To think mumsnet has become a lot less popular?

[Duckypoohs]

Is it just me who thinks the volume of threads and replies has lessened? It used to be so busy and good, now you can reread a thread and hardly any more replies have been posted.

I'm sad about this, the Internet is becoming more and more condensed. It also seems like the demographic has shrank. Bah, sad times.

I think the reputation Mumsnet has got for being intolerant is probably deserved.

Not necessarily with this but yes many people on here are so polarized with their views.

@Hottubtimemachine

The sun made an article out of one of my posts. It was horrible, it ran for days with hundreds of comments on their Facebook page that were judge and nasty. I rarely post now and would never start a thread.

I think this sort of thing has killed it off. Who would post worrying it’s going to viral? It’s put me off posting anything sensitive. And yeah of course it was always public but threads didn’t get put in the other news sites like they are now!

It's so much more aggressive than it used to be.

It seems to have attracted a different demographic and much of the intelligent and quick witted posts are shouted down by posters who don't have a wit at all.

I think there was a sharpness and acerbic tone to MN of yore, and there has always been a certain element of a bossy middle class tone there.

But posters try to emulate that by just being as rude as possible. I have to be fair though and say usually MNHQ will delete posts that are just unpleasant for the sake of it. The problem is posters react and the thread turns into that. It’s better to ignore and report.

I miss laughing. Everyone is just so serious and will take offence at any attempt to have a laugh or some joy.

Like some who swear those on the Autumn threads enjoying the colder weather are the spawn of the devil because other people have problems during the colder months and enjoy the opposite, with threads of their own

We should all be miserable then because I doubt there's a single situation you can be in where someone else doesn't have it worse.

I don't recognise this impression at all. As a PP said, perhaps it is slow if you are looking for entertainment?
I still find MN a great place for seeking advice and reflecting on issues brought to the forum's attention by other posters, on any number of fascinating topics. The wealth of information, advice and anecdotal evidence is phenomenal; you don't even need to start your own thread about most things, you can literally search any obscure, niche predicament, and learn that others have trodden that path before you, which is, in itself, reassuring.
I find MN as a community a place of generosity and mutual respect, and failing that, at least good humour. The kindness of strangers who take the time to support, encourage and commisserate with others in need is heart-warming. The only place where people tend to come unstuck is climate related discussions, where climate sceptics tend to behave as they do in all other corners of the internet.

Posts like this response are a prime example and make me frustrated. Fairly sure that the poster didn't actually mean they were going go to abandon the internet forever and just read books. Posters not understanding simple posts from others leaves me with a divided feeling rather than a feeling of togetherness.

Books it is then. Ah well the Internet was fun for a bit.

1. ^seems a bit extreme
2. why not both? Amused at the idea that books are an alternative to being online^

Quite a lot of argumentative pile ons don't encourage posting. Or make people think twice before commenting I'd say.

@Dragonpox

I think a lot of people switched off when the covid hysteria hit hard. Real life was nothing like as hostile as Mumsnet. It felt bizarrely unsupportive around homeschooling for example - if you complained that you were suffering because overnight you'd become a teacher, a 7yo's best friend, a mother, full time employee, and your house was looking like a squat you were swiftly shut down as a selfish cow killing grandmothers left right and centre.

This was a real life thing too!!
God please let us never have to go back to that hell!

@Hottubtimemachine

The sun made an article out of one of my posts. It was horrible, it ran for days with hundreds of comments on their Facebook page that were judge and nasty. I rarely post now and would never start a thread.

The idea if this puts me off starting new threads too.

@Ritasueandbobtoo9

I think it has gone back to how it was when it first started. There was a while when it seemed hostile as hot very cliquey - you got shot down for asking a breastfeeding question as it “had been done before”….not for me I needed help.

I agree there's an awful lot of shaming goes on. Some posters seem to scour the site for threads where they can almost boast about how amazing they are for not getting into the same situation as the OP.

But I have learnt tons from being on the site, about what constitutes poor relationships, legal issues, practical hacks etc.

It's a bit rarer that you get laugh out loud people threads. May be particularly because of the smuggos who chase them off.

I think that it has a reputation for being vehemently transphobic, and so anyone that doesn't align with that view won't sign up to MN on principle. I was chatting to a group of new mums a year or so ago when MN came up and this was the issue. Two of the mums were GC but said they'd browsed the feminism board and were shocked by the vitriol and intolerance shown towards supporters of trans rights.

I don't really go on the feminism board much, so I don't feel qualified to comment on what it's like, but rightly or wrongly, I do think that MN is now seen as an anti-trans site.

@AuntieStella

It's definitely slowed down, in the sense if fewer posts.

