AIBU in suspecting that MN start threads to increase site traffic

100% agree with this - happens all the time and not just on AIBU.

I think the site is quieter with fewer genuine posters because a lot of people are asking AI instead of posting on MN.

I avoid creating threads now because of the sheer amount of posters who are condescending/contrary/obtuse - we all know the ones!

Every sentence is picked apart to find something that can either be twisted or misinterpreted to make paint the OP in a bad light. “Interesting choice of phrase there, OP. You hate older women, no?”

Or if the OP has dared to make a SPAG error, there’s all of the “I don’t understand” and “I’m confused” responses. And all the accusatory responses “You say you’re an English teacher but I find that hard to believe as you’ve used the incorrect spelling of x word and missed a comma in sentence five in your OP. And when you created a thread six years ago, you said you worked at Tesco”.

I’ve been lurking on MN for maybe 10-12 years now and I’ve definitely noticed an increase in MN who are absolutely batshit in their responses. It’s hard work even reading the replies lately never mind having the guts to create a post so I think there probably are a lot of fake posts by people just wanting to create a drama.

I would like to think it’s increased AI because fuck me so many posters seem stupid these days. It’s not spelling or grammar which can easily be mistyped but basic comprehension skills that are lacking.

How do you know they’re a ‘troll?’ Because you’ve just decided that they aren’t genuine? Why? Because they have a different opinion to you? Or have acted a different way than you would in a certain scenario?

They probably do.
It's a business. They are going to do what makes money.

I remember when they started they did loads.

Oh I am not saying there aren’t trolls, there definitely is and way more than there used to be! But when I post a thread, I always put as detailed of an initial post as I can, so that I don’t get accused of drip feeding later. I also will engage with as many post as I have time to but I’m also a single parent and have a life! So I can’t sit there on the thread all day or all evening, I have things to do. I do come back when I can though.

I recently posted a thread under a different username which is still going (slowly as not much to update at mo!) and as it was initially a relatively infuriating situation, I had troll hunters in the beginning.
I’ve also posted before about a deeply personal situation (about 10 years ago) with an old MN account and was troll hunted so much that I never returned to the thread and deleted my account completely. None of what I’d posted was untrue and was still trying to come to terms with it myself, but the volume of nastiness I got that day from those declaring me a troll, was so vicious and ill never ever forget it. It was almost as if the troll hunting was being used as an excuse to bully and pile onto me.
So yeah, my point is that whilst there’s definitely wayyyy more trolls than there used to be, I think many genuine posters are being incorrectly declared as trolls which to me, is just as bloody bad!

Also when people reference a show they liked or something they remember it’s always from decades ago

Looking at the threads where people have a situation and their age comes into it, I think way more women are out of the ‘active’ childcare ages, or have no children, and so the summer holidays wouldn’t particularly affect them.

I’m on it more during the hols! I think the average user has dc well past school age tbh.

I think she's probably right. I think a huge percentage are made up by mumsnet for the money making reasons you mentioned. I suppose the question is does it matter if we're daft enough to engage with it. I've spent the last 2 days going back and forth with a troll. I'd put money on that being Mumsnet. No idea why I do it!

There’s one today that has ended with the OP calling the police on her mother, with inconsistencies from her thread yesterday and I’m currently having my posts on yesterdays thread deleted.

And you never get an explanation.

Someone else in site stuff is querying deleted posts as well.

I was just thinking the same thing! The police rarely come out for anything these days even an in progress burglary and yet they can come out after a complaint of argumentative language? I don’t think MN themselves are necessarily posting but I do wonder if people are bored and like the drama of a juicy thread?

And how quiet the site has become.

Maybe because of the six week school holidays? Peraps more people will come back when the kids go back?

Yup. Cheap engagement, mostly with people who don’t read OPs posts. If you do make the effort to read all OPs posts it’s usually fairly obvious to find inconsistencies.

For a while there were a lot of suspicious threads that were rewrites of previous popular threads, with all of the same details. Posters consistently called them out as duplicates and then it seemed to stop. Most people seemed to think it was MN trying to recycle old threads for new engagement.

What I am certain of is that they now allow obvious troll threads to continue as long as there’s engagement, even if it’s the poo troll or other similar ones that they used to delete. I could see how that gives people the impression that they are the ones starting them, though in that case I think it’s just them lowering standards for the sake of ad views.

@EllaVatimeI think the active users are pretty low now or lower than I expected.. I recognise lots of the same user names & people change names but you can still notice their style.

I used to think Zombie threads were just that.
MN staffers just picking at random.
But having said that, I've just brought one back to life because of a new doc on the same subject, rather than starting a new thread on it.
Have noticed more A.I. now.
I still hop onto Reddit mn trolls to check I am not wasting my time. They spot quite a few still.
What surprised me, knowing MN was popular with subscribers, is seeing that even a trending or popular thread only has 50 odd active views.
I don't know about other fora or chatrooms but thought it was more substantially more than just a few of us procrastinating/wasting time on here when, at any one given time, it might not ever be more than a couple of hundred i need to get a life

I don’t know whether MN is behind it or it’s just general trolling/fishing, but there’s been an extraordinary number of “AIBU to have acted like an unhinged lunatic towards a stranger” threads recently.

There seem to be clumps of threads about the same thing - in the last week I’ve read three threads about people getting into traffic/driving arguments in the community and the police turning up a couple of hours later. Before that there was a plethora about people taking a dispute from 0 to 100mph (the supermarket one where op called a jobsworth a cunt, someone snapping back at MIL at a party etc). I’ve started to presume similar threads are AI generated tbh.

It’s posters who reply with a response they got from ChatGPT that piss me right off - unless they admit they have used it.

Im pretty sure they start threads related to stuff they are advertising. For example if theres a 'promoted by mumsnet' thread on lunchboxes, they might start other threads like 'what are some suggestions for lunchboxes'

Definitely.

Do you remember when they had that feature “how many are reading now” or similar & it was really low numbers. I think they have struggled to attract new posters & many have aged with the site.

Proof? Or are you simply declaring this based on a hunch?!?