Has Mumsnet dumbed down over the past couple of years IYO? Or, if you're new, what's your impression?

I must go watch casulaty

'little 9 year old bitch from up the road' sounds interesting.....

lol jj you recommended that to me

(looks fab btw, too spenny though)

seems a lot more txt spk over last few weeks. i like to think the dumber people get bored of us 'high brow' folk and bugger off

The problem is (and Ive triied to help with the green poo bit) is that I can't remember a lot of the baby stuff. I know ds2 had green poo, I know in his case because it went on for weeks it was bad and meant something, but I can't remember much else (and can't remember for the life of me what happened with ds1 or ds3). I very rarely answer baby stuff (unless it can be answered with the words- amby hammock- because I can't remember it).

Sorry - what is MN?

Seriously - I am not particularly bright and am not really able to take part in most of the big debates - i'm not articulate enough. I would like to think on one hand though that you didn't have to be overly bright to post on her. on the other hand text speak and one long rant posts do turn me off and even if i do go to the bother of reading them i am much less likely to respond . And yet here i am not even bothering to use capital i's.

LOL CD...

I did have a sudden flash of panic when thinking that perhaps I was, in fact, a dumber-downer of Mumsnet

All I would say, as a newcomer, is that it is sometimes hard to break in to a thread where there are lots of 'old timers' (no offence) on, as my threads tend to get ignored and the old timers do get answered.

Just the way it is I guess, I posted a couple of days ago about playground politics and said how I was speaking to this mum who I didn't know very well and she walked off in the middle of my sentence.

Feel a bit like that sometimes. That's all.

I shan't leave until the put the links on the feeling dpressed board..a few years yet then

us new mums rely on you old timers to tell us green poo is ok. please don't ignore us all the time even though we bore you stupid.

I think perhaps I have changed rather than MN. When I started lurking years ago I found it so fresh and interesting to read and discuss things I would never dream of opening my mouth about in rl. Now I find there are very few 'new' topics around.

It happened when they brought in the Chat topic

The second it becomes one of those bullshit boastful sites is the second you see a cloud of dust where I used to be.

All that 'my daughter is 14 weeks and walking' bollocks.

'He's such a clever child, I should be thankful'.

Um, yeah. Right.

sorry vvv it had already happened by the time you got here (actually around that time )

I love answering new parent/new baby threads with a brisk but knowledgeable one liner - would love to think some advice i had given helps

Am I new? Been here just over a year...?

Has it dumbed down? No, there is plenty of witty, intelligent discussion going on if people want it - probably more so than when I started.

The site is bigger now, and so there are more threads, and everything moves much faster which I think is why people tend to use "txtspk" more and more, so undoubtedly there are more of threads that make you deem the site to have "dumbed down".

I'd like to blame Mothercare for that, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to start a row

IMO, there is just more of everything and everything moves much faster.

Thats about it really.

I'm fairly recent to the site and my general impression is a fairly democratic group - I'd say there was someone for everyone on here, from text-typists to grammar pedants... I've been broadly welcomed and enjoy my sojorns in this digital coffee shop. I've also seen some things so funny I nearly lost control of my birth-weakened bladder (MB's 21st century Blyton's to name but one). I like the huge resource of information and experience and, although I've probably repeated other people's questions, mine were still addressed with sobriety. Hurrah!

well no, my baby never had green poo

I suppose I could suggest she fed it only beetroot then the poo would be purple

so you won't be helping the new mum concerned about her baby's green poo then?

Too right, CD. I get them in there all the time. 'I can't use a photocopier. I need someone to do it for me.'

The PhDs all fall out laughing, 'Hmmm, a humanities student. I suggest you learn to use the photocopier.'

Or the ones who cannot believe they failed an exam, essay, etc.

They've been told all their lives how brilliant they are.

They just so happened to step into the real world and haven't realised: there are ALWAYS those who are cleverer, more talented, faster to pick up a skill, lucky, etc.

That's life.

No one seems to want to teach children that nowardays.

And society is not only dumber but also poorer for it.

agree

tickers + avatars = dumb ass

its just a short hop from tickers to cheesy music on the homepage

I second Jimjam in her last para

like for example, the thread above this one is 'what are you doing this weekend?' Well, I cannot imagine contributing to that, but I guess if it's mners who all know each other through years of posting, they'd be interested in that.

Who the hell would be interested in what I'm doing this weekend?

what on earth is a ticket or avator?

Are you running an airline?

agree with Enid there is a funny sort of academic politeness to old threads, makes me think of that bakewell woman in the early seventies