Mumsnet forums need updating

'I like the simple forum of this website that I read on a semi regular basis www.housepricecrash.co.uk.'

Great! Glad you enjoy it. Go off and use it more often then.

Oh, we do love our housepricecrash infiltrators here, too! They spice things up.

The statistics were confusing, especially the one that said '8 replies, 0 views'!, which didn't change after I'd viewed it...

IMHO that web-site looked cluttered (although not as bad as some). I found it difficult to extract waht a new post was saying in between the quotes and the automaitc signatures. Plus all the info about the poster was distracting: on Mumsnet you can choose to find out more about the poster (if they have made their profile public) by clicking on their name.

And seeing how many people have read yuor thread could be very depressing if either no-one read it and/or people read it but decided it was not worth bothering to reply.

BoF's quite right. If you stalk, you want to be able to do it discreetly - otherwise what's the point?

"Nothing changes if nothing changes."

On MN, nothing changes if the majority don't want it to change.

I would hate people to be able to see me reading their posts. It would feel like stalking.

Also @ "power of reading" ... mystical!

I luuuuuurve MN Classic. It's all just there, just words, and no sparkly things, nothing flashing, no boxes within boxes within boxes, just plain old words.

Some other forums make me feel like I'm on drugs or at least have a blinding headache.

Oh god you see I hate all that shite! [gimmer]

And as for the downmarket parenting websites with their tickers ... and long descriptions of how many angels (sub categorised into heaven and earth angels, with relevant names, dates and weights) people have managed to produce ... gawd. It's like a trivia vomitorium.

I suppose it's easier to define oneself by that kind of common information, rather than by one's opinions.

On LinkedIn there is a 15 minute edit function - but the downside is that (as far as I know) your post doesn't actually appear until after that 15 minutes.

And that definitely wouldn't do on Mumsnet

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I like these ?.??.??.?
I would like change and to be able to see if someone has replied to me and others at the same time - not difficult to set up - but MNers don't like change ?.??.??.?

And irritated by the automatic sign offs that people have.

Like:

[15 lines after the post has finished]

TECHIEGOD

"In Excel we trust"

[icon of Photoshopped formula etc]

For sure a few more edit functions wouldn't go amiss, and some more smileys, but I really like the simplicity of the threads themselves, i like that they go right across the screen, i like that you can read the whole thing straight down (or up) the page without waiting for pages to load (except on iphone, takes forever but not MN's fault - sort out the app PLEASSE!)

Overall its great.

Yes, quoting only really works in the earlier stages of a discussion: when I've trawled through techie sites for coding help, I get incredibly confused by the quoting-of-quoting-of quoting.

When I've seen "quote" functions used it can make the threads incredibly long, as people just quote the whole of the post in question - and worse, then quote the post with the quote within it and so on.

Without it, you have to either select the bit that you want (and doing a "copy and paste" and putting quotation marks around it is surely not that difficult ) or paraphrase the bit in question; which means that you have to actaully think about what you are going to comment on.

Has anyone pointed out the plural of 'forum' yet?

I think the site is alright. It is quite handy to have a quote function, but it does clutter up the page.

I wish I could tell for that matter if anyone reads my blog-unless they leave comments I have no idea if anyone goes there mumsnet/blogs

Another fan here of MN uncluttered and straightforward look and the way it is like a proper conversation.

A timed edit would be good tho.

MN classic for me too. Have seen other forums where the posters have pictures and dates of all their DC's births which count how old they all are.

Give me MN classic everytime.

the way i see it, if you hijack another persons thread with a seperate convo (which is how i see threading) you apologise to the op. its rude. if you want to continue the hijack convo, start another thread.