What is this ‘You might also like’ clutter?

[PalatineHill]

Hi MNHQ. Please just take it out. Or let me opt out of it? It looks a mess.

If here’s something that I might also like to read, I’ll find it by using the search function.
These suggestions are just encouraging the posting of the same points on multiple similar threads, and that will discourage healthy normal thread death.

It’s really distracting to look at visually, I really liked the uncluttered ‘clean’ MN format compared to other forums.

It seems to have gone from new Chat and AIBU threads I click on, but hanging about stubbornly at the base of any thread I have previously posted on...

Please add my vote to those who really hate this new feature. Old threads pop up all the time in active, with no input from the OP, and often advice that makes no sense. I'm on my laptop and I can't see ahead of time when the last time that the thread was posted on (not until I click on the thread), meaning that about 30% of the time I start reading, realize that it was old/the OP isn't coming back, then clicking out. If it stays, I'm using Mumsnet even less.

I can still see it in AIBU, on the thread called ‘To tell her she needs to cancel’.

The new ‘feature’ adds nothing but a load of links to brain stultifyingly old discussions on the same vague tedious topic.

Surely what is attractive about MN is the sheer huge variety of threads. This new feature is like reading a problem page in a magazine where everyone has the same problem, every week.

😂😂

Yep, I still see it there too but not on loads of other threads.

The inconsistency of when it is appearing is almost as annoying as it existing in the first place.

So Mumsnet was the Zombie Troll all along 🙄

The new feature certainly explains why they have never made any effort to lock old threads.

I'm still waiting for MNHQ to explain the purpose of the feature, and how it actually benefits the site or the users. It seems like such a strange addition to a forum that is based on real time updates and communication, and also relies on people starting new threads to help keep the site active and enagaging.

Oh and if they could explain why site stuff was excluded from the start, when other sensitive boards were left in then that would also be appreciated.

I understand they don't owe me (or any user) an explanation, but it would be interesting to hear why they thought the feature was a good addition to the site.

I do think it would be interesting to know how it got past the ‘this is an idea’ stage without someone pointing out all the downsides. 🤔

"Back to top" button has appeared!

Also under the 3 dots there's also options for top and bottom which I don't remember being there before.

I really don't understand why MNHQ don't announce changes or updates to the site. They have a site stuff section, surely it makes sense to post about these updates so users are aware of new / altered features?

I’ve worked in industries where I didn’t use or enjoy the product we were producing before, or I didn’t understand how it worked. I guess that’s fairly common. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, though it is limiting the contribution you can make.

However, I’d say if you’re in a strategic decision-making senior role then that would be a very difficult and limiting basis to work on for the health of the business. But Maybe these ‘small tweak’ decisions aren’t made or checked at the top at all. Perhaps they’re made by external people brought in who have done really well advising on some completely different type of website and think it’s universally applicable, their advice is expensive to the company to have got and so….

I’d love MN to recognise its own amazing legacy as a modern day forum for women to talk and for MNHQ to set up a more collaborative working approach with its users. But I have to accept that it’s a privately owned business (even it definitely does have an important social purpose). I guess the same is true with lots of the internet and social media, as much as we might to think of them as being like essential utilities or having an important democratic purpose. They are just companies that someone has set up. With all that that involves.

Look at the complete disaster Elon Musk is currently inflicting on Twitter. That kind of mega brand is still very fallible despite millions of organisations relying on it every day to communicate with people and huge globally significant decisions being initially communicated by Tweet.

I hate it.

I’ve worked in industries where I didn’t use or enjoy the product we were producing before, or I didn’t understand how it worked. I guess that’s fairly common. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, though it is limiting the contribution you can make.

You would have thought that they would have at least run it past the Moderators, a lot of whom do (or used to) post in the site as regular customers so to speak.

The top and bottom bits aren’t new they’ve been in a while

On political threads the algorithm is accidentally doing the nasty clickbaity rabbithole that is so harmful on YouTube, only on MumsNet it's reviving events that happened long ago with titles that say "did you see what <terrible thing> happened today"! I'd quite like a "related threads" button but I don't want disasters from 2 years ago presented as if they are happening now.

On a personal level, it will drag up horrors that the individual wants to forget
on the Elderly Parents board, I can't look in case related threads are mine, though stuff about my late father is mostly on Life Limiting Illness...hopefully this nonsense isn't appearing there?

Are you trying to make the site as shit and unuseable as possible?
it's slow, full of shit zombie threads, AS is beyond crap, you can't seem to stop repeat trolls from spamming the place.
maybe fix some of these problems before adding even more shit features that nobody wants

Threads from Life Limiting illness have been recommended on other topics - I posted upthread about one which appeared on a thread about a cat.

Can somone from @MNHQ clarify if this new feature is still active or not, or on which boards?
Or don't they have a clue?

Well, I've just had a look at various different boards and it seems to have disappeared...?
<reports own post to attract attention of MNHQ>

It's still there on the bacon sandwich thread, but it does seem to have mostly disappeared. The lack of zombie threads this morning is great.

It seems to still be there on the ones I've already opened, but not ones that I haven't.
So, looks like MNHQ have listened
Hope someone's arse got well and truly kicked over this!

There's no rhyme or reason to it. I just opened a thread from AIBU at random. There it was. It's on almost but not all the threads I have previously posted on.