AIBU to think the quality of Mumsnet posts has declined?

[Attenboroughsmistress]

Is it just me or has the quality of posts on Mumsnet fallen through the floor recently? It seems very full of slop and very dull or stupid situations that seem either far-fetched / fake or simply make me feel like my IQ is draining away if I engage with them.

I discovered MN during COVID and was pretty instantly hooked, it was fascinating and full of lived experience and wisdom. The trending posts could always be guaranteed to suck me into a few wasted hours as they were fairly engaging and interesting. You sensed that most of the commenters were intelligent women and the posters were genuine.

These days I open it up and it’s just mostly slop. I am pretty sure I haven’t changed much or somehow become more intellectually advanced and critical, so I feel like it’s MN and not me.

Does anyone else feel like this? Is it AI bots or something? Or has MN gone international and the demographic changed somewhat from even a few years ago?

I am not too upset as it’s ultimately a waste of time, but wondering if anyone else who has been here for a number of years has noticed this too?

Well start them then? I've been on here for nearly 20 years. It varies. I find too much time on AIBU is time wasted but the more focused topic threads, though quieter, are 'higher quality' for want of a better term.

Very clever!

Some do seem strange and like they've come from a teen romance novel or similar. Some of the 'questions' are so juvenile and strange or just boring. Some also feel AI/bot generated.

Yes too many obviously 🧐 threads. Too many threads started by Americans pretending to be British and too many threads where the situation is bloody obvious like “AIBU to think my partner shouldn’t be burning my house down because I didn’t polish his bald patch enough? I’m 24(F) and he’s 67(M) and I have eight kids with him…” (and the M/F shite can get in the bin too). And so many commenters buying it. No one saying “come off it OP if you’re sound enough of mind to consent to marriage you must know this —made up— situation is BS” Or an OP posts a distinctly ordinary opinion and a bunch of people purposely say the opposite in crazier more purposely-contrary and aggressive pile ons than I’ve seen in 10 years as a lurker and poster. I comment far less than I used to because it seems so pointless. Have we just lost a ton of the rational posters that used to keep a lid on this sort of shite?

I’m still here for the 1 in a thousand posts that remind me of the days of yore. 🤣 The National Trust parking thread, the Elderly Korean Lady thread or the Mexican house thief.

It's lost its USP sadly.

The thing that used to make it great - intelligent, witty discussion, by likeminded women - went several years ago due to Penis Beaker and an influx of new 'regular' users.

The clever women are still on a few boards such as FWR and Pedant's Corner but the vast majority of boards are now at Reddit level.

There’s a certain amount of posts that are most likely training AI’s interacting with each other. Also a lot of drift over from Reddit lately that makes me (f105) married to dh (m99) miss the netmums huns.

I'm noticing a lot more threads where the OP opens with a wall of text because they are unable to distill information down to the relevant points.

I see it, "think oohh that is interesting" , open it, see the wall of text (usually without a shred of punctuation or paragraphs) and promptly close it again!

Yes totally agree - a lot of extremely obvious situations that sound made up (recent one about a man being upset that his wife was going on a 10 day yacht trip with her ex husband). I think perhaps MN just a victim of its own success and the demographic has changed and made things worse. Plus AI ruining everything, as per.

Yes very reddit style, but without the guardrails of reddit (the ability to vote on comments leading to user karma and community moderators).

I think the MN model only worked when it was mostly women and mothers from the UK.

Ah well :(

This is a great example, what in the Reddit-bot-AI hell is this and why are mumsnetters giving it the time of day?! Old MN would never.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5543944-what-does-this-mean-my-boyfriend-hasnt-texted-me-for-5-days-but-still-keeps-liking-my-ig-stories

Yanbu at all.

Seriously, ChatGPT is more fun. At least on there you have 💯 certainty you're talking to a bot.

I do think it has changed in the 13 years since I first discovered it. It used to feel like a place where people came to engage in discussion but I increasingly notice posters who seem to only be interested in shouting their own thoughts without engaging with the opinions of others. It's narcissism I think - it mirrors the change in social media from connecting with friends and family to projecting yourself into the public ether.

