Thoughts on tweaking MN

[MsAmerica]

Since the mods very cordially expressed a willingness to read suggestions, I put something together for you. I tried to think this through to cover as much as possible, although I admit I'm not an experienced poster here. So these are things I've noticed that you might want to re-think, but overall the main suggestion is just to tidy up the layout for clarity, and re-organize and re-name some forums, to make the posting process more user-friendly. Please excuse a bit of repetition, as the categories overlap. (Also, some small additions since my original failed attempt to post, with apologies to mods who were already kind enough to read the initial version.)

I haven’t been able to post this, possibly because it’s so long, but I’m now going to try it in sections, as suggested, and see if that works.

Overall website
I think that overall you'd do better with a cleaner, less cluttered look. For starters, I just don't see the point of the photographs on the home page. It would be fine it they were photographs related to breaking news, but they seem to be pointless stock photos, just a distraction that gets in the way.

You could begin by tidying up the log-in/registration. Were they always coupled like that? I can't remember. All I know is that these days, half the time I end up being funneled into registering until the system politely tells me my account is already taken. Please, those should be two separate things to click on, as in most forums, not bundled together. Weirdly, there is a "Join," right underneath, leading, oddly, to the same double option. So this should be cleaned up.

There's also the odd intervening step that when you click on Talk, instead of going directly to the whole forum list, you are instead shown a dozen options that refer you to the forums that are already most trafficked. It's like the worst aspects of some news sites that steer people down an unnecessarily constricted path. It would be better to go directly to the entire forum list. It's counter-productive to point people to the places that are already most active, rather than encouraging them to poke around and participate more broadly. What’s also annoying is that when you move your cursor down to get into the Talk forums, the other things the cursor passes over keep getting in the way, so you can’t get to what you’re reaching for.

I don't even think "Talk" is a great choice. Instead, "Forums" or "Discussions" or "Chat Boards" would be better, and more standard. If you think about it, "Talk" isn't very promising, is it? It implies someone speakingnot dialogue. And then there's the oddity that the word "Talk" is fairly small on the home page, which is where you need to find itbut then it's large and omnipresent on the forum pages, in three places, where it's not really needed, certainly not multiple times on the page. We already know we're in the Talk forums, so it's just a visual distraction. Especially in the individual threads, it should be a smaller size (or not there at all--we know we've already clicked into the forums), with the other headings larger.

And how about splitting or re-naming "Notifications"? What if "Notifications" was for important notifications about the site, and the watched threads were separate? And if there are new notifications, why doesn't the little red alert show instantly, instead of waiting?

Forums list

I kept puzzling over how to describe what I was seeing as a problem with the divisions of forums and sub-forums. It took me a long time to realize you don't really have a forum/sub-form split. What you have is sort of a shell, or section, or category, with forums within. This leaves you with a main forum home page where many forums aren't even visible, so that people like me waste time bumbling around trying to find an appropriate forum which may not even exist. And if you’re in a forum, and back out, you back out into the whole forum list, not in the shell, so you have to start all over. It is very rare, in my experience, to have a sight where people can’t see the entire forum list at a glance. In MN, it requires clicking on many sections, and there are, oddly, even sections that say “More,” when there is no “more.”

As an example, technically you don't really have a book forum. You have a book shell, but no general book forum. Instead there is this oddly named "What We're Reading," which tends to focus almost exclusively on titles, and it implies that there should be a separate place to discuss books that we're not reading. You're left with a non-fiction forum, but no fiction forum. There's a "creative" writing forum, but what about writing that's not creative? Maybe there should instead just be a Writing/Language forum, where people could also seek advice on wording a business letter or ask about punctuation. But it shouldn't be inside a Book section. One more bizarre section is "Body and Soul." The point of having sections is to group related subjects, and this certainly fails, in trying to link completely disparate subjects like bereavement, sex, and style. Even worse is "Other Stuff," and, to me, it's a testament to the flaws in the forum listings that there are so many posts in the "Other" forum and "Newbie" forum which would be better elsewhere.

Of course the primary focus of the website is motherhood, but it's disconcerting that there are surprisingly few "serious" non-mum forums featured on the main list. What about substantial forums for politics, history, science, art/architecture, technology/internet? I favor encouraging women to weigh in on serious matters, beyond traditionally "girly" subjects. Even mothers are thinking beings who are likely to have political opinions, so I don't understand why, for instance, the politics section is hidden away under "Other Stuff." It's not a busy forum, and I can't help wondering if that's because it's not visible on the main list. As it is, people seem to be floundering between Politics and News.

