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I really dislike the www bloat so I was excited to browse the list, unfortunately so far I mostly see ancap/libertarian/declinist posts (or just people who seem

by simias 5y ago

I really dislike the www bloat so I was excited to browse the list, unfortunately so far I mostly see ancap/libertarian/declinist posts (or just people who seem very sad and/or angry) as well as many far-right dogwhistles I recognize from 4chan. Can somebody recommend more, uh, uplifting BBS communities?

Coolerbythelake 5y ago
Figures! I'd be staying away from all that for the same reasons. When I was a kid, it sure wasn't right wing. At least the boards I cruised.
narrator 5y ago
I spent a lot of time on BBSs back in the day. There were some moderated tech support communities that were extremely tame, but most of it was like 4chan if 4chan was restricted to just your local calling area. In person BBS Parties and later IRC Channel Parties were full of the greatest and most bizarre mix of people I have ever come across with a common interest. That's probably because with just the screen name and no avatar or graphics or profile info or anything, nobody divided into their usual social groups.
- BeetleB 5y ago
  Quite different from the BBS Circles I was part of. They required you to use your real name on the forums ("conferences"). If a BBS was discovered not to enforce that rule, they would be kicked out of the network. It was very civil.
  - narrator 5y ago
    Sure, there were those boards, but they were mainly for tech support or associated with a school or something like that. The boards I hung out on had far more relaxed rules.
    - BeetleB 5y ago
      No - they were just general purpose boards. They just had strict rules on behavior (well behaved flame wars, etc). I was on them before I was on USENET, and in comparison, USENET really sucked with its relative lawlessness. The "enforce the rules or your whole BBS will be sanctioned" was extremely effective in producing a civil (but not boring) environment.
tenebrisalietum 5y ago
The late 80's/early 90's when BBS's were probably at their peak were such a different time - politics were different and more civil, but also there was nothing like Facebook, no mass usage of cell phones, no streaming, you still made/received calls on your landline phone, you still went shopping at the mall, etc. A BBS isn't going to turn the whole clock back. What's amazing honestly is that 4chan started in '02 or '03, before most of the modern media-heavy Internet and is still around.
- api 5y ago
  Back then people just didn’t take the kind of edgelording the OP is talking about seriously. When you saw a Nazi white supremacist following the left hand path and quoting Michael Acquino you rolled your eyes for the most part. Same goes for wacky conspiracy stuff in the 90s. It felt (and mostly was) harmless and full of in jokes going back to discordianism and such fnord. It was before absolutely every popular sentiment, subculture, belief system, religion, ideology, etc. had been politically weaponized by big data driven propaganda farms in the employ of political parties and nation states. We thought the media was “controlling us” back then. We had no idea how much worse it would get. I thought of a good summary of our condition today: “culture is a dark forest.” Any idea or culture that shows itself will be detected and invaded by the all seeing eye of the data driven propaganda machine. I really think the future is private enclaves, closed forums, etc. with strict rules to try to keep out not just trolls and idiots but more importantly bots. We are living in the twilight of the open Internet, at least as a medium of any kind of meaningful communication. All that will be left on the “clearnet” is a social media influencer hustle culture driven hellscape where half the participants are bots anyway.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
    > I really think the future is private enclaves, closed forums, etc. with strict rules to try to keep out not just trolls and idiots but more importantly bots. We are living in the twilight of the open Internet, at least as a medium of any kind of meaningful communication. All that will be left on the “clearnet” is a social media influencer hustle culture driven hellscape where half the participants are bots anyway. I think we're already starting to see this. Mastodon, Gemini, Discourse, forums, resurging interests in NNTP, FidoNet, etc. Even the public generally prefers group chats, Discords, TikTok, Snapchat, or to some extent IG because they're more private than FB or Twitter. I think creating a "global village" was interesting and empowering for most of humanity as a new thing that humans were capable of doing, but we all quickly realized that you can put a million people in a room together, but they won't have much to talk about together. I have no doubt that private communities are going to be the future.
jbledsoe2112 5y ago
The Diamond Mine Online BBS (bbs.dmine.net) is a great place to start. :)
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  I don't see y'all on the Telnet BBS list! Also, does Synchronet syndicate NNTP?
  - jbledsoe2112 5y ago
    The Diamond Mine also has some NNTP from what I've seen. Doubt they have all the newsgroups though.
- irq 5y ago
  Is this [0] sort of post common or uncommon on dmine? It immediately made me leave the site but maybe I was too quick to judge. 0: http://bbs.dmine.net/msgs/msg.ssjs?msg_sub=local-locdebat&message=29 http://bbs.dmine.net/msgs/msg.ssjs?msg_sub=local-locdebat&me...
  - empressplay 5y ago
    This is just one dude's experience / opinion -- if this sort of stuff bothers you, I don't think there's any BBS that you'll like, since people pontificating is kind of what they're for

by simias 5y ago

Coolerbythelake 5y ago

Figures! I'd be staying away from all that for the same reasons. When I was a kid, it sure wasn't right wing. At least the boards I cruised.

