Angry posters

[GranPepper]

I just joined mumsnet recently. I found another poster quite aggressive. Is this normal because I'm a polite person and don't want to engage with aggressive people

I do think posters can be weirdly aggressive on here at times

Then don't.

you don't have to engage with anyone you don't want to, just ignore them or move on to another thread.

but yes, there are quite a lot of 'bold' posters.

Some people can be. It's easy enough to ignore them and just engage with who you want to though.

Thanks. Apparently the thing to do, I've since been advised by mumsnet, is to ignore the poster. I think it would be a good thing if you could just block someone that's aggressive. I appreciate your reply - thanks

Most of the time their messages end up being deleted by MN anyway so best just to ignore them in the first place.

I think especially in AIBU section, some people like to think of themselves as coming across as 'robust' and 'assertive', but they actually just seem argumentative, nit-picking and points-scoring - best to ignore them.

It’s the internet.

Some people will be aggressive. Sometimes you may read something as aggressive and it wasn’t intended to be. Sometimes people accuse people of being aggressive when they actually just don’t like what the poster is saying.

anywhere you get a large amount of people, all interacting, you will find some are aggressive. Such is life.

Being able to block posters probably wouldn’t work on a website like this. Some People would be blocking loads all over and threads wouldn’t flow.

Ignoring them is best and if it’s a personal attack, report the comments

Probably the same people who wouldn't say Boo to a goose in real life.
Best to ignore.

There are a lot of people who just like to pick fights and disagree for the sake of it. It's best to try ignore them for your sake, I don't think it will make them get bored though.

There was a thread a little bit ago, now removed, calling MNers a bunch of hate spewing turnips (I believe that was the phrasing 🤔). There are some really lovely posters, and some toxic posters. AIBU in particular gets pretty heated…which you have posted to so we’ll see how it goes 😆

It's the anonymity. If people they knew IRL could see them , there's no way they'd behave like that.

I often report posters who are unnecessarily rude and aggressive. 9 times out of 10, mumsnet will delete their post.

I think people have varying interpretations of what ‘aggressive’ is on here. But if you think someone is being directly and personally abusive (eg insulting someone directly rather than just being generally angry/blunt/rude) you can report it to Mumsnet under ‘personal attack’.

Also, I have noticed that some people get the wrong end of the stick and give a very agitated response, unnecessarily. Then everyone else piles in with even more agitated responses, not noticing that the first agitated response was a misunderstanding
, so things can blow up for no reason.

Well, one agitated response isn't great but ignorable. But when it gets to several, including more than one reply to same post, and they become increasingly aggressive in the face of politeness, it's rude and un-necessary. It seems best action is not to engage with the aggressive reply. Thanks for helpful replies. Much appreciated

Do you know you can hide whole threads, or even whole topics?

I know lots of people find hiding AIBU makes MN more enjoyable for them.

No I didn't know so thanks.

There are some really nasty replies sometimes .They can often compleaty derail a thread when you get two or three posters having a go at each other .
It's best just to ignore them and they will eventually get fed up and go away .
But as pp have said if someone is been directly nasty / name calling / rude you can report them to mn.

I had one last year that pm'd me about 6 times in rapid fire , they got booted off the site.

Of course it's normal - it's the internet and the internet concentrates the angry and the strange people. A lot of posters on here only do so when they sense a pile-on

People also speak in ways they wouldn’t in person. ‘(Snarky comment) HTH!’ and ‘I’m more shocked that you didn’t know (xyz thing)’, and so on. Can you imagine people actually speaking the way they do on here to one another?

It's like driving on the road. They're anonymous so they act really mean. Not sure why they're on here though, normally you'd be here for help or to help others.

A long, long time ago (well, maybe pre-Covid) Mumsnet was a fun place to be where the population was made up of women, old and young, sharing their experiences with a lot of lighthearted laughs, with some guys who wanted to learn about the female perspective on things (ok, some of them wanted to lecture us, but we ignored them).

Now that society has shifted so much, we have a lot of angry people, a lot of unhappy people, a lot more lecturing men, and a lot of women who were born as men, who all bring a different (and more aggressive) posting style to the table.

The main objective of a lot of posters now seems to be to be adversarial, to attack the OP for any inconsistency or “wrong think” they can spot, and score some undefined “point” for themselves - rather than offering support or practical help (which was what it used to be, back in the day). A lot of this seems to stem from the new fashion of virtue signalling and victimhood, with faux horror or offence to make themselves out to be a better person (which they clearly are not). But I am sure they feel “validated” and all that crap when they are nasty to someone who is posting for help. It is not communication though, they have nothing worthwhile to tell anyone, it’s like a seal clapping in an echo chamber. Don’t pay them any attention. There are still amazing strong women here, who have a lot of wisdom to share (and one day I want to be one of them!)

Agree with others, no one is forcing you to read any thread. If mn isn't for you, that's your choice. It's been running for 25 years nicely, loads of us have been here for 20+ years and we like it.

There can be some harsh replies but I think the wonderful, supportive, funny, interesting and informative ones outweigh way them by tonnes. That's why I've stuck around for as long as I have! You don't know who's behind the nasty comments, or what's going on with them, I imagine they must be trolls or miserable! Try to ignore them if you can.