Justine quoted it again on PM, saying over a million women use MN each month. Does that mean a million individuals are active MN users? or a million posts? Agree its not clear.
ABD. I think, and you probably do to, think its legitimate for any business to attempt to profile their customer base. It forms an essential base upon which to pitch for advertising, vital for the commercial viability of any business.
So do they share the info with us? In which case it becomes public domain, and a source of info for others who wish to target that demographic (whether or politicians or others). How can they target us? Well, by advertising, or by asking MN for the chance to engage with us in webchats, or campaigns or whatever.
Does this open the forum up to abuse by those wishing to target us? MNHQ are the keepers of the gate on that one. Which brings us back to the issue of discretion on their part, which I think on the whole they are good at. They do not accept advertising willy nilly and the web chats are generally with people who are of interest to many MNetters.
I think we need to be a bit robust about it. I don't think any of us are about to be doorstepped by the redtops about our opinions, We can just avoid threads that vex us.
Yes, its a bit Mumsnet frenzy atm, but I am sure that will calm down.
But I do have a tiny niggle of discomfort in MN being charaterised by stats. Like the biggest "single" area represented is London. But the rest add up to a much larger majority, which I think reflects populations and demographics across the country. ie, if 27% are londoners, then that means 73% aren't. Yet it might be easy to spin that as MN being overly represented by Londoners, amongst other erroneous conclusions that could be drawn from the data.
Still thinking about that one.