And some of the forum names and positioning could be fine-tuned, with an awareness that there has to be a balance between a forum title that's too broad versus one that's too narrow.

I'd divide politics into domestic and international, maybe with a sub-forum specifically for women's political issues. Why "What We're Reading" as if there could be no discussion except about specific books? Why not simply "Books" that would encompass threads on publishing or book-buying habits? I'm not even sure it makes sense to separate fiction from non. I happen to read mostly non-fiction these days, but I always end up going to the "What We're Reading." That may be why the posts are so limited, mostly just asking for recommendations. It's the same with the travel forum, where there should be a general forum. What if someone wants to discuss passport regulations, or whether it's a good idea to buy real shoe-bags? I think you used to have a "Long Haul" section which is now gone, but now Holidays seems to be the only option. Maybe there should be subdivisions for U.K., English-language countries, and beyond? Or Europe, and beyond? Why not have AIBU inquiries going instead under the specific subjects, such as forums on relationships, work, etc.? Maybe an etiquette forum might be a good option for many AIBU issues. Same with Pedant's Corner.

I find some of the specific forum names to be problematic, not just because they may be too broad or narrow, but sometimes because they sound like they're trying to be cute, but end up sounding condescending. Besides the title of the Pedant's Corner being too vague, I find the idea of a Pedant's Corner offensive, as if anyone who is knowledgeable and feels strongly about a subject is a crazy coot and needs to be isolated from other forums. You could have chosen to call them experts, which is a positive term, but instead it's pedants, which is a negative term. And if you think about it, even the AIBU forum is a little condescending, too, implying that women are whiny and insecure. Is "Weight" really a good name for a forum, as opposed to "Fitness" or "Beauty"? Why History "Club," as though it's condescendingly regarded as a cute hobby for children--and have it so hidden away that it's unlikely to be found? Make it a real History Forum, perhaps with a sub-forum for Women's History. Why "Geek," which is really a negative term? Instead, an Internet forum, to discuss things like privacy issues or recommendation for email providers, and Tech/Computers, to discuss use, purchase, or repair. Why Telly "Addict" which again seems belittling or condescending? Most people wouldn't be proud to be television addicts, so it's a little like having an Overweight forum. I'm not even sure about the "Feminism" forum. Shouldn't feminism pervade the whole website? As it is, I'm not sure I even understand the distinction between the two sub-headings. Is "Sex" intended to refer to gender or sexual relations?

Then, as it stands now, you list the number of replies in a thread, and the name of the most recent poster. It would be nice if you also included the name of the original poster, and numbers for the overall forums, to give a hint of which forums are busy, or not.

Thread formats/headings

Sorry, I find the layout and design not very clear and sometimes messy. Again, why is "Talk" on every page, and in distractingly large letters? Once inside a forum "Talk" should be smaller, or be eliminated, and the forum titles should be larger. I don't think any other places have "Forum" on each page. Even, in the spirit of de-cluttering, why does it need to say "Subject" at the top of the column? I'm sure we can figure that out.

Possibly because of both the way threads spool down in a straight vertical line, without with being "nested" or indented (posters rarely use the quote option and, in any case, it wastes space) and the small composing box, there is very little actual discussion. So many of the forums end up being mostly just a Q&A format (Can you recommend...? Does anyone know...?). It mostly ends up being people responding to the OP, but rarely any real dialogue, and not much clarity for tangents within a thread. And couldn't the columns be a little wider? It's problematic that the very narrow column for displaying posts shows so little, making us scroll more.

Also, the option to quote a previous poster is essential, because there is no way to insert a reply in the right place of a thread, but it shouldn't be all-or-nothing. We shouldn't have to incorporate a whole long quote if we're only referring to one small part. Other sites let you edit it down, and highlight the part you need.

Posting/usage

I find the main page of the individual forums looks rather cluttered, and not designed to make certain things stand out. For instance, every single time, I still have to take an extra moment to hunt around for where to click to start a new thread because it doesn't stand out. It should be more prominent. I’m not sure you even need the Subject heading; maybe the thread starter could be there, in bigger letters.

