To think MN is at risk of becoming a Mean Girls bitchfest

[Sparklfairy]

Flame me if you want, but I've been shocked lately at how OPs are being attacked when they post on here.

This isn't a TAAT, it's a general trend of spewing vitriol and being downright nasty in the name of being 'blunt' or 'telling it like it is'.

MN was always the place we could go for honest opinions and different points of view. A fantastic support when people are caught up in bad relationships and can't see the wood from the trees or a way out.

More commonly though I see a pack mentality developing where one poster will make a snide comment and then others pile in. It's no better than playground bullying. Reminds me of mean girls. If you don't write a certain way, use the 'right' MN terms, if you're new and don't know the right MN etiquette yet, and god forbid you don't use perfect grammar, then somehow you don't fit in here and therefore deserve to be called names, mocked and bullied by strangers.

People post on forums like these, especially when new here, when theyre out of options. They don't want to or can't talk to people in RL and want to reach out. I know how it feels to be horribly isolated in a shitty situation and if I'd posted here and received half the abuse I've seen on some threads it could well have pushed me over the edge.

I love reading threads where a woman has got out of a shitty relationship as a result of the support she's read here. But when she's at her lowest, a few shitty comments attacking her for no reason can stop that happening.

By all means, say what you think. But name calling doesn't help. If you have advice, offer it, but berating someone's life choices is simply kicking someone when they're down because you can. And that makes you no better than the bastards some of these women are married to/partnered with.

And before anyone says 'if you don't like MN then leave'. If I did that there would be fewer of us to call this shit out.

Well I think we can agree that those posters are not trying to help.

Instead of starting thread after thread on this subject and indeed taat just bloody show the buggers up on the thread. If everyone does that it will eventually shut the twats amongst us down.

Kittenbittenmitten, people can not receive any kind of meaningful education from Mumsnetters sending them unsolicited inboxes, correcting their spelling and grammar.

Yes, people get judged on SPAG but the onus is for the dick heads to stop doing it and to just scroll past.

The onus is not on the poor person who came to MN looking for advice.

I find it very amusing when a pedant whinges at a poster for SPAG buts makes a few grammatical errors in their own post.
Haa pot kettle black

And they always, always do Portia. The law of Muphry. Even funnier when I say that and they come back at me going "ho ho, I think you mean Murphy". Not quite as clever as they think. That's when I like to point it out to them.
This thread has heartened me actually.
So, just look out for a badly spelled OP and get ready to call out the smug fuckers sitting on their hands on the thread.
They've driven the old-timers away from Pedants as well. We used to talk about quirky bits of language there but now there's thread after thread of obnoxious posters taking the piss out of others.

I've been on MN for about fourteen years and really don't think it has changed much - AIBU has always been gritty whereas Relationships is incredibly caring and helpful. We get threads like this virtually monthly but never know quite what you're trying to achieve and let's be honest, people are obviously not going to change their posting style because you don't like it. So your choice is to limit yourself to boards other than AIBU. Problem solved.

We really don't need you to 'call this shit out' we are all adults who are capable of deciding for ourselves.

So what happened with the obnoxious thread over the weekend? Did it get deleted or just the posters who picked on the spag errors?

Ah yes Muprhy Canterbury I know what that is and yes quite agree, it reminds me of one of my Gran's favourite sayings which is
" You are not qualified to criticise me unless you are perfect yourself"
Very apt!

And if someone says the sky is blue here, there will ALWAYS be a poster who says it is yellow and everyone else is crazy for saying it is blue. 😕

I don’t mind the blunt posters. There’s a few that spring to mind that I usually agree with on a thread. They’re not mean or nasty but they don’t particularly mince their words. In fact someone on this thread is pretty forthright in her responses, matter of fact and takes no crap.

"Who here has been personally victimised by AIBU?"

The thread from the weekend is still kicking around.

PinkGlitter123
That's quite true.

I like the ones where it's:

1. Poster expresses irritatation at antisocial and inconsiderate noise in public places eg. Music from phones, tablets for kids on full volume, kids running around screaming in costa
2. Some MN posters will insist that there's nothing inconsiderate at all in playing Peppa pig to the whole room for 2 hours and kids are kids so why shouldn't they play in a cafe, and anyone who says otherwise is clearly a bitch who has perfect kids.

