Why are people so harsh on the AIBU

I wasn't sure if you were being goady or not. I am now.

OP what you need to understand.
Views expressed on AIBU are not necessarily those of the person posting them. If you have had a bad day then this is the ideal place to attempt to make someone else’s life a misery. Many people seem to get great pleasure from doing it.
😉😁😁.

Don’t forget them saying things they’d never say to other peoples faces as well.

But actually that's the beauty of anything online. Because you're not speaking face-to-face it's much easier to be honest in answering a question.

@Justlivelovelaugheat are you one of those people who equates disagreement with bullying?

(BTW I'm not justifying 'nasty for the sake of it' posts/replies)

I always assume MN does fairly light touch moderation because it's a popular bit of the site and so it underpins all the advertising/sponsorship. Similarly posters know they'll get more traffic there than if they go to the more specialist bits of the site.

While there are certainly some supportive responses that come in, I am regularly quite horrified by a lot of the responses. Of course it might be that I'd be quite horrified if I really talked to a lot of the people I vaguely know on a day to day basis.

But I've always thought of it as a place where - perhaps because we're supposed to #bekind in everyday life - quite a lot of people rejoice in unkindness. I think some people post who are in genuine distress and then they get told that they are a bad parent, a bad partner, that whatever problems they have are their own fault. It horrifies me that people feel able to make such judgements about strangers on the basis of just a few lines of text - when those lines can often be interpreted in quite a variety of ways.

I am, however, eternally grateful to the woman on AIBU who - while others were enjoying telling me what a horrible person I was - actually told me how to sort my washing machine out. It wouldn't open because it was full of water and hadn't drained properly.

I AIBU is telling you what people really think without all the fluffing that people do In real life.

we all filter out advice to family and friends but here that choice is a lot more optional. And I think sometimes if you are coming on here it’s because you want that.

I do think in real life as women we sometimes do each other a disservice by not being frank enough with our mates that they’re being fucking idiots or absolute doormats.

AIBU has always been the blunt end of Mumsnet.

The other boards tend to be milder.

Welcome to the internet!

I find AIBU, like many other internet armpits, is a place for people who don't actually go outside often and probably couldn't look you in the eye and say hello at the same time if they met you in person to work out their anger and frustration on other unwitting humans. The security of being anonymous behind a keyboard gives them the gumption to be far crueller and more snide than they'd ever dare to be in real life.

They're role playing as confident, cutting, witty, silver tongued femme fatales because in reality they're not that at all and would consider tutting at a queue hopper loudly enough to be heard a stunning victory out in the real world.

Yes YABU how can anybody be this thick? Honestly some people don't deserve to be parents.
Those kind of replies are usually deleted if you report them; if enough people report, it’ll be auto-deleted I think.

It’s the snidier replies that slide through and can feel like a pile-on if too many: “Is this your first baby, OP?”, “It never even occurred to me that this was a thing? How odd”, or just “PFB”. Not actually nasty, but you do need a thick skin if you’re on the receiving end of hundreds of them.

If you're looking for sympathy AIBU isn't the right place. It's more to settle an argument or difference of opinion.

However, I do think sometimes people can be unnecessarily unpleasant, not just on AIBU but everywhere on Mumsnet. That's why there's the reporting tool.

People giving this type of reply, do you really not see the difference between disagreeing with the op in a helpful way:

Yes YABU this is normal for children of this age although I know it can be shocking at first, would you consider a parenting course?

And being nasty for the sake of it

Yes YABU how can anybody be this thick? Honestly some people don't deserve to be parents.

The issue often isn't that people disagree, it's that people are just downright nasty and usually unhelpful with it.

If this type of comment did remain only in AIBU I wouldn't mind so much to be fair, people know to avoid it but they spill over to every section.

There are hundreds of topics where you can ask for advice. AIBU is literally asking for judgement! I actually find a lot of the feedback on here pretty useful. Some do seem to go out of their way to be harsh, but thats the internet for you! And on the flip side, you do often see posts where someone is asking AIBU for some pointless argument when the bigger picture is that their DP/DM/friend is a massive arsehole!!

I've seen some EXTREMELY nasty posts on AIBU, tantamount to bullying, it's horrid.

