Are people on mumsnet reflective of the online world?

That is true, see also people who refuse to answer their front doors, huge amounts of health anxiety-related posts and people unable to navigate real life situations by just talking to the others involved.

You, like many others, have answered the question “is MN reflective of real life?”, which isn’t what OP asked.

However you have indirectly answered her actual question because it stands to reason that people with anxieties about real life will seek refuge online. Particular parts of the online world though- I think perhaps anxious people are more drawn to anonymous text-based forums where opinions are shared, rather than Insta/Tik Tok/Facebook which is more about pictures and posting info about what you are doing in real life.

I think there is a level of anxiety and paranoia here that I don't see in real life. Example: the numerous women who have never eaten by themselves- even in a a cafe- because what will people think?

I always wondered if that was a load of Tory bots, thinking that most MNstters fit that profile, when a large proportion don't. They really did seem to be trying to convince people and were using the SEND arguement to defend their point, which is a genuine reason, but I have a child with SEND and it annoyed me they were using that arguement just to try and get people to vote a certain way because of a policy that affected THEM.

I think there are a lot of fantasists and some who are just angry people who can't fathom an opinion different to their own. I'm always dubious about the I earn 200k a year types who post 50 messages a day. There are a lot of incel types pretending to be women too.

You have to read between the lines I think. A calm, factual well written response that gets calm factual well written agreement from other posters is likely to be reliable. People who advise that way tend to just say what they have to say and leave it there. They know they're right, they've told the OP, and typically don't care whether the argumentative randoms agree or not. The angry shouty posts where its obvious the poster very much wants a thing to be true, because its 'fair', not so much.

It’s also full of lies and trolls. I truly believe no one is honest here, or it’s a minority

Incidentally, I have been posting on another thread where I shared some (light) professional expertise to an OP who showed appreciation. The same thread has several posters rejecting the expertise as improbable (not just mine, FWIW) and refusing to believe that posters have the insight they are claiming. I am highly experienced in the subject and in real life, very sought after for my expertise.

My point is that MN can be a great source of expertise that you might not otherwise be able to access. Obviously you have to be discerning about who / what you choose to take on board, but it's a shame to reject it all out of hand.

Exactly! I'd put money that the miserable posters are from England

Actually (and it may depend which threads you are following) many many contributors are sane, witty, literate, eloquent, empathetic, kind and supportive, capable of grasping complex issues and of deploying reasoned arguments. (Not necessarily all of those things simultaneously,) And this makes Mumsnet very unreflective of many Pits of Hell in the online world.
Other contributors are . . . well, not so much of a pleasure to read. And really low on comma skills. And stunningly prone to misread (or only half read) the original post at the start of a thread. And therefore more reflective of the online world elsewhere.

Indeed they do, but MOST are from the UK and it's often quite obvious that they do live there from their posts.

I don't doubt that they have, but people really are becoming more selfish and nasty. I don't believe MN is any worse than other online forums however, people think they can say whatever they want online.

Most of Mumsnet is awful.

Some of it is ok and supportive.

My real life friends give me better advice than on here

@Tryingtokeepgoing 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

They also display a peculiar lack of understanding of the modern workplace, and despite being "women supporting women" will violently rally against anything that promotes and facilitates women in the workplace and closing the gender pay gap (see WFH, flexible working, contractual and legislative responsibility of employers and that you're not totally out of order to ask granny to step in for a couple of hours in a childcare emergency).

I agree about the Reddit format @HotCrossBunplease, I think you either like it or you don't. I will read occasionally but I find the format irritating.

I can’t get on with Reddit at all, I don’t understand how to read the threads with the posts moving up and down according to popularity and all the bits to click to expand. I love the simplicity of a Mumsnet thread format.

I agree with that. The other day I suggested something to a poster looking for careers advice and someone else jumped in to rubbish my suggestion in an unnecessarily rude way, along the lines of “I can’t believe you would give such shit advice you are clearly talking out of your arse”. All she needed to do was to say something like “my perspective on [what HCB please suggested] is a bit different, here’s my suggestion…” and let the OP weigh up the options. But it was clear that most of the kick she got from posting was saying things to people she would never say in real life.

I think that there is a lot of unnecessary rudeness on here. Similar messages can be conveyed in much more diplomatic words. For example, when I asked a simple question, a poster replied ‘FFS, don’t do that..,’. Instead, they could have said ‘I wouldn’t recommend doing that..’. We should be here to help each other.

This! Even FB groups are more caringly moderated!

Do you know how many Facebook groups there are? It's not possible to state this as anything other than an anecdote of your own experience. It's certainly not mine, and the kind of posts that Mumsnet would delete are rife on Facebook. And Reddit. Reddit is a misogynistic cesspit of a site.

I agree. I think this idea that Mumsnet is singularly terrible is a very sheltered one. I've had rape and murder threats on other platforms, as many women have, often with little action taken by the platform. On Mumsnet posters doing that would be deleted and banned. There are prejudices of course as there would be when any large group of women got together to talk. Report any posts you consider are hate speech or are personally abusive, but otherwise basically live and let live.

Ableism, hate speech, racism and more is rife on MN now. Never used to be.

I've been here for aeons. The racism might have been more covert than overt in the past but it always existed.

Hate speech is not allowed under the talk guidelines: or, for that matter, the law. Moderation isn't instant or reactive, it relies on reports from other members and will then be taken down.

In the old chat rooms I have witnessed: compulsive behaviour and people remaining online all day for the purpose of tormenting others (the old-school and actually accurate definition of trolling), far right football thugs indulging in organised incitement and intimidating other chatters who didn't share their views, relentless tormenting of those who obviously had mental health issues and might have been pushed over the edge, incitement and goading to suicide, relentlessly trying to identify and track down other users, harassing them offline to the extent of contacting their employers or families, signposting toward other ominous and far more dangerous online groups including suicide ones, constant sock-puppeting intended to extract info from those who wouldn't have divulged it to the regular screen handle, and last but not least criminal activity arising out of resentment for something that was typed in the rooms.

It was frankly terrifying. I used these platforms across one period when I needed the distraction, there was a block facility enabling a lot of the toxicity to be weeded out. Also, there was a sense of community and I met and talked to some fantastic people. I also assumed that if you wanted to used interactive forums then you took the rough with the smooth.

I can in no way conclude from the above that online behaviour has grown worse - at least not in the context of this site. On the www, you'll find dicks everywhere. It's the decline of offline behaviour that has me far more seriously worried - I've been posting on here about how threatened I now feel on trains long before the report came out stating harassment/assault of women has skyrocketed over the past two years.

The proliferation of Incels on this site reflects this state of affairs - you can't wholly divorce online from offline behaviour. I also agree with the PP upthread who claimed that fluffy standards of behaviour are the more expected from a site with a predominantly female demographic. A thread only yesterday referred to 'girl codes' FGS.

The site is for adults.

Ableism, hate speech, racism and more is rife on MN now. Never used to be.

This! Even FB groups are more caringly moderated!

Speaking up for the rights of (biological) women isn't necessarily transphobic though.

You realise that many MN users come from places other than 'England', within and without the UK?

I actually think reddit, is less vicious than mumsnet

No. This is mild. And online behaviour hasn't grown worse since COVID.

The old-school live chat rooms - harking from the noughties and now mostly died a death - make Mumsnetters look like a bunch of Mary Poppinses.

The worst you're usually likely to encounter from Mumsnetters is rudeness and condescension. I've witnessed behaviour in live chat (and some discussion boards) that falls well into the category of truly disturbing.