To not understand why people add on extra bits

[MassageForLife]

to their aibu options? Sometimes I find it means I don't agree with either option, but if they had stuck to the obvious options, it would have been straightforward.

Yabu - it makes perfect sense to add extra bits, but don't worry about it because you look fab in that dress

Yanbu - I get what you are saying, which doesn't surprise me, given how amazing and intelligent you are

If you turn off the voting function, can you still see how the votes are going?

Nope. You can just read all the comments, like it used to be in AIBU before the voting function was added. The replies are the good bit anyway - without some context as to why people think YABU or YANBU the voting score is pretty meaningless as it could just be trolls hitting YABU to try and annoy the OP.

Who do I want the option to vote?

Because sometimes everything I want to say has already been said.

Because the scores can tell a different story to the comments, and it's interesting to see that.

Sometimes the comments get taken over by people that are clearly passionate, and people don't necessarily want to get involved with the conversation, but having the option to vote means that you still get your say.

The 'oops I pressed the wrong button' thing is not really a big thing. You can change your vote as many times as you want. I used to see that fairly regularly, but now it's pretty rare.

'without some context as to why people think YABU or YANBU the voting score is pretty meaningless'

But people that vote still have the context - we can still see the responses? I don't get that argument.

I do agree that sometimes the voting is unclear, because the options are muddled or people haven't read the post properly - but that's a very small percentage of occasions.

Oh I can see I misunderstood an earlier point.

Re: the context thing - more often than not it's pretty clear cut. Context isn't needed. And if you want context, you'll most probably find it in the comments.

I'm not saying that there's a right way or a wrong way to use Mumsnet. It's just interesting to hear why some people choose to limit their options for interacting with the threads.

I always vote YABU if someone has used AIBU to post something that isn’t an AIBU at all.

I wish we could see the results of the vote without having to vote. Sometimes I am interested to see what people think without reading through the comments, but don't want to express an opinion.

I think what is interesting though is sometimes you get overwhelming comments one way, and the vote is fairly neutral or even the other way. Or sometimes when the comments seem fairly even, you get a vote that's quite one way.

Sometimes the majority of views posted on a thread aren't reflected in the vote.

Yes, I'm surprised how often this seems to happen