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The established users on the Usenets were polite and cordial. The newer users brought down the tone. Thankfully nobody remembers that, so vice can use the term

The established users on the Usenets were polite and cordial. The newer users brought down the tone. Thankfully nobody remembers that, so vice can use the term to darken our world a little more.

albroland 6y ago
I think your observation applies to most online communities. IME the quality of a forum/community seems to be directly tied to the population size following a somewhat skewed normal distribution. A monday morning theory based on my observations: Once you reach a critical mass of users that will sustain discussion, you will see a gradual rise in quality as a small board of passionate users will organically attract likeminded individuals, who typically contribute and elevate the discussion. Everyone is highly motivated to explore, discuss, and challenge ideas with each other and decorum is usually quite polite, as to them there was no other place you could engage so freely with these ideas with likeminded individuals. At a certain point though, you seem to cross a rubicon where the new users are less informed, less motivated/passionate, and don't contribute anything new or novel to the discussion. This is quickly followed by an exodus of the most informed/important voices who aren't interested in dealing with uninformed conjecture, or novice matters that aren't particularly interesting to someone who has more subject matter expertise. This progresses to the end state of the board, where there are very few if any true believers to whatever the original intent of the board was, and the posting reflects that as it moves further and further from the intended subject and more into meta and social. I'd describe this state as similar to the discourse you'd see on twitter today: rude, tribal, uninformed, speculative, etc.
zwieback 6y ago
I don't think that's generally true. I was using Usenet during that time, mostly CS groups for C++ and Lisp, and there were many established users that were toxic jerks. They were constantly being called out and nothing changed. I do agree that the general quality of Usenet nosedived around then but it had more to do with the transition to other forums than with the influx of AOL users.
- Lutzb 6y ago
  There is a pattern here, I've seen this over and over for the last 25 years. Every community has something like a resident troll. This person opposes the social concerns us and mostly never contributes positively. His arguments have been debunked analysed over and over but he keeps on posting. Has this ever been researched? Named?
  - friendlybus 6y ago
    The village idiot? I'm sure it precedes the internet.
bitwize 6y ago
The politeness of early USENET was a mark of privilege -- perhaps even white supremacy. Now that the world's ghettos have onramps to the information superhighway, online discourse has been increasingly truly democratized. Because democracy requires that the poor and oppressed have a voice, online communities should not be gatekept, except by those social-justice commissars as may be appointed to ensure sufficient diversity, inclusion, and civility and to screen out people who hold the wrong opinions (or who question the right opinions).
- 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
  > The politeness of early USENET was a mark of privilege -- perhaps even white supremacy. Now that the world's ghettos have onramps to the information superhighway, online discourse has been increasingly truly democratized. this but unironically

The established users on the Usenets were polite and cordial. The newer users brought down the tone. Thankfully nobody remembers that, so vice can use the term to darken our world a little more.

albroland 6y ago

I think your observation applies to most online communities. IME the quality of a forum/community seems to be directly tied to the population size following a somewhat skewed normal distribution. A monday morning theory based on my observations: Once you reach a critical mass of users that will sustain discussion, you will see a gradual rise in quality as a small board of passionate users will organically attract likeminded individuals, who typically contribute and elevate the discussion. Everyone is highly motivated to explore, discuss, and challenge ideas with each other and decorum is usually quite polite, as to them there was no other place you could engage so freely with these ideas with likeminded individuals. At a certain point though, you seem to cross a rubicon where the new users are less informed, less motivated/passionate, and don't contribute anything new or novel to the discussion. This is quickly followed by an exodus of the most informed/important voices who aren't interested in dealing with uninformed conjecture, or novice matters that aren't particularly interesting to someone who has more subject matter expertise. This progresses to the end state of the board, where there are very few if any true believers to whatever the original intent of the board was, and the posting reflects that as it moves further and further from the intended subject and more into meta and social. I'd describe this state as similar to the discourse you'd see on twitter today: rude, tribal, uninformed, speculative, etc.

zwieback 6y ago

I don't think that's generally true. I was using Usenet during that time, mostly CS groups for C++ and Lisp, and there were many established users that were toxic jerks. They were constantly being called out and nothing changed. I do agree that the general quality of Usenet nosedived around then but it had more to do with the transition to other forums than with the influx of AOL users.

Lutzb 6y ago
There is a pattern here, I've seen this over and over for the last 25 years. Every community has something like a resident troll. This person opposes the social concerns us and mostly never contributes positively. His arguments have been debunked analysed over and over but he keeps on posting. Has this ever been researched? Named?
- friendlybus 6y ago
  The village idiot? I'm sure it precedes the internet.

bitwize 6y ago

The politeness of early USENET was a mark of privilege -- perhaps even white supremacy. Now that the world's ghettos have onramps to the information superhighway, online discourse has been increasingly truly democratized. Because democracy requires that the poor and oppressed have a voice, online communities should not be gatekept, except by those social-justice commissars as may be appointed to ensure sufficient diversity, inclusion, and civility and to screen out people who hold the wrong opinions (or who question the right opinions).

8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
> The politeness of early USENET was a mark of privilege -- perhaps even white supremacy. Now that the world's ghettos have onramps to the information superhighway, online discourse has been increasingly truly democratized. this but unironically