I think mumsnet is no longer fit for purpose in the spirit it was meant to be.

[Tolstoysbackpack]

I’m wondering if anyone feels the same as me. It’s called ‘Mumsnet’ which makes you believe it’s a supportive place and a place to go for advice or give advice. Some tough love. It’s great because it’s anonymous. I think you have to take the OP in good faith. But I think a lot of threads now are not. I think the balance has tipped from a minority of arseholes being nasty to a majority.

the starting point seems to be for a lot of people that reply to OP’s is to catch them
out, purposefully misunderstand, find some gotcha flaw in their OP to exploit as if they are interviewing a suspect, give unsolicited stupid legal or medical advice and believe their word is important and must be heard, compare their circumstances to the OP’s which I can only interpret as trying to show off that their situation is better, stupid examples, obsessed with money and leafy areas, if you don’t have family to help in an emergency why don’t you? You loser, if it were me I would….., I can’t believe you don’t drive, get a better job. Why don’t you go private? It’s people like you that have the NHS on their knees. What is your DH doing? Mine would race to me and pick me up in his beefy loving arms and if he didn’t I would LTB, I don’t think you are telling the full story here OP. I don’t understand your OP? (When any adult can kind of get the gist) and they asking questions just to cause a bit of drama.

some people really do ask for help and they get ripped to spreads. What is even more insulting that a lot of these people don’t bother to read the thread, they just are compelled to reply. They don’t even bother to look if their comment had been answered, it’s like the internet equivalent of perpetuating kicking someone while they are payed on the ground. And they don’t care. A lot of these people also claim to be incredibly affluent, educated and in important jobs.

I used to use this website a lot, I have found amusement and good advice. I thought it was a positive place. I don’t understand why people feel compelled to fuck it up. If you don’t have anything to say just move on. No one is asking you personally, and how arrogant to assume they are.

in a couple of hundred years when we are all dead and gone I wonder what historians will make of us. How they will interpret a website that was positive turned so cruel.

Some people really do jump on threads just to tear people down, which is horrible to see. It seems they get a kick out of it. But most of the posters on here ARE supportive and at the end of the day you are going to clash with people on here sometimes but we all have very different lives and opinions

I know MN attracts MRA but my MRAdar isn't in full working order! what topics do they tend to post threads on?

I had this. When my DD was a really tiny newborn, we had a gas leak which caused carbon monoxide poisoning. All four of us were blue-lighted to hospital, she had oxygen readings of only 70% and (because I was more ill than DH), I was separated from the DCs. I didn’t want to wake up family for support and was all alone so I posted on here. Then, one nasty bitch know-it-all commented (incorrectly) that it’s not possible to get carbon monoxide poisoning from a gas leak and so mumsnet took the thread down and said it was by a “known troll”. So, I was left with no support in hospital and scared and worried about my DCs and it was made so much worse knowing so many people thought I had made the whole thing up! They didn’t even attempt to verify if it were true or email or contact me at all - and clearly didn’t even bother to google whether the whole basis for assuming I was a liar was correct or not.

Yes, exactly that. It’s an anonymous site so of course it’s going to have a bit a lot of traffic and trolling.

But the great thing about it anonymous is that you can ask anything. Yes it means people can reply saying things you don’t want to hear. But they seem to think they have the right to be as nasty as they like. And they take of advantage of the anonymity to do that. It’s just the chance to criticise other people.

It’s not valuable to a discussion. There’s no nuance. They don’t care they just come in like “mumsnet needs me” no nobody needs you. Get on with your life if you don’t have anything worthwhile to say.

Reading a posters' other threads shouldn't be mandatory before you respond to their latest one though.
Too many times I've been pulled up by a poster because I've responded in all innocence to the latest post without realising there is a huge backstory.

Also posters should pay attention to when people reply. If you've replied early on, then it's highly likely you posted before the OP posted a huge drip feed that entirely changed the situation and that doesn't make you stupid, just not able to see the future.

I think there is a lot of deliberate misunderstanding like the OP says - it's like some posters want to catch people out. And a lot of replying to a question with a question in a snidey way

Oh I completely agree with you. I didn’t mean that I thought you should have to look at previous threads, just that I think condemning someone for doing so is wrong because there are clear benefits and the only downside is if OP is trying to give an inaccurate picture and doesn’t get to “win” the thread.

"Too many times I've been pulled up by a poster because I've responded in all innocence to the latest post without realising there is a huge backstory."

There is often an OP bait and switch. it happens a lot and goes something like this :

OP : "I like wibble wibbles".

Poster2 : "Wibble wibbles are awful".

Poster 3 : "Yeah I hate wibble wibbles too!"

OP : "But my tiddly-widdly got taken to pet hospital yesterday!"

Poster 4 : "Hugs OP. I love wibble wibbles"

Poster 5 : "Wibble wibbles are the best ! Posters 2 and 3 are horrible"

Etc. Etc. Etc.

