Category Archives: MN Bloggers Network

Why I’ve Left Mumsnet and Will Never Go Back

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This is the thread I’d like to start on Mumsnet, but I don’t want it deleted. I want it out there, on the internet, for anyone who wants to know what’s happened to a place that was once the best place for advice, a laugh, friends and fun.

Some will say this is sour grapes. It may be. I don’t really care. I need to say it. It’s my blog. I’m going to say it.

The destruction of Mumsnet as a good place started last year. Three things happened in rapid succession: their Head Community Manager left, #PenisBeaker exploded across the ‘net, their best and most experienced Community Manager went on Maternity Leave.

When Head Community Manager (HCM, I’ll not use her name here, but if you were/are a Mumsnetter, you’ll know who I mean) left, Mumsnet did not appoint a replacement. Instead they split the job between two other sitting Community Managers. And things started slipping. Trolls and other horrors were allowed to stand much longer than they should have because they were, quite obviously, short staffed.

And then came #PenisBeaker. Some day, I swear, a PhD candidate with get their doctorate studying this incredible Social Media phenomenon. But what it meant specifically for Mumsnet was the boards were, literally, brought to their knees both via tech issues and trolls. Their servers, never too steady to begin with, crashed repeatedly as hundreds or even thousands of more people headed to Mumsnet to see what was going on. It spread like wildfire from Mumsnet to The Metro to Twitter to Facebook to who knows where next. And, naturally, Mumsnet rode the wave and even encouraged it. Views equals pounds and no one, I think, can begrudge them taking advantage of this organic chance to spread the word and up their revenue.

The problem was, though, that they didn’t care who they were bringing to the site or what they had to say. You see, Mumsnet has had minor #PenisBeakers before. Press coverage that has brought the trolls, the lookyloos and the new posters in droves. The difference in the past is that when it happened? They tightened up their Community Manager coverage and they allowed the boards to self moderate.  They let their regular posters do what they’ve always done best, call a cunt a cunt and a dick a dick and keep the boards ticking.

When #PenisBeaker struck, it was like they were asleep at the switch. Between site outages and troll attacks, the few Managers they had around couldn’t keep up. And instead of hiring more or even shutting down registration, which they’ve done before (Mumsnet had a DDOS last year that shut registration down for about 2 days while they cleared it) they just let horrible posts stand.

Around this same time the site owner and members of the Community team had an open chat to talk about what had happened and what they could do better in the future. And then did none of it. So it was all lip service to shut people up.

And then, everyone’s favourite, most experienced and best Community Manager went to have her baby. And that was the end of Mumsnet as it had been.

Things could have been okay at this point if Mumsnet Staff had allowed the boards to really self moderate, they way they had in the past. They deny it now, but there was a time when you were allowed to say, on site, “I think you’re a lying cunt” and “No way did that happen, you dick”. Now anything like that is labelled a personal attack and troll hunting and deleted. No matter what it’s about or who.

Everything finally and completely came to an end on New Years Eve. Mumsnet, in their infinite wisdom (insert pause for laughter), decided to not only have only one Community Manager on duty, but have it be a new one. Someone who had barely been on the boards, never mind on the boards on a night when everyone was drinking. And then it started. Some regular posters decided to play Mumsnet Bingo, which they decided meant posting the often most controversial subjects as if they were serious. Everything from parking spaces (don’t ask if you don’t know) to using offensive language deliberately. And the Community Moderator actually turned off the boards for posting. Not just shut down registration, but shut down the entire site.

One of the Co-head Managers came along at some point, turned it back on, edited some posts and apologized. But the damage was done.

That was the last day I posted on Mumsnet. The day they left a newbie in charge who shut the boards down because she was overwhelmed. I get being overwhelmed, I do. And I get being new. We’ve all been new. But surely her first move should have been to call for back up? Call for someone else with  more experience to decide how to handle a board gone mad? Or maybe she was told to not contact anyone no matter what. I’ll never know.

What I do know is that from then to now? Things have gotten worse. The Professionally Offended, the Goady Fuckers and the Out and Out Trolls have taken over. To the point that most of who have been regular posters for years? Refuse to post anything serious any more or post at all. I’m not the only one who left New Years and has never gone back.

I haven’t deregistered, it’s true.  That’s for one reason only: I made a commitment last year to the Chocolate Panel as part of their Insight Panel. I will finish that and then I will close my Mumsnet account for good. I had already stepped down as Mumsnet Belfast late last year and I have stepped down from the Mumsnet Bloggers network.

