The SA Tuck Shop
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South African Forums in the UK
Below is a list of write up on the various Forums available in the UK. If you run a forum or chat room that you would like listed please drop me a mail at sue@sa-eshop.com . Or
If you own such a site and would like to add your url please click the following link:
We have included the sites own write up plus one from the Tuck Shop team . You may have already guessed they don’t always say the same things. If you have any personal experience you would like to share about a forum, again drop me an email on
GUMTREE
The Official Description:
Gumtree.com was started in March 2000 as a local London classified ads and community site, designed to connect people who were either planning to move, or had just arrived in the city, and needed help getting started with accommodation, employment and meeting new people.
We’ve grown a lot since then through word of mouth and we’re proud to say that Gumtree is loved by its rapidly growing community. We now cover 60 cities across 6 countries – the UK, Ireland, Poland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa - and are the UK's biggest website for local community classifieds including flat share, flat rentals and jobs. More than 25,000 new rooms are advertised a month, which means at least 10,000 rooms are rented a month through Gumtree. We now have more than one million visitors every month.
Our aim at Gumtree is to give you a simple and easy-to-use tool that let’s you quickly find you might be looking for. You can find everything you need to live your life with the help of your local Gumtree community; from a job or a flat, date, a nanny for your kids or a bargain to a language teacher and a tennis partner.
In 2005 we became part of the Kijiji family within eBay. Both Gumtree and Kijiji revolve around thriving online communities and so we hope to learn a lot from each other.Kijiji, which means "village" in Swahili, is a group of community classifieds websites similar to us found in more than 90 cities around the world.
NUMBER OF GUMTREES WORLD WIDE!
England 32
Ireland 2
Northern
Ireland 1
Scotland 5
Australia 5
New Zealand 3
South Africa 3
Poland 7
Wales 2
The Tuck Shop Review
Gumtree is by far the biggest of the South African Forums available in the UK. However bigger is not necessary better. If you are looking to sale an item, post a job or look for a room mate I would recommend Gumtree.
Gumtree.com - the UK's online community - Jobs, Flats, Friends and more!
In my experience there is way to much bad mouthing, swearing, politics and just dam right rudeness on the chat area’s. For a site originally set up to serve the ex pat market Gumtree certainly has its fair share of members who just hate South Africans.
I certainly wouldn’t allow my child to post unsupervised on the site. Also be aware that there is a large Australian following. (I have got nothing against Australians) but from the post’s I have observed they are not our biggest fans.
All in all the Tuck Shop rates Gumtree a disappointing 4/10
AFRICAN SOUTH
The Official Description:
Welcome to AfricanSouth the Saffer site for people at home or abroad. Our aim is to provide a community where you can have fun and relax with your friends old and new. Use the forum to chat about anything from home issues to visa problems, or just relax in our Skinner section and have fun.
For your enjoyment we have set up an Arcade with nearly 140 online games to while away the time while at work and a members Gallery to share your photos of holidays or get togethers, also included is a Chat Room to chat with mates or meet new people.
AfricanSouth your home away from home.
The Tuck Shop Review
A friendly, family based forum with some excellent topics and long term members. Total members 346. We have experienced no swearing, or unacceptable behaviour. They also organise great get tog ethers for the member’s “next one on the Isle of Wight,” we will be there and will post pics on the Tuck Shop. Nice one guys keep it going.
The Tuck Shop rates African South a resounding 5/10
My Space
My space is a absolutely enormous. It apparently gets more unique visitors then MSN. Which in itself is a massive achievement. We managed to find several South African forums within My Space. Some are music based, as is the majority of My Space, some are poor politics and rubbish. The two below our best we could find.
Group South Africa
The official veiw
Hey Everyone,
This Group is for anyone that would like to meet SOUTH AFRICANS (would like to know more about us) or you are from South Africa and would like to find south Africans all over the world. Group leader Janey
The Tuck Shop opinion
Believe it or not this group has 2203 members. I have yet to find anything of use going on. It would appear people are posting what ever pops into their heads. There is an element of smutty cyber sex, with the occasionally dam right rude post. They age group of the members tends to be young and trendy. But either they are to busy having a good time to post anything of value or the use the forum as a dating site.
A very disappointing 1 / 10
The African
The Official version
Members 2959
Group leader Miss T says the following:
Just a clique to affiliate with people from an African descent (i.e. Nigeria, Ghana, Sudan, Kenya, South Africa). Or if you would like to educate yourself on African cultures, all are welcome!
Africa is a continent of unparalleled beauty. A place that conjures up visions of big game in the shadow of Kilimanjaro, Zambezi sunsets and romantic Nile river cruises.
CAUTION: Vulgarity, Flaming, Rude comments or Attacks of any kind done publicly in the forums or bulletins, will not be tolerated. If you can't treat I, the moderator, and the other Members of this site with the respect they deserve, then you need to look somewhere else for help.
FACTS ABOUT AFRICA:
· Africa is the 2nd largest continent (in both area and population) with over 800 million people in 54 countries, accounting for about one seventh of world human population.
· Africa is home to the oldest inhabited territory on earth, with the human race originating from this continent.
· South Africa is the world's leading producer of both gold and diamonds.
· There is a wide variety of physical types found amongst the sub-Saharan African peoples -- the Masai who are known for their tall stature, and Pygmies who are among the world's shortest adults.
· The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt was the world's tallest architectural accomplishment for 4,000 years until the creation of the Eiffel Tower.
· Zimbabwe used to be named "Rhodesia."
· Large Indo-African communities are found in South Africa, and smaller ones are present in Kenya and Tanzania.
· The world's largest desert is the Sahara Desert.
· The world's largest man-made lake is Lake Nasser in Egypt and Sudan.
· Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa followed by Egypt and then Ethiopia.
· South Africa has the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world.
· The largest country in Africa is Sudan spanning 968,000 sq mi.
· Ghana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe together produce nearly 50% of the worlds gold.
· Algeria, Egypt, Libya, and Nigeria are the major petroleum and natural gas producing countries in Africa.
· Rwanda is Africa's most densely populated country. More than 8 million people live in a country that is less than half the size of Nova Scotia.
The Tuck Shop opinion
This forum seems to attract mainly Black African. Many of the members are from Nigeria. The average age is around 19-20. These guys have some red hot topics on the go. With real opinions on important topics that involve Africa in general. Most of the members my space pages are very well put together with music clips and good profiles. A large percentage of the members are from the USA.
All in all WELL done Miss T
The Tuck Shop team rates the forum a pretty cool 5 /10