I got rather obsessed with BBS in the early-mid 1990s. That quickly turned into an obsession with Usenet. Looking back, those were amazing times. By day, I was

I got rather obsessed with BBS in the early-mid 1990s. That quickly turned into an obsession with Usenet. Looking back, those were amazing times. By day, I was an awkward teenager who was still battling a pesky speech impediment. But, by night, I was part of communities where I was judged by the quality of my writing! All that said, while I see what you're saying, BBS and Usenet both had their problems. With Usenet, the biggest problem was discoverability. There were amazing, inspiring threads, but it took work to find them. When you would find an amazing thread, you had to parse through (often hundreds) of meaningless replies to find the few gems. Then, there was the sheer hostility of some of the communities. While much of that was reserved for newbies who violated the oft incomprehensible etiquette, some of it was just insane. For example, massive flame wars would erupt over the slightest provocation. This sounds silly in retrospect, but there was a point where typing 'Reconstruction of the Fables' in rec.music.rem would provoke serious hate. With BBS, particularly when they were popular enough to be busy, the biggest issue was that people are really fucked up when they think they're anonymous.