Change in computers as a hobbiest... 2860

I don't think I am. I still have discussions from those days stored away in rotting archives. They definitely have a different, more friendly feel to them than discussions on Usenet, for example.

Back in the day, the same could be said about FidoNet, as well. In fact, it was discussed a couple of times in those very systems. The general opinion was that local discussion areas had a distinctly different atmosphere to them than areas which were spread more widely. Some people preferred to only use the local areas for this reason, and never wrote anything to the network areas (even though they might have occasionally taken a peek.)

The "local" aspect of local discussion areas has two implications:

1) Everyone knows the places and people you're talking about. You can discuss nearby towns and cities, local services and events, without having to explain yourself. What is more, the audience is actually interested in those topics, and can provide interesting feedback as well. There's also the added benefit that you can actually arrange to have a pizza together, or maintain some other personal contacts in your local area (sometimes these kind of local connections may help you in your "real" life as well.)

2) The same set of people can - and usually will - discuss on various topics on an on-going basis. Be that politics, some hobby, current events etc., even if there are a couple of dozen message areas for various topics, on a local BBS it's basically the same core set of people you interact with. This makes it possible to get to know those people from very different angles. Things are not like that in, for example, Usenet: if I subscribe to a politics-related group, or a group dedicated to some particular loveual fetishism, it is highly unlikely that I will encounter any of the people reading this group there. (Or maybe I will? :)

The latter, I believe, is one of the reasons why the regulars of Usenet groups often descend into lenghty off-topic discussions: they want to have these discussions with the same set of people they're already accustomed to. Taking the off-topic discussion where it better belonged in the group hierarchy would just break the connection with that particular set of people, so it is rarely even suggested.

Of course. I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying that Internet, for the most part, wiped away the localized discussion areas. Nothing comparable really came to subsbreastute the local areas when the dial-up BBSs died.

It's much like, back in the day, a SysOp would have closed down all the local areas and only left the FidoNet echos active. (I know people who would have fiercely protested that kind of scenario - they want their local discussion areas, not national or global ones.)

I've seen lots of local trolls as well. However, they usually weren't a problem in dial-up BBSes, as the SysOp is omnipotent and can deal with users that cause problems.

It all boils down to what kind of administrative principles you want to apply to running the discussion system. Global discussion forums - even NNTP-based - can be implemented as a controlled environment as well (with login accounts that can be temporarily restricted in their capabilities for wrong-doing or - if the matter so warrants - revoked altogether.)

-- znark