It's a mixed bag.

We're all individuals, and with that, you're going to get a variety of different responses to things. It's just the nature of things, and sometimes, advice may not seem nice but that doesn't mean it's not being said with good intentions.

Yes, you get goady posts. You get people on here who will come onto a thread where 99% of the posters agree that the OP is not being remotely unreasonable and they'll pitch up, and declare that the OP is the most unreasonable person to ever be unreasonable. Sure, that could be their honestly-held belief, but one does have to wonder if they've just come on to garner a reaction.

That is just the nature of posting on the internet for advice sometimes. I think if you want to be handled with kid-gloves, you should stick to people in your real life who can cater to that.

Also, I'd wager that AIBU attracts more of the people spoiling for a bunfight than other areas of MN, so it may be advisable to post in Chat or Relationships (pick section of your choice) if you want to avoid those types.

You're.(x3) Sorry.

Exactly. A lot of AIBUs are not AIBUs at all but posts that are more suited to Chat with contrived titles like 'AIBU to ask you which supermarket I should use' or a 'subject' board like Relationships or Higher Education.

This is so true! irl too, that ‘nice’ replies can obscure the truth of a situation.

There are definitely posters whose names I recognise that post an unkind, normally one-line response such as 'you sound like hard work', 'grow up' or 'get a grip' on pretty much every thread they reply to.

Some posters seem to get angry with the OP, even when the subject matter is really inoffensive. The OP does seem fair game if she posts on AIBU, but I have also seen this happen on posts in Relationships, where the expectation is that people will be kinder and more likely to offer constructive advice.

You ask a question and you get an answer. Isn't that the whole point ? Obviously you won't accept that concept because you only want the "nice" replies, the thoughts that mirror yours. If you don't want other peoples points of view don't ask them for it.

No I think many people are nasty for the sake of it on AIBU and it so quickly turns into a pile on. Even something intended to be lighthearted can go sour on there so I wouldn’t post anything on that board myself.

It’s the framework of the thread, really: the question “Am I being unreasonable?” invites a binary discussion, reinforced by the voting options. It’s yes/no. And “unreasonable” is a bit belligerent to start with (in British vernacular, the same way “quite poorly” sounds innocuous but means “at death’s door”; “unreasonable” often means “completely fucking unhinged”). If it were “Am I being a bit of a silly sausage?” with three voting options, YANBABOASS, YABABOASS, ONTHEFENCE, you might get a different brand of viper.

I don’t think they are.
A lot of people who come for advice don’t want to listen and probably see it as being mean.

You always get a few on any forum - those who enjoy having a safe, anonymous go at other people. Very likely in RL they wouldn’t say boo to a goose.

Which is, presumably why people post to get unvarnished opinions on whether they’re being unreasonable, because their friends and family are too polite to say.

Not necessarily - (in the past) I have had astonishingly rude, sexist, disrespectful chauvinist or frankly insolent remarks or questions said ‘to my face’
from men or women, aquaintances, friends of aquaintances, family and even
more astonishingly, ‘friends’ - I don’t believe I’m the only person to experience
this unwelcome phenomenon, the jibe, sly, spiteful even, jealousy driven, unwarranted, uncalled for, breath removing, occasionally offensive, PA remark.

AIBU invites conflicting thought processes so that is what posters receive -
that occasionally they can be officious, batty, beligerent, even nasty is what keeps
the thread and this site from being bland, boring or predictable.

Consider the offending poster to be showing themselves up, tut, sigh, carry on.

If you want NICE, naive beyond belief, tea and crumpets, garden centre, little dogs and gentle happy family matters, where everyone is KIND to one another and any note of dissent is quickly quelled, you could move onto the other site, where the participants are not so hard boiled and indeed, view this site with awe and trepidation.

Mumsnet at its best is a Cornucopia of experiences good and bad, that women are
prepared to expose themselves for the good of others is wonderful, the advice, knowledge, worldliness, empathy, kindness here surpasses the occasional grump.

Your presumption that AIBU is for nice advice is where you're going wrong. If that's what you want you use either chat or a specific topic. If you look there you'll see loads of helpful advice and support