narrator 5y ago

I spent a lot of time on BBSs back in the day. There were some moderated tech support communities that were extremely tame, but most of it was like 4chan if 4chan was restricted to just your local calling area. In person BBS Parties and later IRC Channel Parties were full of the greatest and most bizarre mix of people I have ever come across with a common interest. That's probably because with just the screen name and no avatar or graphics or profile info or anything, nobody divided into their usual social groups.

BeetleB 5y ago
Quite different from the BBS Circles I was part of. They required you to use your real name on the forums ("conferences"). If a BBS was discovered not to enforce that rule, they would be kicked out of the network. It was very civil.
- narrator 5y ago
  Sure, there were those boards, but they were mainly for tech support or associated with a school or something like that. The boards I hung out on had far more relaxed rules.
  - BeetleB 5y ago
    No - they were just general purpose boards. They just had strict rules on behavior (well behaved flame wars, etc). I was on them before I was on USENET, and in comparison, USENET really sucked with its relative lawlessness. The "enforce the rules or your whole BBS will be sanctioned" was extremely effective in producing a civil (but not boring) environment.

tenebrisalietum 5y ago

The late 80's/early 90's when BBS's were probably at their peak were such a different time - politics were different and more civil, but also there was nothing like Facebook, no mass usage of cell phones, no streaming, you still made/received calls on your landline phone, you still went shopping at the mall, etc. A BBS isn't going to turn the whole clock back. What's amazing honestly is that 4chan started in '02 or '03, before most of the modern media-heavy Internet and is still around.

api 5y ago
Back then people just didn’t take the kind of edgelording the OP is talking about seriously. When you saw a Nazi white supremacist following the left hand path and quoting Michael Acquino you rolled your eyes for the most part. Same goes for wacky conspiracy stuff in the 90s. It felt (and mostly was) harmless and full of in jokes going back to discordianism and such fnord. It was before absolutely every popular sentiment, subculture, belief system, religion, ideology, etc. had been politically weaponized by big data driven propaganda farms in the employ of political parties and nation states. We thought the media was “controlling us” back then. We had no idea how much worse it would get. I thought of a good summary of our condition today: “culture is a dark forest.” Any idea or culture that shows itself will be detected and invaded by the all seeing eye of the data driven propaganda machine. I really think the future is private enclaves, closed forums, etc. with strict rules to try to keep out not just trolls and idiots but more importantly bots. We are living in the twilight of the open Internet, at least as a medium of any kind of meaningful communication. All that will be left on the “clearnet” is a social media influencer hustle culture driven hellscape where half the participants are bots anyway.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  > I really think the future is private enclaves, closed forums, etc. with strict rules to try to keep out not just trolls and idiots but more importantly bots. We are living in the twilight of the open Internet, at least as a medium of any kind of meaningful communication. All that will be left on the “clearnet” is a social media influencer hustle culture driven hellscape where half the participants are bots anyway. I think we're already starting to see this. Mastodon, Gemini, Discourse, forums, resurging interests in NNTP, FidoNet, etc. Even the public generally prefers group chats, Discords, TikTok, Snapchat, or to some extent IG because they're more private than FB or Twitter. I think creating a "global village" was interesting and empowering for most of humanity as a new thing that humans were capable of doing, but we all quickly realized that you can put a million people in a room together, but they won't have much to talk about together. I have no doubt that private communities are going to be the future.

jbledsoe2112 5y ago

The Diamond Mine Online BBS (bbs.dmine.net) is a great place to start. :)

Karrot_Kream 5y ago
I don't see y'all on the Telnet BBS list! Also, does Synchronet syndicate NNTP?
- jbledsoe2112 5y ago
  The Diamond Mine also has some NNTP from what I've seen. Doubt they have all the newsgroups though.
irq 5y ago
Is this [0] sort of post common or uncommon on dmine? It immediately made me leave the site but maybe I was too quick to judge. 0: http://bbs.dmine.net/msgs/msg.ssjs?msg_sub=local-locdebat&message=29 http://bbs.dmine.net/msgs/msg.ssjs?msg_sub=local-locdebat&me...
- empressplay 5y ago
  This is just one dude's experience / opinion -- if this sort of stuff bothers you, I don't think there's any BBS that you'll like, since people pontificating is kind of what they're for