How to make people RTFT or at least the OP's updates...

[TheFifthTellytubby]

Just a suggestion, and I don't know if anyone has come up with it before, but...

There should be a feature whereby some kind of indicator appears on the original post that shows if the poster has updated - possibly even with a counter to show how many further updates there are. This could be placed in a prominent location on the original post - maybe right at the end, possibly even at the start to cater for those who don't bother reading to the end of a post. This might help to avoid the many situations in which people read an original post, then come up with a "helpful" suggestion that appears on page 10 long after the original issue has been resolved - which they would have known if they had only read the OP's later posts, even if they didn't RTFT.

Maybe something like "OP has updated x times - please read before replying." It would only show up after the OP updates the first time.

Just an idea for MN. 💡

People don't even read the initial OP properly, let alone the comments! I think you are always going to have irrelevant responses.

For those wanting to read the OP's updates, you can just click "see all" at the end of the OP.

This info is shown, though. At the bottom of the OP it says see next or see all if the OP has updated, or just see all if not.

Yes that's very true, but most people don't bother doing that and you can only do it if logged in. Not saying it would be a complete solution, but it might make some stop and look for the rest of the story before commenting.
Not saying it's a perfect solution, but it might help a bit.

If you're responding to a comment and still had 200 messages to read it would be impossible to refund the original comment

I don't see why it matters, what's wrong with them suggesting the same thing that's already been suggested? It's not a race to put the replies first. Or an ordered discussion. And for random people reading for advice, they might only read the first and last pages

So often you see a suggestion for someone e.g. waiting in A&E who has since (at some point in the intervening 9 pages) been seen, treated and is now at home and well on the way to recovery ... or maybe the owner of the parked car blocking their drive has since turned up and apologised and gone on their way ... the situation has moved on massively, making commenting purely on the basis of the OP completely irrelevant. Then you get other posters complaining about it. All of which could be avoided if people just bothered to read the latest update.

These same people usually don't read the OP properly either, the number of times I read a thread and the first three or four replies are people asking questions that are answered in the OP, then ten pages in people are asking questions that were answered in the OP or subsequently have been answered by updates.

You really think people who don't read the OP properly and don't bother to check if in 10+ pages progress has been made are going to read a little notice saying "make sure to check for updates!"? They'll ignore that too and post what they want to post regardless. It's been thus since the dawn of the internet.

The indicator would presumably only appear if the person about to comment refreshed the page (if they'd had it open for a while, e.g. started to reply then got distracted - not that this happens to me !)
I'm not sure that it would work tbh - how would the Mumsnet page know the last post that the commenter read and to alert them to the fact that there are a bazillion new posts from the OP since then?
Unless it could somehow know what time the commenter started typing their message and then checked as they press "Post" and put a pop-up maybe to say things have moved on?

The android app is still not fixed. You cant search for op updates or edit etc Its really frustrating

Blimey that would drive me insane!

How do you read the OPs updates then where there's hundreds of posts?

The iphone app is pretty shit but at least I can see OP posts!

Well if it is a 'should I go to the hospital?' thread, for instance, then chances are that the OP may already have been and gone and come back again, and is now lying on the sofa with their broken leg in plaster.

See what I did there? Another pp has already said pretty much the same thing upthread. Annoying, isn't it?

Hi @TheFifthTellytubby and thanks for this. We're always happy to look at ways we can improve the site.

In a perfect world people would read all of the OP's updates before posting (and the See All tab makes this possible - it also shows how many times the OP has posted). But as other Mumsnetters have pointed out, this isn't a perfect world! And often people don't read the entire opening post, let alone the updates or the whole thread, and it's not something we could ever really enforce.

We do sometimes put a MNHQ post on a thread to highlight the fact that the OP has posted an important update. We also occasionally add a note at the foot of an opening post urging people to read the OP's subsequent posts before responding.

If there are any particular threads that you're concerned about, just hit the report button so we can take a look.

@invisiblecat No not annoying to me but I know we're all different so fair enough.

You dont... and there in lies the problem... you scroll a bit then find nothing comment then realise its all out of context!

This is the age-old problem whereby the only people who ever bother to read signs and notifications are the ones who never needed to read them in the first place.

I don't think there's any way around the fact that different people treat threads in different ways, and this site is for everybody, however annoying some habits some users have.

There are plenty of people who just want to wade in and contribute, regardless, so they will just read (even skim-read) the OP and nothing else; some just glance at the title and prefer to guess what the OP might have written, before responding to that, rather than what the OP actually wrote.

Usually, it's just deeply annoying; but it was heartbreaking on the Anglesey thread - where the terminally-ill OP asked for suggestions for making memories and the most of her remaining time when going on holiday there. A friend of hers later posted the very sad update on the thread to inform her other friends, well-wishers and concerned folk that she had now died, iirc not having been well enough to make it to Anglesey in the end. Along with the beautiful tributes and heartfelt messages, so many people came on a long, old, obviously well-established and very sensitive thread with cheery recommendations for lovely places to go and fun things to do that obviously would never be possible for OP anymore.

If they aren't logged in how would they be posting?

I have no idea how posters don't see the words "see next" , maybe they aren't good at reading

I think it would be more useful to have a note to say that the OP is a plopper.

They read it and think "oh, I know something about that, better log in and post" without stopping to look again once logged in ... (I suppose).

This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about, albeit an extreme and quite heartbreaking one. Also one in which I'm sure MNHQ would take action to avoid such replies, but even then there are always some...

I honestly feel like the quote feature has a lot to answer for.

Posts used to flow and read like a conversation. Now it's just countless posts repeating the same thing over and over again so instead of read the posts we are skimming to the ends of people's posts.