To think there are a lot of nasty people on Mumsnet?

[Poile]

Just that.

Have seen so many directly aggressive and passively aggressive comments on here that it makes me think that many mumsnetters are just plain nasty. Assuming to due to unhappiness with own life.

Some examples stick out - when people ask to guess their age some of the guesses are just rude and over the top inaccurate. One poster even questioned a person’s gender even stating they had thick eyebrows which were not groomed due to depression. The disingenuous of “please don’t think I’m being rude but …”.

Also saw someone ask for help with their curtains and the amount of snide remarks was shocking.

I also think a lot of people in here think their way is best and the only way. Insufferable.

To me the people who will kick a person when they are down just seems disproportionately high. Obviously the fact it’s an anonymous forum adds to this.

Good point and another reason for them to be firmly discouraged, preferably banned.

But why are the rude comments very rarely called out? Surely them going unchallenged is part of the problem.

I often seem to be the only person in some threads saying “please be nice, OP has clearly stated x is getting them down”. Often met with more snide remarks.

MN has reactive modding. You can report all the nasty posts.

I've been online since the dawn of the internet age. There have always been twats. There have always been helpful people.
Netiquette used to be a thing.
This site does have rules, and it does have slightly different vibes depending where you post. AIBU and - i think? on some convos - S&B can be robust. Step-Parenting tends to have a lot of very polarised views and some really good advice inbetween them.

Chat can be patchy. etc etc.

It is very provocative to post this OP on AIBU because either you get robust (and sometimes screamingly hilarious) anwers and go "oh see, the vipers!" or you don't and it dies a death because you didn't get any bites.

Started a thread in Relationships and was trying to make some sort of sense of what happened to me. Some of the replies were unbelievably mean.

Given that I was mentally in a very bad way at the time, I was shocked that people could be so harsh.

I’m just hoping to understand. I’m on many Reddit threads and don’t witness it there

It is a site that is open to any-one and anonymous. Of course you will get a percentage of mean people but no higher than the percentage of bullies in a class.

haha - go back to Reddit then? Some of the subreddits I've seen are absolutely bloody atrocious, and i am not a fainting violet.

There are clearly plenty of women on here being pretty nasty, but I suspect a disproportionate number of the bitchy replies are from men flexing their misogyny under cover.

There are some marvellous posters on here too.

I try to avoid the obvious troll posts or those who froth post under a new name.

There are certain words and phrases that will make me swerve a thread. I’m never sure if they are pure troll or have used other means to help compose their post(s) but once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

If you feel that something is breaching talk guidelines then report it.

A lot of people on here act as if they are holier than thou. It really does my head in.
People can be so rude, unkind and abrupt. Even on threads where you'd think a little more compassion would be needed.
I can't think of much of a reason for it.. apart from maybe they feel like they don't need to be nice as it's over the internet and not as "real" as face to face.

There are nasty people everywhere, OP. They're in all walks of life and on all areas of the internet.

They don't just miraculously find their way to one specific site.

Mumsnet has been around for many years, and for about the past two decades a variation on the theme of this thread has appeared with predictable regularity. It's no better or worse now than it was then.

Discussion-board style forums are almost universally mild, meek and positively namby-pamby compared with the live chat-rooms of old. You'd need asbestos steel body armour, a stomach and balls of steel to navigate some of the truly disturbed shit (and disturbed people) who used to kick off in those.

Mumsnet vipers? In comparison with the above, they're like a bunch of Mary Poppinses.

I think people who spend a lot of time on the Relationships board can get very impatient with posters if they don't take their advice. And in double quick time. They just bark out orders and expect them to be followed.

sorry that happened, i try, if i do end up on a Relationships thread, to report the nasty replies

Well, it's the internet, so yeah, there's all sorts out there. Mumsnet isn't a private club it's visited by millions of people all over the world. Imagine if you just shouted out your question or woes to massive room full of strangers you'd get all kinds of replies. It's kinda the same here, except no one can see your face, and people can be anything they want to be.

@auntyElle do you honestly think men are sat on mumsnet pretending to be women just to snark?

laughable

I think we're all capable of being nasty at times.

What you see online is people at their most unguarded.

In real life or online where you are known eg Facebook there are consequences so are people nice because they are nice or because they pretend to be but are secretly rolling their eyes and thinking oh FFS shut up/strap on a set/stop being ridiculous?

We may think the face to face person is nicer but are they just presenting a socially acceptable face?

Is that better than honesty? I'd rather know the truth of someone than the friendly face that hides the judgemental eye rolling tbh.

No seriously, it's women. I would never imagine a man to behave how some of the grown women behave on here. It's comical

Honestly I don't agree. I have been on here for years, and see many threads like yours, but honestly don't see the actual evidence to what you are referring. I suppose it goes to show that it's all about interpretation of events.
On threads such as guess my age you will get truthful answers from a proportion, enthusiastic and positive vibe answers from others and intentionally hurtful from others. That's to be expected. We are all different and are not being paid to fulfil the role of guidance counsellors.

No, it’s MN…it must be a man🙄 Women are sugar and spice all things nice….

Reddit? Oh believe me, it's on there.

I agree. The ones who quote you because you have said something slightly not right in relation to the original post are the worst

I kinda just take it how it is. There are some crazy answers but also there are very many good, thoughtful and intelligent answers so that's why I stick with it.

Oh, yes. Not men per se, but this site is like a magnet for MRAs on occasion. And it's always threads on a specific handful of topics that attracts them like swarming locusts.

No idea why. You wouldn't catch me trolling an incel forum, mainly because I CBA with that nonsense and their views don't interest me. But for some reason, women talking, sharing experiences and resisting male dominance and abuse really appears to trigger the poor, fragile souls.

Easily spotted, and their motives are transparent.

Yeah you're so right, men are never dicks online.