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.

How? Are you on a boat?

I'd love ocado but I don't think it goes past Surrey !

But it's allowed on MN, start an 'I hate the ???' thread and the naughty step looms large!

That's not really been my experience, most people I know have lived and worked in many countries. It depends on the demographic you're hanging out with I suppose.

I'm in Ireland. I've had UK legal facts shoved down my throat by English people. I've explained the law is different here. It's irrelevant apparently.

I definitely think that the UK is very isolated.

Something came to my mind, it was a comment about a much more extreme country, but the sentiment can be used for isolated countries

A North Korean escapee once said,

"If you know you're isolated, then you are not isolated".

She means that to make true isolation, leaders make people think that heir country is the centre of the world, and cuts them off from other countries.

They dont know much about other countries, so they don't know how isolated they are.

She said that she used to think that North Korea was the centre of the universe. As she didnt know much about what went on in other countries

I get what you're saying OP. I don't think's necessarily the worst thing to assume posters are likely to be English based on probability. Having said that, it always annoys me when a poster clearly states that they're in Scotland and asks something to do with, say, property and you inevitably get people asking 'is it freehold or leasehold?' or 'when does your current lease run out?' over and over. She already answered that by being in Scotland!!!!

I'm Scottish but don't really object.

If I want specific Scottish advice I'd post on the Scotsnet section as most people do for school advice etc.

we've got scotnet and craicnet for those outside of England so do a search and join those!

I personally find it really annoying that the education threads are all about English education. There should really be sub forums for Scottish Education which is completely different. We don't do A Levels, GCSEs or sixth form and not as many kids go to private schools as down south.

Also in the Higher Education forums there's so much focus on Oxbridge and gap years which isn't so much a thing in Scotland and not as many kids move away.

Mumsnet does feel snobby in some places.

I agree subforums for education would be helpful,

This may not apply to you, but I've definitely seen posters start a thread wanting advice on something that the law might have a bearing on (e.g. marriage breakdown, property issue, inheritance) and not explain upfront that they live in Ireland, Canada or wherever it may be. Then, many posts later, they say "I'm not in England" and maybe even be quite cagey about where they do live. Frustrating for everyone, really. I hope if you're very clear upfront that you live in Ireland and are not seeking any legal opinion from anyone who's not Irish/very familiar with Irish law, you might get less of that?

I assumed it was a mainly British (not specifically English) forum purely because it’s “mumsnet” and not “momsnet”, as I think Americans would call it. I’m terrible with Geography and a bit sheltered so I’m not sure what other English speaking countries call ‘mums’ 😂

I can lend you a spade if you want to keep digging.

Surely you post from your own perspective so if you’re seeing a lot of posts from people based on England - it just means there are….. a lot of mumsnet users based in England?!

Well I have to “call them out” as they are correcting me!

”something something as kids are off school”

”what do you mean? It is not UK school holidays”

“yes it is? In NI”

”oh well how was I supposed to know”

”you weren’t but if you mean England say England”

”no, everyone knows UK means England not the weirdo other countries”.

i paraphrase of course but you get the jist. I’m not randomly picking up on posters saying “UK”.

They have their own sections.

This is going to turn into an English bashing thread as always.

This sums up OP's question nicely.

Britain is more than England.....

MN is British
Reddit is American
Baidu Tieba is Chinese

Mumsnet is an English language forum, although sometimes I do wonder how many native speakers there are, given the interesting language variants.
If you read it regularly, and look at the timestamps on messages, you will see that there are posters located all over the world.
Is it London-centric? No more than any other online forum based/founded in the UK. Personally, I would say that a large proportion of contributors are in the north (England and Scotland), but it is hard to tell.

I am a man, but I know that around 70% of users of this site are women, so that is the default assumption (actually, I'm surprised that the proportion of men is as high as 30% - I would have thought it was much lower). I don't get upset when people assume I am a woman.

Around 80% of Mumsnet's traffic comes from the UK and 10% comes from the USA. No other country is responsible for more than 2% of traffic.

Around 85% of the UK's population is in England. It therefore follows that around 70% of users are in England whereas Scotland will be less than 7% of users. Therefore, if someone asks a question about the law, school admissions or whatever without saying where they are from, they are far more likely to be from England than anywhere else.

It is true that some posters seem to work on the assumption that UK = England. I don't defend that. But it is reasonable for posters to assume other posters are in England unless they say otherwise.

Is this an English forum? No. It is an English-speaking forum. But the vast majority of users are in England.

If it’s a post about someone’s DH leaving them or kid not being invited to a birthday party then why would anyone care whether they’re English or Scottish? What relevance does it have?

If it’s a legal type problem where rules and services differ between UK countries then it makes sense for the OP to specifically state that they’re in the minority of posters and living outside of England 🤷🏻‍♀️

Oh, we have it up here in Posh Yorkshire! 😄

I was once berated and accused of lying on a thread a few years ago for saying I had done a food shop early one Sunday morning and also for mentioning something about doing the school run on what was an English bank holiday. Only person they made fools of was themselves.
Scottish for reference.

I'm not surprised you're not het up; you did not say you are from the north of Ireland.