Is Mumsnet an English forum?

[Purpleturtle43]

Seems like pretty much every poster and responder assumes everyone on here is from England.

When asking questions regarding schools, health care, tenancy etc surely it would be useful to say what country you live in since the rules and laws are different all over the UK/world.

"British" means "from the UK", what do you think the difference is?!

Great Britain is the main island (so not NI), but British refers to all of the UK.

The UK isn't the wider whole of Britain. I'm British and live on a British Island in the British Isles but we are not part of the UK

The amount of times I've had this argued to me (usually by and English person) is quite staggering

The overwhelming majority of users are in England so that tends to be the default setting. After England, it probably the rest of the UK, Ireland and then other native English speaking nations. I don't really think there is anything wrong in having a default that serves the majority of users, and it would be rather tedious if every thread had to reference all other options until we find out where the OP is.

I'm not saying English people are ignorant, I think the behaviour I have outlined specifically is ignorant. Those are 2 different things.

E.g. If saying to someone, that was a bit selfish isn't the same as saying you are a selfish person.

You are twisting what I am saying to turn it into an English bashing thread.

It's a worldwide forum.

I never understand why English posters on here, assume that everyone on mumsnet is English. Its bizarre!

Mumsmet the website, was made in the UK, but it was launched on the WORLD wide web, like all websites are. And it has users from all over the world.

Amazon the website was made in USA, the website doesnt just have visitors from the USA , does it?

This thread - where the OP apparently lives in a country where there is no CCTV - is a good example of where the OP should have said in the first place that they didn't live in the UK/GB.

Interior camera in taxi with DC in the car | Mumsnet

Utter nonsense. I don't have any familial connections to the three other nations and never forget the UK is a union of four nations - the clue's in the name! I value the over 300 year old union between England and Scotland and was devastated after the Brexit vote that it could lead to the break-up of the over 200 year old UK union, given that Scotland and NI voted predominantly to remain (as I did).
I would be perfectly happy to state my home country on MN as England (so not "all the English people you claim!) and I'm sure it wouldn't be a difficult technical change for MN to implement, but it's MNHQ you should be messaging with your request - of course, then you wouldn't be able to have a go at "the English". 🙄

I've name changed for this thread.

I wrote about something on another thread. A poster came on and wrote "that doesn't happen in the UK".

I had to reply, "i'm not in the UK"

I'm in.Northern Ireland but only four miles from Scotland. Only time I had any issues here was around the upcoming death (expected in hours) of a relative and me completely stressing about getting clothes for the body asap. I had several brutal responses including I'd weeks to get it sorted, well no, I didn't she was buried four days later. When it's a cultural thing it's easy to forget our normal is not the same for anyone especially when we are a few miles apart.

TBF most of the legal advice on here is appalling regardless of the country

It is a British based forum from Inception, very much London centric based forum in the olden days!

I agree, why is it ignorant OP? It's just a numbers thing, not a superiority thing. I'm from one of the other uk nations but it doesn't bother me that the majority of posters on MN are most likely going to be speaking from an english pov, it's just statistically more likely.

The problem with expecting people to clarify that they are talking about a situation different to the norm/majority experience is that they would need to be aware themselves that the situation is different elsewhere first! e.g. I'm vaguely aware that funding for under 3s is different in the different nations but couldn't tell you the exact details.

It would be nice if the bargain basement sherlock holmes' didn't focus on the unnecessary details that aren't actually relevant to what is being asked by the OP because they think it's evidence they've caught a troll. e.g. if someone is asking about their child being bullied on their first day back in school it's irrelevant to jump on them because your child isn't back for another few weeks - just assume they are somewhere where schools have slightly different term dates rather than going straight to 'they must be lying!'

there was a thread on here a few years ago about a guest being asked to pay for a plate her dc broke at a wedding that got completely derailed because she mentioned she had given a £50 note for a wedding present, you could practically see the steam from the posters panting to inform her they didn't exist!
Even if you didn't know they were a thing in Scotland, it wasn't relevant to the actual post, so no need to query in the first place, let alone jump on it as proof the poster was clearly trolling!

@Purpleturtle43 so where are you from?

I haven't read all the replies,
but this from Wikipedia says:

Mumsnet is a London-based internet forum, created in 2000 by Justine Roberts for discussion among people with child- or teen-aged offspring.

