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

There is a rise in absolutes, with no shades of grey online. People will also pick on one tiny detail and derail a post or decide the OP is lying. Some posters have their own issues and sensitivities, which derail threads. I’ve seen some OPs lose their rag in the end and wonder whether that was the goal for some posters on those threads.

Yep

I would never slag anyone off on here but I can see why people do. It’s all anonymous and soooo easy. I’m not sure if particularly viperous posters get banned.

So true. “The least charitable interpretation”.

We have options but why be so mean?

I do think that a lot of people think direct and to the point is the same as being rude and personal and it isn’t.

YANBU. The behaviour of some people on here is shocking. Name calling whilst racing to the bottom on AIBU. Depressing.

Funnily enough, I just commented on somebody's remark on another thread that it was unpleasant and she had no business being so judgemental. She replied that what she said was true and I didn't seem to have grasped the purpose of AIBU!
In other words, she seemed to think that AIBU is a free pass to be as unpleasant as one feels like.
IMO, AIBU is supposed to be about looking for advice and support. Perhaps I'm the one who got it wrong?

I know - fairly sure that’s the problem bur not sure how to get around it as I can’t post without karma but can’t get karma to post! Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. Just don’t know of anywhere other than here or Reddit to post anonymously for advice!

Agreed it’s most of the boards but AIBU is the absolute worst. Posters are just nasty for the sake of it.

I don't know, the more I've interacted with LLMs, the more I see how harmful they are and that's by design... because they did not design it out.

The basic premise was to launch competing versions to gain market grab first, even though Google, Open AI etc knew they were totally unsuitable for launch

Its quick, accessible and a lot of the time, its straight up incorrect,

The validation is a result of its sycophancy bias RHLF producing enough feel-good words so that you are supposed to overlook the hallucinations (the leaps it makes to infill the gaps). I've witnessed those hallucinations become the equivalent of digital gaslighting and on one occasion, outright lies. You then spend half your time performing QA on its output, trying to get it back on the original flightpath, which is about as productive as herding fog, because it has no memory and the next round is tainted by previous confabulations !

Its gamified in the same way as a William Hill slot machine.

Even if LLMs were trained using the cleanest data, only searched verified sources, and were free of both the hallucination and gamified validation designed to hack the dopamine system and keep those data centres churning at max rate, they would still just be a data-accurate, but poor mimic of human interaction

This paper is quite sobering

To post on some subs on Reddit you need a certain amount of karma or your posts will be stuck in the spam filter and not visible.

I am speechless that you think the actual detail behind your example would indicate whether the horrified poster was being unreasonable or
not!

No one has a view on your reply
simple as that

as to why your reply isn’t posting… no idea

I used that as an example but you’re kind of proving the point here in relation to nitpicking.

I reply to a discussion but no one ever responds or upvotes (or downvotes.) I tried looking not logged in and I could see the other replies but not mine.

I never ask for parenting advice as my views on parenting are at complete variance from most of MN. And everybody seems to be NC!

I have asked for education advice though. I also frequently name change.
I think it's hard to reduce a complex relationship to a few paragraphs anyway.

Thanks @pointythings! I wondered if anyone would recognise it.

What do you mean “none of my replies are visible”?

Rather depends on more detail re what you did that you’re posting about wondering if you are unfair or
Not @tuntree , don’t you think?

Nailed it @tuntree

I don’t think it’s about sympathy, it’s often the opposite. I don’t mind at all something like I think you were unfair to your DS on this occasion. It would have been better to have told him firmly once that if he did that again he’d have to leave the party rather than take him straight home, as you didn’t give him the opportunity to put it right. That’s direct and honest. Bit so many posters would say something like He’s FOUR. Poor little boy. I can’t believe you did that to him, he’ll hate you when he’s older. Hope you enjoy him going NC, OP!

AIBU is not the best board to post on if you want sympathy. I think posters use it more for validation than anything else - if you use it you need to be fully prepared to be told YABU in the bluntest of language.

You are better off posting in a more specialist topic - the more niche, the more likely you are to get understanding responses, but the trade off is that traffic is lower and you might wait a while or get no replies at all.

Chat is 'safer' than AIBU if you want a general, high traffic board, or Relationships if that's what your question is about.

Completely agree with you, some people are downright nasty.

Agree. I once stumbled upon a post where an OP was challenged. But it was done with humour and no malice. The whole thread had a different tone and was even pleasant to read, even though the OP was being confronted. Then I saw the date, 2009! Things were clearly different then.

There is bluntness and ‘harsh truths’ and picking at the OP for the sake of it. The difference is pretty obvious.

By its very nature/title AIBU is inviting these kind of responses. If MN were genuinely concerned/cared they would get rid of the thread. But it drives the most traffic to the site because it gives people a free pass to say what they want. Therefore MN will keep it. Because MN isn’t about helping women it’s a business about making money. All the issues raised on AIBU could be raised on “Chat”, but you wouldnt get nearly the vitriol or the traffic.