I used to feel intellectually inadequate on most discussions when i joined over a decade ago. Very clever funny women dominated. They are still here, but in smaller numbers since the site has branched out and appeals to a wider audience. I think it used to be quite niche I used to imagine bored brain surgeons and high court judges on maternity leave. (they are probably now on the private school, style and beauty and investments threads, and every time they talk about their lifestyles a 100 posts pop up claiming its all lies because the site cannot possibly have that many high earners!) Now there is better representation of the general population. More varied discussion, but lots of dross amongst the gems.

Oh absolutely! I used to feel like I had stumbled into a secret group that I wasn't quite worthy of being in. Now I often catch myself feeling unattractively superior.

I think perhaps MN just a victim of its own success and the demographic has changed and made things worse. Plus AI ruining everything, as per.

I feel like users have declined hence more AI posts to drive content. Whenever you see the “X number are looking at this thread” they aren’t high numbers.

It’s become a bit boring tbh

This discussion has been going on since I joined - I joined just after Moldies

But I do think the more recent changes are down to decisions by the site owners to pursue metrics measuring engagement rather than actually thinking about what makes MN unique and different to other websites and strengthening that. I know they do have to consider financial aspects and what makes sense for the survival of the site, but I think pursuing engagement over MN's unique strengths has made a lot of it more generic. And some of that is because there are a lot more posters in terms of pure numbers, but it's also about how people find the site and what they engage with.

For example I used to love the weekly thread round-up with the hand picked best threads of the week. And when they first added the Trending box, there was a switch to swap between Trending and the old box which was hand picked, but this is also gone now. I can't remember what it was called, something like "Best of Today" but the titles would be re-written, by a human. There used to be a quote of the week at the side of the page and it was always funny.

Because there are more algorithm-driven ways to show people new threads now, the trending box plus sharing on social media, it exacerbates the worst parts of MN - posts which stoke division and argument get even more visibility than they would anyway, and possibly because of the way comments threads work on other websites, or maybe because more people use the site from a phone, people seem more likely to use a posting style of reading only the OP or only the title and just responding to that rather than engaging with the discussion as a full conversation. I'm not saying that never used to happen, just that it seems to happen more these days. I don't even follow MN on FB but I see posts there all the time and random people comment as though the OP of the post will see, but often the OP of the thread is not even aware that someone at MNHQ has decided to plaster their thread all over FB. I don't even know if this is a decision made by a human or just a bot, because it is occasionally very insensitive e.g. a poster has become upset or distressed by responses or the thread has gone in a different direction from the OP yet they are suddenly flooded with new responses from people who have only seen the snippet of the OP shared on FB.

Then the aggressive ads and security issues have driven some posters away.

Thank you for this insight! I think you’re on to something.

Haha yes that’s what it felt like for me too!

Anyone with half a brain knows it's not worth starting a thread because all the weirdo sociopaths come on and post nasty stuff which is totally unnecessary and just spoils things. Nobody has a sense of humour anymore and deliberately misinterpret things in order to start a fight.

The people who do start threads are either political bots, stupid, goady or haven't been here long enough to know that starting threads is a soul destroying, pointless exercise. Perhaps the sub sections are better.

The place is starting to reflect the Dead Internet Theory that's becoming more and more apparent elsewhere.

I'm not sure about this. Often people will comment on a thread and say there are no paragraphs but I can see it perfectly formatted. So I'm wondering if it displays differently on the app or different browsers.

To answer the OP, I definitely find it worse these days. I hate the pile ons and the way posters often just seem to copy the view of the first few responses on a thread, especially if they are horrible.

Absolutely agree OP. When I first discovered Mumsnet several years ago, it was either the lol sharp humour or the genuine kindness, wisdom and experience that made it all so interesting. Now so many threads are so basic they're just not worth plodding through. I dipped into Classics the other day and the first one I read was very funny. About a husband eating a fat ball made for birds that he found in the fridge. And yet here I still am plodding through AIBU...!

I've only been on MN for just under 3 years. I left for 1 month then came back and I felt as if in that one month, which seems incredible, there had been a shift in the kinds of posts and the types of posters, hard to explain but it seemed less helpful less fun and kind of dry.
I wondered where everyone went.
I've heard that most social media has fake AI generated posts and I often wonder if I am engaging in one of them.
That kind of puts a damper on it for me.
I read a post yesterday from a few days ago people were reminiscing about how much fun to be years ago.
I wish I had been on here then.

I've been on MN for nearly 20 years I think. It's certainly not as much fun as it used to be. Discovery of a troll could have everyone going for a week! And so many genuinely funny threads. It's a shame.