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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

To want your input over whether to cancel mumsnet premium over this?

84 replies

agonyauntie2020 · 26/05/2020 02:21

Note, this is not about whether or not you agree with paying for mumsnet premium, there are plenty of threads on that (just search on premium). I have loved and benefited from mumsnet (mostly humour) for years, and was happy to pay when told they needed help.

I noted as part of the debate on premium posters talking about MNHQ having 100 employees and a huge monthly wages budget (despite very few updates ever being made to the site) and questions about what those employees were all doing. I didn't think much of it. I don't know what goes into maintaining a site like this and I posted that I trusted MNHQ to make their own business decisions/no-one could have predicted COVID-19 and subscribed.

Watching my words carefully now, because this is not intended to be a thread about a thread (TAAT) and therefore subject to deletion by MNHQ.

Recently, I got very invested in two threads. Please, no-one post speculation about which ones or MNHQ will delete this thread. I gave a lot in terms of emotional support on one of them. I then found out from posts that were swiftly deleted by MNHQ that they weren't genuine, and that MNHQ had known that for a good while. I can't say more, because spelling out the details has been given as a reason by MNHQ for their insta-deletions of posts and threads on this.

I read a theory that some of the highly addicting threads with frequent updates are actually started and maintained by MNHQ employees as part of their job to keep traffic up on the site/appeal to advertisers etc.

I have not been able to get this out of my head. If I'd read this a few months ago I would have thought "paranoid, much?" and laughed, but now I keep wondering...

YABU = Don't be stupid. MNHQ employees don't manufacture threads and then swiftly delete posts that draw attention to trolls/non-genuine OPs for that reason? Don't listen to the cynical posts. Don't cancel premium for this reason.

YANBU = Yes they might be doing this. Deleting TAATs is a good excuse for them to use, along with troll-hunting. They care about ads and they don't care if you give your time and emotional energy to fake posters. Cancel premium. It's not the site you thought it was (sob).

OP posts:
CovidicusRex · 26/05/2020 02:26

I’d be more inclined to pay if they’re writing good threads. I don’t care whether Mexican house theif is true or not, I enjoyed it regardless. Also, that would be such a fun job!

safariboot · 26/05/2020 02:32

Why would Mumsnet pay staff to write stories when visitors will write all sorts of stuff, real and fake, for free?

Original poster
agonyauntie2020 · 26/05/2020 02:37

I actually commented in response to one of the posts that if a MNHQ employee was responsible for the thread she would make a good novelist/writer because it was gripping.

But then it started to bother me. I wouldn't mind about the funny threads like Mexican house thief, because often it's not just the OP, it's the questions and the follow up posts that make it even funnier.

But on the threads where the OP seems vulnerable and everyone wades in with their best advice and help, and you feel for the OP, and worry about them, and take ages to carefully write any help or advice you can offer, it feels like a big let down to find out oh that was fake and MNHQ knew... a waste of your mental energy.

OP posts:
Rockbird · 26/05/2020 02:37

I agree with Covidicus. I subscribe and am not really bothered who starts a thread. I don't tend to get caught up in the very heavy threads so I don't get emotionally involved. I just like a bit of a gossip so if MNHQ are putting some of them out there it doesn't matter to me. Not sure it's true though.

bruffin · 26/05/2020 02:41

Covidicusrex, but would you really get invested in a thread if you knew it was made up?

LiveAndLetLiveWorld · 26/05/2020 02:41

highly addicting threads with frequent updates are actually started and maintained by MNHQ employees as part of their job

It’s well known. A company called LiveWorld help plenty of websites with this, including moderating or instigating threads on forums on the big ones like the colourful four letter online selling platform, the blue icon biggest social media platform in the world, ...

Your own corporate firm probably uses LiveWorld.

Maybe MN can’t afford LiveWorld so do it themselves Wink

Breastfeedingworries · 26/05/2020 02:44

There’s so many different stories every day, not sure why they’d pay someone while people are posting for free.... whoever it is that sets up the Playmobile should be paid though as they’re amazing. Grin

RobuxBriberyIsMyLifeNow · 26/05/2020 02:49

In the early days of the site the threads were home produced iirc.
I have often wondered when traffic was slow on here, who was zombie-ing threads all over. Not sure whether threads are being actively created but we all know how long clearly bs ones stay up for and why.

managedmis · 26/05/2020 02:54

I pretty much just imagine that it's all fake anyway? Surely it all is, these days

Thepigeonsarecoming · 26/05/2020 02:58

Wait, are you a Mumsnet employee and have made this thread up for traffic. Is this like a reverse to see if we’ll support and continue to pay??? Or just reverse psychology?

(Shit are you actually an alien even....tin foil hat time 😂)

ilovesooty · 26/05/2020 03:00

I don't see why it would affect whether you want to subscribe.