I was asked, by the way, why I was leaving the BN. I told them it was because I no  longer believed in Mumsnet or what it stood for. Their response? “Okay. Good luck in the future.” Alrighty then.

Mumsnet’s owners and, by default, their staff just don’t care any more. All they can see are the pounds stacking up and their own salaries and bonuses or what have you increasing.

It is no longer a place to go for true help or encouragement or even a good laugh.

And I can’t even believe or begin to tell you how sad that makes me.

Railway Children, Mumsnet and Aviva – Please Help

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People tell me, sometimes, that they can’t believe how much I put on the internet. My real name, the name of my son and husband, my general location, my health issues, both mental and physical.

But what they don’t realize is how much I don’t put on the internet. About my childhood. About my parent’s divorce. About my journey from being a troubled child and teenager to being an adult with those mental illnesses.

About my running away.

I’ve run away twice in my life, once when I was about 13 and once when I was 25.

30 years on I have no idea why I ran away when I was 13. A fight with my mom and step-dad no doubt. About…who knows?

But run I did. Out the door and down the street and, I remember, to the left. To the right was known and led to major roads they would be able to find me on. To the left was unknown and led to I didn’t know where.

I was just looking at a map and I can’t remember how far I went or where I ended up. I do know a nice lady stopped and tried to help me, but I jumped out of her car at a light, stories of kidnapped children in my head. And then was picked up by the police and taken home; the nice lady had called them. It was dark and cold at that point. I was gone for at least a few hours.

My parents were, of course, relieved. My step-sister, who was home from college, was really mad, but still ran me a bath to warm me up.

I have no idea what my mom said to the police to get them to just leave me and not investigate further. But that’s what happened.

And I was lucky. I was on the street for hours. Not days or months. And at this point, I don’t remember the aftermath. In what way, if at all, I was punished. All I remember was thinking I had to get away from them. From myself. From my pain.

My second running away at 25 was the beginning of my mental breakdown that led to my diagnoses today. But that one was by car, with my cat and isn’t what this post is about.

It’s about runaway children. It’s because Mumsnet and Railway Children and Aviva have come together to help young runaways. The ones who don’t get taken back home in hours. The ones who are on the streets. The ones whose home lives are probably filled with horrors I can’t even imagine; horrors that make the streets better than home.

For every blog post, every Tweet, every Facebook status, every comment on this blog and all the others writing about this, Aviva will donate £2 to Railway Children, up to £200,000 by the end of 2013. Money that will go towards helping runaways, like I might have become.

If not for one nice lady and some police.

Counting My Blessings – Blog Hop

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So I am joining in with Salt and Carmel‘s Blog Hop this week and counting my blessings.
They include:

  • A fantastic husband
  • A fantastic son who, while has constant colds and such, is relatively healthy
  • A career I love
  • A warm place to live
  • Enough food to eat
  • Great friends, near and far
  • A loving family
  • And, most of all, recently some fantastically pain free and productive days

I wish, very badly, that this was just another Blog Hop that I thought would be fun and/or inspiring. But it’s so much more than that.

Because this Blog Hop was started off because of this:

Source: http://saltandcaramel.com

This picture was drawn by Aillidh. She is 8 years old and has Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. She’s just started her third round of chemo and is desperately praying for a bone marrow donor. She is the daughter of a fellow Mumsnetter, which is how I, and many others, heard of her. She also has Facebook Page asking for help and encouraging people to register for or donate to the Bone Marrow Register.

That picture inspired this post at Salt and Carmel, the Twitter Tag #makemebetter, and this Blog Hop.

Everyone has problems and no ones problems are better or worse than anyone else’s.

But Aillidh needs a donor. So I am counting my blessings and helping to spread the word.

If you are eligible, please consider signing up to donate. Since Aillidh is of mixed race, finding a donor for her is harder, and actually most likely to come from the US as she is of white Scottish and meztizo – the mix of European and indigenous N. American peoples (Native American/Indian) descent.

In the UK you can contact the Anthony Nolan Trust.

In the US there is the Be The Match Donor Register website.

If like me, due to poor health and/or age you can do neither, please spread the word. ‘Like’ Aillidh’s Facebook page. Tweet using the #makemebetter tag. Pray.

It’s not just for Aillidh. But for all the ill children and adults who are looking for a miracle.

Let’s spread the word and use the power we have to help all of them live long and healthy lives.

Fighting The Black Dog

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Today is the launch of a Mental Health Blogging Carnival here at Bundance.

