Why is this?

[spottybitch]

I read many threads where op asks for experiences of others and thread is a long list of experiences posted and everybody ignores experiences or others or it's a discussion thread and again everybody posts their own view and ignores the others unless it's aibu and there's the chance for a bunfight

Is nobody on MN interested in anybody else? It seems like people want to have their say and not have interest in others

@Cassilis

I totally understand what you mean, OP. I think you get so used to most people not responding to your posts, even though you try and acknowledge others’ posts, that you sort of give up and just answer the OP and not bother acknowledging many others.

The other thing is many posters only acknowledge posters that they perceive to be long standing members of MN. Unfortunately MN is not immune to popularity contests.

I'll give an example for those not understanding - say a thread asks for experiences of a particular subject. You post your experiences and it is ignored by all. Another poster comes along and posts the same experiences and gets lots of replies. It happens time and time again. Or you join in a discussion in chat or a thread about a specific hobby and again your contributions are ignored yet other people make the same point and get answered by several other posters. People just are not interested.

Well, people sometimes respond to my posts but mostly don't. That's fine. Other people have their own lives and don't exist just to validate me. I post because I'm interested in a discussion or I have a point of view which might be interesting /helpful to some. But that doesn't mean that other people will necessarily think that my contribution is worth reading, let alone commenting on!

People really don't owe you a response. And if there were too many responses then the threads would be in danger of getting circular and dull.

Well clearly they are interested if they’re responding to someone else saying the same thing. It’s just that for whatever reason, the other person’s post resonated more, it’s more succinctly put, it has some humour in it, or it’s the first one to say the same thing, or the most recent one, or they don’t like the username of one poster because it has numbers in it, or they don’t want to refer to someone as a spotty bitch, so they refer to the other poster with a more pleasant username etc.

There could be a myriad of reasons I’ll reply to one post and not another. Most often because I have a life, so I’m not glued to MN 24 hours a day (usually just 23 or so ) so I may reply to a message that pops up while I’m online, but may have missed one that came up saying the same thing while I was making dinner etc

I certainly don’t have a posse of MN originals that I’m friends with and deem worthy of a response.

On long running threads this can definitely be an issue eg there dating threads, where everyone has invested heavily in each other’s experiences for years and newbies often get overlooked, but I don’t see that on any of the regular threads.

I'll give an example for those not understanding - say a thread asks for experiences of a particular subject. You post your experiences and it is ignored by all. Another poster comes along and posts the same experiences and gets lots of replies. It happens time and time again. Or you join in a discussion in chat or a thread about a specific hobby and again your contributions are ignored yet other people make the same point and get answered by several other posters. People just are not interested.

That's the luck of the draw on any very large internet forum I guess. But they are interested otherwise they wouldn't reply to anyone.

Perhaps you could join one of the regular threads where people tend to get to 'know' one another and are a bit more chatty?

OP, a lot of people have commented that they found your initial post difficult to read and understand. So perhaps the lack of responses which you describe could be something to do with your writing style?

@spottybitch

I read many threads where op asks for experiences of others and thread is a long list of experiences posted and everybody ignores experiences or others or it's a discussion thread and again everybody posts their own view and ignores the others unless it's aibu and there's the chance for a bunfight

Is nobody on MN interested in anybody else? It seems like people want to have their say and not have interest in others

Well it's usually because it has dawned on most people that the OP is a journo fishing for material for their next article, and the rest are only interested in sharing their own experience of whatever it is.

The OP rarely returns to that sort of thread with their own opinion/experience either.

I agree @WorraLiberty, I’m not in the same wavelength as some of the opposition here. I don’t want a site full of tickers and random shit clogging everything up but there are subtle ways to include ‘likes’.

I was always mystified by the push back against a quoting function and now it’s here it’s fine (and I note well used!).

@spottybitch you went onto the thread of someone who was thinking of getting a Xmas themed fabric mask, and called them tacky. Maybe that’s why you’re finding it hard to get people to engage with you?

I think this happens because nobody can read pages and pages and pages in each thread. So they reply to the OP. Or to one of the latests posters, even if you had said something similar just a few posts back.
Hopefully it will be of any use to the OP or to those that can engage in discussions without a bunfight involved or being utterly unpolite to other posters.

[quote Cocomarine]@spottybitch you went onto the thread of someone who was thinking of getting a Xmas themed fabric mask, and called them tacky. Maybe that’s why you’re finding it hard to get people to engage with you? [/quote]
Yes, I called xmas masks tacky. Heaven forbid that anybody ever expressed an opinion on Mumsnet

I saw your 'tacky' comment too, @spottybitch.

It completly missed to tone of the thread.

Post like that, and people will think you're dickish, goady, and not worth engaging with.

OMG! I had no idea Xmas face masks were even a thing!

I've just told my family I'm ordering them for all of us

@WorraLiberty it doesn’t surprise me that they’re a thing, but I can’t thought about them... now: WANT! Must have Xmas photo of 2020, to show the grandchildren later

[quote Cocomarine]@WorraLiberty it doesn’t surprise me that they’re a thing, but I can’t thought about them... now: WANT! Must have Xmas photo of 2020, to show the grandchildren later [/quote]
I've just ordered some

I haven’t seen the other thread but it’s poor form to derail OP’s thread just because she doesn’t like Xmas masks.

MN = mean nanas