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It's fascinating to think about what the internet may have looked like if the early internet adopters had thought about how to welcome and help people, rather t

by mjb 4y ago

It's fascinating to think about what the internet may have looked like if the early internet adopters had thought about how to welcome and help people, rather than engaging in salty gatekeeping. Specifically, thought about how to scale communities and discussions, rather than leaving those problems up to companies and service providers (and, then, being even more salty that those companies came to dominate the space).

jacquesm 4y ago
> if the early internet adopters had thought about how to welcome and help people, rather than engaging in salty gatekeeping. But they did actually welcome and help people. The earliest ISPs were exactly that: attempts to welcome and help people to join the internet. Eternal September is more a function of the number of people in a particular community not about whether or not people help other newcomers to join. The difference is that the early folks came from the tech world and had a level of involvement that was entirely different from the one that the later joiners had and so we ended up with a significantly dumbed down and re-siloed internet. The creator:consumer ratio is what dropped.
- jghn 4y ago
  Yes. And there was also an impact that instead of an influx of new people on a regular cadence it was never ending. People were used to a brief disruption of netiquette standards and then things would go back to normal. But once the gates opened it was a never ending, yet increasing, set of new people arriving every day. It didn't take long for the new folks to outnumber the old hands. To your creator:consumer point, that is also true. And I also think part of it was that the existing crowd couldn't comprehend that this was the case. People on Usenet at the time tended toward certain personality types. It was a bit of a shock when the average poster started to have wildly different goals and expectations.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  > The earliest ISPs were exactly that: attempts to welcome and help people to join the internet. As a (mostly former) member of some old communities: it were just the same in the all cases, a small group of visionaries (or just a bunch of folks high on enthusiasm) which are slowly deluted by innate bureucrats and the grind of describing the same things over and over to the people who can't see the bright red "FAQ: NEWCOMERS PLEASE READ!" right in their faces.
Comevius 4y ago
I would argue that the early adopters were inconsequential. They were too few in numbers to affect anything. The internet created a culture on it's own, one that continues to be a challenge to integrate into society, because human nature weren't designed for it. It's a new environment, and our information processing capabilities and peculiarities lack the adaptation for it. The internet is a bold experiment.
naravara 4y ago
Early adopters were actually quite welcoming. It's just that the usenet communities had informal social norms that took time to acclimate to. When newcomers come in large numbers all at once then they overwhelm the acclimatization process to the informal norms and it becomes a free-for-all. It used to be considered good netiquette to not barge into a chat and start talking and peppering people with questions immediately before you get to know who is who. But the modern internet is more focused on making you engage with it at all times so the idea of "lurking" as a virtuous thing is basically gone. Platforms make a point of trying to coax and goad you out of lurker mode so you can inflict your bad takes on everyone else, so that you can prompt more bad takes from me and others in a feedback loop.
- kennyadam 4y ago
  This is why I love the discussion forums that have survived since the early 2000s. They're decently moderated, not enough 'engagement' crap for most people to be interested and a strong culture that doesn't tolerate low-content posting.
synu 4y ago
I was there and was very welcomed. Local computer clubs, BBSes, and more. It was way more welcoming than the internet now. The salty gatekeeping as I recall was against corporatised versions of the internet (AOL), but in the end that battle was lost. People were welcoming, but much like a company that hires too fast, the culture was swamped by all the new people (who weren’t bad intentioned, but were definitely way more open to walled gardens and being consumers over creators.)
- jghn 4y ago
  I do remember thinking it funny how in less than a year the culture shifted from poking fun at .edu addresses to viewing those same .edu addresses as a good signal once all the big .coms like AOL came online.
btilly 4y ago
I am amused that people like you assume that they put no thought into the question, because you don't like their answer. Many Usenet forums back then which had over 100,000 regular readers and long-running discussions. For example sci.math. That worked fine with a culture of saying things accurately and simply, without undue handholding. And an expectation that the other side would put in their own elbow grease. While effective in that culture, this is exactly the kind of behavior that outsiders call "salty gatekeeping". Never mind that the people who are being called that are often the same people who are answering question after question, and being genuinely helpful. I do not know of any comparable unmoderated forum today which works close to that well. Or where someone with a genuine question can so reliably get high quality answers from a genuine expert.
- jghn 4y ago
  yes and no. Yes I agree that what you say is true. However I also remember things like people "winning" arguments by citing the other person's @aol.com or @prodigy.com email address. There was a bit of both there.
  - btilly 4y ago
    I agree. There were certainly abrasive people, trolls, cranks, and every other kind of bad behavior. But I've known many incredibly helpful people who get called on "salty gatekeeping". In fact I've been called on that myself.

