Subj : Re: Community
To   : tenser
From : boraxman
Date : Sat Oct 01 2022 12:59:33

 te>  bo> I'm all for gatekeeperism.  Nothing is improved when it is opened to 
 te>  bo> masses.
 te> 
 te> Well, that's why these things die out.
 te> 
 te> Ham radio's population grows ever older and is dying faster
 te> than they're being replaced.
 te> 
 te> Compare BBSes now to the 90s.  It's not just the Internet.
 te> 

I am a Linux user, and Linux is still niche.  It hasn't taken over the world, and shouldn't.  The very fact that Linux is "niche" is what makes it useful.  IT caters to those who are seeking its reconfigurability, its freedom, its power.  When something becomes BIG, you have to drop catering to all those people who built it in the first place.

Google got BIG, and now it sucks as a search engine.  It ruined the Web.  Social media got BIG and ruined the social aspect of the Web.  Once things get big, they lose what they were, and become bad.  The popularity means nothing if it doesn't do good.

It's pretty easy to switch to a mindset where you're just seeking sheer numbers, quantity over quality.  Where you're willing to sacrifice what makes you unique, your unique offerings for generic mass appeal.

People could very easily make 'tweaks' that result in third party companies now scraping and monitoring the data.  People could make tweaks that result in sysops having to give up sole control.  Modern Tech has a lot to be desired, and is in a ruinous state.  I'm not saying it WILL happen, but one has to keep this in mind.

Maybe I'm jumping at shadows here, but I come here because I felt repulsed by Social Media, by how the whole model works.  I'm just saying lets not think reinventing Facebook is the solution.

That being said, I'm quite interested in the PTT Bulletin Board System in Taiwan, as it has 1.5 million registered users, with peak usage numbers (numbers of users online at once) reaching the 6 digits at time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTT_Bulletin_Board_System

I'd be interested to see how close the experience is to using the BBS's that we know.  If close, it shows that one can indeed have many, many users while still maintaining the BBS as a BBS.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

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