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The WELL, Birthplace Of Online Movement, Is Up For Sale
- stephengillie 14y agoThis is a 7-minute audio-only piece.
- ThomPete 14y agoI have been a member since 99. The place had some of the best discussions I have ever participated in perhaps because you have to pay for it. Unfortunately it's not what it used to be. Still, I can't get my head around whether it would make sense to do a paid discussion forum.
- egypturnash 14y agoI can think of two modern payment-required forums off the top of my head. They couldn't be more different. Metafilter: $5, primarily about posting interesting links and having hopefully civil discussions. Something Awful: $10, very free-form and anarchic, used to be a center of organizing trolls, now it's not so much for that but it still has a kind of "friendly assholes" aura.
- elliottcarlson 14y agoThat is an interesting topic - I wonder how many people would pay to be able to read and participate in a discussion forum that is highly targeted, such as Hacker News?
- ThomPete 14y agoYeah. They have this saying "You own your words" and a pretty strong discussion ethics which really makes it stand out. There are no voting or anything else involved though so you kind of have to find the nuggets yourself. It's based on Pine so there is a lot of opportunity to dig around.
- crag 14y agoIt really was host to some of the best (and civil) discussions I've ever had the pleasure to lurk. But I think twitter, facebook (and maybe aol) really did a number on the Well. I mean, time marches on. And the Well didn't, or wouldn't. I remember the Well like I remember Geocities and CompuServe - fondly.
- ThomPete 14y agoYeah. It's one of those places where I would love to get permissions to take out some of those discussions and create a book. Especially in philosophy & physics there where some really mindbending discussions.
- DanBC 14y agoThe Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link had some great catalogues. They're sort of available now as PDF. (http://www.wholeearth.com/history-whole-earth-catalog.php http://www.wholeearth.com/history-whole-earth-catalog.php) These were the kind of eclectic collections of well curated items that make great books. I'd be interested if there's something similar.
- andyjohnson0 14y agoThats the site for the Whole Earth Catalog, not the WELL. They were both founded by Stewart Brand, but otherwise are different things.
- brianstorms 14y agoPLATO is better described as the birthplace of the online movement. http://platohistory.org http://platohistory.org This morning I asked Howard whether he actually mentioned PLATO in the NPR interview and he said he mentioned PLATO and BBS's, and that NPR edited that out. Thanks NPR, it wouldn't do to tell the true story. We must prolong the myth. (FYI I have been on The WELL since 1986. And started using PLATO in 1979, and its golden years were already past in 1979!)
- jasveer 14y agoDirect link: http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2012/09/20120903_me_11.mp3?dl=1 http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2012/09/20120903_me_11...
- egypturnash 14y agoIsn't this like the fourth time?