BBSing is dead, and I'm OK with that. reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dmxrob · 2019-05-18 22:40 This post will probably get a lot of rotten tomatoes thrown at it, but I'm OK with that too! ​ So about a year ago I rediscovered that there was a small sliver of the BBS world still alive. I had been a big time BBS user and sysop back in the 80s and 90s. I was excited to rediscover this hobby, and even more excited to find it was still alive and somewhat active! Hello my old friend Fidonet! How are you doing Global Wars? Great to see you again Food Fight! Wow! It was a lot of fun.... ... until it wasn't. I have come to realize over the past year that BBSs had their place in the timeline of technology history. That time was some 20+ years ago nowadays. Today, while it is cool (and I certainly encourage people to tinker with it) to connect up with a board or even set one up yourself, what is missing and just isn't ever going to come back are the people. The people have moved on to social media, web-based forums, Instagram, Twitter, you name it. Very, very few people even know what a BBS is and of those that remember BBSes, even fewer want to "get back into the scene". Hence, the era of BBSing is over and is never coming back. No matter how hard we want to believe it might, it isn't. ​ Without people, a BBS is pretty boring to be honest. The once mighty Fidonet feeds are nothing but a small trickle nowadays. Othernets can sometimes go days without any traffic. Some echoes haven't seen new posts in years. Multi-player games just don't work without players. InterBBS chat was really cool back in the 80s, but nowadays, well if anyone is on to chat with the conversation is usually at most a sentence or two. ​ BBSes used to be pretty good at self-regulating. People took care of the problem people. Today, due to lack of people, a problem person can quickly destroy what crumbs of conversation there are. There is no penalty for doing so -- because, most of the time, there is nobody around to do anything about it to begin with. I've witnessed so many pissing matches on the echoes -- the small groups of "survivors" as it were live under the impression that we are still in the golden age of BBSing. Message after message is taken up with nonsense about why someone shouldn't be calling something one name or another because it might confuse people who used to run it. It just makes zero sense. The fiefdoms are crippling what little activity there is. ​ The era of the BBS was a special time - and one that I am so glad I got to be a part of. I have no doubt that hobbyists are retro computing enthusiasts will keep some part of BBSing alive in some form for years and decades to come. However, the world of BBSing we know is dead and is never coming back from that grave. And that is OK, because we have a lot of good memories of the time, the people and the boards -- and memories are the best part of many things when you just can't go home again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2019-05-19 02:18 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- absolovo · 2019-05-19 05:02 I disagree. While old-style, pre-internet BBSing has lost all its glory, I am betting it will be back in some form within the next few years. Bypassing the internet while still having access to digital contacts and assets will become more of a thing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gozarc · 2019-05-19 11:27 Right now, some friends and I have a Slack that we use daily to chat and share links. I'm thinking about setting up a BBS with some doors and move to that. There is something lost when you're only in chat versus having discussions in a forum. Everything doesn't need to be a short text message with a notification for the receiver. Plus, we could play some door games. The BBS scene was basically nonexistent where I grew up in the 80s, so I missed out on it. In the mid 90s I set up a Linux box as a BBS, using NNTP for forums and Lynx for a menu system. It didn't last long once the area got its first ISP. I don't think I'm going to make the site public... Or maybe I will. :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2019-05-19 12:05 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dmxrob · 2019-05-19 13:39 I find myself less and less interested in technology nowadays. I often just sit my phone down for hours. And that is OK! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nevarro · 2019-05-19 16:04 Unfortunately, the Internet and advancements in technology have replaced the practicality of BBSes. Video games on PC, console and mobile devices can make door games of the 90's uninteresting, especially for newcomers. BBSing is certainly a niche thing these days for retro computer hobbyists and alternative computer enthusiasts. Being a sysop myself, I hope for a renewed interest and growth in the "community". Activity these days looks to be a trickle of what it was 10 years ago, though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thedigitalinfinity · 2019-05-20 21:14 When I got into BBS's in the 90's it was mind blowing. And since I've been digging up old door games and reviewing them I found there was quite a few I had never experienced so I find it amazing to see some of these things for the first time. I do feel we have moved on, but some aspects of the BBS are alive in many forms these days such as Forum pages, Reddit, file repositories, telnet, etc. Technologies have grown and moved on from the old days of the BBS but I think some of the heart and soul still lives in it's predecessors. Much like Team fortress started as a mod for quake and a community defined the play styles and maps, It completely influenced and shaped the entire FPS online play forever. I feel the same way for the BBS. No we do not have the "closeness" of a small local community that most of us had with our favorite local BBS and now we are all global with our online presence. but we all find our little places to gather across the vast internet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ShooterJennings · 2019-05-21 17:47 I think it’s alive in its second form at the moment. I’m enjoying my users and have gotten to know them. It’s like having a very selective mode of communication. For me that makes for very special relationships. I will continue to make plugins for my bbs and others as well as making games. My new one will finally be done this year and I’m excited to entice some new players into playing it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JohnPolka · 2019-05-23 20:31 I'm OK with BBSing being dead too because I've accepted that it's been replaced by the Internet/Social network techologies that you mentioned. As you point out, it's primarily used by retro computing hobbyists and I'm OK with that. The retro computing hobby is very much like those who are into classic cars. Not everyone wants to drive one nor own one. There's only a small niche of people who are interested in going to a classic car show. The same thing is true with retro computing and with BBSs. BBSing is simply one aspect of a diverse retro computing hobby. In fact, I run a BBS not in hopes of rebuilding its glory years. I do it to re- experience my memories of its glory years. The same is true when I connect to another BBS. I do it to connect with other like minded folks. In fact, most of the new messages center around reminiscing of BBSs and/or computing from back in the day. :) Occasionally, an old user will connect to my BBS to re-experience it too. Sometimes they stick around and sometimes they logon once and never return. But those that have stuck around have formed a nice tight knit group. As long as you understand the hobby is no different than other "niche" hobbies (like classic car collecting), you too can enjoy it for what it is today. :) -JP ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LockeDown815 · 2019-05-27 18:00 > The retro computing hobby is very much like those who are into classic cars. Not everyone wants to drive one nor own one. There's only a small niche of people who are interested in going to a classic car show. That is exactly how I feel getting back into setting up my current BBS. I ran a nice local BBS when I was in High School in the mid 90s and it is nice reliving some of that modding / setup experience. Now and then people are still connecting to play some classic door games and as I have the free time I am working on expanding functionality and soon plan to link up with other BBS for message bases / inter BBS gaming to better connect with the other BBS "hobbyists" out there. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2019-06-20 08:20 [deleted]