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

Thanks for trying to help MN.
I won't be getting the premium if it's not on Android.Pity you didn't say in the first post.

Given the amount of value I'm gleaned over the years I'm happy to turn over £5 a month from my disability over to MNHQ, and thank you so very much for everything you do.

No, I dont like the idea of a 2 tier membership.

Mumsnet is great, really it genuinely is. Collectively the support given on here is amazing and undoubtedly lives have been saved.

Please dont blur the lines. Keep mumsnet as it is and equal for everyone.

Seriously, if you need to garner more revenue then set up a different business entirely.

But please dont lean on the vulnerable at a time when we are all struggling. £5 a month can literally be the difference between feeding your family or someone going without.

Have a heart, Mumsnet. Now really isnt the time for all this.

Why would you give an intern admin access to a huge forum like Mumsnet??

I would agree that the whole trans thing is off putting.

I’ve noticed several threads where the ‘FWR mafia’ arrive and completely derail the thread into the whole Trans thing, where frankly there appears to be little interest outside the FWR echo chamber. This thread is a prime example.

Anyone who’s voiced an opinion around this issue is immediately hounded and their every word dissected and challenged out of context.
Call a member of the Royal Family a rude name? Post deleted. Gang up on a dissenter - crack on.

I’m a sporadic MNetter at best, this will be the final nail.

That is absolute rot Bunnyfiller and you know it.

Bunny, I've never seen any 'dissenters' who weren't TRAs or MRAs come here to report, plop or just goad looking for screenshots tbh.
Usually most women don't want men to be able to decide they are now the same as them and now deserve our spaces, refuges and even a right to sleep with lesbians.

And, the FWR boards have a set of special 'rules' that no other boards have, and we are expected to lie about factual, real life events in order to keep men happy.

Which bit is rot?
As some of its true, it's exactly what happens.
As in I sometimes think a bat signal goes out on some threads - I've seen some "big" posters admit that they use the @ function to "alert" posters that aren't even on the thread to get stuck in, then you've got the troll hunting bunbury thread that gets people over to threads they feel aren't going the "right way"
So not all of it's rot

Should I be getting adverts on the app now I have paid? I keep getting the ones that come in between posts.

@justinemumsnet

Should I be getting adverts on the app now I have paid? I keep getting the ones that come in between posts.

I can't say for certain, as they've not specified which ads will be removed. But if you've paid and the ads are still there then I suspect they're there to stay. Paying for premium means fewer ads, not no ads.

For reference & clarity current FWR thread:

OP BarbaraStrozzi wrote
'Bunbury's guide to community disruptors part 4'
(extract)
The useful Bunbury Guide to Spotting Community Disruptors is constantly evolving.

The best research and advice is not to engage with community disruptors and trolls. As ever, if you suspect troll activity, report it to MNHQ.

If and when you see threads plopped into FWR, especially a curious repeat of well worn topics, maybe check for poster history before engaging.

There are a number of posts/posters/threads that are reproduced on Twitter or Facebook to foment controversy using screen shots & flagging to either MNHQ to have threads or posters deleted. Sometimes, it’s used to approach commissioning editors with ideas for articles. It’s a tiresome tactic that we’ve had several community disruptor posters who themselves post the comments that they then highlight elsewhere as purported evidence of racism, religious intolerance, anti-men sentiments, or transphobia.

Some helpful links can be found in the first posts on thread 2 (linked above) but in essence FermatsTheorem recommended “that in the absence of a block/hide poster button, I suggest the following strategy (given that you're talking to the lurkers).

Do not name check the sealion. Instead, respond to a depersonalised paraphrase:

"It is sometimes erroneously suggested that blah. Blah is wrong for the following reasons (short and pithy). If you need more information re. debunking blah, here's a link." (continues)
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3691023-Bunburys-guide-to-community-disruptors-part-4

Have you got proof of your claims Willis?

Maybe not whining about 'transphobia' and FWR on a thread not about trans issues might stop it being derailed?

Just a thought...

Yuck, I really preferred MN before they introduced the ability to upload pictures. I don't like unexpected pictures of spiders or rapists

Yuck, I really preferred MN before they introduced the ability to upload pictures. I don't like unexpected pictures of spiders or rapists

It's a little bit of coding to have it such that posts with attached pictures do not display the picture as default but include a "picture attached" button (possibly with a user-generate text description for the visually impaired) that only fetches the picture from the server (this saving bandwidth for mobile users) when clicked.

With a bit of thought, you could have a profile option per-user "Always show photos" or "Only show photos on demand".

With a little bit more thought you could set that option per forum ...

That's off the top of my head ...

@Cismyfatarse you'll still see native ads but not banner ads

Is it not android friendly?

Yes. Your subscription will apply across your different devices (so long as you’re logged into Mumsnet) and can be used on both the website and on the Mumsnet Talk iOS app. For now, Premium isn’t available on our Talk Android app. However, it does not carry any external advertising.

Never used the app as it was awful anyway.

I see that Advanced Search by username is now back, thanks for fixing this MNHQ.

So I suppose I'd better do as I said I would upthread and sign up

Thank you for that reminder R0wantrees.

It is depressing to see the same de-railers who bedevil FWR threads turning up here making baseless accusations and . . . derailing.

It would be good to have an update from @JustineMumsnet to know whether the "anonymous donations" option is something that is even being considered, seeing as it has been suggested so many times in this thread.

(Apologies if I have I missed that in an reply - I have tried to keep up to date with posts here.)

I agree with a previous poster who suggested that this approach by Mumsnet could have benefitted from a bit of PR forethought. For example, it seems that many of us replying here use Mumsnet for specific Talk Boards (not just FWR) so comments are heavy on the "we are the content-creators" side.

It prompted me to have a root around the areas that I usually ignore. Mumsnet has definitely missed a trick in not taking the opportunity to promote the "Online surveys and product tests" page in these straitened times. Several £100 and £300 vouchers to be won:

www.mumsnet.com/online-surveys-product-tests

A bit more "awareness raising" about what the whole site has to offer, "self-promotion" and a "what we can do for you" angle, rather than a stark "begging bowl" approach, might have generated a generally more positive response - and benefited members who would be willing to do a product review for a punt at winning £100 - £300.

Some forums lock down contentious threads and topics to be proactively rather than reactively moderated. Just a thought. Just trying to help.

Mumsnet has definitely missed a trick in not taking the opportunity to promote the "Online surveys and product tests" page in these straitened times. Several £100 and £300 vouchers to be won:

making those available to a certain level of member is a a possibility too.

Just underscores my point yesterday. MNHQ would probably have done a lot better to ask the audience, rather than risk the our way or the highway tack ....

Haha pay for free basic stuff that doesn’t really do anything. That is so funny. I don’t get ads I pay nothing.

Edit button? It’s on basic free forums as standard. Somehow they cope without charging the community.

It’s not MNHQ that have provided support and advice given over the decades, it’s you. They should be paying you not charging you.

You could get often better and more reliable advice and support on one of the millions(?) of forums out there.

I’m dubious about the lack of PayPal option. It screams scam because unlike Stripe the buyer has protection. If you’ve paid for a year and two months later, nothing works properly based on track record, people will be wanting their money back.

The downplay of Emma is bizarre. Many of us were here at the time not going from retold details. It should have be been common sense to only have key staff members full access, and an intern limited. It’s irrelevant the reason why, she should not have had that access.