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

[agonyauntie2020]

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).

Of course there are fake threads - as on every other website. Traffic = Income.

I've been a member here for a long time and still post but I do think that the site is well past it's use by date. It's almost become a parody.

I remember paying for the messaging service and was happy to do so back then. No chance I would pay for the premium service.

@MintyMabel

I wonder, if this is how you feel, why you bother to stay on Mumsnet? I'm sorry if that seems rude, but I just can't understand people who slag something off but then keep using it.

Is it not possible to dislike part of something but enjoy other aspects of it? Are you always so quick to dismiss something in its entirety just because there is part of it you don’t like?

There are things I seriously dislike about this site. But there is the odd gem that truely makes me laugh or occasional advice that is worth reading. For that, I think I'll stay for now and choose not to pay premium.

I can believe this.

Because no matter what MNHQ I do not believe that that many staff sit there looking for naughty people. Especially when the site is so poor in comparison to other sites functions.

It’s the ones that sound like they are conjured up for the DM. Two pretty much equal sides, highly improbable, op posts rarely.

Where else in the world do so many people bitch so much about something they get for free?

Personally, I would have considered paying premium.
I was on here for years up until the hack, I lost trust but then, with being stuck at home, thought I'd revisit sites I used to love, including MN.
I re-registered as my old one was deleted.

I posted on a couple of threads and started my own which was well debated but not anywhere near bunfight territory. I had one poster on a separate thread be an arse but that's the nature of online afterall.
After a few days I could no longer log in. I then saw my thread had been removed "due to the poster not being what they seem" and to "check behind the scenes their intentions".
I had received nothing. No email. Nothing. So I emailed and was told they felt I was a PBP or some other nonsense. I explained I had been a regular user until the hack never been banned or anything.
It took several days to plead my case as it were.
But I felt really let down as I was told multiple complaints had been made and I was racist and abusive, but knowing what MN is like people usually tell you they think that and I had had not one comment other than one poster who to be honest was an arse to lots of people.
I get that it's hard to police a huge site like this but that was mad! And I would imagine it's happened to others as there are many deletion messages the same.
What I want to know is if you pay but then troll do you get kicked and refunded? Because I think one thing levelled before at HQ was favouritism.

@HannaYeah

Where else in the world do so many people bitch so much about something they get for free?

I'll take the weather for $100, please Alex.

I think, by 'discussed' you mean 'speculated'?

No, I mean queried and confessed to.

My mistake for thinking it was common knowledge that they got caught.