History and finances

Mumsnet was created in 2000 by Justine Roberts, who came up with the idea of a website to help parents pool information and advice, following a disastrous first family holiday with her one-year-old twins. Roberts persuaded friends Carrie Longton and Steven Cassidy to help her build the site.

The website grew to become one of the most influential online forums for parents; in November 2009, then–Prime Minister Gordon Brown, opposition leader David Cameron and many other leading UK government ministers took part in live webchats with Mumsnet users.

In March 2010 Mumsnet's 10th birthday party was hosted by Google UK at their London headquarters. Guests included Ed Miliband and Steve Hilton, and both then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah Brown gave speeches. Gordon Brown referred to Mumsnet as a "great British institution".
In May 2011, Roberts founded Gransnet, a sister site to Mumsnet for users over 50.

Roberts, the CEO, was named in The Guardian's 2010 Power 100. In February 2013, Roberts and co-founder Longton were assessed as the 7th most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4. Roberts was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours, for services to the economy.

In 2018, Mumsnet had 1.3 billion page views from 119 million unique users, and a revenue of £8.6 million.
In April 2020, Mumsnet announced a premium membership option.

so based on the above, it was initially London, England based and has grown...

I assume mostly London and Home Counties mums. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the highest demographic.

Well, yes.

I think some of it might also be due to the fact that the UK is quite isolated after Brexit.

Isolation leads to people just thinking about their country, and not thinking sbout the rest of the world

I moved to the UK six months ago for work. I'm in a small city in the U.K. I went to a local hobby group and I was chatting to the locals. As a new face, they were asking me about myself. I said that i had done this particular hobby in a lot of different places, and that i really liked the hobby. They asked me where had I done it

I mentioned that in the last ten years, I had lived and worked in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy , France, Germany and Portugal.

They said "wow".

Not one of them had ever lived or worked outside of the UK. They had always lived in the UK
.
It made me realise how difficult it is for people in the UK to live in other countries. And how that can lead to an isolated way of living.

I thought we were all Russian bots. Hairy handed truckers are too busy making up for the shortage of HGV drivers (in the UK?) to spend time on mn anymore.

One of the most annoying issues on here is that people are criticised for their terminology etc. If you use ‘gotten’ for example, some arsehole will make the whole thread about the fact that you used an ‘Americanism’, when in fact it’s a perfectly acceptable regional expression. Of course the shocking anti Americanism is quite another thing altogether. But I wouldn’t accuse all English people of this assumption about language, it seems to be more a South of England thing. So many posters from that region don’t seem to be aware that others speak differently and have different pronunciation and that it’s completely acceptable usage. I had a government form to fill in for my son last week and the word ‘gotten’ was used in the form.

Fair enough, maybe I should announce that I’m from NI if it’s relevant. For example, I might mention where I am if talking about the school holidays because I know that they are slightly different depending on where you are in the UK. But I certainly shouldn’t have to do so in order to justify my use of certain expressions which seem to cause a fit of the vapours and an unnecessary derailment.

Why?

Facebook is an American company.

Do you assume that only Americans use Facebook?

But by far the vast majority are from England. You say that you're Scottish, for every one Scottish person there are more than ten English people.

Yes, the default is very much English as most people are English (or, at least, live in England). Is it really necessary to always state that a thread relates to England?

There are some threads where it is essential to identify the country (for example in cases to with inheritance or other legal issues) and this does often happen.

But in most cases it really isn't necessary.

For context, out of every hundred people there are:

85 living in England
8 living in Scotland
5 living in Wales
2 living in Northern Ireland

where in NI is only 4 miles from Scotland? Not being pedantic, I genuinely find it interesting, I know there are parts that are very close but didn't realise it was that close!
Google says the smallest gap is 12 miles between Torr Head and Mull of Kintyre

You do realise that people outside of the UK use mumsnet too, right?

Thats what world wide web means.

I was chatting to ladies from Canada, Denmark and Australia on a thread the other day.

I do think you need to say where you are talking about tbf people replying don't know you are not in England/English I'm not in England you get used to it after a while,

Because the cultural references, the fact that it originated in London, the competitions, the TV, the politics. Unless that has become bespoke now?