It's losing its identity - the distinctive lingo is vanishing, the 'outdated' platform has been tweaked for the sake of being the same across all deceived, which means the things you could see on Active on desktop, like who had posted last on a thread and when, have been removed, taking away a bit of that sense of community, because there's no easy way now to see who's about. And I don't get the idea that because you can't do it on a mobile, it should be gone everywhere.

And of course the amount of trolling is ridiculous, and deleted threads are these days expunged completely sometines - you can't see what happened from your TIO as sometimes they've gone from there too.

MNHQers no longer seem to join in threads from time to time (would we still know who had a crush on which film star?) and seem to exist only to tell us off - sometimes for long-term discussed and approved things for which policy has changed (fair enough) but if no-one tells us we don't know you don't like it any more. That might seem like a petty thing, but it shows a difference in MNHQ towards its content creators, and people don't like being taken for granted and being on the receiving end of uncommunucated changes.

Also, because the levels of trolling us so high, there is a (I think) an expectation that threads are not true. MN was never a safe space (no open Internet site is) but it used to be a place that it was worth taking your problems to. It's nit that any more either.

I'm still here because, despite all that, I still like the place better than many others. But it's a shadow of its former self

What is TIO please - I did google but got nothing.

I think it’s problem is how heavily censored it is. If you say anything that one of the pressure groups who seem to trawl the posts for something to report your post gets deleted, you get a PA note from admin who when challenged cannot justify their arbitrary position. Most people get pissed off and head somewhere else where they are allowed to have opinions outside the woke/remainer/corbynite/pro trans/Knee taking/Marxist agenda

I think mumsnet has become super polarised and toxic.

The site is difficult to navigate, hence the active conversations button.

The “active conversations” button means only the bun fights rise to the top. The focus becomes only the controversial stuff (like on Facebook, but here it is accidental). Which creates a toxic polarisation.

I do miss the good old days of funny stories and supportive content. The support is still here in some places, but you have to work hard, navigating the site to to find it.

It is rare to find a collaborative thread now, perhaps if someone’s child is sick, but even then you get bun fights about whether the parents should or shouldn’t be calling an ambulance.

I still love it.

Met some lifelong friends from when we were in an anti natal group back in 2010. We have met up, watched the babies grow up.

The feminists were eye opening for me, a lot of them have gone from MN now which is a shame but I followed them to secret underground feminist groups who organise direct action in real life. They have been an inspiration for me.

Love style and beauty and it has been responsible for many unnecessary purchases on my part.

@CarlaH

TIO ~ Threads I’m On…. A quick way to navigate the site.

about 2/3 weeks ago there was a poster who in their thread title used the word 'palava'. The word isn't used that much on here and was spelt wrong ... i.e. palaver. 2 hours later there was a second totally unrelated thread using the same word with the same misspelling. People are hired to put threads on here. Very obvious when particular posters have the same posting style and when OP's don't answer questions.

Been a Mumsnetter for over 10 years and found the site both entertaining and supportive.

@puddlebubble do you have any evidence that people are hired to post on Mumsnet ? Surely if they were, they would be reasonably literate ?We do occasionally see obvious trolling by the same poster over and over again and this is usually quickly reported and removed.

What is TIO please - I did google but got nothing
Threads I’m On, I think.

I found MN when DD was very tiny and a total bellend, and my NCT group was a bunch of anti-breastfeeding horrors who “sleep trained baby from day one, I don’t understand why you didn’t?” The sleep board was this wise, bosomy collective of advice, humour and kindness and I credit it with saving me from the teetering precipice of PND. There’s nowhere else quite like that board on the internet, I don’t think.

I’ve been trying to wean myself off MN though for the reasons that crop up in this thread; I find myself on a rotation of identical threads where the same arguments, often from the same posters, go the same way: Brexit, BF vs FF, Covid economy vs health, WFH, cause/solution to house prices, climate change. Over and over.

I wonder if it’s stagnating in part because life feels very stagnated right now for lots of people still, and also very difficult – there’s not a lot of joy to be had in a post-Brexit, supply crisis, UC cuts, inflated property market, Tory-led UK. No one’s eating fat balls or using a penis beaker in this economy.

There have been some threads recently which have provoked really interesting and long-running debates. MN is a bit like TK Maxx now. You have to search through lots of dross but you can still find some real gems. Depends what you’re looking for, I suppose.

I think its a lot better than the Queen Bee days. With the infantile in-jokes and cliques.

Penis beaker marked the start of the death. The demographic changed and not for the better. It used to be a fun place with witty and knowledgeable posters, now there are just too many dickheads sadly.

Depends on the board

S&B
Property
General health
Telly addicts are my homes

AIBU and Chat is full trolls and aggression

Also. I hate the fact that so many posts are really poorly written walls of text and I don’t even read those