Mumsnet Premium membership - please support us if you can

[JustineMumsnet]

Hi folks,

First and most importantly, I hope you and yours are safe and well, and that you all stay that way.

After 20 years of unreasonableness, rofls, wtfs, advice and support, and the odd lawsuit, it's fair to say that we are as close as we’ve ever been to existential difficulty.

Like many ad-funded businesses, the COVID-19 crisis has seen us take a big hit to our revenues. The businesses who would normally pay to advertise with us are slashing their marketing budgets, but lots of our outgoings are fixed and we so need to find new ways to keep paying the bills.

We’re doing our darndest to find every single saving we can - lots of our staff have volunteered to reduce their hours, we’ve cancelled all non-essential services, I've taken a pay holiday and we will use every scheme and loan available to us from the government and the bank to help tide us over. But we still need to find alternative revenue streams to ensure we don’t run out of funds in a few months...

To put it frankly, it’s squeaky bum time.

I know this is a very tough time for many of you and some of you are only just keeping the lights on yourselves. We’re sending you our solidarity and we most certainly don’t want anyone to stump up anything they can’t afford, but if you can help, please do subscribe now to our Premium service.

We’ve banged this out as fast as possible in response to the current crisis and it’s definitely not the finished article, but it’s free of banner advertising, so if you’ve ever been vexed by those (or use an ad-blocker) this might be right up your alley. Banner ads also tend to make pages render more slowly and take up bandwidth, so if you’re surrounded by bored kids streaming with their mates, step this way.

We’ve opted for a price point that we hope is doable for most and which covers the potential lost ad revenue for the majority of users. We hope £4.99 per month or £49.99 for a year (less than a pound a week!) feels a reasonable exchange for the value Mumsnet brings you, but in any case you can unsubscribe any time.

Over the next little while we’ll look to add some extra features: things that people have requested regularly like editing, sorting posts by the OP, and reading offline.

Rest assured we remain committed to always providing a free version of the site, as we fundamentally believe that access to the advice and support Mumsnet offers should not depend on your ability to pay.

And if you can’t spare any cash right now… then of course we get it. It would still be very helpful if you removed any ad blockers or clicked on affiliate links around the site when you shop, joined our insight panel or even shared the best Mumsnet threads on your social channels whenever you can - it all helps.

If you have any questions at all feel free to post them here and I'll get back to you. We also have a page of FAQs that might answer your question.

Hold tight everyone.

Love

Justine and the team at MNHQ

I would donate but there are several things stopping me:

The data breach.
The kowtowing to external complaints with deletions and banning.
The way the users of the FWR board are policed and forced to lie.
Deleting posts asking pertinent questions to politicians regarding women's rights...

I do love you Mumsnet. I like a lot of the Mods. However, you use the excuse of advertisers to police our language and thoughts and yet you come to those same users to bail you out.

That being said. If you relax the rules on the FWR board I would be happy to contribute.

If it meant that the Mra twats trolling the boards won't pay so won't be around fantastic. That said, aibu was how I started to understand about relationship abuse and it's such an amazing general resource it would be a shame for it to be entirely behind a pay wall. Maybe have a page of classics and that relationship stickie that was so good so that people know what kind of support and advice they can get if they pay for premium membership?

I've subscribed. I don't actually notice the ads usually, only when they cause an issue like the big black box thing last year but I'm still happy to support a site I use a lot. But because it's voluntary. If it became mandatory I'd probably cancel again and bugger off.

I'd also like to put in a plea NOT to have an edit function. I think it has potential for chaos. I already find the edit feature in Facebook causes confusion.

If we're listing things we would like then I'd love to be able to filter any thread to read only posts by the OP.

I'd like to see threads that were deleted stay open for the premium members? I hate it when I get involved in an unfolding drama, but then find it zapped and we are not allowed to discuss it (TAATs being banned)

I'd also want to have my reports mean more (as in, the paying members are the ones who are steering the moderation as 'shareholders') and having a vested interest in fair moderation.

And a car sticker.

The moderation is the final straw as to why I wouldn't give a penny.

This site is supposed to be about feminism and equality. But start a thread on Jack Monroe that's very mild and it will get deleted but any other male public figure is allowed a thread to get really nasty and nothing gets deleted. Celebrities should all be treated the same on here.

Exactly @CobyKnobe, I'm betting MNHQ are regretting being so utterly patronising to their actual members. Deletions for refusing to lie (I will never call a male peodophile 'she') and threads zapped for simply not being 'in the spirit'.
I'd pay to have access to FWR with zero interference from HQ tbh.

The shareholders fund stood at almost £8.5 million at the 2018 financial year end. Net profits for the last three years as filed are more than £6 million.

My local food bank and animal rescue centre are really struggling right now. With the greatest respect Mumsnet is not.

it’s the security. I am so careful who I give bank details to and always look for the lock and some other security assurance. OtherwiseI would pay. You have been hacked before but I wasn’t concerned as my personal details are not linked to a card. I would have been very worried if they had. If I can send a cheque then that would be different.

It’s the number if people I find remarkable. We are providing all the content and reporting for the deletions

That comment has made me wonder. How many people look at any part of Mumsnet except the talk boards? I never have. I've just had a quick look and there seems to be a few basic articles and links but not much else. Nothing that seems to have taken much effort or resources and nothing worth paying for.

It surprises me how quickly Mumsnet has got into trouble considering the number of users and adverts, which must have made the site extremely valuable. You only have to look at how the Moneysavingexpert site was sold for about £150 million a few years ago to see the worth of access to millions of users, and in Mumsnet case a demographic that is more affluent than average. Surely there would be other sorts of funding available, other than from it's users?

