... to be tired of OPs who only post once and never come back to their thread?

Seriously?! Of course it's mumsnet! The same topics come up over and over and over again. I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of the anti-dog and 'I feel like I'm poor but I earn £100k' threads are fake. Mumsnet is a business which is there to make money. Starting a goady thread with a known high response is just there to provoke clicks and generate cash.

They could change the way they order the threads, so that threads with an active and responding OP were higher up in active and in the topic.

There is nothing that can be done to compel anyone to keep posting though.
It may be rude, it may be that they can’t or don’t want to for some reason, but that’s their prerogative.
The only thing you can do is to not put more time or effort into responding than you want to give.

Yep. If it's a controversial topic, I'll check if OP has more than one response and if not, scroll past.

UNLESS it is something really interesting (they never are) and then I'll read for the comments.

Not sure really what they get out of it.

Could it be something towards horrible comments/ not infrequent bullying?

Yeah for sure if the OP has had their arse handed to them on a plate/had a roasting, then it's kind of understandable that they don't return, but as you say, this isn't the kind of thing you're on about, and it is the ones where people are helpful and kind, and offer lots of advice and time, only for the OP to not return.

I kind of think that an OP does owe posters a few responses, and to let people know what happened, and if they're OK etc...

To post something, asking for advice and help, and let 100s of posters use their time and energy helping, empathising, and finding information for them, and sympathising, and then not coming back with an update is quite rude IMO.

There may be the odd exception where the OP can't for certain reasons, but in the vast majority of cases, it's very unlikely that they're unable to update. Even if it's 3 days later. Some just post the first post, and never come back. It is frustrating and annoying, and if it keeps happening, some posters are not going to bother spending time trying to help and advise people.

There was a thread on here about 2 months ago, where the OP said she'd had 4 speeding fines in one day (same camera - didn't know the 30 zone had dropped to 20,) and she got 12 points and had her licence revoked.

Dozens of people posted in good faith, helping and advising, including a lawyer I think, and told her all sorts of things she can do to try and reverse this decision, and she never came back. So no-one knew if she was OK or got the points taken off her licence.

So yeah, in many cases, I do believe that the OP DOES owe people an update. And I agree that if a poster doesn't come back to the thread after 3 days, that MN should message them and say their thread will be deleted if they don't come back to it within 48 hours.

They won't do that though.

Like a few others on here, I believe some threads/scenarios/dramas that are posted on here are not genuine.

.

I agree (but, dammit, sometimes the topic is so blooming interesting that I really want to know what happened next!). I also check if it's a zombie thread before I get sucked in.

Many of the controversial, provocative political ones are designed to do nothing more than foment division. I'd bet good money they're Russian trolls rather than bots.

The baby board is full of these at the minute. They’re so pointless. Did anyone actually read them.

What would you call your baby if they were a girl?

What would you call your baby if they were born on a Tuesday?

What would you call your baby if they were born on a full moon in July?

I agree but... if the OP gets completely roasted, why would they come back for more abuse?

Agree ... It is super annoying!

They can’t do this.
Nobody owes anyone anything on here.
People aren’t posting for other people’s entertainment.
If posters check whether the OP has been back or not before they post, it will fall out of active as soon as people stop adding to it.

The ones that irritate me are the ‘You have to call your baby after your lunch. What do you call your baby?’ type threads that then just become a long pointless list. I think they’re from one poster with multiple usernames.

Yes! Especially if it's a high volume, controversial topic. Then it feels like a set up to create traffic (or even sway opinion before events like local elections! 😉)

I will shamefully admit I disappeared for months after a post I created (but then did eventually return and explain why!)

Mumsnet is a multimillion pound business with dozens of employees. It might want to give the impression of a cosy site run out of a kitchen by some jolly chums, but it's not. While there are community team members (unpaid night shift, which is immoral in my opinion) there is also a large staff working on growth and advertising.

I was going to say I oftentimes think this is "journalism" and a sad indictment of how far that industry has fallen.

So many of them are clearly politically motivated. “My neighbour is an immigrant and did [random rage bait thing]. Should I [random faux naive suggestion]?”

I think it would be a shame to lose the thread if it can help someone else.

Maybe they could delete the ones with just a few responses.

This is annoying and it does sometimes feel like they are done by lazy journalists to create content for their next article.

I also often want the OP to come back and give us an update on what happened next, particularly on ones where there has been a good discussion and they have engaged on the thread.

It is annoying and I also click ‘see all’ to see if the OP is engaging with their thread.

I have more sympathy where the OP is overwhelmed with advice and doesn’t know which posts to respond to because there are so many. I think they get a sort of paralysis then and leave the thread.

And other times the responses are so overwhelmingly negative that I don’t blame the OP for leaving.

Absolutely. I hate plop and runners.