ROTFLMAO! Not any more (femail.com)

Member Name: spacey

Product:	femail.com
Date:	13/06/01 (123 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Empathy

Disadvantages: Uber-censored - also a shadow of it's former self

I am deliberately posting my update on this at the top of my original review, written some years ago, as it is far more relevant, sadly, than the original text.

Read below, and you'll see a picture of empathy, friendship, support and, mostly, hilarity. Now, very sadly, that is not the case.

These days, Femail.co.uk doesn't even really exist, as it's been swallowed up by the Daily Mail's very slow realisation that it needed a VISIBLE online presence (as opposed to one dressed up by another name). Worse, the Daily Mail is so petrified that it might get sued for people posting opinions on the daily news, it is now almost impossible to post anything more threatening than a recipe for rice pudding.

Add to that the fact that gradually the membership of Femail started to swell with people intent on starting, prolonging and winning spurious arguments, and you now have a site that is a very poor relation of it's original self.

Over the last year or so, it has become impossible to post even the most "light" point of view in any political or "news" context without coming under attack by some very odd people who appear to participate solely to make other people feel stupid or ill-informed for having attempted to express their point, or to put forward their own extreme view. That said, these days, you would be very lucky to see anything you posted become fodder for these people to reply to, as the management seem to delete some of the most interesting arguments before they even have the chance to be viewed or commented upon by the general membership.

I find all this very sad and perhaps not just a reflection on the Mail, but also on the way things are generally. In everyday life everyone is so scared of being sued or made to feel stupid, that they no longer speak their minds, or so it appears. I hope Dooyoo doesn't think the same, otherwise this op might disappear!

I and some of my erstwhile colleagues from Femail thought about starting an alternative, but quickly came to realise that we do not have the time or energy to fight the fires that come with it. For that reason, I don't particularly feel like shooting the providers. However, I am sad that our fellow contributors, and the new management team, have brought it so low.

RIP Charlotte Street & Femail. Cx


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I am not going to describe the technical or factual elements of the Femail website – it is simple enough for anyone to visit and see that for themselves. I also restrict my opinion to the Message Boards, as that is where I spend my time. There is much to be found on the Home pages of the site, but this is very much a personal testimonial to the benefits of being a member of the message boards – why it’s worked and continues to work, for me.

I first came across Femail in its original “Charlotte Street” format. At the time, early January 2000, my husband of nearly 10 years had just moved out (a mutual decision, though heartbreaking nonetheless). Also, I was in the middle of a “re-structure” at work, which was highly likely to end in many redundancies. Sitting in my office one day, totally demotivated by all the “behind-closed-doors” meetings and whispers that were to lead, ultimately, to my leaving the company, I decided to take a stroll on the Net. Despite having had access at work and home for some time, I had only really bothered with email or work-related sites up until then.

An ad I had seen in that day’s newspaper reminded me to check out the “website for women” so off I went. From that moment, Charlotte Street became my lifeline. As we all know, when we go through the worst scenarios in our lives, we need to talk to someone. If we are lucky, we have close family and good friends to pass the tissues and offer the constructive advice we need (though not always want to hear!). However, there is always the feeling, deep down, that you don’t want to “bang on” to your nearest and dearest, at the risk of either boring them, or hearing the same advice over and over. What I found at Charlotte Street was a pretty much endless source of comfort, advice, good humour (oh, yes, loads of that!) and education. Firstly, I found the support for my own problems to
be profoundly comforting. Secondly, and this is the real beauty of the site, I found myself constantly drawn into offering comfort and advice to other users. By doing this, I was able to overcome my own problems. There always seemed to be someone there who could either make me laugh so much I’d forget why I’d been crying 10 minutes before, or, someone with a problem that seemed so much more in need of discussion, that I would put aside my issues for another time. That “other time” never really arrived, as by discussing other people’s concerns, I often found the solution to my own. On more occasions than I could count, an evening spent in the Charlotte Street Café resulted in laughter until tears rolled down my face for the right reasons, for a change. In addition to the ROTFLMAO of this op’s title, we added some new ones of our own, such as PTM (pass the mop) due to the PMP (**** my pants) and LSMMBFO (laughing so much my bum fell off – well, you had to have been there!

I could not get out much last year, as the departure of the “Estranged One” as he became well known to everyone on Charlotte Street (LOL), and lack of a job prevented much babysitting money being available. I had, however, a “virtual” social life that saw me through the worst year of my life.

I was, along with many others, somewhat concerned when news of a “relaunch” was mooted. The first major hurdle was the change of name….Whaaaat???? we all cried – you couldn’t possibly call it “Femail” – how naff is that???? It will spoil Everything!!! For what it’s worth, I still don’t like the name, but at the end of the day, the name really doesn’t matter too much, as long as the heart of the place remains constant. Then, with utmost wisdom, the powers that be at Femail invited some of us stalwarts to “test-drive” the new site, in their offic
es. We had the opportunity to be as blunt as we liked, and yes, they did listen to us. In the early stages of the re-design, the comforting dark blue “rooms” of the site had disappeared, replaced with bog-standard stark white. At the time I said I thought it was like going from a cosy living room to an aircraft hangar. I subsequently heard that this somewhat flip comment was taken seriously and acted on. The rooms were returned to the blue comfort zone.

Femail now has many, many more topics on its message boards. It also has many, many more members. The fantastic thing is, it’s only served to improve the experience. OK, in the “good old days” you knew just about everyone on the Café board, for instance, so it felt like your local pub. However, the downside of that is that it was often the case that I would log on and just find one or two people “online” to talk to, who were not necessarily in the same mood or wanting the same things on a particular night, yet I’d feel duty bound to stick around and see the conversations through – exactly like the local pub! Now, that rarely happens, as the ever-changing clientele ensures wide-ranging topics under debate, and problems or issues to discuss that range from the “usual” through the “wow, really?” to the “you have got to be kidding!”. The addition of some boards designed for “serious” debate – under Current Affairs, has resulted in virtual fisticuffs on some occasions, as well as providing a fantastic resource for seeing other people’s points of views on issues that matter to all of us.

I don’t “need” the site now, as I did last year, as happily my personal circumstances have improved. A good deal of credit for that is due to the people at Femail, and that’s the main reason that I am now a Community Host on Femail, which means I volunteer a few hours a week to
help keep the site “on track.” I, and my fellow hosts, are there to welcome new members, keep an eye out for “dodgy” postings (personal insults, pornography and out-and-out marketeering of products and services are all discouraged), and generally to try to ensure that the site continues to offer a wonderfully welcoming place for anyone to visit, be it to find help in licking wounds, to just have a laugh, or to gain knowledge. I am proud of my role, however small a part I play in the overall scheme of it, and I am deeply grateful that someone launched this site just in time to save my sanity – I don’t dare think what last year would have been like without it.

http://www.femail.co.uk

Summary: A piece of history, sadly.