Do you feel the same as me?

Well I hate to say it - any public forum you'll find online has that sort of stuff going on all the time!!! And a lot of places it's much worse than what's gone on here for the last few days!!!

when i first properly started posting on here (after being a member for about 6 months) i admit to feeling really left out. it all seemed cliquey to me. now i cant even remember the people i thought this about...perhaps i just dont notice them so much anymore. im happy enough being the resident wierdo who lurks around in the middle of the night on my own! yes there are people i dont like, well only one actually, people who annoy me, people who amuse me, people who confuse me, people i have no opinion of and a handful of people who i talk to, lots who i like but have never spoken to....bit like my local pub really! i see bitching but not so bad yet that ive really wanted to leave. its much like rl to me.

Message withdrawn

totally agree batters. To be honest I got really p'd off before xmas with all the 'my partner is abusive/we keep arguing/what can i do to save my marriage type threads. It made me really really depressed. I would never dream of telling people MN would be better off without it. I just don't read them anymore. I'm not having a pop at you lonely mum, just illustrating a point, and I genuinely did feel very low at some of those threads.

Well, obviously, Twiglett. I didn't think that needed saying....

wwww, how accurate is that? Wow.

I think you'll find Moomina that I am lovely all the time ..

that's fab WWW ..

why are you hiding it here?

I think everyone feels ignored at some point. I know I do. I post something, no-one replies, I feel like a complete prat. But then another time I'll have a real laugh on here and finally turn off the pc after giggling and having a joke half the night and think 'Oh, so that's why I'm so addicted to MN!'

Like I said before, it is the nature of the beast. This is a very fast-moving board with lots of posters and lots of subjects. Now and again things blow up and people get insulted/upset/whatever. It's a shame but in the big scheme of things is it really that big a deal? We can't all be lovely all the time - can we?

here you go, life cycle of a mailing list but I think it applies to forums too

Thats also very true, there are so many times when I post then realise the whole thing was concluded ages ago!

being ignored is a relative thing I have found that there are peak times when heaps of netters are on and some times it's 'lone city'

I do sometimes feel quite ignored...even though I know I'm not really...does that make sense?!

Every time someone raises the question of whether MN is cliquey I feel obliged to go and stick my oar in and post on every single thread I can find (whether I have any relevant experience or not) just so I don't appear to be leaving anyone out. I hope you know it's very hard work!

I was just being dim - the thing about being ignored is so true!! Ive noticed that loads but just thought I must be really uninteresting!

how do you spell cliquey?

Sometimes it feels like there are in-crowds, I agree.

When i first started posting I did feel ignored a lot of the time, but now I'm an old-timer (and possibly one of the cliquy types being slagged off here) I don't worry about it. I just assume that my post was missed and get on with it.

As for bitchiness - it's part of the texture of Mumsnet. It goes a bit far sometimes (generally in that too many people post the same comment rather than any particular post being out of order) but as www says, that's the way with forums.

I'm very new to mumsnet and looking at it all from a (kind of) outside point of view I think there is a really good mix of topics and conversations.

I didn't realise there were any "in crowds" but maybe im just being dim? I have just joined in with the things I am interested in and left the threads that I disagree with/have nothing to offer alone.

I just think that I wouldn't expect to get on with everyone in RL and as this is my light entertainment/source of info, there's no point in getting upset about peoples comments or opinions when they're not the same as my own.

Maybe I am just being naive but I hope that I never take this site too seriously and just enjoy meeting and chatting to people like I have so far.

true www

This stuff happens every now and again, it's in the nature of forums I think. And there are always threads asking 'is it always like this?' 'why is mumsnet so bitchy?' etc. etc. I just found a few actually, while looking for SueW's lifecycle of a mailing list which ia so true and interesting reading for anyone on these 'why oh why' threads. Hey, it would be boring if we all agreed all the time, that's NOT a discussion!

As a new mn i have been LOL at some threads then flippen well for some people who have been soooo mean. I do hope the people concerned come to their senses and realise bully girl tactics are unwanted at school work and definatly on MN.

I'd go along with Soph, Suedonim and Tigermoth. I still feel like I'm on the outskirts of the MN group even after 3 1/2 years, but I like it that way, I don't crave popularity (had enough of that in the classroom).

Agree with your posting too, Roisin, and I think I would fall off my chair in complete shock if I ever saw a thread with my name in the title!

There are some wonderful people on here and my life would be the poorer without Mumsnet and all its different personalities, it's what life's all about good and bad, chaos and order.