Come and spread the Mumsnet love locally!

[KateMumsnet]

Hello everyone,

Have you found your new Local site yet? We've given all 170 of them a lick of paint, and we hope they'll really help to make parents lives easier (our mission, in case you didn't know )

But we need your help! We're asking every MNer to nip over to their Local talk board and help a local parent out. Share your hard-won local knowledge on a thread - or ask your own question about what's going on near you: local schools, clubs, businesses - anything and everything local! The more bustling the Talk boards, the more useful they'll be - prizes to be won (including our exclusive MNHQ mugs usually available only to slebs etc!)

We're also on the lookout for a number of Local editors to keep Mumsnetters up to date about what's on in their area, on an ad revenue-share basis. Sound interesting? Ping us a mail on [email protected] and we can send you more info.

If you're already signed up to a Local site, you can see threads about your area in the 'Local' tab at the top of Active Conversations. If not, find your local Talk board via your Local site.

Cheers all! As ever, it's a work in progress and we're keen to know what you think - let us know in the thread below.

MNHQ

I completely agree with SouthChina and that was my experience of being a local editor too (even with the benefit of "advertising revenue")

We all know that the ethos of MN is about being confident and therefore avoiding exploitation by partners, work, friendships - you name it. It champions women's rights so well. If somebody did an AIBU, the response would be a resounding snigger. "AIBU to work for free for a multi million pound business?"

Why should you expect to get free help from your users which other ebsites would pay for? Behind the jokey lemon drizzle facade, you're a business like any other, not a charity.

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it feels like you're exploiting people's loyalty by getting the donkey work done for you.

I live in a very rural part of our very big county. Any talk there is on the local boards is based in and around the large towns and cities many miles from where I live. Therefore the local board has no relevance to me. I don't think I shall bother with looking at it again.

I am west berkshire. If you go to the west berks talks page no conversations show up but there are sometimes conversations in the side bar. Works differently on my mobile (not the app) but still difficult to click through to the talk page with the threads on as the empty talk page just comes up with a giant stupid clicky link to co-op

There are threads there, you just cant get to them.

I have messaged twice now asking for further information but have received not is as yet ??

Would be interested in trying to increase traffic to ours

@SouthChinaMorningPost

We all know that the ethos of MN is about being confident and therefore avoiding exploitation by partners, work, friendships - you name it. It champions women's rights so well. If somebody did an AIBU, the response would be a resounding snigger. "AIBU to work for free for a multi million pound business?"

Why should you expect to get free help from your users which other ebsites would pay for? Behind the jokey lemon drizzle facade, you're a business like any other, not a charity.

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it feels like you're exploiting people's loyalty by getting the donkey work done for you.

Hi SouthChina

Thanks again for your feedback. Actually, things are a bit different since you were involved with Local a few years ago - our new business model is a profit-sharing one, so Local editors get a share of the revenue of MNHQ-sold ads which appear across Local sites, in proportion to the number of visitors to each site. There are also a variety of advertising options Local Editors can sell direct to clients - from sponsored content, to social media packages - and they keep the revenue from that themselves.

With that said, there are Local Editors that specifically take on the role to develop their digital skills in certain areas, such as social media management and editorial work. Some also want to become Local Editors because they genuinely want to provide a useful service for Mumsnetters in their area, which is great. We realise it's not for everyone, but we do believe it's an exciting opportunity to develop new skills, earn money and be part of the Mumsnet brand.

there are Local Editors that specifically take on the role to develop their digital skills in certain areas, such as social media management and editorial work. Some also want to become Local Editors because they genuinely want to provide a useful service for Mumsnetters in their area, which is great

I'm a freelance journalist/ copywriter and the amount of times I have heard this in recent years is dreadful. "We're looking for someone to do xyz". "I can do xyz, what's your rate?" "Uh, unfortunately we don't have a budget for this. We thought it would be a great opportunity for you to build a portfolio/ develop your skills." "Uh - no."

@SherbertDip

I have messaged twice now asking for further information but have received not is as yet ??

Would be interested in trying to increase traffic to ours

Thanks Sherbert

We've replied to your email now.

What Maroon said.

@EduCated

Is there a reason Active Convos seems to think I live in West Sussex? It's been doing it for the last couple of days.