The timing is interesting as I am currently fighting the Black Dog myself today. After feeling really well for ages today I’m just not. No idea why.

Do take a look at the carnival. Lots of great blogs by lots of great bloggers.

Let’s get talking. Let’s fight the Black Dog.

The Baby That Wasn’t

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Mumsnet is having a campaign to improve the care of women having miscarriages during and after the miscarriage occurs. One of my fellow MN Bloggers, @mmelindor, suggested that the members of the MN Bloggers Network blog about their own experiences or allow guest bloggers to use their blogs to spread the word.

And I paused and thought.

Because it is one thing I don’t think I have ever blogged about. My miscarriage.

You see, my medical notes do not ‘officially’ refer to it as a miscarriage as the first GP I saw, with the heaviest period and the most severe menstrual cramps of my life, dismissed the notion that it was anything more than a heavy period with severe cramps. Even though I have never bled that heavily before (or since) or hurt that badly. So badly I was doubled over in pain.

My GP wasn’t available when I made the appointment as she was on holiday so I saw a partner in her practice. This partner, who I usually like and is fantastic when he sees Adam, wouldn’t even listen to me explain that we had most definitely been trying to conceive and I had never hurt like that before and shouldn’t I have a scan or something? He deliberately waved his hand and dismissed it, handing me some sort of pain killer and giving me a sick note for work until I felt I could go back, once he heard my period had most definitely been due.

Once I got to see my GP, about a week later, and I told her about it she said, and I quote, “I think you’re right. It was a miscarriage.” Which made me feel a bit better but she still didn’t think I needed a scan or anything.

That happened about 2 years before we conceived Adam. Just a month or so after we started trying.

And sometimes I think about it. If that baby that wasn’t had been a baby that was, would we have two children now? Would I have been willing to do it again at 39 in a way I am not willing to do it again at 42?

And sometimes I still get angry at that first GP, for dismissing my concerns. For not listening.

And that’s nothing compared to what some women go through when they have a miscarriage. Put on wards, when the miscarriage needs medical intervention, with people who are having live babies next to them. Sent for scans at antenatal clinics and sitting next to hugely pregnant woman, as their own baby leaves them.

Receiving calls, weeks after the miscarriage, from the community midwife team, wondering why they had missed antenatal appointments as no one had informed them of the miscarriage.

And Mumsnet is trying to change this and other aspects of care for women who are losing their babies. Better staff training, better resources, better help.

And so the bloggers network is jumping on the bandwagon, getting the word out. We are Tweeting and Facebooking and yelling at the top of our internet lungs ‘Listen to us! The service is horrid! Help us!’

Help our sisters. Please.

Bucket List

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So there’s a meme, started by @Ellen27, about bucket lists. She was inspired by the film of the same name which starred Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. A bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket.

So I’ve been thinking about what to put on my bucket list. And I can’t think of a single thing.

Sure, there are things I want; more money, more time, more clients. But nothing that I feel I have to or need to do before I die.

Sure there are places I want to visit; Paris springs to mind. But, again, not something I feel I absolutely need to do before I die.

I’ve seen lists of things like ‘be a kinder person every day’ and ‘spend more time with my family’. That’s not what I call a ‘do it before you die’ thing.

So I guess it means I’m content. I have the big things I want: a husband I love, a son who is becoming more wonderful every day, I am my own boss. My health could be better but there isn’t much I can do about that.

So I guess my Bucket List is to just…live.

And I’m okay with that.

I Am Not A Farmer

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I do not live in Scotland.

But, please, read these two blogs: –

Awful News on The Farm at the back of beyond

21st Century Clearances on Salt and Caramel

The first is written by a fellow MN blogger who lives on a tenant farm in Scotland. Thanks to the meadeval Scottish land tenancy laws, she is about to lose everything due to a negligent landlord. Her roof has, literally, fallen in, she has no clean water, no heat. Her husband’s family has been on the land since the 1800s and their house is about to be declared unsafe and they will be forced to move. She has very little legal recourse.

The second is also written by a MN blogger. She has some more details about the plight of the farmer and some ideas on how to help.

I am feeling fairly helpless. I often do in these situations. I am not a citizen of the UK so feel I can’t really write my MP/MLA as I am not actually represented by them.

If you are a citizen of the UK, please Tweet, using #21stcenturyclearances as your hashtag. Even if you’re not, let’s get the word out. Let’s get the world watching.

Let’s get this powerful internet tool working. My farmer friend has made the decision to go public, even if it’s too late to help her and her family.

Let’s see what we can do to help her.