AIBU to wonder why anyone posts on Mumsnet asking for advice anymore?

Excellent (& wholly accurate) example, bravo! 👏🏻

@LindorDoubleChocSpoken like a true overgrown school bully 👍🏻

It's the ones where posters hunt down any discrepancies with previous posts that get me. Of course people change small details in a story.

Yes. If you don't apologise for your (minor) wrongdoings in the OP then most posters are too lazy or impatient to get their oh-so important point across to read the OP's other posts - so will never see it.

I looked at one this morning, where the OP was asking if isolation was a counterproductive response, rather than a different punishment in a particular instance. It was a microcosm of AIBU. So many posters just focused on whether the behaviour should have been punished, rather than whether the punishment was counterproductive, peppered with numerous insults and guesses about the OP. IRL, this doesn’t really happen. People are able to grasp that a response can be questioned (be it in a relationship, work, pub, school), without detracting from the initial behaviour.

There’s a pattern:
“I ate the rest of the chocolates, which was wrong, but now partner has turned the freezer off and all our food is ruined”

”finishing the chocolates was wrong”
”that will teach you to be greedy”
”were you parented badly”
”you must have done something else, my partner wouldn’t do this”
”obesity is a problem”
OP then says “I know I should have saved him some, but is his response normal”
Rinse and repeat as though OP has said nothing! “No wonder the NHS is struggling”
”do you know what palm oil does to the environment” “I bet everyone you have ever met is pleased he did this. Are you a CF in every area of your life”

YANBU and I love that within a couple of replies people started nitpicking, proving your point!

Wait, people on the boards here repeatedly sticking to one or two positions and refusing to entertain that there might be many ways to skin a cat?

You don't say.

I agree with what you say but often,
instead of putting across a POV, people are immediately on the attack.

The Higher Education board is full of people who teach repeatedly telling others they are ignorant and should not post. There’s also posters who say you should not post because you are “old”. This elitism is not supportive of various opinions. And we are allowed opinions even if others “know” more - except they don’t live in the world outside universities.

Aibu is an awful place.
The amount of times someone replies, having made a few assumptions, invented a few facts of their own only to then spew out various insults to the OP is astounding.

If people are posting in AIBU for advice or support they are going to get snippy replies.

AIBU is all about asking people to take sides. If you don't want to hear that you might be in the wrong then don't post in AIBU.

Some people have no interest in actually being helpful and respond to those threads as a way of asserting their own sense of superiority.

Yes!

I didn't vote because your YABU and your YANBU don't form a binary opposition and neither reflects my position, but I think that a lot of people get good advice, as well as a range of perspectives on MN if they are willing to triage the replies and filter out anything that misunderstands the situation or is off topic/irrelevant.

Personally I probably wouldn't choose AIBU though, unless I wanted a lot of quick replies (since it's faster-moving than most of the topic boards) or my question was genuinely a kind of poll on how many people think something I did is reasonable or not. AIBU used to serve a distinct purpose because it was the only board on this site to post a poll, but now I believe you can do that on any board here.

I’m curious about what kind of people are so deliberately nasty on anonymous forums. Do they have a deep unhappiness with life and a need to take people down a few pegs to equalise? Or are they well adjusted people with a very nasty streak?

I agree OP, I posted on AIBU recently and got quite a pile on, including people telling me I must have been lying, or nitpicking. I told some of the nastier ones that their posts were a reflection of themselves, and I was told I was the one showing my true colours! I’ve sometimes got into a spiral of trying to defend myself but it’s so pointless and endless. Other times I’ve taken insults lightly and treated them with humour, only to be told off for that too! I’ve tried posting in relationships instead but I think it attracts the same people from AIBU.

But that’s kinda the point of the OP.

I have made great friends and got good advice here over the years (not in AIBU, maybe). It’s should be possible to get that on an anonymous basis.

If you’re taking serious life advice on an anonymous forum, you need to have a word with yourself. There are some absolute loons on here, and a disproportionate number of people who seem to have never visited planet Earth. They walk amongst us too, and have the vote.

Thanks. I’ve only posted once, the thread is visible but none of my replies! I find it very difficult to navigate the rules with karma and everything, have no idea who to message and how!

It is possible you’ve been shadowbanned. It happened to me once, I was suspicious as suddenly no one was interacting with me and someone I messaged confirmed they couldn’t see anything I’d posted in the past four weeks. I can’t remember how I got it fixed, I had to google and it involved messaging in a specific way to the main mods who fixed it. They said it was just a glitch and happened every now and then. Try posting on a large sub eg casual UK, check their rules on how much karma you need, and post very bland comments eg ‘oh that’s lovely’ etc then you’ll know for sure. But do get it fixed, it’s a great website.

Well I've just posted a difficult AIBU, and the majority of replies have been entirely well intentioned. Couple of posters trying to claim my question wasn't real and we mustn't ever question some things, and someone pointing out the tragic results of never questioning our sacred cows, one subtly cruel reply, but several people who took the time to explain in detail several things that have given me a very different perspective and may really help me navigate what the person I care about needs. I'll probably wake up to a pile on, but for now I'd say you're being unfair rather than unreasonable, because there's still good people on here willing to tell it straight in order to help, not destroy others.

YADNBU! Someone posted once purely to ask if the bill they were given for euthanising a pet was unreasonable and if not, should she query it? Nothing more than that, she’d just had to rush this suddenly poorly little animal, to a nearby vet and she was quite shocked at how much it cost. Can’t remember how much or anything but tbf it was a huge amount… All said politely and without any hyperbole……

Well omg! She never posted again on that thread after her initial post as it descended into the most catastrophically bitchy pile-on I’ve ever witnessed on MN or anywhere else online tbf and that’s quite a feat. People were screaming at her in capital letters, asking her if she wants vets to feed their kids or not?? Twisting words & adding presumptions to fit their own narrative then proceeding to attack OP for their own presumptions, it was absolutely wild. They were arguing with themselves, essentially.
I remember DM’ing the OP to give solidarity and actually agree with her, that I thought it was an unnecessarily high amount, even for a vets and she was so upset bless her. Apparently she’d had one DM telling her she was such a bad person she should “just die” and that she’d “upset a lot of people” 🥴 I’ve never forgotten it and haven’t posted any of my own threads since, other than lighthearted stuff. Baffling.