A number of us have been thinking about the community that used to exist within the BBS world and how that community sense might be restored within the current world-wide access. It might be useful to just remember what a BBS was. It consisted of a computer (or computers) sitting at the end of a telephone line, into which people would dial and connect. It is an important distinction - the users computer was directly connected to my computer. If two people where connected at the same time I had to have two telephone lines coming into my computer. It was an expensive hobby to run a BBS.
As I think back to my old BBS, ”Glastonbury Tor”, there were certain activities that the BBS offered that attracted visitors. On-line competitive games were popular. These were mostly role playing games written with ANSI graphics and you could play once a day. You then had to wait until the next day to play your game and compete against others who had played during the day. Remember again, this is a dial-in situation so only those that were in a ‘non-long-distance’ telephone exchange were calling. My board averaged about 100 calls a day on a single line.
There were popular message networks with pre-configured topic headings. One I remember well was FIDONET which had hundreds of topic headings (I.E. categories) and as the BBS owner I could select those topics I wanted to carry on my BBS. My users could post and respond to comments in these message area and during the wee hours my computer would compress all of the days topics and comments and call a central node and contribute what our users had commented on. In turn the main node acted as an exchange hub so that over 40,000 BBS could share the same content. Thus, something I had written was squirted out of the hub to BBS all over the world. It was not instant (perhaps part of the appeal) in that something written on my board might work its way around the world and back over 24-48 hours. Even game scores and participation was shared so in my little dark basement office I could be competing against people all over the world. It is amazing that it worked - but it was almost flawless - and great fun.
The Internet killed the BBS star. No doubt about it. It also seems to have killed the real sense of community that could develop. It also killed the intimacy of the BBS community and the selectivity of information.
I realize that news groups, web sites and e-mail have filled a void, but it sometimes seems that we are missing something.
28 Feb 2004 at 12:06 pm | #
The best example I have seen of a BBS which grew into a web based system is Robin Garr’s Wine Lover’s Page which I used to post to in the mid-90s (and where echos of me at 33 can still be found). I think that the keys are the topic and Robin’s welcoming personality. When I think of A-list bloggers and compare them to Robin, the reason for the blog rut become obvious - the focus on the technology rather than the content stifles expansion of the technology.
28 Feb 2004 at 01:48 pm | #
the reason for the blog rut become obvious - the focus on the technology rather than the content stifles expansion of the technology.
Not sure I agree but having difficulty explaining why.
28 Feb 2004 at 11:44 pm | #
The user should define the technology rather than the creator. This is the entire essence of the craptastic theory of usability. Nothing of value is usable that is not used. Yet it allows for that conceit that a total understanding of use can be predicted. This is anti-thetical to a core principle of McLuhan and does not come supported with anything other than the need of the consultant/guru. BBS and other simpler tools merely provided a conduit for communication. For the same reason, 1980s vidoe games are more complex than new ones - there are fewer rules to master or to define the actual play.
29 Feb 2004 at 08:30 am | #
Al, I think you are absolutely correct and have explained (perhaps) one of the key reasons the community aspect has disappeared. Abundance of information and selection may have something to do with it too. I used to spend 5 or 10 minutes a day on each of 4 BBS. I was then done for the day. Played the games I wanted to play, read the messages of interest and posted my reply. I then could work on my own BBS. Now there are close to 25 places I visit daily and often numerous times.
Nothing of value is usable that is not used
Very true and thus the voice server component of this site is gone. No one used it. While I thought it was very cool, it was of little interest to anyone (or I failed to explain it properly)