to be shocked by the unpleasant tone of some Mumsnetters?!

[oohdaddypig]

So - I've not been on mumsnet for very long. In the main most posters sound like lovely, supportive women - a bit like my mates but online. Sometimes there are good debates - and disagreements - nothing wrong with that.

But, deep breath, there seems to me to be a minority - but a reasonably sizeable minority - who seem to delight in being thoroughly unpleasant and downright aggressive to others.

I hasten to add this hasn't been directed at me (yet!)

But I read a number of threads - often about seemingly innocuous subjects, sometimes less so, and WHOAH - they turn pear shaped and, IMHO downright nasty or bitchy.

I know exactly what some responses to this will be (I'm thickening my skin in preparation) but is it too much to hope that internet posters adopt basic standards of politeness? Why does it sound like many mumsnetters are spoiling for a fight?

Which to my mind means, at the very least, not typing what you wouldn't be prepared to say to someone's face.

Yes. Bumper works.

Although I have a hankering for a pocket sized 'i Spy...wankers', you know, just for convenience.

I find it almost impossible not to be acerbic

Yeah me too

I have an idea. As some people cannot get over their hankering to broadcast their ire against individuals with oh -so-clever hints, they should do it in poetry. Iambic pentametre, maybe.

Paggy's Bumper Book
of Wankers, can be condensed
Into Pocket Guide

Which one's more difficult to compose? I want people to feel too challenged to drop these sly hints.

I've been on a lot of different kinds of forums for many years, including some of the meanest gamer forums, and like to think I am experienced in the ways of forum culture

But I've gotta say, while it doesn't necessarily bother me - because we're all just strangers - Mumsnet did take me aback with surprise at the consistent level of snarkiness, unnecessarily bitchy remarks and outright aggression. It is a bit crazy just how prevalent it is, and how it marks MN out from most other forums.

Well...as a general rule to new posters...maybe we should say that unless your are particulary thick skinned avoid posting in AIBU...Sometimes I read the responses in there and think that people who have a had a really bad day are just waiting for a post that gets there back up and then they let rip...But having been a lurker for while in the past, there is undoubtedly a lot of good advice on here...in amongest all the fannies...

I do know the difference between their and there...honest...just and very tired and trying to type with dinner on my lap and entertain a 2yr old !

I have been rather disappointed with a few recent threads . People moving in for the kill as sport and not Thinking about what they were saying.
Agree that I would rather have MN harsh honesty than syrupy false niceness encountered on some other fora.

This thread's pretty much ended up like the threads referred to by the OP. Who'd have thought it? And that was without many of the usual fight club losers...

It's fora not forums!!

On the flip side, I remember this one particular thread, right? I'd only just joined, and I clicked on some random title. The thread turned out to be from a woman wanting validation of her disagreement with her doctor. I cringed in horror, as I imagined what over-supportive tosh people would post, based on other forums. But...

She got respectful, honest advice from people who had been in her situation, asking her to reconsider. I've admired one particular swear-word-named poster ever since.

Badger, who were you before? Because there seem to be a few people you do't like

Maryz I've not been anyone before..I largely know who the unpleasant ones are here just from reading.

Don't seem to like what? Unpleasant people? Nah, not really