Is Mumsnet getting worse?

[Soreen123]

I post here from time to time looking for advice when I’m not really sure who to talk to. Some of the responses I have had are just mean.

I recently put my house link up (which I realise- biggest mistake) only to be told by some I must be lying about the parking situation, my house looked ‘council like’, it’s scruffy, clinical, cold, screams millennial. When all I was asking for was a bit of advice.

A few months ago I asked for advice on my children not being included in something and the blame was put on my children that they must be so badly behaved and that parents of badly behaved children will never admit it. I never actually spoke about my children’s behaviour.

Has mumsnet just become a place to lay into others when they feel down or ask for some advice? It seems to have become a place for others to tear others down.

Or is it just the forums I’m on, it’s not just my posts I see it across loads.

I saw one the other day where the first comment was ‘the 4th bedroom is a cluttered’. As if someone is going to turn down a £600k house on the basis that one of the bedrooms has some clutter in!

It's not really the point of this thread, but I don't think I replied on your thread about your house, because you were having so many viewings it was obvious the listing was fine. Whatever was causing people not to offer was happening in person, and that's not something we can advise on. I suspect it's the price given the feedback about the size (assuming I'm remembering the right thread).

I'm currently watching a thread where the OP is asking a question about whether her children - who have been removed from her and are being fostered pending an investigation - are entitled still to go to their regular clubs. At least every other answer is "if you wanted them to go to clubs you shouldn't have been a shit parent". throws hands up in air

And this I just don’t understand. Either give solid advice or just don’t comment. How is telling someone that they’re a shit parent going to help in that situation. This is what I mean, the website is called mumsnet I imagine the majority are women, why are women tearing each other down at every opportunity.

Yeah which is fine to say, although also so hard to compare as someone told me ‘this house would be £115000 where I live’- but where we live it’s not.

I was desperate and wondered if there was anything glaringly obvious I wasn’t seeing and wanted some friendly advice. Although my favourite part was when someone couldn’t believe I’d left my ironing board out for the pictures which was actually a piano, but that was also seen as bizarre as to why I’d have a piano where it was.

I definitely learnt my lesson after that thread but also felt sad that it had gone that way.

Ok I was wondering if I was losing my mind re the ironing board. 😂

Oh yes 😂 the shock horror at me leaving the ironing board out for the viewings was the sole reason my house wasn’t selling, but it was a
actually a piano 😂

I really did get some good advice but couldn’t believe how bad it got.

I want to see your house thread now, just so I can see the ironing board piano 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣

I must have had a terrible estate agent to take a picture of my ironing board for a house listing 😂😂Unfortunately I had to get it deleted, someone went as far as going onto the gov website where you can buy the deeds of the house and started to tell me I had covenants on the property. Lots of people reported it and I asked for it to go completely. Totally freaked me out, I didn’t know someone would go that far.

😲 and right there, that says how much worse MN has got!

I think a lot of posters are not parents or mums, or women, and see threads talked about on Facebook, or on national newspaper websites, and come on here to tell women/mums off or deliberately upset people.

I just thought I might be considered to be saying nasty things about Mumsnet or ppl using it. I never know these days. ANother social media site takes off loads of stuff.

Wow, that’s really awful. Some saddo has actually paid £3 to get a copy of your deeds 😮. That would freak me out too.

That’s one of the reasons I name change frequently, you just don’t know who is reading, what they might piece together, rightly or wrongly.

I posted a photo once, only once, no people but identifying if you knew me, imagine if you had a small sailing boat with the sail number visible - not that but that sort of thing. I’d posted it because the view was incredible, a place inaccessible by car, bike, etc, .A friend contacted me to say I was in the DM. At that point I’d only ever had one username so if you were that way inclined you could read my entire posting history.

You are right. I deleted my account recently after posting around something very difficult I'm going through.

Response I got was awful- blaming me, people saying it must be my fault and making assumptions.

I kept getting notifications for response and reading them was upsetting me immensely.

Lesson learnt- I will never post anything personal again.

Sorry I have a created a new one because I want to forget about the post. I want to be empathetic to people and contribute positively to posts when I feel I have something to offer.

But you weren’t on the thread were you? The fact it was reported by lots and taken down by mumsnet shows it wasn’t a nice thread to be. I was totally open to ideas/suggestions and advice but it was the attacking.

That’s the issue with the internet- you may have seen it as a light hearted comment but I didn’t, after having to repeatedly go through comments trying to pick out the genuinely nice advice I was fed up. The football scarf comment wasn’t just done on its own in jest from my point of view. It wasn’t your thread and you weren’t having people go on to find your deeds so please don’t try to tell me how to feel about it. I’ve said it so many times I was so grateful for all the genuine, lovely advice it was just soured by the sheer amount of negative, mean comments.

I've banged on about an aspect of MNHQ management for ages: they should just move stuff off AIBU that should be in Relationships or other more specialised sub-forums - the main source of grief in my opinion.

I think MNHQ just like the clicks more than the welfare of posters, though they have form for deleting threads that the OP just doesn't like, i.e. they didn't get the undiluted support they plainly required and expected.

Perhaps they need a warning on AIBU - though please, not the fucking awful trigger warning - so patronising.

OTOH, if you post on AIBU, don't piss and moan if posters aren't "kind".

I find it can be a really innocuous thread, that turn into one upmanship or just general nastiness. You could say the sky is blue and someone would argue you're wrong.