Not entirely sure I could actually point to Sussex on a map.

Hi

This should be fixed today or tomorrow, so you should now only be seeing threads from your local home site rather than random locations, sorry about that.

Hi folks

Just a few updates for you. Our Tech team are working on the username process, so that soon your username on the local boards should auto-default to your local one. We'll update you when this is live.

Tech have fixed the issue with talk threads from different locations appearing in Active conversations. If you have a local home site set, you should now only see an active thread from that area included in 'Active'

Which brings us on to the final part, it is now really simple to change your Local home site (huzzah!)

When you visit a Mumsnet Local homepage, you should now see a button on the right of the nav bar that says 'Make XXX home site'. Tech are making a few minor design changes to it so that it will be clearer. To make that your local home site, just click that button and it will say 'Site set'.

Please note this won't auto-subscribe you to that site's local newsletter, and so if you would like to receive local newsletters for that area there is a separate box on the local homepage where you can subscribe easily.

Hope this helps

I note that although MNHQ acknowledges that MN Local is not accessible via the app, there is no really impression of this being a priority to address it that it is an important factor in the lack of traffic to the section beyond a half hearted "We'll let you know if that changes"

Let me repeat: until it is accessible via the app, I (and many others) won't be using MN Local.

Exactly, prettybird, which makes it an even harder uphill struggle for the local editors to sell advertising space (which is what's required to make any sort of income to top up the tiny amount that MNHQ ads bring in after they've been divvied up across all those sites.)

@AliceMumsnet

It's doing it again.

[quote EduCated]@AliceMumsnet

It's doing it again.[/quote]

Hi @Educated

Thanks for flagging. This was released properly yesterday, so shouldn't be happening anymore. Could you check if it is and report back if not?

Thanks v much!

Hi Nikitasol,

To get signed up to Local just go to www.mumsnet.com/local and log in. You can choose your local area by clicking on the region and finding your area or using the search function. Choose your preferred area from this list and it'll take you to the Local homepage for that area.

Let us know how you get on.

@Nikitasol

I still can't work out how to subscribe to a local site.

Hi @Nikitasol

Once you're on the local site of your choice, you should now see a button on the top right of the nav bar that says 'Make home site' - click this and it will be set as your primary local site. If you'd like to subscribe to your local newsletter, just enter your email address in the newsletter box on that site's homepage and you'll then receive local events and news straight to your inbox.

Hope this helps

HI everyone

Thanks again for all your feedback.

We know how important having access on the app is to lots of you, and so Tech are currently working at sorting this. We hope it will be done in the near future, and will update you when this is ready.

Hi folks

Thanks to those that have posted on local talk, shared your hard-won local knowledge or asked your own question. We know it's a work in progress but we hope you'll be encouraged to engage more on your local talk boards.

As promised, we have ten prizes to give away to MNetters that have helped us out. We'll be PM-ing the lucky winners now

Hello again

Sorry to post yet again but just wanted to let you know of an exciting update.

After your feedback and comments regarding the app, we can now announce Local talk is now available on both the IOS and Android MN talk app

You can also now start a thread on your local site, directly from the app, by choosing a relevant local site in 'Topics'.

Local threads are also included in Active like they currently appear on desktop.

We hope this helps; this should make it a lot easier for you to post on local talk and engage with other local users. Thanks again for all your feedback.

Brilliant! I just spotted Local on the app today (slow on the uptake) and popped in here to see if it had been officially announced. Thank you to MNHQ team for sorting that - I'm off to see if I can't start a thread or two in amongst the tumbleweed.

@TheGirlOnTheLanding

Brilliant! I just spotted Local on the app today (slow on the uptake) and popped in here to see if it had been officially announced. Thank you to MNHQ team for sorting that - I'm off to see if I can't start a thread or two in amongst the tumbleweed.

Brill, thanks so much!

For a while, the name change for local boards seemed to be working again - i.e., it automatically changed to your local name when you went to post in the local threads.

Now it doesn't. Beware! I was very nearly caught with this, and it would seriously piss me off, and it's much more outing when people can trace you to a certain location.

Not planning to post in local until this is fixed again, as it is just too easy to forget to name change.

Thanks for the warning Hemi. Will stick with the main boards