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I still long for the days of Zeroth-gen tech: Usenet, listservs, and bulletin boards. I miss the focused discussions, some of which turned into face-to-face co

I still long for the days of Zeroth-gen tech: Usenet, listservs, and bulletin boards. I miss the focused discussions, some of which turned into face-to-face contacts that have lasted for 25+ years. Reddit never scratched the itch. The Stack Overflow network did not either especially when my questions, carefully worded to comply with the guidelines, got the blockhammer anyway. My best alternative so far is searching the HN archives at least for certain kinds of technical questions. Lots of firepower here despite it not being a Q&A site. (Never used Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter)

rrr_oh_man 3y ago
> The Stack Overflow network did not either especially when my questions, carefully worded to comply with the guidelines, got the blockhammer anyway. Tangent, but: I've honestly never stumbled upon a question on SO that had been closed objectively unfairly. Not in 5 or so years, anyway. Can you maybe share a story?
- OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
  ~8+ years ago: I wanted to know if/how I could accomplish X with tool Y in the relevant group. Showed examples of what I had tried with negative or inconclusive results, listed some SO and non-SO references I consulted, and specifically said I was _not_ looking for alternate tool recommendations since that was against the guidelines. Got closed because I was asking for recommendations (!) which was against the posting guidelines that I obviously had not read. There was another ~1-2 years before that which got a few helpful responses/discussion and one or two that were off base. It got closed for attracting low quality responses. Suffice it to say I wasn't lazily shotgunning SO but posted only when thorough research and experimentation hadn't gotten me over the hump.
shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
> I miss the focused discussions There are many such communities alive and well today, on for example Discord. Here's one I use often, for the Bevy game engine: https://discord.gg/bevy https://discord.gg/bevy with 3100 users online. The issue as I see it with reddit et al is they are too open and too large. When there are too many unknown people around, users tend to treat each other as strangers and that can turn ugly fast. I think this is related to tribalism [1], where you can have relations and "know" a couple of hundred people, but with too many people around you no longer feel the same connection with them, they are all strangers to you. That's just my take, but I think there's something to it. Most if not all enjoyable groups I found, even on reddit and facebook seemed to be working because there were just a few hundred to thousand people, rather than a 500k subreddit. The same held true on older forums, where usually you have a few hundred active users. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribalism
- OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
  I have not used Discord and was under the impression it is realtime chat like IRC. The services I mentioned were asynchronous and after AltaVista/Hotbot/Google, searchable. Happy to be corrected if that's wrong.
  - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
    Discord is searchable and probably the largest source of information online today that is not being indexed by search engines. Discord is also realtime chat/voice/video presentation and file share. Unlike IRC all past discussion is available and searchable, so it's more like Slack / MS Teams in that regard.
    - OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
      Thanks. I'll give it a try.
- OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
  I don't want to say that Usenet/Listservs/Bboards were perfect by any means. The ones that lasted a while did develop "in groups" that could be aloof to newcomers. Kat Nagel's insightful "The Natural Life Cycle of Mailing Lists" from the mid-to-late 90s (I think) resonates: https://www.chipford.com/list/list_life.htm https://www.chipford.com/list/list_life.htm "Every list seems to go through the same cycle: 1. Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot about how wonderful it is to find kindred souls). 2. Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list, and brainstorm recruitment strategies). 3. Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up). 4. Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience; everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions). 5. Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens to quit if other people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than is used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed). 6a. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who asks an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are limited to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time self-righteously congratulating each other on keeping off-topic threads off the list). -- OR -- 6b. Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks; many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list lives contentedly ever after)."

rrr_oh_man 3y ago

> The Stack Overflow network did not either especially when my questions, carefully worded to comply with the guidelines, got the blockhammer anyway. Tangent, but: I've honestly never stumbled upon a question on SO that had been closed objectively unfairly. Not in 5 or so years, anyway. Can you maybe share a story?

OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
~8+ years ago: I wanted to know if/how I could accomplish X with tool Y in the relevant group. Showed examples of what I had tried with negative or inconclusive results, listed some SO and non-SO references I consulted, and specifically said I was _not_ looking for alternate tool recommendations since that was against the guidelines. Got closed because I was asking for recommendations (!) which was against the posting guidelines that I obviously had not read. There was another ~1-2 years before that which got a few helpful responses/discussion and one or two that were off base. It got closed for attracting low quality responses. Suffice it to say I wasn't lazily shotgunning SO but posted only when thorough research and experimentation hadn't gotten me over the hump.

shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago

> I miss the focused discussions There are many such communities alive and well today, on for example Discord. Here's one I use often, for the Bevy game engine: https://discord.gg/bevy https://discord.gg/bevy with 3100 users online. The issue as I see it with reddit et al is they are too open and too large. When there are too many unknown people around, users tend to treat each other as strangers and that can turn ugly fast. I think this is related to tribalism [1], where you can have relations and "know" a couple of hundred people, but with too many people around you no longer feel the same connection with them, they are all strangers to you. That's just my take, but I think there's something to it. Most if not all enjoyable groups I found, even on reddit and facebook seemed to be working because there were just a few hundred to thousand people, rather than a 500k subreddit. The same held true on older forums, where usually you have a few hundred active users. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribalism

OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
I have not used Discord and was under the impression it is realtime chat like IRC. The services I mentioned were asynchronous and after AltaVista/Hotbot/Google, searchable. Happy to be corrected if that's wrong.
- shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
  Discord is searchable and probably the largest source of information online today that is not being indexed by search engines. Discord is also realtime chat/voice/video presentation and file share. Unlike IRC all past discussion is available and searchable, so it's more like Slack / MS Teams in that regard.
  - OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
    Thanks. I'll give it a try.
OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
I don't want to say that Usenet/Listservs/Bboards were perfect by any means. The ones that lasted a while did develop "in groups" that could be aloof to newcomers. Kat Nagel's insightful "The Natural Life Cycle of Mailing Lists" from the mid-to-late 90s (I think) resonates: https://www.chipford.com/list/list_life.htm https://www.chipford.com/list/list_life.htm "Every list seems to go through the same cycle: 1. Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot about how wonderful it is to find kindred souls). 2. Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list, and brainstorm recruitment strategies). 3. Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up). 4. Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience; everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions). 5. Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens to quit if other people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than is used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed). 6a. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who asks an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are limited to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time self-righteously congratulating each other on keeping off-topic threads off the list). -- OR -- 6b. Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks; many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list lives contentedly ever after)."