To wonder if MNers average IQ has dropped by at least 10 (if not 20) points since Penis Beaker, Jeffrey etc.

[AVirtuousLife]

It used to be a good place.

Now it's full of posters with long drawn out, multiple threads about boring banal shit.

Cheeky Neighbour thread Number 20.

My Boring Life Thread Number 100.

My Blossoming Heart Throb (who happens to be a gardener) Thread Number 90.

My Awful Life In General Thread Number 200.

And if anyone dares to challenge the OP of a multiple thread they must be a harpy or troll.

The fact that the multiple-thread-starters might be trolls themselves seems to escape the attention of the fans.

A lot of the good posters have gone or been banned.

I do miss the funny posters, you'd find a thread where you laughed till you cried, about once a week. But now they are very rare.

However I don't miss some banned posters who were just trolls themselves. MN is better off without them.

I agree wholeheartedly with you. There was a time when there was some real wit here and there was also genuine compassion, good advice and support. Perhaps it's become too big, the site is a victim of its own success - I really don't know. Sometimes people are so rude to posters with absolutely no need.
I worry so much about women who need support because of terrible events in their lives who we are now nervous of replying to in case it's someone trolling.
I also wonder about this parallel universe where all the neighbours are so awful. In my 62 years I've had one person who once complained that my children were being a bit noisy - they were being brats and I was being lazy but I dealt with it and there was no vendetta.

I have fond memories of this thread Sheherazade

I agree with you Gin about the fact patents with real issues may actually find it hard now, to get sympathetic advice.

I also think the press picking up stories and printing them, must put off a lot of people from asking for help.

YANBU.

Also appreciating the mentions of Hotel Vernet - truly the peak of my troll detection career.

and woodsy it wasn't just sympathetic advice, often it was pretty hard solid stuff that went way beyond 'your kidsz, your roolz, hun'

gin me too about the neighbours, mystifies me too. I've got thoroughly lovely neighbours, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone in rl ever even really mention theirs. Maybe all those MNers who post about their awful ones live next door to each other.

Also agree that there is less obvious support/advice in general. Probably because virtually every single thread is startrd in aibu - most sections other than that and chat get hardly any through traffic. Threads started in relationships now seem to demand instant action for the readers if the op doesn't update/ltb within a day of posting. Maybe we've all got too used to instant gratification nowadays.

Whilst I obviously agree with the OP, I wish everyone would get the fuck over sodding Penis Beaker. It may have been the beginning of a mass influx of idiots, but the raging perverts invasion of MN is a far more recent thing.

I’m quite happy that the god-awful clique-iness has diminished somewhat, and that in general the ridiculous takeovers of threads has stopped. For too long, too many people were using MN as their own personal site and woe betide if you weren’t in on the in-jokes. That was fine when there were way fewer members, but the site doesn’t belong to the “old-timers”; in fact it doesn’t belong to anyone except the actual owner (whoever that is these days).

Having said that, I find myself coming here less and less. I’ve been here on and off, under a few names for over 5 years (for which I’m sure I’ll be told I know nothing because I haven’t been here long enough 🙄). There is way too much text speak and hunning now for my liking, and as I may have mentioned 😉 too many disgusting perverts and scammers. Ultimately though, for every person that leaves because they don’t like it, another 10 will join. We fool ourselves if we think we are individually important.

VikingVola my comment 'isn't that just getting old' was more about the fact that one finds it harder to get new experiences as you get older as you've literally seen most stuff before.

I don't think that's ageist!

We fool ourselves if we think we are individually important

Actually, some posters are more 'important' than others. Some people are just great at whipping up fantastic debate, being extremely witty, kind, even a bit arrogant. But there's something about them that draws people in. If that wasn't the case why have some people on twitter got 10.000 followers and others have got 20?
Internet forums need personalities.

YANBU

Penis beaker and advertising has been it's downfall from my perspective - it's also become a magnet for whining, obsessive, unstable, entitled men (though appreciate there are some good male posters too).

One thing that worries me though is that maybe it's an age thing - the oldies/mouldies will have grown up children now, so is it up to us to be the funny, amusing thread starters? Maybe we need to resurrect some of the best zombie threads to get us all going.

Yep, banned @ErrolTheDragon.

I've posted since 2010, and it was more cliquey then but so much funnier. I don't really post any more as the threads are very mundane and filled with the PO posters. I haven't snorted out loud with laughter in ages. I don't recognise anyone because of all the NCing we have to do.

MN used to be like having an evening with your best, cleverest and witty friends - now it's like being at the school gate with a bunch of people you don't really know.

I miss Cod and Cyb

YANBU.

wombling yes there was a massive amount of cliqueiness, and it's definitely nicer without that. I'm not sure why, though, the (welcome) loss of that should go hand-in-hand with a loss of wit, or a rise in dumbing-down. The demographic of regular posters has just changed I guess. Totally with you on the text-speak stuff too. Grr.

Been here 10 years, same name.

The lifting of stories by the Mail etc. has changed the site somehow...its kind of weird publicity and almost like an open call to come on here and comment.

Meh - times change, I too am getting older and in some ways, I don't really care. But I'm not leaving MN anytime soon, though

And I really want pavlova now...

There has been an increase in pious, lemon faced fuckwits who virtue signal all over the threads

Hell yes. I was recently informed that expecting that a relatively articulate person who could use a smart phone might also be capable of making a sandwich is a 'privileged opinion'.

I blame The Fail...all the links have brought in a different demographic. But the really disturbing thing is the perv quota at the moment. That's new as well and making things just a bit too 'ick'.

Maybe there's still the wit and fun; the sites grown so much that maybe its getting lost in the mix...but it does feel like it's changed recently.

Every Christmas someone for the old days usually posts a thread speaking like Russell Brand 'lawks, ye of days gone by, gather thee round to snog and regale each other with tales of merriment before it all went to the dogs', there's a handfuls of 'oh yes it just ain't funny here anymore innit' responses then off they drift. Are these the 'funny and clever posters' that people yearn after

A small hoof print shaped pavlova is the talk of my village.

of course it is squirrel

Around the time that I joined, there were a lot of threads about a group of original posters called "moldies" who had set up their own closed forum as they were unhappy with the direction newer posters were taking MN in. As an outsider, I thought it send to be causing a lot of angst. I remember wondering how high an opinion of themselves these departees must have, and tbh if that's the way they felt, then it's good that they were leaving.
Maybe new posters think the same of me and others on this thread?
It does feel like MN isn't a good place to be around. The trolls and the sex threads are to be avoided but these days there doesn't seem to be much else going on.

Time to move on? My children have nearly grown up, so maybe I should??

I'm not sure how great a place it was in 2010 mind you, because that was when the "I agree with Nick" posters were on the ascendancy and you were not very welcome if you didn't agree with Nick!

PB simply made the site embarrassing. A bit like watching The only way is Essex, or reading Closer - you might do it, but you wouldn't want to admit it.

YANBU. Good thread.

I'd like to stay and chat but I have an array of jacket potatoes with prawns to get through then it's off to the village to dispense largesse at the organic greengrocer's.