I gather that at one point, the forum was attacked, and people had to start over again with how they logged in. If that’s been fixed, is there any possibility of logging in with name, not emails, and with a shorter password? “m wondering if that’s why there’s such a tendency to handles being so long.

The box for composing is the smallest I've seen in any forum, which gives the feeling of being more constricted, and maybe is subtly discouraging longer substance. Add to that the site's peculiar methods of formatting, or whatever you'd call it (e.g. italics), which is unlike any other forum I've seen, with the annoyance of having to mark each line separately. Why not use the standard Word method, as most forums seem to do, where you highlight the phrase, and then click on the icon to italicize? And why aren't the emoticons clickable? It's also odd that apparently the system won't like you paste a small image, like a musical note. And, please, couldn't the preview option include the title line, not just the body of the post? It's so frustrating to only discover when it's too late, after posting, that there's a typo in the title.

Also, instead of counting "messages," which is misleading because it counts the initial post, it would be better to count "replies."

And the biggest mystery: Why, after posting, does it say “Getting started”? We’ve already started!

Search

I've seen complaints about the search mechanism, but never any details about posters' objections. I haven't used it much, but I'll mention that although I like that one can search the entire forum (which is unusual), I doubt people do that often, and think that the default should be searching within whatever forum that the poster is in a that moment. And I see an advanced search, but where's a non-advanced search?

Profiles

I expected, like other forums, that you could click on someone's handle and see some version of a profile. No? That’s usually a basic for more forums. For that matter, if you click on seeing their posts, the default is only the posts in that one thread, which seems oddly limited.

"Like" options

I was interested to see that quite a few of posters here are against it, but none of their arguments convinced me. I think it's a handy option when you'd like to commend a nice post but you have nothing to add, so no need to waste screen space with "Funny!" or "I agree." It's also a handy reminder of what you'd posted, and especially nice if someone’s “like” makes you realize that they found something useful that you’d posted long ago.

Comparisons

For comparison, you might want to look at the Craigslist forums, which I think the best for simplicity, clarity and breadth--although, admittedly, they have an advantage in not having advertising. Look at how Craigslist, which indents, makes the response sequence perfectly clear, and neatly groups tangential discussions. (In fact, some posters sometimes chide, "Follow the thread.") Secondarily, you might look at the City Data forums, which are more of a standard layout, but also nicely broad, with the forum list all visible at a glance. You might note that both, for instance, have an Atheism forum and an Elder Care forum and multiple Politics forums.

Some nice things that Craigslist does:
-It's not clear why, but their design allows for the fastest signing in and the fastest posting. I think that leads to more engagement, and somehow makes it seem more congenial. It's not unusual to often have actual exchanges going on in real time, which is something I'm not seeing in Mumsnet.

-You can see the entire thread at once, all the first-line headings, so you see just how long it is, who participated, and get a feeling for what direction any discussion may have gone. If you're asking a simple question, like "Who's your favorite writer?" or "What soap do you use?" you may not even have to scroll or click, because the answer may be right there in the title line. With a "nested" indented format, you can insert your reply directly after the relevant comment, for clarity, so you can follow any tangents.

-Your own handle is highlighted in red for you, so if you've posted within a thread, you instantly see where you've posted, and whether someone has replied to you.

-It shows, simultaneously, the forum (on the left side of the screen) and the post you're clicking on or composing (on the right).

-Some of the forums allow you to hide your handle, for an extra layer of privacy if you're posting something extremely personal.

-There's a relatively easy way to include an image in the post.

-The threads don't constantly refresh to the top of the page with every new addition, which is unusual. While sometimes that's irritating, especially if you're trying to solicit a lot of input, the nice part is that it provides a sense of immediacy, and means that there will always be fresh posts. It also means you don't end up with threads that are insanely long. I've always thought it's counter-productive to have threads that go much over 70 or 80 replies, and crazy once it goes over 150

-Each forum has a number indicating the number of posts in the last 24 hours; this can be handy if you have a choice of appropriate forums and you want to choose the busier one, or a slower forum to ensure that your post will linger for a while.

Some nice things that City Data does:

-The main forum page shows the most recent post of each main sub-forum, identifying both the OP and the most recent poster, so it entices you to peek into different forums.

-It has quite a lot of good sub-forums; for instance, their Health forum has sub-forums for cancer, etc.

-It has easy editing features with highlighting, comparable to Word documents.

-It gives you a brief window of time to amend your post, to make a correction or an addition.

