Is Mumsnet an English forum?

This is what I get when I put “Mumsnet” into the search bar: “The UK’s most popular website for parents”. So MNHQ are trying to walk the walk. The users are a different matter…

If it was a simply a case of all or most UK posters assuming posters are from England because it’s the larger nation, that would be one thing.

But my experience is that this isn’t the case. Rather it’s only English posters who make this assumption. Posters from Wales, NI and Scotland do not tend to make this assumption.

In an ideal world, each poster would make it known which part of the UK they are from.

However, it's just simply a case of England being seen as the default because the vast majority of users are from there.

I know it can be hard not to see it such as times, but it's really not a deliberate slight against other UK countries. Just more of an inevitable one when the userbase is divided up such as it is.

@MauraLabingi I have an idea of a way you could rethink about Scotland and England to lessen the weight of the chip on your shoulder.

The irony is that you are talking about “England” as if it’s a uniform lump. Do you think that people in Northumberland are culturally the same as people in Devon, or Sussex, or Merseyside? Hardly.

Physical geography enabled Scotland and wales to hold onto political independence long after the other regions of Great Britain were swallowed by the dominant warlords.

You are blessed with much more identity and independence than most English regions. It’s pretty cool for you.

I come from Mercia. I’d place a bet that I know a lot more about Scotland than you know about Mercia? More to the point I don’t know much about Mercia either…..

I can’t learn the Mercian language on Duolingo. I can’t go to the National museum of Mercia, or lobby the Mercian Parliament for our own laws. There is a culture and there is a humour, but we don’t have what you have.

History has placed us where we are, and it’s best to find the positives in what we have.

And a fair few of those sneaky Yanks seem to have barged into MN. Sod them. 😂

Why didn't you state it in your original post, then?

In my experience, English posters tend to assume an OP is English unless otherwise stated (and even then…). Posters from the devolved nations do not.

I don't live in the UK but as it's written in English I would assume that it's British there are a fair few of us not living in the UK though

Yeah, you sound clueless

Hardly anybody in the UK thinks it is the centre of the world. Unlike say the USA or for that matter France.

You should try and visit a large city like London and meet people. It’s about as connected as a place as you find anywhere.

Yes I have experienced similar. What is annoying is less the assumption of a default English poster which as others have explained is kind of reasonable based on numbers - it’s the complete failure of imagination that maybe, just maybe the person is not in England.

see also comments like “can you not just sit in the garden?”. What garden? I don’t have a garden!

Oh that''s Proper up north 😀

@quantumbutterfly people in real life don't generally see me as chill - I always tell them they'd get quite the shock if they saw me unmedicated 😂

@Goditsmemargaret I'm not sure what you mean TBH

I think this has less to do with geography and more about the persistent need on here for some posters to pick apart bits of posts irrelevant to the question.

E.g a poster complaining their DH is still in bed when they've already done the food shop, cleaned the house and put up the shelves. They want advice about their relationship not what time Asda opens.

While I agree with your general point, the islands you mention are not part of the UK. They are Crown Dependencies which means their constitutional status is tied to the monarchy. They are self governing and have their own parliaments and laws. The UK does however provide defence and a few specific things like that.

I'm not surprised you're not het up; you did not say you are from the north of Ireland.

I was once berated and accused of lying on a thread a few years ago for saying I had done a food shop early one Sunday morning and also for mentioning something about doing the school run on what was an English bank holiday. Only person they made fools of was themselves.
Scottish for reference.

Oh, we have it up here in Posh Yorkshire! 😄

If it’s a post about someone’s DH leaving them or kid not being invited to a birthday party then why would anyone care whether they’re English or Scottish? What relevance does it have?

If it’s a legal type problem where rules and services differ between UK countries then it makes sense for the OP to specifically state that they’re in the minority of posters and living outside of England 🤷🏻‍♀️

I am a man, but I know that around 70% of users of this site are women, so that is the default assumption (actually, I'm surprised that the proportion of men is as high as 30% - I would have thought it was much lower). I don't get upset when people assume I am a woman.

Around 80% of Mumsnet's traffic comes from the UK and 10% comes from the USA. No other country is responsible for more than 2% of traffic.

Around 85% of the UK's population is in England. It therefore follows that around 70% of users are in England whereas Scotland will be less than 7% of users. Therefore, if someone asks a question about the law, school admissions or whatever without saying where they are from, they are far more likely to be from England than anywhere else.

It is true that some posters seem to work on the assumption that UK = England. I don't defend that. But it is reasonable for posters to assume other posters are in England unless they say otherwise.

Is this an English forum? No. It is an English-speaking forum. But the vast majority of users are in England.

Mumsnet is an English language forum, although sometimes I do wonder how many native speakers there are, given the interesting language variants.
If you read it regularly, and look at the timestamps on messages, you will see that there are posters located all over the world.
Is it London-centric? No more than any other online forum based/founded in the UK. Personally, I would say that a large proportion of contributors are in the north (England and Scotland), but it is hard to tell.

MN is British
Reddit is American
Baidu Tieba is Chinese

This sums up OP's question nicely.

Britain is more than England.....

This is going to turn into an English bashing thread as always.

They have their own sections.

Well I have to “call them out” as they are correcting me!

”something something as kids are off school”

”what do you mean? It is not UK school holidays”

“yes it is? In NI”

”oh well how was I supposed to know”

”you weren’t but if you mean England say England”

”no, everyone knows UK means England not the weirdo other countries”.

i paraphrase of course but you get the jist. I’m not randomly picking up on posters saying “UK”.