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Forums are just, well, messages. In the old day there was fidonet. It was wonderful, grab your messages and read off-line. Then came email which was much the

Forums are just, well, messages. In the old day there was fidonet. It was wonderful, grab your messages and read off-line. Then came email which was much the same, most people used POP and later IMAP. Now we have facebooks and reddits (or Lemmy). How could/would you pull the messages and read offline if you wanted? How would you search your archive of posts for that thing you said two years ago and want to copy/paste? This is why I still participate in mail lists, all things I said are in a mailbox archive that I read with mutt, it is so responsive and easy to search. Plus, when the online mail list archive dies (as it has in the past), I have this mbox.gz that I can push somewhere else and the new host has an immediate archive. Message boards provide an online interface so people can get posting right away, but there are some technical lists out there that are still heavily used. Most people have email accounts, so I don't see why they're not used more frequently, maybe most online webmail things suck, for me, mutt creates a better experience than reddit or fecebook. I miss bluewave a bit though.

dade_ 6y ago
I miss Fidonet, but I think people came to the BBS for the door games and stayed for the conversations and forums. ANSI didn't have anything on animated GIFs. Still I think the gap has never been filled. Thoughtful, mind changing discussion only happens offline in my world these days. "Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got Till it's gone"
- 6c696e7578 6y ago
  > door games Some of those are around still, like Legend of the green dragon. They were great, sort of massive multiplayer online games, but just one at a time, though, I think LORD had some inter-BBS connectivity. > Thoughtful, mind changing discussion only happens offline in my world these days. I don't think it's just your world. > "Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got Till it's gone" I know it doesn't have all the words, but for some reason I could only think of the Iron Maiden - Wasted Years song based on that quote. It seems to fit well though.

dade_ 6y ago

I miss Fidonet, but I think people came to the BBS for the door games and stayed for the conversations and forums. ANSI didn't have anything on animated GIFs. Still I think the gap has never been filled. Thoughtful, mind changing discussion only happens offline in my world these days. "Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got Till it's gone"

6c696e7578 6y ago
> door games Some of those are around still, like Legend of the green dragon. They were great, sort of massive multiplayer online games, but just one at a time, though, I think LORD had some inter-BBS connectivity. > Thoughtful, mind changing discussion only happens offline in my world these days. I don't think it's just your world. > "Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got Till it's gone" I know it doesn't have all the words, but for some reason I could only think of the Iron Maiden - Wasted Years song based on that quote. It seems to fit well though.