-It has, in addition to the equivalent of a "like" button, a mechanism whereby you can "like" and send a brief internal private comment on that post at the same time, without cluttering up the thread.

-There's even a mechanism for creating a complex poll.

So I hope you might consider some of these ideas, which I think would promote clarity and better discussions. Thanks for your interest. And your patience.

Bloody hell you don’t want much do you
I think a lot of MN’s quirks come from how it’s developed over the years, section names have come from people requesting it in those terms, the ux is old fashioned because people still enjoy it

I quite like it how it is 🤷🏻‍♀️

I really don’t like the thought of having a like function.
I like the way it is here because real conversations are going on. It would be sad to see this forum turn into a popularity contest or contribute to mental health issues because ‘no one liked my post’.

I don't want any of those changes please and thank you. I use MN in part because I can work it. Other forums which are apparently "better" are too confusing. I guess I'm used to it here.

I have skipped through your post. But lot of what you have suggested are found on netmums

I bet your house is spick and span.

Surely everyone just stays logged in?

Lol

I think many (most?) people use mumsnet on a phone but it sounds like you use a desktop/laptop? A lot of the problems you describe don't seem to exist on a phone, and one of the reasons it actually works well is that it's very simple. Can you not just change your login details so you're always logged in?

That's a long few minutes of my life I won't get back

I don’t believe I have ever seen the home page and I stay logged on on all my devices including my laptop, so only log in once in a blue moon. I don’t remember having a problem doing so. I only use the talk boards. If you know so many better places why not just stick to them? I would like the search function to be improved though.

If you can be arsed to type all of that out I would suggest that you're slightly over invested in Mumsnet and need to step back a bit.

Like many regular users, I never visit the home page and am always logged in, so many of your problems aren't problems at all.

Mumsnet had always had its own style and does pretty well at attracting and retaining members. Most of us stay cos we like it. Some of the board names are historic and meaningful, even if you think they are silly and meaningless.

I mostly like it how it is. I really dislike the look and feel of a lot of other forums. A lot of things you identify as problems are easily explained by MN history. Politics for example attracted a number of very aggressive, polemic posters and people just drifted away.
Some of the things like highlighting your own post are already available. Other things such as a like button have been debated and rejected many times.

Instead there is this oddly named "What We're Reading," which tends to focus almost exclusively on titles, and it implies that there should be a separate place to discuss books that we're not reading. You're left with a non-fiction forum, but no fiction forum. There's a "creative" writing forum, but what about writing that's not creative? Maybe there should instead just be a Writing/Language forum, where people could also seek advice on wording a business letter or ask about punctuation. But it shouldn't be inside a Book section

The problem with that general approach is that you end up with a large number of sub-topics which are difficult to navigate. The 'what we're reading' forum includes (in my opinion) topics which are in the same approximate area of interest. This is a leisure forum, so people browse - separate everything and it would be easy to miss things of potential interest.

Maybe there should instead just be a Writing/Language forum, where people could also seek advice on wording a business letter or ask about punctuation.

The 'work' section for the first, 'pedants' corner' for the latter. How you categorise topics is always going to be subjective - where one person might think 'writing' for advice on wording a business letter, another might think 'work' and another might think 'grammar'. MN can't please everyone.

Sorry Op, couldn't be bothered to read that.

When I saw the title all that came to mind was an Edit function!

Maybe I'm easily pleased!

I've been here a while and I use MN on my phone and on my laptop. I stay logged in.

I like the plain-Ness of Talk. If it changed its name and allowed likes I'd drift away and probably not come back.

And, I also said "bloody hell OP" literally, after that load of messages which I stopped reading after the first two, because, frankly, like Reddit, it's simple and no frills, and better than Reddit, there are no sub Reddits.

I like the simplicity. Full stop.

Please leave it as it is, it’s easy to use.

Tldr op

If it annoys you that much you could go elsewhere?

I generally really like how it is now. One thing though, on the app in each topic I can only see maybe the most recent 20/25 threads and then they repeat on a loop. It's frustrating if you want to go back to a thread you were reading but didn't think to "watch".

@Gimlisaxe

I have skipped through your post. But lot of what you have suggested are found on netmums

My thoughts too.

Or at least the ones I'm allowed to write!

I bet there's an MN HQ'er currently regretting their words!!
The site is fine, please leave it alone