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.

@Purpleturtle43 I'm Scottish, OP but live in England. It's not really the first thing I think of when I read a post on here and people tend to give a reply regarding legal or schools/health advice if you are in England and Wales just cos of population size.
Scottish posters usually fill you in with the differences. There is a Scotsnet as well which has probably been mentioned. Loads of Irish posters too and overseas mumsnetters as well!!

Wow how judgemental can you get.
You are the epitome of privilege because you do not understand real issues of the working class.
You have also assumed that I must be a typical English lout who leaves the house only to take the kids to school and sit on my arse all day.

Your posts say a lot more about your bias and bigotry than you’d care to realise 🤷‍♀️

MN is a large, free to use forum open to anybody. I don't know why people are surprised that advice is factually incorrect, or that people post from their own perspective. Most threads are personal opinion and most people posting are there to chat. I just don't think it's realistic that everyone will stop and rephrase every post to take into account that users might be anywhere, they just post from their viewpoint. As the majority of users are in England, the majority of posts will reflect that.

Plus you see idiots everywhere such as when driving, when in the pub, the shop. Entitled idiots who think the world revolves around themselves. Surely some of these people would inhabit an online forum. They cannot always be avoided and the best advice is to mainly ignore their replies if they upset you. Life is too short to get upset over someone who is insular.

I find it more annoying when North Americans think US is default on this website.

Fellow Mercian here. I think we need a new Mercian Parliament for our own laws. I'll vote for you.

I’m Scottish and assume other posters are most likely English.

however it’s usually fairly easy to spot a fellow Scot quite quickly based on the content of their post or use of language.

it doesn’t bother me though. There’s just more of them than us.

Surely it's just a case of numbers? It's only really irritating if someone specifically says they're Scottish/Australian etc and still receive replies that aren't relevant.

I couldn't get to worked up about it. It's a response based on where the majority of users live.

Agree that bugs me too.

see also the annual threads insisting that Halloween and Santa are American.

I live in England and Ocado isn’t available in my area.

Hey @Abitofalark why the laugh emoji on my post?

I'm working class too love. You have some weird issues abiut privilege and money.

Your nastiness says a huge amount about you.

You told me I had privilege , because I paid 10 pounds a week to do a hobby.

How weird!

Apart from a few gripes about respondents failing to understand some things are different in Scotland, Wales, Ireland and other countries, this complaint is nuts.

What you're doing is similar to posting on Expats In Dubai and moaning that replies assume you're in Dubai!

Mumsnet is a London-based website. If this curdles your groats, stick to Scottish websites where the majority assumption is that you're a Scot in Scotland. If you enjoy Mumsnet and want to post here about something that's different in Scotland, mention your location and its relevance.

Ah no. I don't think they are sneaky. At least, the ones I know of! They seem to me generally straightforward and not barging or uncivil.

Getting really fed up of these slag the English off threads. Give it a bloody rest.

I think YANBU to suggest it’d be useful if posters say where they’re from if it may be relevant, but that it’s unreasonable not to realise that if someone doesn’t say then the default assumption will be English. Similar to this being a rare forum where we tend to assume posters are female by default.

for me, the difficult “interface” comes when it’s something that (for instance) I do not know is different in England so I don’t know to point it out. What you’re saying means the onus is on the non-English to know which bits of our culture, life, language, whatever, are not the same as England and to point them out.

for instance a thread where I commented saying that someone would be the oldest in the year as born in August. Cue lots of people telling me I better do my research as I was totally wrong. I didn’t know the cut off in England was different so how would I know to say “it’s different here”??

Amazing how people jump to ‘you’re weird’ as a retort.
If you think that your privilege just because ‘you do hobbies’ you’re wrong but hey, you do you.
I would say that the nastiness is your side only. I don’t think asking you to share how you escaped your abusive single parent mother to become so well travelled as being nasty.
You just don’t like being told you’re privileged do you?

I agree completely. I was joking. See the last two letters of my handle. I'm an American and have been on MN since 2017.

I mean it was developed in England wasn’t it by an English woman. So I guess technically it’s an England based website which is popular across the UK and used by many other English speakers in other countries?

No twisting required.

when the vast majority of a group are x, its natural for x to be the assumed default.

x don't need to state they are x. Others do when it's relevant.

I'm dual national, when I'm posting from England, I don't state that, when I'm posting from my other country, I state that when relevant.

It's not difficult, you're just stirring!!

I didn’t know the cut off in England was different so how would I know to say “it’s different here”??

Oh, no, @queenmeadhbh, that must have been awful 😭 The sheer horror of dealing with ordinary people who don't know the school admission dates in other countries. The utter humiliation of having to explain! So traumatic for you

I do hope you're recovering safely. Thoughts and prayers.

Why not, if it was funny? Presumably it struck me as amusing, clever or witty.

I know you are! For some reason I didn't write it as addressing you directly but I meant to. A mind slip or something.

Add Mammy/mummy and Daddy.