Subj : Online Communities To : August Abolins From : Charles Pierson Date : Sat Nov 07 2020 05:28:02 Hello, August Abolins. On 11/7/20 1:46 AM you wrote: CP>> So why is it the online forums and things like Facebook and CP>> Twitter are such huge presences in the world, but Fidonet, and CP>> the BBS community in general, aren't? AA> That has been debated before. Opinions varied from "the eenernet AA> is sexier", less dialup wait times or faster connections of AA> internet, lots of purty pictures and graphics. I remember the initial participation fall off of some of the echos I most actively participated in. At the time, connecting to the internet was primarily dialup, so I don't really accept that. I did see it as being something shiny and new, so obviously people were going to look around. But I also expected them to eventually come back around the echos. Perhaps not as often as before, but consistently. Obviously I was wrong. AA> I wouldn't know if newsgroup use has waned over time since then AA> (more spam and trolls), but even participation in a newsgroup had AA> a faster and more broad response than an isolated BBS or a AA> hobbiest echomail network. I tried newsgroups now and then. I didn't care for them. It seemed a cheap imitation of echomail. Email group lists were better, but many of the lists I was on then were primarily by people coming from a Fidonet background, and the lists reflected that. AA> Myself, my community for fast answers and interesting conversions AA> included Compuserve for at least 3 or 4 years. I never did find anything like that on Compuserve or AOL. AA> Web forums also evolved out of a need to build communities with AA> special interests. I joined a few when I needed info on Thinkpads AA> and Macs. I still have the Thinkpad one in my back pocket. Specialized forums like that I understand. It makes sense. In some larger companies I've worked at, they had them set-up as a sort of peer to peer help system to spread everyone's knowledge and experience around. AA> Meanwhile, FTN echomail has found a way to participate in similar AA> web forum style too (eg Synchronet's eWeb thing?) It has. But it's also had a tendency to be very insular. There is very little, if any promotion of what it has to offer. AA> Along the way, people have probably grown accustomed to using the AA> browser that often would come included with their computer AA> purchase and not learn about the FTN/BBS options out there. AA> BBSing is probably still strongly associated with dialup. I actually think more in terms of Telnet these days, the local BBS's I called on dialup vanished long ago. I'm sure there are some still, but I no longer even have a landline phone. If you mention BBS to the average person these days, they are as likely to associate the term with thise web forum things, which can tend to be as badly infested with bots and spam as usenet ever was. AA> As for Facebook and Twitter, they address the short term memories AA> and fickle approach of communication (memes, pics, one-liners, AA> forwards of other people's pics/memes/jokes) to the vast majority AA> of computer users, I guess. For all that might be said now, Facebook basically can be broken down to being started as a computer nerd online frat party. AA> I think Facebook made it easy for an individual (and now companies AA> and groups) to establish a presence and have pretty good control AA> of content and promotion. No fancy web-page coding required. AA> People on Facebook are not interested in conversations as much as AA> they are interested in telling the world about themselves. It AA> really upped the anted on blogging, I think. Facebook does have groups, which can imitate echos. But for the most part, you're correct. AA> Twitter, I won't comment on, except to say that I don't like the AA> hashtag mess that the tweets become. I don't get the hashtags. I mean, I understand what the intent was, but I don't get it. AA> And now over time, people are migrating to using different devices AA> to access their Facebooks and Twitters via "apps". Apps are easy. They're convenient. But then again, I'm a software geek. AA> Where does all this leave the Fidonet and BBS community? AA> ..probably in the dust. Perhaps if there was a consistent approach AA> to reacquaint the ex-BBS user and the new generation of AA> conversationalist to the Fidonet and BBS communities then maybe AA> we'd notice some increased presence by their participation. There is the issue in a nutshell. But it's more than that. The BBS community is where I've met some of the most innovative people in computers. Terminal programs, BBS programs, offline readers, door programs, FTN and other style networks.... while there is commercial software, for the most part it was done by individuals, or groups of people, creating these wonderful programs because they could. You don't see very much of that now. Now, the BBS community seems more about preserving the history. Why can't it be both? I think I was around 12 years old when we got our first home computer. Younger if you include things like Atari games. Now, there is an entire generation that a computer in the home is like a television or a stove. You yourself have referred to your computer as an appliance. Smart phones and tablets have been around for over a decade. But look what happens when the conversation comes up about software for these mobile devices to connect with FTN networks. There is very little interest, if not outright hostility to the idea. Recall the reactions to my idea of running a BBS on a smartphone or Tablet? At best, my ideas have been met with a response that is basically, "Yes it is possible, but I have no interest in using that myself. Good luck with that." Like it or not, you're going to have little, if any growth in the BBS network community without adapting to new technology. This doesn't mean discarding the past. But existing BBS software can be adapted to mobile device technology without making the existing tech obsolete. The proof of concept exists in the program I am using now. It's just not being supported. -- Best regards! Posted using Hotdoged on Android --- Hotdoged/2.13.5/Android * Origin: Houston, Tx (2:221/6.21) .