Were you ever on a site with a strong community feel

[Liz1tummypain]

Just interested to know what people have to say about this. I was on a questions and answers site, not that I imparted much knowledge, it was mainly the music and chat areas I liked. But there were a lot of friendly regulars who I was friends with over tinternet. Mostly Americans, and I think about them now and then. No particular single other user but I miss the community, the atmosphere, if that's the word. I suppose my kids were no longer needing me and it filled a bit of space in my head, my life. Killed odd bits of time and was nice seeing a side of other users lives.

Plenty to be dealing with now and even if it came back I've moved on from that kind of site, I think.

Can other people relate to this ?

@JurassicPark4Eva just seen your post! Hello! We must have met up or interacted at some point.

I have RL friends i met on Mustardland, and also Mumsnet.

Yes, very early 2000’s. Not mumsnet.
We met, we partied, we had weekends and we are all still best friends today. I don’t think there will ever be a moment in time like this again. Total strangers coming together with a shared love. The internet was something really special in those days.

Another vote for Babyworld.

I was also on BGH! People used to post pics of their kids and their houses, their jobs, their addresses, go to meet-ups…happy days! I sometimes wonder what happened to Emma (and Ryan?) who ran the site. Though — I have spotted a few BGH characters on here over the years (LaQueen anyone?)

Mumsnet used to have secret Santa, making quilts for people who lost a baby, the option to put pictures and information about yourself on your user name if you wanted. What happened to those personal things? I don't remember people mentioning when they all vanished.

Me, too. After Handbag I found a very tiny forum of creative people, who were brilliant, and went to a few London meetups with them. That also died and I buggered about in VR for a while, mainly to learn how to do the coding but made a few friends while avoiding weirdly sex-crazed furries. I joined Mumsnet in 2008. I'm still Facebook friends with a dozen or so women I met on here, and we've met in real life.

I still devote far too much of my life to MN and I value it, but it's not the same 'community' now it's so big and (in)famous.

Another former iVillager here. I was a Community Leader on several boards over the years and am still in regular contact with quite a few people I met on there. I think there was a real community on all the boards I CLd.
I have also had a lot of support and made some real life friends from hobby related forums - both my own hobbies and ones I was on because of my children.

I was on Handbag, Thorn Tree and Holiday Truths.
I have also met members in different parts of the world and particularly remember a girl I met in Goa, India and then again in Thailand a couple of years later.
Those were great forums.

Ooh, Usenet! That takes me back...

I remember the Opera forum fondly. (Although I did get my arse handed to me on a plate after anill-advised comment on Nemorino's aria in L'Elisir d'Amore.)

Back in the 90s when you could make real friendships online. It's much harder now. I miss those days.

fertility friends. Would have been lost without it. Amazing women

I'm going to guess at Hitched although it sounds like there were several websites like this at the time.

I was very involved with Hitched and the spin off site DW (don't think that was very well known). I haven't actually posted on DW since before my third pregnancy and that baby is now 10. It was vital to me during wedding planning and TTC though.

The Secret Santa stopped ages ago, as did the namechange competitions. The Secret Santa attracted a few problems, parcels getting lost in the post, givers feeling inadequate when receivers from other people posted having received much more lavish gifts than they had sent etc. The blankets still happen though, look for threads in the Woolly Hugs section.

Mumsnet for me, lots of friends made here have converted to real life friendships, meetups, group chats, FB groups etc. There are still some very friendly and supportive threads, there's one I have been posting on for about 15 years.

The Lovely forums (from How to start your own country), started off on the BBC messageboards then moved to its own forum but got closed down eventually, some of us started our own board afterwards and kept it going for a couple more years but it withered away.

We had regular meetups, Christmas parties, Easter gatherings and whatnot and I made so many friends.

Yes fertility friends back in the early 00s. I did a few larger meets, did holidays with a group and still very much in contact with this group. Was a lovely site who brought people together from all over the country (we all had fertility issues)

I remember when we did a postal secret Santa!

I remember that too.

I went to a meet up in London. It was mad in a good way.

Yep! Met one of my best friends through Mumsnet. Lots of local meetings as a well as national ones.

I was on You And Your Wedding 2008-2010. There were some big characters and some memorable scammers/trolls - one that sticks in my mind is a poster who claimed to have a baby with trisomy 18, who garnered a lot of sympathy. Then she posted some photos and an eagle-eyed forum member pointed out that they were a) clearly from the 90s and b) not of a baby with trisomy 18. People felt betrayed.

I was also on a baby name site called ‘Baby’s Named A Bad, Bad Thing’ which had an attached forum. Again loads of drama, but that one did feel like a genuine community, as it was small so you could properly get to know people. I ended up on a spin off Facebook group but left when that too became drama-infested.

Boots Diet. There was a small group of us on there 15 years ago when I joined. Really friendly and we’d talk about everything. It was taken over and although we were allowed a corner for ourselves it wasn’t the same. We moved to FB and some of us are still in touch. I went abroad with one, twice, and met up with another last year.

Dotmusic back in the early 2000s

A few band forums. Stayed friends with a group including a lovely lady who I met up with last month. We hadn't seen each other for 15 years +stopped going to gigs because of my hearing)

There was forums attached to an Irish version of pigsback.com way back in the very early 00's and I met and have stayed friends with some of the posters although the whole thing got really nasty and bitchy in the end and one day the forums were just gone! I think a lot of the nastier ones moved to another Irish site something to do with mothers or magic or something I do remember being sent links but never bothered myself but thinking back I spent way too much time on the pigsback one so just as well it was closed down.

UK Parents - and another incarnation when the owner sold it.

Also BGH (and yes, I remember the person who called herself LaQueen on here - she had a lot of controversial threads there. Remember the traffic warden? 🤣. And the broughhaha over her PhD?)

There are a couple of Facebook BGH groups, but I am not on those. It was a lovely community until Emma and Zoe shut it down.

I cant remember if it was from UKP or BGH, but another forum was opened, called (I think) Behind The Bikes he'd, which was essentially a site where you could go and openly pitch about other forum members. That got very nasty at times

@HurdyGurdy19 openly bitching about other members? Cant imagine why that got nasty at all.... 🙄