What can we learn from the Internet of the naughties?

[Second Summer]

Does this article resonate with anyone else here? I think a lot of this is still valid in the Internet forum world, but not everything, and on the wider Internet things are definitely different now.

I’m old. I’m old enough to remember an earlier version of the internet. Not Usenet and Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link, I’m not that old. But right after that, in the early 2000’s, an internet of message boards and forum-based communities.

Often these days I find myself wistfully thinking back to that period. There were a set of unspoken rules that governed life there, an interlocking set of principles, norms, and ideologies. [...]

More: The Lost Commandments of the Internet (Frank Lantz, medium.com, 8. Oct. 2018)

 

[Moll Flanders]

Haha, some of that was funny.

Why are so many male mods on forums such weird creeps?! I've noticed it before, on other forums, not just on here. They are the men who were virgins and only managed to get one girlfriend. It still doesn't explain why so many are so creepy!

 

[beancounter]

"They are like an accidental god. Their power is absolute and unquestionable, as is the power of the moderators they appoint. Are the mods petty tyrants? Probably. Is complaining about them a bannable offense? Definitely. Do you not like it? "

Yea, it was like that at the other forum.

 

[Andy_T]

Yea, it was like that at the other forum.

Sounds as if you two are veganforum.com veterans
I hardly remember that time...

Yes, the article is interesting.

BUT ... I actually still do remember EARN (European Academic Research Network) / BITNET, USENET forums and LISTSERV lists... that was some time ago.

 

[Nekodaiden]

Does this article resonate with anyone else here? I think a lot of this is still valid in the Internet forum world, but not everything, and on the wider Internet things are definitely different now.


More: The Lost Commandments of the Internet (Frank Lantz, medium.com, 8. Oct. 2018)

Yes, parts of it do.

 

[beancounter]

Necro thread!

It's alive!

 

[Andy_T]

Ah, the good old times.

I fondly remember "GRANOLA - Vegetarian discussion list" on LISTSERV or Usenet, don't exactly remember which, and that I printed (on continuous A3 printer paper) tomes of vegetarian recipes from that. Must have been around 1993.