Or a series of behaviours are totally understandable from a woman, but even one moment of one behaviour from a man makes him abusive or controlling or a cheat.

Women snoops through man's phone - trust your instincts hun, no smoke without fire
Man snoops through woman's phone - LTB he's betrayed your trust

Woman polices who man speaks to and doesn't like female friends - pat on the back for standing up for herself, he clearly wants to sleep with female friend, female friend is obviously a cool girl,ignore anyone who says mixed sex friendships are ok because they're cool wives.

Man says he's unhappy with male friend from work and tries to police friendship - He's controlling you and has no right to dictate your friendships. Get out. It's a red flag.

It happens all the time.

The thread from the weekend is still kicking around

Are you going to give me a clue then?

Unfortunately people on MN don't seem to realise that there are two ways of saying something and will therefore always say it in a manner that requires them to belittle and degrade the OP for daring to ask a question.

If said OP then calls out these people, they are told that they are getting defensive and are hounded beyond belief. Wouldn't anyone be defensive towards a pack of bitches wolves?!

OP, YABVU to think MN is at risk of becoming a Mean Girls bitchfest. It already is a Mean Girls bitchfest.

Having just read what I think is a thread referred to, I’m not only cringing at the posters pulling up on SPaG, but then the ones patronising the OP for “taking it in such good part”.

Utterly gauche.

Theres bad shit on here no doubt but there's worse on Tattle and they're downright stalkery to boot. That said, in real life 16 year old me was told to kill myself repeatedly so this is all small fry in comparison

Fyi - I endorse none of the behaviours one seen in my post - just giving some context to my opinio

It's nicer than Twitter!

Which one was that, at the weekend?

I’ve been here for 15 years it was always thus

I've read some threads and have seen the poor thread starter getting a right verbal kicking, even when they've said that they felt crap before starting the thread, and felt even worse as the thread had progressed. Kicking someone while they're down isn't nice. I personally think it speaks volumes about the people that behave in such a way. Surely if you can't think of anything constructive to add then why bother? Just to make someone feel worse? It's just nasty.

Totally agree OP, some women post on here at their most vulnerable, bewildered, frightened, confused, especially in the case of those in abusive relationships, it sickens me how cruel some people on here can be, what has happened to women supporting women, it’s really sad and, not that this matters at all, but it’s really off putting to me and I am almost at point of leaving MN behind, there would have been a time when I missed coming on here but not anymore, it’s way too bitchy and critical now

Some posters enjoy being cruel. They dress it up as bluntness and honesty but they're just cunts. I can recognise certain posters now even after they NC, but the truly cunty ones are a very small minority.

IRL I think they're the posters most unlikely to say boo to a goose.

I definitely feel I moderate myself more on MN to ensure something I post can't be twisted/taken out of context. I'd rather err on the side of being nice/supportive than risk upsetting anyone; we are all humans with feelings behind the keyboard warriors (except the ones with hairy hands).

I don’t think that there should be a warning on AIBU to say that if people don’t want to be ripped apart they should post elsewhere.

There are some threads where you don’t pile in regardless of where they are posted. Woman in abusive relationship for instance doesn’t deserve to be criticised just because she’s posted in AIBU and then told that if she didn’t want to be criticised she should have posted in relationships.

If you go to a nice pub down the road and get talking to a person down on their luck you would presumably be nice to that person, but if you encountered that same person in a rough pub would you call them a cunt and blame them for not going to the posh place? Of course you wouldn’t. The internet is no different.

But actually I think that a lot of the critical posts on here are valed troll hunting. HQ are fairly hot on actual troll hunting these days, so if posters suspect that an OP is a troll, rather than call it out on the thread they resort to personal attacks which mean the thread gets derailed until such times as the OP is outed as a troll and the thread is deleted. And then they can pretend that they never said anything because the thread has gone.

Except that sometimes those posters won’t be trolls, iyswim.

People disagree - that is normal. Posts need to be short and the thread moves fast so subtlety goes out the window,

I have had to apologise for posts which sounded alright as a reply to the point above but sounded completely different in the new context

Too much black and whiteness means bullying is assumed just because someone tries to put a different point of view. And there is a perceived "acceptable" persona. (OP is assuming one in this thread). Read the posts, disagree if you want, hide the thread if it bothers you but don't try to police everyone else.

And not everyone should necessarily be "supported" in their chosen course of action