Leaannb · 26/05/2020 03:00

YOu are definitely not being unreasonable. An American site did exactly that. Paid members to troll the site to keep views up. It went bankrupt about 2 years ago. It was started by Andrew Shue

BakedCam · 26/05/2020 03:07

OP,

I'm not sure why that would affect whether you pay for a Premium Service.

If it doesn't sit comfortably with you, just cancel the subscription.

Original poster
agonyauntie2020 · 26/05/2020 03:37

Thepigeonsarecoming hehehehe I wish I'd thought to say "by the way this isn't a reverse" in my OP.

PPs: It affects my decision to subscribe or not because I (perhaps naively given a couple of the responses) tend to believe the heart-rending threads and expend emotional and cognitive energy on replying. If these are in fact bullshit made up threads, I feel fooled and like my time was wasted, and mumsnet is not what I thought it was.

OP posts:
TehBewilderness · 26/05/2020 03:48

I thought it was common knowledge that the admin team are also content providers.

DramaAlpaca · 26/05/2020 04:06

I know exactly which two threads you mean, OP. Don't worry, I won't spill the beans. I was pissed off about it too.

They were certainly made up threads, of course they were, but I've no idea whether MN staffers started them. I shouldn't think they would need to these days, there are plenty of fictional threads as it is.

I don't invest in threads like that and didn't post on either of them. I take the view that if they sound unbelievable it's because they are. I read them for a bit of light relief, but I don't bother posting on a thread if I'm suspicious about it for any reason.

I really enjoy MN, have done for years, but I don't like being taken for a fool which is why I treat lots of threads as not genuine when perhaps they actually are.

So, OP, I get what you are saying. I'm still weighing up whether or not to subscribe - I think I might when the promised extra features appear, but not yet.

LovingitlikeTHIS · 26/05/2020 05:00

I'd say most if not all of the threads that people get 'invested' in are made up. I doubt that it's by MNHQ though.

LovingitlikeTHIS · 26/05/2020 05:03

There is a problem with MNHQ deleting for troll-hunting but not deleting the trolls though. And that could possibly be due to the fact they're good business for the site. There have been too many threads allowed to run and run with numerous reports made but MNHQ drag their feet about deleting them.

CoRhona · 26/05/2020 05:05

Dramatic, much? Hmm

TheAlphaandtheOmega · 26/05/2020 05:10

If you are not fully happy why pay, it's not compulsory, just use the free website like the majority of other posters.

Aridane · 26/05/2020 05:22

Posting for deletion message and / or MNHQ comment

Trevsadick · 26/05/2020 05:24

There was a thread yesterday, about a poster who posted 2 threads that have been very dramatic. Some people said it was a troll. Mn deleted the thread, for being a taat. The deletion message said 'yes it was a troll. This thread is a taat so it's being deleted'

Oddly the threads they say are by a troll, they are leaving up. I emailed and asked (due to the content of the troll thread) and was told its not a troll.

When i pointed out they confirmed it was they have ignored it.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I was really shocked at the stuff they left up things with complete lies. Things that were making people worry needlessly and factually wrong.

I am guessingbthe traffic tgese threads being is beneficial. On the one hand I get it, anything that brings traffic to the site is good. But its always been that way

Let's be honest, thread appearing the daily mail are good for mumsnet as a business. It is a business. Not a public service, but I think some stuff they have done lately has been sketchy.

Thankfully, I think its going more back to how it was.

Chicchicchicchiclana · 26/05/2020 05:29

I'm a very cynical old Mumsnetter but I don't think MN employees are being paid to plant troll stories on the boards.

I have seen non-genuine posts (eg. planted questions in web chats) but not whole threads, I don't think.

SmileyFaceSadFace · 26/05/2020 05:37

This is nothing new. My Aunt's first job in the 70s, at the biggest red top newspaper in Scotland at the time, was to make up false "reader's letters" for the Agony Aunt page.

I would love this job :D

nettie434 · 26/05/2020 05:59

I don't know agonyauntie2020 but I think it must already take a lot of time for the MN staff to moderate the threads to check nothing is defamatory or libellous. I think that would be enough work for anyone but I was unaware of the examples given of websites where this is done so I might be ultra naive.

When I have seen deleted posts, it is sometimes people putting links to their own business websites. There was a thread I followed the other night where someone posted inaccurate information and then started making negative comments to the poster.

As for the 'huge monthly wages budget', we all cost employers more than our actual salaries because of employer National Insurance or pension contributions and training costs or equipment. Of course this will change as more people work from home and pay their own broadband or heating. I expect ideas about a reasonable wages bill are like one of those threads where someone says they spend £75 per week on food shopping for a family of 4 and replies range from 'you are literally force feeding your family' to 'my hampers cost £500 per week but they are all organic'.

I am not very good at spotting dodgy threads though so am not perhaps in the best position to advise you.