Anyone still here who joined in 2006 or earlier?

[A580Hojas]

Just ... hello really.

I consider myself a bit of an oldie but there might be people still here who were posting from the very start (circa 2000/01 ish?).

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to go back 10-12 years on Mumsnet. Would it look significantly different? I remember lots of scandals about the changing of the appearance of the site. I guess there would be fewer adverts, sliders and pop-ups?

Woud we still have lots of threads headed like this
MamaGwhereareyou**

Hot topics of conversation might be baby modelling and the MMR. I can't honestly remember.

What do you recall about the early days of MN if you were here then?

I love this thread

Not sure when I joined, have been here for several years though. I loved Getorfmeland and Stratters. Do you remember her rescued Raven those who were about then?

Ha yes I started in 2005, I remember aitch, morningpaper, flowerybeanbag, custy, COD, Xenia cogitoergosometimes and the old ones.

Not on here much anymore, too busy now.

And dear zombie obvs ❤️

Samcro where is bigitdad ? I haven't seen him for ages. Does he have a new name now ?

Threads that used to run and run in the old days were the working mother v stay at home mother debates with plenty of posters weighing in with their evidence that childcare was harmful to children.

Now that the vast majority of mothers have to work this debate seems to have pretty much gone away.

Can you actually leave Mumsnet?

It's Hotel California here

I still don't know how to start a thread. Been on here on and off since 2007 (so strictly speaking I shouldn't be posting here). How DO you start a thread?

I joined in 2005. It was such a lifeline as we were (and still are) living abroad and I felt pretty isolated with a 2yo and 1yo. I've never posted much but could always rely on getting an answer to even the daftest question.

I remember all the 'famous' posters along with hunkermunker, marina, wigwam, greensleeves and so many more. Cut my radfem teeth here thanks to Dittany.

I've been here since 2003, I think. But under different names. The key difference was that it was so much smaller so felt like more of a community.

Lovely to see everyone coming out of the woodwork!

Morningpaper - Coffee No 1 one day? We have been promising for years! (Name changed recently but old name referred to an Eastern European city I used to live in!). If you are still in T?

@HepzibahHumbug
To start a thread you need to already have a thread open in the topic you want to post in.

So, you are on this thread, which is in the Chat topic. So let's say you want to start your own thread in Chat ...

Just scroll to the top of the page. Under the sub-heading on a blue background which says Talk>>Chat in white lettering, there is a series of options "Start new thread in this topic" - "Watch this thread" - "Flip this thread" - "Hide this thread" etc.

Just click on "Start new thread in this topic".

I joined in 2001 under the same username. Have had some changes over the years but always come back to this one.

The 2 DDs that I posted about then are now 21 & 19 & dd1 in particular loves MN as much as me now. We often discuss ongoing threads & I imagine she will come here for help & advice when she has her own kids.

I remember a lot of the old names & am friends with a few on FB. Went to the meetup in Vineopolis, met Marina, Tigermoth & Scummymummy as well as some other whose names I now forget . Also went to a local meetup in Cardiff where I met Bron (also known as Hausfrau) who is now living in California and who I "talk to" fairly frequently on FB.

I remember the Mouldies outrage & also one Christmas there was a group of us trying to help a lady in Japan who wanted to get away from an abusive husband (I think that was the story - I realise now it was probably was all made up)

My usage goes.up and down, bit I can't imagine ever leaving.

Oh, and I'm proud to have started the very first Archers thread on here.

I liked dinosaur. She was very kind to me once.

Been here since 2002 under many different NNs.

The cliques werent always entirely benign but there was huge wit and humour.

Remember the rallying cry going around "listen up everyone, let's get to work on today's unanswered threads" and everyone taking on one or two !

Also, vaguely remember a thread where an anxious Mumsnetter had to make a difficult trip to London from the North, or vice versa, and Mumsnetters gathered at various stations en route to wave and cheer her on. Never sure whether that was an apocryphal story or not though!

About 2003, but had a long break or two.

There used to be scandals. I remember the lovely FairyFly, one of the first threads where people sent presents because her horrible ex didn’t send her son a birthday present.

DadsLib causing rows. Lost of make posters: HappyDaddy (I think he caused a scandal with a MNer and his marriage busted up), DaddyCool, Hub2Dee, TurnIpTheBass, Where’sMyFroggy, BeaeInTheBigBlueHouse.

CarlK, scandal with the poster who cooked a roast dinner, with minute by minute instructions from MNers, for the first time!

I remember Droile. The first MN blanket was for her, when her son was diagnosed with a brain tumour. I would love to know how they are.

A poster called Bo who lived in her car and her ex had seized her Dd. She changed her name, and I remember being so happy when she got her Dd back.

Lavender, who let her kids shoot pheasants in the garden with real guns and posted to say how prions she was.

PuddyTats whose DH was up on a fraud charge, and it was all very fishy.

Mum2Toby, an engineer, MartianBishop who changed her name from HappyMerryBerries on a hilarious thread about Scientologists. MotherInferoir in the Inferiority Complex, Blu who volunteered for some audience participation act at the circus and ended up swinging from a rope, Soapbox who started the Christmas Gifts after a national saving scheme went bust, who sent period-stained pants in a lunchbox by accident (obviously). Spidermama and ‘The Macaroon Incident’.

Long before mouldies a poster took part in some initiative to get people‘s e mail addresses and then formed her own website.

@Munchmallow the poster who fostered was EarthMotherIamNot and her thread is in classics. I linked to it further up and here it is again.

Still a beautiful thread.

Classics is a great place to relive playmobil weddings and election day, and MarmaladeTwatkins cake sale Easter nest fiasco

Thanks hojas. So helpful. Just started a thread about parenting aboard a boat ... if yr interested.

Reading this has reminded me of a mum who posted a lot about her daughter with initially undiagnosed SEN and then some of her problems as she progressed through ks1. She was something like mummyloveslucy and I think Lucy must be a mid-way through her teens now. Hope they are both doing ok.

Despite spending all my waking hours on MN for several years, I missed Message in a Bottle. What was it?

The message in a bottle game was online somewhere. A virtual bottle would appear in the sea. If you clicked on it, it would open up messages that people had typed. You could either just throw it back in or add your own message first.

People would write messages with MN references in (fruit shoots, Greggs etc) and then post on the MN thread if they found anyone else's messages. A complete waste of time but strangely addictive.

I think I joined in 2006 when I had DS2 and lurked. I only started posting when I was pregnant with DS3 in 2008/09 and it all went pear-shaped. Curiously (to me now), I didn't post much about the immediate issues, his brain anomaly, that I had been advised to terminate at 30 weeks and didn't, I posted on the cloth nappy threads because the only thing I knew for sure was that he would have a bum and he would need nappies (and I love a pretty cloth nappy). He's almost 10 now, is doing pretty brilliantly academically and gets selected for amazing dance and football classes and is the most loving and cuddlesome little thing you could imagine. My nappy whores and my ante-natal-then-post-natal Mumsnet groups were my rocks. I'm still in touch with a fair few of them, have met some IRL, planning a meet-up soon to mark 20 years. Remember so many of the names mentioned here. I was never particularly prolific and name changed a million times just because. I still love MN.