Mumsnet forums need updating

[Mooos]

I think it is one of the most old fashioned, user-unfriendly site I've ever seen .

We can't reply to a particular person; we can't particularly see if someone has asked us something and it's just messy.

Anyone else think the same

OTOH, uqd, I have a pretty good experience of being able to use quotes on several other forums.

It just seems like a basic forum users' right.

LEAVE MN ALONE. I like it like this.

I rapidly defected to MN because it was simple, uncluttered and easy to use. They day MN offers us the options for tickers, stickers and photos is they day I defect somewhere else.

every now an again I do a foray into netmums and come away very quickly, I hate it it si very confusing and cluttered. I love MN the way it is.

cakeandroses - there's always one :) and it's not even Friday night!!

I am getting the impression from this thread that if current Mumsnetters were given the choice to have addition capabilities on the forum they would suddenly become tacky. Why would this be?

For every person that has put down netmums and other forums as a reason to keep Mumsnet in DOS mode, does this mean that you, personally, would automatically have a ticker if Mumsnet allowed it?

Internet communities are all about the people who post. Are Mumsnetters simply slaves to the techology and waiting to burst out to something more last year current?

But why should every forum be the same?

Another vote here for keep it simple.

If you are so, ahem, unintuitive that you really can't tell when someone is addressing a point to you, without a special clicky button to flag it up, then perhaps you should try another board.

(Cough. Ahem. Not saying which one but I hear there are other parenting sites out there and some have tickers [gasp] )

"For every person that has put down netmums and other forums as a reason to keep Mumsnet in DOS mode, does this mean that you, personally, would automatically have a ticker if Mumsnet allowed it?"

No, I wouldn't have a ticker. But other people's tickers might be thrust upon me.

Also I think the slimmed down style means the words count for more, and this is reflected in the style of posting.

More bells and whistles would probably engender a different style, and I for one would dislike that.

At the risk of sounding aggressive, (and I don't mean it to be, but I'm genuinely wondering) if you want a different style forum, why not go to a different forum? There's plenty of choice out there if you don't like what's on offer here. Whereas many other people are here because we actively like the simplicity of the interface.

BTW 60/40 split

Maybe we need a function to have a running tally on "I agree with the OP" and "I disagree with the OP" and the totals could be posted at the top to help you with your calculations?

What on earth is wrong with copying and pasting?

I am not quite sure wht MmeBlueberry means by "if current Mumsnetters were given the choice to have addition capabilities on the forum they would suddenly become tacky" (Select text, Ctrl C - that wasn't that difficult ).

Does she mean that we want the additional capabilites but just won't admit to it - because I don't see the evidence for that (the number of people who admit to still using Mumsnet Classic shows that people choose to keep it the "original" way).

Or is it a typo (that she can't edit ) and she meant "ticky" and that we would all start using tickers. Again, I don't see the evidence for that. The number of people who have explicitly stated that they like the simplicity and the emphasis on the converdation - and how they have been put off by those sites that do use tickers - is evidence to the contrary.

FWIW, since I did my approximate count, at least another 6 more have come out in favour of no change and zero more in support of any change (even minor).

So that leaves that stats (which even people in FMCG would understand - and yes, I do know what FMCG is) as 2 for change, an overwhelming 40 against and 9 for superficial changes (edit/bookmark facilities).

An FMCG marketeer trying to foist change upon us would have to do a helluva lot more work on convincing us (the users, ie the consumers) that what we had wasn't good enough and of the benefits of the alternative. So far, I am not convinced. Our needs are being met :)

MN has to stay as it does, as it offers a 'sober workplace' setting

Enabling MN in the workplace...that's what I love

Bet they don't offer that in Tickersville.

Okay which one of you in HQ put the op up to it?

I hope you arent seriously considering any of this suggested nonsense!

Its simple each forum needs its own style and ways. It is what makes it unique. If all forums looked and functioned in the same way it would 1. be pretty boring and 2. leave a lot of people uncatered for.

MN as it is fills a very important role in the forum world. To change it to make it more like other forums would be signing its death warent. It would be a case for a revival of the m... and tradditionalists to create a breakaway faction. And we all know how Bad that can be. Leave it as it is. Its clear, its concise, and there isnt a hold load of rubbish to wade through when you are trying to get the essential information.

plus where would fast moving threads like the poof of pooh and the adventures of the penguin man be if each post took ages to upload? It just wouldnt work.

leave the forum as it is!

if you dont like it the leave or deal with it.

Muckyducky - that thought did cross my mind

It's not a question of being tacky or not. Little pictures next to the posts (for example) is extra info that I don't want to know. I just want to know what a poster thinks about a topic. I don't want to know anything else about them (i.e. what type of graphics they like). Call me old fashioned but only want an image accompanying text if it helps explain the meaning. Otherwise it clogs things up.

Muckyducky, are you suggesting this is MNHQ doing some subverted market research...?

Well its that or the standard of poster is slipping and that is really not something i would like to even momentarily consider.

It is the sort of thing the FMCG guys would do!

prettybird were they the ones that got evicted from their own site? I missed their shinagans as their topics were so i hid them.

not sure why the op cant just use this method to reply to specific posts

Although it would definetly explain the thread from a thread that has been started.

i thought the feeling was being made clear enough here. but obviously not

Don't know about that - I am just making an allusion to MmeBlackberry's comment about her dh working in FMCG and complaining about our attitude to "consumers"

no fgs

OP has asserted 60/40 so I started the thread to see if this is right

I suspect not

1. I really don't want to see how many people have read the post

2. I really don't want to see who is currently reading the post

3. I would vaguely like to be able to get to my first unread post, but am not hugely fussed about it. It's more useful on a slower-moving forum, TBH.

4. I like that MN doesn't allow editing

5. Every forum I'm on that has a quote button winds up with posters quoting great swathes of stuff at each other. I like that on MN if you want to quote something you have to look it up and make a conscious decision what you are going to cut and paste.

I absolutely agree with previous posters who have said that the lack of availability of bells and whistles on Mumsnet makes it about the words. That's one of the things that's refreshing about it.

And assuming for the moment that you are genuinely unaware of what posters are on about, housepricecrash has regular "Hey, let's all go and wind up Mumsnet, it's so funny!" threads.

Aren't we the consumers here? If someone's suddenly given me a shareholding interest in Mumsnet, and/or an income stream from it, I wish they'd told me. Apart from anything else I could have put in valuable time working on my snotty attitude to the rest of you plebs consumers .