by mjb 4y ago

jacquesm 4y ago

> if the early internet adopters had thought about how to welcome and help people, rather than engaging in salty gatekeeping. But they did actually welcome and help people. The earliest ISPs were exactly that: attempts to welcome and help people to join the internet. Eternal September is more a function of the number of people in a particular community not about whether or not people help other newcomers to join. The difference is that the early folks came from the tech world and had a level of involvement that was entirely different from the one that the later joiners had and so we ended up with a significantly dumbed down and re-siloed internet. The creator:consumer ratio is what dropped.

jghn 4y ago
Yes. And there was also an impact that instead of an influx of new people on a regular cadence it was never ending. People were used to a brief disruption of netiquette standards and then things would go back to normal. But once the gates opened it was a never ending, yet increasing, set of new people arriving every day. It didn't take long for the new folks to outnumber the old hands. To your creator:consumer point, that is also true. And I also think part of it was that the existing crowd couldn't comprehend that this was the case. People on Usenet at the time tended toward certain personality types. It was a bit of a shock when the average poster started to have wildly different goals and expectations.
justsomehnguy 4y ago
> The earliest ISPs were exactly that: attempts to welcome and help people to join the internet. As a (mostly former) member of some old communities: it were just the same in the all cases, a small group of visionaries (or just a bunch of folks high on enthusiasm) which are slowly deluted by innate bureucrats and the grind of describing the same things over and over to the people who can't see the bright red "FAQ: NEWCOMERS PLEASE READ!" right in their faces.

Comevius 4y ago

I would argue that the early adopters were inconsequential. They were too few in numbers to affect anything. The internet created a culture on it's own, one that continues to be a challenge to integrate into society, because human nature weren't designed for it. It's a new environment, and our information processing capabilities and peculiarities lack the adaptation for it. The internet is a bold experiment.

naravara 4y ago

Early adopters were actually quite welcoming. It's just that the usenet communities had informal social norms that took time to acclimate to. When newcomers come in large numbers all at once then they overwhelm the acclimatization process to the informal norms and it becomes a free-for-all. It used to be considered good netiquette to not barge into a chat and start talking and peppering people with questions immediately before you get to know who is who. But the modern internet is more focused on making you engage with it at all times so the idea of "lurking" as a virtuous thing is basically gone. Platforms make a point of trying to coax and goad you out of lurker mode so you can inflict your bad takes on everyone else, so that you can prompt more bad takes from me and others in a feedback loop.

kennyadam 4y ago
This is why I love the discussion forums that have survived since the early 2000s. They're decently moderated, not enough 'engagement' crap for most people to be interested and a strong culture that doesn't tolerate low-content posting.

synu 4y ago

I was there and was very welcomed. Local computer clubs, BBSes, and more. It was way more welcoming than the internet now. The salty gatekeeping as I recall was against corporatised versions of the internet (AOL), but in the end that battle was lost. People were welcoming, but much like a company that hires too fast, the culture was swamped by all the new people (who weren’t bad intentioned, but were definitely way more open to walled gardens and being consumers over creators.)

jghn 4y ago
I do remember thinking it funny how in less than a year the culture shifted from poking fun at .edu addresses to viewing those same .edu addresses as a good signal once all the big .coms like AOL came online.

btilly 4y ago

I am amused that people like you assume that they put no thought into the question, because you don't like their answer. Many Usenet forums back then which had over 100,000 regular readers and long-running discussions. For example sci.math. That worked fine with a culture of saying things accurately and simply, without undue handholding. And an expectation that the other side would put in their own elbow grease. While effective in that culture, this is exactly the kind of behavior that outsiders call "salty gatekeeping". Never mind that the people who are being called that are often the same people who are answering question after question, and being genuinely helpful. I do not know of any comparable unmoderated forum today which works close to that well. Or where someone with a genuine question can so reliably get high quality answers from a genuine expert.

jghn 4y ago
yes and no. Yes I agree that what you say is true. However I also remember things like people "winning" arguments by citing the other person's @aol.com or @prodigy.com email address. There was a bit of both there.
- btilly 4y ago
  I agree. There were certainly abrasive people, trolls, cranks, and every other kind of bad behavior. But I've known many incredibly helpful people who get called on "salty gatekeeping". In fact I've been called on that myself.