and I’ve noticed a change recently. I think people changed during Covid times and have become more intolerant and rude. I also think there are many people on here who are disingenuous, they are here to stoke up trouble. You can see this on the political threads, on the feminism boards and the relationship board. I have noticed that the relationship board used to be a lovely supportive place but that’s not the case anymore, more often than not there is a pile on the op. As another poster suggested I think there are a lot of men now on Mumsnet and they are here to bring down women and put us back in our place. There are some lovely boards though with lovely supportive people, I’ve been on the Higher Education board recently and on the whole everyone there has been great.
Take care op and don’t let the haters get you down.
As a suggestion Mumsnet maybe a new board would be great for people looking for advise with no judgement.

Don't give people like this what they want...

@Hitchcockshandkerchief must be so relieved to have found forums. I imagine s/he struggles to keep that poisonous mouth in line in real life.

Hello, delete the screenshots, don’t carry that bitterness with you, and think ‘hurt people hurt people’
Move on and be happy with yourself and your choices.

I've been here about 15 years. It's definitely nastier than it used to be. I think like a lot of places, both on the internet and in public life, it's become a battleground for polarised behaviour, which I see as a kind of social/political development since around the time of Brexit, then Covid, and now just within politics generally. A lot of this has been driven by foreign governments and the seeding of discussion forums with bots and AI, just to get opinion polarised and increasingly verbally violent, and to sow division within communities. I think a lot of OP's aren't real, and that real posters subliminally respond to that (but don't always get it right), and also that a lot of responders aren't real. The goal is just to generate dissent and misunderstanding in previously civilised communities, make society fight itself and increase the likelihood that people will believe bonkers/nasty things and vote in bonkers/nasty ways. I guess we should be flattered that Russia/China et al think Mumsnet is influential enough to be a fertile environment for sowing social discord, but it's a shame, and as OP demonstrates, affects real people in a horrible way.

Tone deaf or what?

Report them as soon as you see it. I also think everyone should push back.

I get frustrated seeing how someone picks up something completely irrelevant in an OP and jumps on it. I think so many people are just generally miserable and use the internet to anonymously take their frustrations out in others.

OPs sometimes tend to gravitate toward the negative replies instead of the sensible ones. I guess that’s just human nature.

I saw someone in genuine distress bullied until they deleted their account and then the thread was just deleted.

Yes I agree, a bunch of trolls use this forum for fun I think. We are not all the same. Sending you hugs 💗

Yes just screen shots on my phone 😀

Most people with toddlers are too busy to spend much time on MN so I wonder if a lot of less pleasant comments come from people without recent experience, and people with time on their hands who boost their own self esteem by belittling others. I also think that many people are far more aware of the possible dangers of posting on an open internet forum, and some of those who are left are perhaps not the best people to seek advice from. If MN responses are harming your own mental health you might be better to use traditional resources like books. 'Toddler taming' was a favourite of mine. And later 'How to talk so kids will listen'. They were written some time ago, but still contain some good advice. I am a bored retiree (hence spending time on MN...) but my personal advice for dealing with toddlers is to feed them regular meals of good healthy food (avoiding processed and too much sugar), avoid too many snacks, interact and play with them a lot, and take them outdoors so they can be as physically active as possible and learn about the world around them (for real, not from TV), avoid too much screen time. And do not expect ever to be able to reason with a toddler, their brains are not ready. It is worth reading about child development.

My thoughts are posts which are blatantly contentious or contain foul language should be removed. This would make for a far more strict monitoring situation with an updated system that picks up posts that could cause upset. I'm not sure this is possible on a forum of this size although IMO it would certainly help. Due to my work from home situation & days/hours involved I'm usually either invested in a thread a lot or not posting for ages. I have decided not to begin threads for the very reason you've mentioned but I like to help or give my honest opinions in threads I'm interested in.

I got savaged for asking a very mild question about asking my neighbour to cut back his grape vine. This forum has gone nuts. I think there are more men/press officers/journalists/trolls/ people with far too much time on their hands using it than actual mums looking for support from fellow mums at this point.

That's not a very nice experience for you. But usually people will get a mixture of responses. Ones that of drive me mad are the ones telling you to leave your partner because of the slightest thing like raising their voice.

I have noticed this a LOT on here. One person has a go at the OP, and along come a bunch more people, to pile onto the OP. There are quite a few goady and spiteful posters on here, but as a few posters have said, lots of people seem to be really nice and helpful and kind.

If you get off AIBU @Hardknocks people are quite different. A few other boards can get some heated discussions, but for the most part, Mumsnet is not an awful place.

Please don't leave OP, and keep coming here. Many MN-ers are amazing. Just ignore that haters and beraters!

You get both ways.

You get the piles on to say for the 500th time that the OP is terribly UR because of a minor comment in the OP.

But you also get the cheerleaders who take everything the OP says as gospel despite it either clearly being very bias or a troll post.

I find both equally irritating. And I suspect both are equally unhelpful.

I think you always got responses like this though. I remember probably around 15 years ago posting in chat a question I had been mulling over. It was one of those situations where either option had points it was unfair to one of the DC, but there wasn't a way to be completely fair all round. I wasn't really worried about which one we did, but wondered if anyone had other thoughts I hadn't seen. I wrote pretty much that in the op.

I didn't get a single answer to my question, but I got several saying along the lines of "why does it bother you" "why is that even a concern" "if you can't make that sort of decision why are you even a parent"...

What I do notice is, despite the "I spat my tea over the keyboard "/ "woke my DC/dh/mil up laughing" that there aren't the funny ones any more where people just didn't take it seriously and it was done with good humour all round.
You get plenty of people trying, with accidentally-on-purpose "typos", but they're not funny really.

Just read this having posted my half a pennys worth - I'm glad for you!!

Sadly, many people are just spouting totally rubbish and the first thing they say is "LTB" etc etc

The same types then attack others for giving sensible advice, EG, are you sure, speak with parents, consider what you want, could it have been a misunderstand, etc, etc

Leave by all means but if you do, they've won IMO

Alternatively - if you want to help others, seek help, or just share opinins/views etc, IGNORE the trouble makers and they will pick on someone else

We are all individuals and we are all different to a t least some extent

Wishing you well and a great future

IMO ‘flouncers’ is the wrong word to use. It implies someone going off in a sulk for unreasonable reasons.

Not someone who’s been genuinely upset by bitchy/downright deliberately nasty posts.