Temp ban if you don't rtft

[ImAvingOops]

This isn't a TAAT, but it's a thread about lots of threads. Maybe I'm getting old and cranky and remembering the past through rose tinted specs, but were posters always so lazy when it comes to reading the thread?
If nothing else, people should read what the OP posts before jumping in with some half arsed comment that's either completely irrelevant, or has been addressed a million times already by the posters who did bother to read the thread!
I know threads can be long, but if you don't have time, just pick a shorter one to read.

AIBU to think that if posters don't rtft, and ask some fucking stupid question that they would already know the answer to if they'd bothered to read, they should get a two week posting ban?

I think we've all had times where we haven't read a whole thread and it is easy to miss stuff, but if you consistently not bother to read the OP's posts then what's the point of being on MN. Surely the reading is the good bit?

Of course it's to be encouraged.

Why do you think bans or restrictions are the answer though. This isn't facebook. Posters will just give up.

They'll be on the recent lists, first couple of pages only, because of someone replying recently. I don't go way back in the archives unless I'm looking for something specific, in which case I'll know it's old. But when a thread pops up today dated 27th October I'm liable to assume it was posted yesterday until something draws my attention to the year. It's saddening when that something is the name of a long-deceased poster, but cheering when it's an anniversary update of something happy or a bad situation that has been overcome.

If there’s an 18 page thread suddenly appear in Active that you’ve never noticed before it’s best to check the date it was started.

People have very differing views about zombie resurrection threads though. I never see one where it was worth it.

I suppose I thought that if a person couldn't post for a while, they would miss this and be inclined not to get a temp ban in future. Would maybe even rediscover the pleasure of just reading threads. MN is quite addictive so I don't believe posters would abandon the site permanently.

All of this. It’s got worse over the last few years.

And definitely this!

@SuspiciousHedgehog

No, it's NOT appropriate to lock a thread. We like to keep a thread running that our friend has started.

It's not appropriate for mumsnet to co-ordinate a new army of moderators to issue bans to the many posters who don't RTFT either.

We could have a ridiculous threads board, and this one could go in it

I’m with you, OP. And I’ve read all your updates, which really should be the minimum effort required for posting on a thread.

I'm happy to hold my hands up & say I much preferred MN when it was smaller & there was more of a small community feeling to it.

I have NO problem with the diversity of posters, we always had a diversity of contributors. I said it was a great place for debate & in those days you could actually argue properly & we did on one thread & agree on another

I said debate NOT 'all agree'.

Those who want a cosy get together can begin a new message board of their own

Alternatively those who can't be bothered to read posts & engage brains, just post their opinions without reading the facts can use Twitter 🤷🏻‍♀️

When I joined MN people didn’t name change anywhere near as often. You could log in and recognise names and remember what you were chatting about the other day.
this presumably was perceived as cliquey but that’s just the way it was then.

It’s different now and there’s no going back. But some take this place way too seriously. It’s just people wasting time chatting in the internet.

I disagree. This site is powerful. It contributes to national debates. The bigger and more diverse the contributors, the better.

But not if they can’t be arsed to take the time to RTFT.

In hope of annoying the MN police

I just revived a 6 month old thread

On social class, of all things

😜

Really? Bit pointless.

Pointless seems to be the order of the day!

What's pointless is trying to control the behaviour of posters on a forum.

We’ll you can’t control anything on MN that much is true.

I don't mind if you revive and old thread. You have my permission

😂Haha I can feel and see the rage on here already!

And definitely this!

Yes! And the people who will angrily say something like "Well, as OP hasn't bothered to tell us XXX" when it's right there, clear as day, in the OP! Some will even accuse OP of drip-feeding when OP later repeats what was originally there for the hard of thinking!

They remind me of little babies whose tiny undeveloped brains tell them that, if they can't see something or somebody, that means it doesn't exist Babies can't know any better, but adults on MN are without excuse if they're deliberately avoiding using their eyes.

I've been quite active on the other thread about tipping - tipping in general and also the OP's highly ungracious and (most of us believe) unreasonable way of trying to make a point.

Every time the discussion moves on and people expand and bounce off their own perspectives on the developing conversation, responding and giving reasoning (remember that?) as to why they see something one way or another, somebody pops up at regular intervals to plop "People who don't tip are just tightwads!"

Presumably, they've ignored all of the nuance and the multifaceted discussion and come on to 'inform' everybody that, in their infallible opinion, what they say is the 'correct' solution to a black-and-white issue that nobody else could ever have thought of.

They remind me of those tiresome kids at school who would meet every situation by shouting "Your mum!!!" and assume that it made them Stephen Hawking.

I'm not sure I a 2 week ban is appropriate but I wish there was some way of at least discouraging non thread-reading posters. I've been guilty of it as a newbie but I know better now and don't post unless I have RTFT, most useful suggestions will have been made within the first 20 or so posts.

The thread that sticks in my mind is a relatively recent one where the OP was asking if she was BU to not attend her brother's not so child-free wedding in "the arse end of nowhere". She'd repeatedly explained why the various suggestions of how to get there weren't viable (it being the arse-end of nowhere) only to have posters who'd apparently never been outside the M25 digging in and getting quite nasty along the lines of"you're making excuses and obviously hate your brother, do him a favour and stay away". If I recall, the OP was totally vindicated as it turned out other kids were at the wedding.

Maybe there could be some sort of algorithm that picks up if cancel the cheque; get a taxi; just move, etc come up more than twice a message pops up at the top of the thread.

I'd say yes IF the app could be brought up to 21st century. On my laptop its really easy to "see all" ops posts etc but there's no function for that on my phone. Plus it takes ages to update so you think you're the 4th poster to reply then by the time you've posted your message about 50 people have made the same suggestion and OP has already come back and said why it wont work so you look like a muppet!

Agree there's no excuse for not reading the very first post properly though!

@Mochudubh I remember that one - it was infuriating!

New posters will make MN faux pass more frequently. They wont get chance to be hooked in before they are banned and think 'sod this'.

With some of the posters in here, irate, vigilant, MN regulates itself in this way, with the unofficial moderation of internet busybodies