AIBU to wonder why mumsnet is so quiet these days!

[filettodipesce]

It's such a disappointment, what has happened?

Perhaps because everything ends up in the Daily Mail 😬😅

Just looked and four of the five threads I was watching are deleted.
(Could be that I watch them because I think they're going that way, tho 😬)

Also, there seems to be much less humour here, these days. Less fun.

Delete …delete…delete

I actually don’t bother reading that many anymore.

Because they delete most of the interesting threads so people don't bother getting invested.

OP do you work for Mumsnet by any chance?

Yes, It is a rare thread I find actually engaging and/or amusing these days - which seems to be an automatic cue for thread deletion.

Ah OK, this is a disingenuous ‘something’s changed and I don’t like it’ thread.
Op is right though, I’d never have gotten back to threads I’d already clicked into before. There’s a lot less funny threads and definitely no ‘my (insert random thing eg fridge!) went missing over the night and I live alone, what happened?’ thread!!

I blame the upgrades. It's so slow and unwieldy since then I don't post as much as I used to.

I don't find it quiet at all. It's like to contribute to a lot more threads than I do... There are too many that catch my attention and I simply don't have the time - I have other things to do in life but every day I can easily find lots of interesting threads.

Google killed mumsnet

Olaf and the parking thread, Sistine chapel, snapped and farted are more recent classics but still quite a while ago now

Steak cut chips?

wokeism and everyone is ready to react to any perceived slight , there were a few threads on here this week where people kept trying to hammer a round peg into a square hole to suit a belief/cause/agenda/projection/societal issue - everyone who disagrees with a point of view is either, racist, phobic about something, fuelled by hate, thick or a troll etc.etc. but conversely there are several threads which are obviously written by hired writers to keep the boards active, they are easy to spot. There were 2 major examples of this in the past year, 2 threads that meandered on forever but both provided almost real-time updates, until the plonker who wrote them had a name change fail. That kind of ended the charade for me anyway. I prefer reddit these days.

Yep!
Mumsnet is shite!
I genuinely rarely bother. A few mad fits and spurts (like today and yesterday), but clearly there are some ‘socially conscious’ 🙄 mods who are too quick to delete.

So very trite and just plain boring.

For me:

• many threads which sound like they could be interesting end up being obviously goady/trolly with 1 post by the OP and a couple of hundred frothy replies saying the same thing. Which are eventually deleted anyway.

• many which actually would be interesting are ruined by people not RTFT properly or at all and posting irrelevant crap or something really bitchy, followed by a dozen posters yelling and an argument ensuing.

I still enjoy some subject specific topics which are close to my heart but the general conversation boards are rarely rewarding these days.

Exactly this.

It is very quiet. The Trending topics are often two or three days old with under 200 posts. I think it's

-The weather/season
-The update
-The constant deletions (I am less interested in getting involved in threads than I ever have before)
-The tunnel-vision ideology
-The general Mumsnet reputation

I have been here for years. When the last upgrade happened I didn’t like a lot of the changes for my user experience so I’m on here so much less now.

Maybe people have started taking heed of advice on here and are all at a spa day?

Sadly there will be loads of people who will be delighted to think this.

I think there are some bots and trolls and tabloids taking stories isn't great. I don't think covid helped much. It really dominated such a lot of Mumsnet. Maybe people have quite recovered their ordinary lifestyles? Cost of living crisis probably doesn't help with that.

*haven't quite recovered

This.

I dip in and out to read threads, but have given up trying to post and keep on top of threads. It’s painful, pointless and a waste of time.

Maybe everyone has better things to be doing.

I can only dream of such a life!

I've always found too much time on social media adversely affects my mental health and certainly life productivity. Was so addicted to it though ten + years ago but feel like I've grown up a bit or got over it and don't post as much and would rather focus on real life matters. Perhaps others feel the same.

My conspiracy theory is that the early humour and language and posting style was a specific organic thing that arose from early posters when the site was small, but it had lots of unwritten rules and codes and in-jokes and a few ‘royalty’ posters and lots of long-standing recognisable user names. All of which MN HQ probably found potentially off-putting to scaling the site up for huge numbers of users.

So I think HQ broke that original culture on purpose when attempting to scale up the site to attract more ad revenue and more users. Name changers = multiple usernames = the appearance of a greater number of regular users. New users arriving = a greater number of regulars.

The Daily Mail trawling (which I’m sure was actively encouraged at least at first by MNHQ ) brought in the Mail’s angry BTL commenters and that really changed the atmosphere.

Also things like Gordon Brown coming on here and not being able to choose a favorite biscuit being reported as a news item, plus the mainstream media nicknaming a general election around that time, the ‘Mumsnet’ election, would have brought in new posters from all over the place, to see what it was all about.

Penis Beaker etc hitting the Mail brought in a big influx of new people so the old people felt the culture had changed on the site back then- then the horrible swatting and data breaches and Jeffrey taking over the site and it shutting down for a few days made it too scary to stay on here for a lot of posters. It definitely put people off keeping the same username for any length of time so we stopped feeling like we recognise each other’s names.

Since the site got a name for being a big forum it has been targeted by people doing free market research on us, paid posters doing product placement, paid people just generally here for work, testing stuff out for free. Not just normal women posting any more.

It was really grim for that here in the run up to Brexit with endless bots and paid shills in droves arguing pro-Brexit points (just calling remainers names usually). Still see a bit of that type of poster around on some threads. The heavy use of ban hammer on the feminism boards deterred a lot of women and is another example of HQ deliberately shaping the posting culture.

MN used to reflect and maintain the original culture and style with their choice of mods, who wrote fun weekly highlight emails in the old-style site vernacular. I remember the funny weekly round up emails from Aitch. Now it’s an edited highlights email with no comment around it. Neutral to the reader seems to have been the preferred corporate personality for several years now. It is a bit Magnolia paint and that definitely changes the vibe.

We’re maybe some of us a bit older and grumpier since we first arrived? I am anyway! But I still like the site and have learned a lot from posters. I am curious to know where all the old posters are now though…

I believe its due to the oppressive moderation in order to conform to a strict left wing ideology. The talk guidelines are merely lipservice and free speech is stifled under the guise that grown adults would be offended. Some of the comments I see removed I feel like I'm on an infants board, I've even had my own comments removed a couple of times for merely stating facts, just because someone else doesn't like them!

No meaningful conversation or debate about ANY controversial or difficult topic can take place without SOMEONE being offended by the very nature of the topic and variety of views, so an echo chamber ensues where everyone agrees with everyone and when someone posts re: a controversial topic all views must conform to the left wing narrative or they're simply removed due to a triggered left winger.

I use MN on my phone, and the window for posting is really small. It puts me off posting sometimes because I can barely see what I'm typing. And like a PP, I don't want my comments appearing in the online tabloid press, so that puts me off commenting on the obvious contenders for that.