AIBU in assuming that if OP doesn't reply to thread...

[18yearsoftrying]

They haven't liked the advice given by others & it's easier for them to "read & run" rather than face what we see as "the truth"?

There have been some posts recently about serious life-changing discoveries (Not just in the relationships side) & MNers have unanimously advised in their hundreds what they feel should be done...

OP then gets defensive which irritates the posters then we don't hear from OP again...presumably this is because they don't want to get "told off"?

YABU. Or maybe life just gets in the way? Or they're reading, thinking and absorbing?

most ops only gets defensive when people are goading them ,i doubt they care about being told off ` from a bunch of strangers tbh .

There is a bit of that, but there's also a tendency for posters to feel that their advice should be taken instantly and acted on, with an update to follow within 24 hours. If the OP is asking about a hard or complicated situation, it's not going to be resolved overnight. These are people's real lives, not Coronation Street. Sometimes the weight of hundreds of strangers telling you something hard to hear about your relationship, or whatever it is is being asked about, takes a while to process.

The other reason, of course, is that the OP was trolling.

I noticed a few times now posters coming and advising the OP to do a certain thing. In the OP it is clear that they have already tried it, sometimes it's worked, sometimes it hasn't. The OP is looking for further advice, but the rest of the poster's don't seem 'to get that'.

For example
OP "The baby is screaming his/her head off, I tried a dummy but it didn't work"
Poster 1 "give him/her a dummy"
OP "tried it, it didn't work"
Poster 2 "give him/her a dummy"
OP "tried it, it doesn't work"
Poster 3 " give him/her a dummy"
OP goes off to bang head against wall

The OP probably finds it very frustrating that people don't understand what they are reading (and the majority of the time it's not that difficult to understand).

Having experienced a mass arse kicking on here I can tell you what it feels like.

You post, often in haste as you are cross and want to vent/need help. You get a few replies which you answer but the next time you refresh the thread you have three pages of increasingly angry posts demanding extra information or action.

So you think 'fuck' didn't expect that, reply again a little more tentatively and then receive another barrage of angry replies with a few more measured responses that make you feel slightly better. At that point many people back away from the thread and decide never to do that again.

Years ago I had a thread where lots of posters were giving me very stern advice over a very sensitive issue.

I felt bullied into making a decision.

It was a disaster.

I wish I hadn't listened to the posters.

I don't think things are ever as simple in real life as they appear on a thread, even if it does seen like a black and white issue.

I came on once to put a friendly warning to prevent people being ripped off like I was. Cue lots of people calling me stupid and hoping I wasn't their child's teacher! I didn't go back to that thread as I was really hurt by some of the comments (it wasn't like I'd posted something controversial, I was just forewarning about a potential scam!).

Sometimes you just have to get on with life and can't come back straight away, or for some time. Last week whilst embroiled in some controversy I went away to cook dinner for my family and came back just over an hour later to find comments that I ' d given up and would probably be name changing! I don't think that when you start a thread you can necessarily expect it will run for days and days.

The threads that I'm sad about are the ones where OP gets advice and after a bit of debate and clarification decides to follow it, says she will report back and then nothing happens.

Some posters have the tendency to twist your words, taking almost everything you say completely out of context.

I remember posting once about a woman sexually offering herself to my partner. Less than half an hour later I had over 500 replies, all of which were either to a) criticise my spelling and punctuality or b) pick apart minor irrelevant details and c) telling me that actually no the woman isn't in the wrong, it was my partner he must have instigated it because Women simply do not offer themselves to committed men.

I left that thread.

I also left another thread because the majority of the replies was 'LTB' I'm not going to leave the man I love just because he doesn't clean up that often and hundreds of people telling me to was not going to change that.

I haven't been lambasted on here but I have had a thread I didn't come back to because it became apparent that my original OP wasn't clear enough. I knew if I then tried to clarify it, I'd be accused of drip-feeding. I also realised I couldn't post more without outing myself.

Yes, jellybelly, I have been happily married for 30 years this month but I do think that if I posted about my husbands irritating but relatively minor "faults" I'd be strongly advised to leave him by a certain vociferous set of posters.

LOL @ Deelish and sebsmummy

I think that sometimes a thread just descends into a scrum of posters having their own little bitch about the OP & spend pages backslapping each other on how clever they are - why on earth would you come back to that?

Also, some threads go off track very quickly on MN & after 5 pages bear no resemblance to the actual starting topic.

Some forums actively delete posts that aren't relevant to the thread & sometimes I wish MN would do so.

higgle most definitely, that seems to be the go to response from a lot of posters.

Its sad because I remember reading a thread where the OP was complaining about her partner. I can't remember what exactly it was about but something minor I think he shouted at someone blocking the drive or something. As per usual the majority of responses were 'LTB' she tried to defend her partner and her relationship, explaining how much hey love each other. But was still being hounded with LTB. Two pages later she left him. A lot of '' now don't let him explain, do not talk to him ever again, just completely ignore him from now on'' followed

Sometimes OPs take what they need from a thread because the advice given is sufficient but after that the thread grows legs of its own. Other times a handful of posters are up for a squabble amongst themselves and the OP gets forgotten in the ruck. Other times some people are just being outrageous cunts posting nastiness under the guise of 'straight talking'.

I spend most of my time posting in Employment, and often posters don't bother coming back. It's usually because they don't like the advice they've received I think. Which mostly happens when people have advised them that actually they don't have grounds to sue their employer for a ton of money immediately, or are behaving unreasonably in some way.

jelly I would like to defend the majority stance on that thread - though maybe not the tone of some of it-but I'd be guilty of doing one of the derailing things this thread is talking about, so I won't

It's very easy to derail if you feel strongly though isn't it.

There's a thread where the op has been silent for a while, because the op was banned, it was an error on MNHQ's part and the op has been reinstated this morning.

I think that's a rarity but it could another reason op's go quiet.

It must be difficult to go off and be busy with something else for a few hours - then come back to find hundreds of posts all demanding more information/LTB/etc etc, or that your original post has been misunderstood in some way and the people replying are all arguing amongst themselves about it!

I think people forget the scale of Mumsnet too - on my local forums, I'll post something & then check back after a few days or a week to see if anyone has replied.

On here, as said above, you to away for a couple of hours & you've got hundreds of (often conflicting) replies to sort through and insults

There is at least one poster out there who starts a thread about something (normally relationship, sometimes other stuff), posts maybe once, maybe a few times then never comes back to the thread.

Then after a few weeks or so you'll find yourself reading a thread by someone with a different name, thinking 'hang on, this sounds familiar'. And then the OP does exactly the same thing - gets a lot of replies telling her to LTB or whatever, never comes back.

It's really sad. I report* whenever I get the 'Lightbulb' moment, but I feel desperately sorry for them too as this person never, ever moves on . 'She' has been doing it for years. I think that poster is at the extreme end of not liking responses so leaving the thread though.

i dont blame the op's sometimes for not coming back

ive seen a couple where the thread is pretty clear and easy to understand then you get members giving advice and clearly not reading the info or just ignoring what the op has said

just read and digest the blardy thread then we dont have numerous ?? that could be avoided if the info was taken in,instead of having to repeat themselves thus giving up

I completely understand it! I went off yesterday to have a cup of tea as a thread I had commented on turned into a complete bun fight and I couldn't be arsed TBH, I came back this morning and it had been deleted. I did laugh, lol