🚀 go-pugleaf

"Bob Hetzel" <beh@blackout.DMS.cwru.edu> wrote in message
news:blho10$m7n$1@blackout.DMS.cwru.edu...
> How many other text based BBS's are heavily used
> these days?  I'd suspect the number is orders of magnitude smaller now
than
> it was in 1995...

Unfortunately few.

However, I think the mere fact that these newsgroups get the traffic they do
speaks testaments to how much some people appreciate the medium

I can't stand ritz and glitz, which is one of the reasons I am of the
opinion
that the main campus webpage is simply crap.  Form over substance.

I have lamented many times the loss of CFN, and still miss it to this day.
If
it were come back tomorrow, no I do not think it would have the "glamour" it
did
when I started using it back in 1992 (I was a dial-up user at the time).
Yes
I am still nostalgic for the good ol' days that I know can never be
repeated.

However, at the same time I have seen nothing to fill the vacuum when CFN
went
away.

Scratch that.  I do.  It's called IRC.  Yeah... I hear the boos and hisses.
But
a lot of what I *did* miss is now in the irc network here on campus:

irc.cwru.edu
irc2.cwru.edu

and it's off-campus brethren (sponsored by an unnamed geek co-op *cough*)

irc.froggynet.com

There *is* a community there and while it's not the same by any stretch of
the
imagination I have had students, staff and alumni tell me time and time
again,
"Thanks, Froggy, I reallly like irc" or "I was able to connect with a lot of
my
old dorm mates", etc. etc.

So, I'm not sure what my point in this reply is other than this:

CFN went away, I got pissed.  I missed my community.  *MY* community...
without
one I lose my identity.  So, once i had the means and the authority, I
created
it myself out of my own resources.  Why?  Because it fills a need for me
and,
apparantly, a need in the campus community as a whole.  At times there are
50
people on the server in 10 channels, at others there are only 20 or 30
people

The point is, they are there and they're talking!  A far cry from when I
first
opened it up and it was the same 2 or 3 people talking on one channel.

People *need* community... something easily accessible.  Freenet was.  IRC
is.
It's ubiquitous.  No web page, web community or what-have-you is going to
fill
that void.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but dammit it works.

And no I'm not yelling at you Bob, on the contrary, I highly respect you for
all of the work you are doing and have done in the past.  Simply consider
this
a directionless flame bemoaning The Way We Wuz and looking forward to
demonstrating that if it ain't there, you gotta do it yourself.

- Froggy