Mumsnet in the Times by Caitlin Moran

[morningpaper]

Mumsnet in the Times

Here's a nice article about Mumsnet - make way for the newbies.

And blimey don't Justine and Carrie have a lot of children?

was that greeny then? i never found out. that was ver ver funny.

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it was a wind-up cod

you didnt see it? oh it was really v good. i roffled and roiffled

I think it was entitled "please don't laugh but I think I may have eaten dd's hamster"

Hamster thread

It was exercising on a shelf above a bubbling stew iirc.

Poor hammy

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kinda late as i've been back to bed but...

cod goes to tesco?

I was sure she would be a waitrose fish.

and i knew someone was trolling when greeny psoted that thread.

I thought it was a nice article, don't have any problems with MNers being singled out to give a bit of human interest. I loved soapy's post though, and do with she'd been mentioned. And no, I don't think there's anything special about geneticists, I guess it's just slightly unusual. It's been in a list that MNHQ have mentioned in articles before, so no need to blame yourself necessarily Aitch Basically, an article which listed all regular posters and their careers would have been of no possible interest to anyone in the outside world

i miss loads of good threads that way cod. is a pain. my filter is clearly malfunctioning in some way

an article that listed all regular posters would actually be a list wouldnt it

and a rather long one

in fact it would be a toilet roll

fresh roffling @ hamster thread

Hunkermunker:
"you'd have noticed a freaking hamster in your dinner, OK?"

ooooh it's such a funny thread

i remember the hamster thread but also dismissed it early on as a trolling excercise. i regret that now.

I think genetecist is only mentioned because its not your usual run of the mill kind of job is it. it doesn't make that person any more or less worthy of posting, its just that it is a little more notable on a parwenting forum than "full time mum"

Yes, quite Zippi- we seem to be missing the point that this was journalism rather than a sop to everyone's ego...

I'm rather proud of having found a picture of a hamster in a sandwitch and having posted a control picture.

I wonder what post I'd had deleted that day.....I'm going somewhat dolally I think

[braces self an admits (my version of) what everyone else is thinking]

I would have loved to have been featured as a Mumsnet Regular in The Times - would have been some kind of recompense for my addiction over which I have no control and which is actually having quite a detrimental effect on my efforts to become one of the oft mentioned "73% degree edcucated Mumsnetters" due to fact that I MN rather than study/write essays.. but [deeply sighs] ah well.. will just have to persevere at becoming funnier, cleverer, richer and altogether more popular in order to eventually be a "better Mner" on or near par with the Chosen Few. [decides not to hold breath]

well im impressed by 'geneticist'
my definition of success is being able to answer Q 'what do you do?' with something impressive like 'geneticiost'

i may be misguided. it wouldnt be the first time

But yes, twas a very nice article

I suppose the other thing is that it's sometimes useful to people on here with specific problems, in the same way as having admissions tutors is useful to parents of teenages, or doctors or lawyers willing to give advice to anyone. That's all, though, I would certainly not be pleading for any kind of special status, believe me.

Sorry you?re cross about this Twig ? we do understand where you (and others) are coming from. It was the Times ideas to do boxes on some active members and to be honest Caitlin knows Mumsnet pretty well so had a quite a clear idea of who she wanted to feautre. We agreed though that it would be quite a nice way of illustrating what sort of women used MN. I did imagine it would be a bit like MP is a mother-of-two 2 and trainee vicar from Somerset than MP is responsible for tone of mn if I?m honest, but there you go.

With regard to using posters for editorial/ other bits and bobs, Mumsnet is essentially built on user generated content ? the newsletter just packages up a few bits of it to hopefully make a useful weekly product. As MP said, surely better to use our own talent/content than hire an outside writer to do it. We?ve always used people from the boards to help out. (Spacemonkey, Abby, JJ all came from MN). Given that we have a pool of hundreds of thousands of talents, who ?get? Mumsnet, it would be a bit silly not to we think.

What we try very hard to do though is to be consistent and fair across all posters so if MP calls someone a silly twat, she?s going to get deleted, talk round up or not. There are no special favours ? that?s what I was trying to get at in Caitlin?s piece. In fact I think I can recall getting cross mails from pretty much all the posters picked out in the Times piece at some point because we?ve deleted something they?ve written (in Cod?s case quite often ).

The nature of Talkboards is that some posters will be more visible than others ? you can argue of course about whether the Times selection was representative ? we did suggest a few more/alternative names but in truth I doubt it?s possible to pick only 5 and be properly representative whichever 5 you pick. It was more about giving a flavour to people who don?t know Mumsnet. And on that note can all of you who are keeping it a secret stop. Please!

FWIW though, I thought Caitlin did a fab job though in capturing the spirit of the place and what makes it tick and I haven?t even watched Cranford.

Really SH? I mean it is ok but it is a small step from that to being outed (perhaps in the Observer) and then realising that you have posted two million posts and that one day, unfortunately, your grandchildren WILL stumble upon the one where you are making jokes about giving Grandad a blow-job and then poof another generation has to go into therapy