It was a bit before my time, but peak usenet and mailing lists of the era looked awesome. The breadth and depth of the people who would participate in discussio

It was a bit before my time, but peak usenet and mailing lists of the era looked awesome. The breadth and depth of the people who would participate in discussions (specifically in my field, e.g., comp.arch and the like) was quite amazing. Luminaries in the fields of computer CPUs, networking, programming, operating systems, etc. From academics to professionals to students and hobbyists. That still goes on, but the gold seems harder to find, the signal to noise ratio lower. Might be just nostalgia.