I do understand the impact that the loss of advertising revenue must have had on their bottom line, but to me it smacks of being like the sort of person who just spends all their money on fun stuff each month and doesn't have any savings so gets into a mess when their washing machine breaks or the car needs its MOT and ends up tapping up friends and family for help when what they should have done was saved a little more instead of spending every penny they had.

You have been hacked before but I wasn’t concerned as my personal details are not linked to a card. I would have been very worried if they had

Actually it was worse than being hacked: a member of their staff had access to data and chose to leak it. MN's response was to downplay massively - a big mistake, which is now coming back to bite them as poster after poster raises data protection concerns.

I fail to see how this site employs 100 people.

MN is a chat forum. Let’s not talk it up into something it’s not. And it’s moderated by volunteers overnight, so what exactly do they need 100 people for?

In order to meet their £350k wage bill they will need 70000 subscribers a month. So that’s 200 down, 68000 to go. And that’s before people subscribe for a month and then leave, which they undoubtedly will.

How many people even join MN every month? How many existing users does MN have?

I have subscribed to previously free services when they have become paid only because they have offered something e.g. my podcast account which started out free but now isn’t, certain games etc because of more features.

But there is very little a chat forum can add which makes it worth £5 a month.

As I said on the other thread I suspect this has to do with the fact that because of coronavirus the daily mail etc are no longer lifting threads from here and driving traffic to the site. Also, because of coronavirus and the high numbers of hysterical threads on here many users have in fact left MN as well.

The deletion messages are usually meaningless, it’s sometimes because an op has had a drubbing and wants the evidence removed, others it’s a rabid poster determined to shut down discussion. There’s no consistency and individual post removals are totally arbitrary.

If it meant that the Mra twats trolling the boards won't pay so won't be around fantastic

Oh they'll pay - they may even crowdfund a huge donation in the hope of preferential treatment. I very rarely post of the FWR threads as it's just too poisonous for my taste, and I really don't think this latest wheeze will improve matters

Not that it's going to happen if the mass resistance and voting's anything to go by ...

I too am astounded at the timing of this and after seeing the figures Justine has stated and perusing MN's accounts on Companies House it's a definite no from me. There are far more companies in a worse state than Mumsnet, people are losing their jobs in droves, people are worried about their financial future. As I said, dreadful timing to be touting for cash.

I haven't been reading the forum much at all, far too many troll posts, inconsistent moderating and an outdated and clunky forum that belongs in the dark ages. Justine if you employ software devs then you need to sack them and employ staff that are up to date in this technological age, the site setup really is dreadful.

^
Yet you respond here ...

It's abundantly clear that MNHQ has rushed this idea out there without sufficient thought.

Considering how wonderful MNHQ tell us their userbase is, it's a shame they didn't feel able to engage with them as a community, rather than try and impose their solution which - as this thread shows - wasn't really put through the critical thinking part of planning.

Having been encouraged to apply for a role at MN - sending off personal details and a personal letter as requested - and hearing Sweet Fanny Adams back. Both from the initial application and subsequent polite chaser, I have to wonder if the 100 people allegedly employed at MN towers aren't just watering the pot plants.

Under a different moniker, I have been involved in several threads where MNs deletion policy has been clear as mud. It's definitely changed over the years - and not in a good way. I certainly don't post half as much as I used to specifically because I've seen a lot of time go up in smoke because someone got stroppy.

And finally, again under a different moniker, I was wrongly accused of reporting a poster to MN and getting a post deleted. Which I didn't. However the aggrieved poster accused me - in thread - of doing so. When I contacted MNHQ to post in the thread to correct that accusation, I got a reply that effectively said "Nah, don't think so". So an unscheduled name change was needed.

I would except for the last few weeks I can barely use the site as so much won't load.I can't get to any of the individual boards or post a thread .At the moment it's free but I'm ready not to use it as it is.

I’m not located in the UK @JustineMumsnet and, given exchange rates, cannot justify that kind of expense no matter how I would like to support the platform.

I keep getting messages saying I've been tagged.....but they are about an entirely different poster! So I'll get an email saying
'Hi not you, but another poster, you've been mentioned in part of mumsnet I never visit'.

Whoever gets £35000 for this level of incompetence needs sacking.

This site is supposed to be about feminism and equality
No it's not, it's a talk forum - there's much more to it than the feminism boards!
Lots of people come here for chat on all sorts of subjects and boards - be you men, women, parents, non parents....

Yet you respond here ...

What is your problem, do you run the forum? Are there only specific posters allowed to comment on this thread? Yet another reason for me to stay off this site, antagonists who nit pick the least little thing.

Jack Monroe's an actual MNer - she's been on threads a few times.
Seeing awful, personal hreads about yourself can't be nice.
As for male celebrity ones are left to stand - many aren't, I remember a vile Jamie O one that got pulled for example

What is your problem, do you run the forum? Are there only specific posters allowed to comment on this thread? Yet another reason for me to stay off this site, antagonists who nit pick the least little thing

What's that they say about doors on the way out?

YetAnother let people posts as they wish.

Jack Monroe's an actual MNer - she's been on threads a few times.
Seeing awful, personal hreads about yourself can't be nice.

Jack works 20 hours a day, I'm sure one thread on MN is easy to ignore.

It wasn't awful personal, it was a few things that didn't add up.

She's a public figure and compared to the kind of things she gets on twitter a mild thread on a forum is nothing.

It's the inconstancy in the rules I take issue with.