It isn't a place for advice on dealing with your kids unless it is a fairly minor issue. Between the insulting posters, the racism and the security breaches from MNHQ it is not about a support place. It is no different from Tattle now, and in many cases Tattle is far more gentle. It is just a chat forum for bored mums.

Yes
and I have been told I'm stupid or disingenuous for taking an OP seriously...like the assumption is I'm meant to doubt them.

I think the internet is like this now though, not just MN. I'm still here out of sheer bad habit though I didn't come on yesterday as the previous day was so weird..including being told I'm aggressive and have an agenda when I asked questions very politely. I was actually trying to - gasp - get an insight into other points of view.

I agree with @Motnight whilst it did used to be a bit brutal still and there were identifiable posters who did always just rock up to cause trouble, it was the same people under the same name. Not loads of random people constantly switching names.

You ‘knew’ people. People would check on people. There was the lovely Woolley hugs thread and the gift thread.

I don’t see hardly any of the people who were here when I joined but maybe they name changed.

Style thread is usually a nice place to be.

I think there’s balance. It’s unbelievably irritating when posters believe every word that a clearly biased OP says. Even with a genuine poster, you’re only hearing their side of the story so no rational response is going to think it’s completely and totally accurate or giving a complete fair perspective of the other side. It’s common sense to read the OP and think to yourself “ok, that’s their perspective, could there be another side or interpretation of this?”.

There might be no need to read a poster's previous threads, but I can't believe posters who post without reading (at least) the OPs posts on the thread i.e. where the drip-feed becomes apparent and/or basic questions have already been answered. Multiple, multiple posts asking 'So what colour were his socks???' when OP has stated on page 2 they were blue in colour.

Or, my personal favourite, the 28th recommendation on a three page thread to contact PALs (or similar, depending on thread subject)

Finally, and I think this is a substantial issue on this site, the ease with which posters can have multiple accounts (see the many, many name fails!) and/or the ease with which posters can change name/identify removes any sort of accountability usually seen on other fora.

I agree, I think the site is great. It’s great that is anonymous, I think that is one of its best features. But I don’t think it was originally intended to be anonymous so that people could log in and rip people apart and then fuck off. Because however daft the person sounds in the op or not credible its no excuse to post nasty crap. Because it is crap it’s not valuable, it’s not worthy of discussion. Either ignore it or if you are really so “concerned” use your intelligence and ask ask a good question. Like they must do in their real lives. They have no interest in trying to help they just want to kick and kick.

For those of you criticising the moderation, or asking for it to be tighter, you do realise that Mumsnet is not a pre-moderated site, don't you?

Posts/posters will only be seen by the moderating team if they're reported to them. There are too many posts every hour of every day for each and every one of them to be read by a moderator.

I think it's pretty much the same as always. It always had the best of vipers rep on AIBU.

I don't think it's changed much tbh.

There are a lot of people on Mumsnet with extremely poor reading comprehension, then you have the arseholes and the wannabe FBI interrogators trying to catch OP's out.

I feel that the moderation is extremely weak, the mods are too wishy washy even when threads have been started by certain groups.

If it carries on this site will die on its arse.

but it isn't common sense to ascribe things that haven't been said

example

if someone posts "I'm having terrible trouble grinding my teeth, please advise."
i just take that at face value and try to help as I have a lot of experience with that problem, the related dental problems, the possible things to help.

then someone else will come along and say "don't be so stupid Emma, clearly the poster has PTSD and the teeth grinding won't stop till they get at least six months of counselling".

sometimes it's not even from ASing the poster. The poster will politely say "I think you might have me confused with someone else". The pile-on person just continues.

I had a taxi driver tell me he picks fights on Twitter when he needs an outlet for rage and stress. That was a light bulb moment for me.

I know these boards are a very bad habit...they did used to be fun.

Disagree. I have had v good advice. Not in AIBU.

I find that a lot of people don’t read what has been written.
There is a lot of OPs saying I have tried A, B and C but they haven’t worked

Then you get a lot of posters coming on saying Have you tried A B or C
And then saying if they haven’t worked there is obviously more to this that op is telling.

Or the ones who have led very sheltered lives and don’t see the Red Flags and any one who does see them is accused of making things up.

Years ago I could see what one op had to look forward to if she stayed with her Dh. I was told I was making things up and to stop with the forecasts
A few months later I saw Op return and state her latest issue which was exactly what I said would happen.

I’m fairly new here and I’ve posted questions three or four times! I’ve found the responses really useful! In that time I’ve only had one response which was a bit shirty / trying to be clever - but I just ignored them!!

I think some threads can be particularly supportive. It does vary though between different areas of the site. Over the years I have received a lot of good advice on a lot of topics. I've also learned to be a lot more tolerant about things like unseen disabilities and not to be too quick to judge people. AIBU and some other areas can be pretty brutal though. I don't normally post there.

Yes I agree. It’s a shame. I don’t think that’s what it was set up to be though. It’s great to be anonymous for privacy and support but I think that privacy is abused now. It’s like we can’t have nice things anymore. The anonymous aspect is exploited.

Oh yeah, for sure. I hate that so much!