Subj : Re: The Documentary... To : textfiles From : Digital Man Date : Thu Aug 04 2005 04:40 pm > From Newsgroup: alt.bbs.synchronet > > Hi, everyone. > > Jason Scott, BBS Documentary director here. Saw some nice discussions > and debates and, well, accusations. Thought I'd jump in here. Don't forget the compliments as well! > First of all, I want to thank, again, Rob Swindell and Frank Vest, who > both opened their homes to me and my equipment, knowing nothing of my > "work" before then. Thank you! I hadn't told you directly yet, but the documentary turned out very professional and I (and surprisingly, my family) found it very entertaining and educational! > The focus of this documentary is the experience and the situation of > dial-up BBSes. I don't think that distinction was made clear, at least to me. I mean, you interviewed Vincent Cerf and other luminaries that had nothing to do with dial- up BBSes, but certainly could be argued to be instrumental to the BBSes of today. And of course, the majority of *my* contributions to the history/evolution of BBSes have been in the Internet era. I'm *very* glad that my brother contacted you about my possible participation in the documentary, but I'm pretty sure that without his intervention, I wouldn't have been asked. I didn't get the feeling that you were persuing interviews of those that were *still* active in the development of BBSes. Did James Coyle, Michiel Broek, Tobias Ernst or the like fall under your radar? > It's not meant to be about Internet BBSes, not meant to > be about web forums, not meant to be about current "scenes" that have > their roots in BBSes, and it's certainly not meant to cover the cutting > edge of BBS technology. This isn't hard information to garner, and if > someone thought that the video format would be the way to tell this > story, then they would do so, or even better, have the assembled people > available an e-mail or website away to do so. Applying that standard to > the BBS Documentary will inevitably lead to despair. > > Also, it's important to take into consideration the issue that > "complete is the enemy of interesting". In the case of these episodes, > they are meant to be INTRODUCTIONS to their subjects, to cover them in > as universal and straightforward as possible, without getting captured > into that horrifying geek loop of "but this exception... and this > one... and these.... and this..." and then each episode is a three-hour > laundry list of every variant concept. I understand. I just feel bad for those who had an important part to play in the history/evolution of BBSes and didn't get any mention. Certainly, most viewers won't miss the references. As an "introduction", the documentary is more than complete. > When I said "a few hundred BBSes" were left, I meant in the United > States, and I meant dial-up. This number came from consulting fidonet > and other BBS lists. And I think I was being generous. In that limited context, you probably were being generous. But of course, that context was not communicated to the viewer. I know this point of contention can easily start the slide down the slippery slope of "What is and is *not* a BBS?", but I don't think anyone can argue that the Telnet BBSes of today are somehow *less* of what we all think of as a BBS than the dial-up BBSes of the past. As a Telnet BBS author and supporter of hundreds of Telnet BBS Sysops around the world, I felt slighted when I read that "fact" on the screen. It seemed to me you were taking "creative liberties" to make your dramatic point (about the reduction in the number of BBSes). > Remember, it's all about dial-up, not internet-based BBSes. I somehow missed that. > So I have to take exception to it not covering something it was never > meant to cover. Perhaps it should've been called "The Dial-up BBS Documentary"? :-) Of course RIP (and to a limited degree other BBS graphics technologies) were pervasive on dial-up BBSes in the 90s, but it got no coverage. I thought the attempts at a graphics "standard" on dial-up BBSes was an important point in the evolution of BBSes and perhaps a forshadowing of the Web to come. > Now, all this aside, there are two things I've worked to do to make up > for obvious deficiencies in the documentary's coverage. > > First of all, there's over 250 hours of interviews, of 205 people. With > one exception, I have full rights to do with these interviews as I > wish, so I will be making pretty much all of them available! I have > made a deal with ARCHIVE.ORG to have a large sub-collection of all > these interviews, with salient points covered in them and who and what. > For example, there's two hours of Rob Swindell where I only used > roughly 45-60 seconds of this footage. Same with Frank Vest. In their > interviews, and in dozens of others, MANY subjects were covered, many > of the same ones people are unhappy I didn't put in the documentary. > ALL OF IT WILL BE AVAILABLE, under a Creative Commons Attribute > ShareAlike license, meaning they can be used in almost any way people > would want to, including as the basis of further documentaries. This > will hopefully put to rest the idea that my documentary quashes > additional BBS concepts that were covered. 250 hours. That's 10 solid > days of BBS discussion. Cool. I look forward to seeing more of Chuck Forsberg and Wayne Bell in particular. > Second, I will be continuing my work with TEXTFILES.COM and the > BBSDOCUMENTARY.COM sites to add more and more information, information > which might not have been easy to portray cinematically (remember, the > documentary is a movie, not a book) but which can have that > all-important critical mass as a location to save this history. > > Again, it's history, I focused on the past because the past wasn't > being told in this fashion. I do not pretend, anywhere, that it's the > final word. It's the first syllable of the first word. The problem I > attacked was that the first word wasn't even being spoken. Now it is. > > So keep talking. Thanks for the prompting. :-) digital man Snapple "Real Fact" #107: You burn more calories sleeping than watching TV. .