You know, back in the early 90s, I subscribed to a local chat BBS with 25 nodes. I knew everyone there, we had parties together, pursued insightful discussions, flame-wars, general conversation. It considered it a community of sorts. It was a lot of fun and I met some good people. There were all sorts, not just 'techo-elitists' though there were plenty of those. I miss it even now. However, I don't really see anything like that today. I talk to different people via IRC and napster and such, but I rarely see the same people twice and things change daily. So I guess my response to this article would be, virtual communities have existed, but in truth they have perhaps fallen to crowds of semi-anonymous users. I don't feel like I'm really 'part' of anything anymore. Even Slashdot, where I see some of the same people posting frequently. As an aside, I think Signal 11 might come back just to comment on this. It seems to be part of his gripe.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, back in the early 90s, I subscribed to a local chat BBS with 25 nodes. I knew everyone there, we had parties together, pursued insightful discussions, flame-wars, general conversation. It considered it a community of sorts. It was a lot of fun and I met some good people. There were all sorts, not just 'techo-elitists' though there were plenty of those. I miss it even now. However, I don't really see anything like that today. I talk to different people via IRC and napster and such, but I rarely see the same people twice and things change daily. So I guess my response to this article would be, virtual communities have existed, but in truth they have perhaps fallen to crowds of semi-anonymous users. I don't feel like I'm really 'part' of anything anymore. Even Slashdot, where I see some of the same people posting frequently. As an aside, I think Signal 11 might come back just to comment on this. It seems to be part of his gripe.