to think you should be only allowed to mark your place on a thread if you...

[MardyBra]

... add a pertinent or witty comment?

"Oh no, I'm not place marking or anything" does not count as witty.

All Mardy is asking though is that if you must place mark make an actual contribution to the thread or a witty comment, not just some variation of "not place making, not me, oh no". Some threads have pages and pages of these types of posts and it does become irritating and tedious and probably defeats the object of place marking if you are then scrolling through hundreds of like worded or nonsensical "pulls up chair/gets popcorn" posts.

It's funny that on MN Netmums is generally derided as being rather twee and less grown up/adult and yet 'waves to x', 'plonks arse down, quaffs wine, hands round chocolates' posts on threads, which are excrutiating in their tweeness, are considered the epitome of wit.

Ah yes. I suppose the first (few?) posters who 'got popcorn' or 'plonked arse down' were amusing.

and obviously the bustard joke/coincidence-confusion posts were tremendously clever and funny

I love gets popcorn

Can "ooh..I love a good parking thread' also be banned on the next parking thread. There were hundreds of those on the last one. Seems to have also become a repetitive stock MN cliché .