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   Hello, August Abolins.   
   On 11/7/20 1:46 AM you wrote:   
      
    CP>> So why is it the online forums and things like Facebook and    
    CP>> Twitter are such huge presences in the world, but Fidonet, and    
    CP>> the BBS community in general, aren't?   
    AA> That has been debated before. Opinions varied from "the eenernet    
    AA> is sexier", less dialup wait times or faster connections of    
    AA> internet, lots of purty pictures and graphics.   
      
   I remember the initial participation fall off of some of the echos I most   
   actively participated in. At the time, connecting to the internet was   
   primarily dialup, so I don't really accept that.   
   I did see it as being something shiny and new, so obviously people were going   
   to look around.  But I also expected them to eventually come back around the   
   echos. Perhaps not as often as before, but consistently.   
      
   Obviously I was wrong.   
       
    AA> I wouldn't know if newsgroup use has waned over time since then    
    AA> (more spam and trolls), but even participation in a newsgroup had    
    AA> a faster and more broad response than an isolated BBS or a    
    AA> hobbiest echomail network.   
      
   I tried newsgroups now and then.  I didn't care for them.  It seemed a cheap   
   imitation of echomail.   
   Email group lists were better, but many of the lists I was on then were   
   primarily by people coming from a Fidonet background, and the lists reflected   
   that.   
       
    AA> Myself, my community for fast answers and interesting conversions    
    AA> included Compuserve for at least 3 or 4 years.   
      
   I never did find anything like that on Compuserve or AOL.   
       
    AA> Web forums also evolved out of a need to build communities with    
    AA> special interests. I joined a few when I needed info on Thinkpads    
    AA> and Macs.  I still have the Thinkpad one in my back pocket.   
      
   Specialized forums like that I understand. It makes sense. In some larger   
   companies I've worked at, they had them set-up as a sort of peer to peer help   
   system to spread everyone's knowledge and experience around.   
       
    AA> Meanwhile, FTN echomail has found a way to participate in similar    
    AA> web forum style too (eg Synchronet's eWeb thing?)   
      
   It has. But it's also had a tendency to be very insular. There is very little,   
   if any promotion of what it has to offer.   
       
    AA> Along the way, people have probably grown accustomed to using the    
    AA> browser that often would come included with their computer    
    AA> purchase and not learn about the FTN/BBS options out there.     
    AA> BBSing is probably still strongly associated with dialup.   
      
   I actually think more in terms of Telnet these days, the local BBS's I called   
   on dialup vanished long ago.  I'm sure there are some still, but I no longer   
   even have a landline phone.   
      
   If you mention BBS to the average person these days, they are as likely to   
   associate the term with thise web forum things, which can tend to be as badly   
   infested with bots and spam as usenet ever was.   
       
    AA> As for Facebook and Twitter, they address the short term memories    
    AA> and fickle approach of communication (memes, pics, one-liners,    
    AA> forwards of other people's pics/memes/jokes) to the vast majority    
    AA> of computer users, I guess.   
      
   For all that might be said now,  Facebook basically can be broken down to   
   being started as a computer nerd online frat party.   
       
    AA> I think Facebook made it easy for an individual (and now companies    
    AA> and groups) to establish a presence and have pretty good control    
    AA> of content and promotion. No fancy web-page coding required.    
    AA> People on Facebook are not interested in conversations as much as    
    AA> they are interested in telling the world about themselves. It    
    AA> really upped the anted on blogging, I think.   
      
   Facebook does have groups, which can imitate echos.  But for the most part,   
   you're correct.   
       
    AA> Twitter, I won't comment on, except to say that I don't like the    
    AA> hashtag mess that the tweets become.   
      
   I don't get the hashtags. I mean, I understand what the intent was, but I   
   don't get it.   
       
    AA> And now over time, people are migrating to using different devices    
    AA> to access their Facebooks and Twitters via "apps".   
      
   Apps are easy. They're convenient. But then again, I'm a software geek.    
       
    AA> Where does all this leave the Fidonet and BBS community?    
    AA> ..probably in the dust. Perhaps if there was a consistent approach    
    AA> to reacquaint the ex-BBS user and the new generation of    
    AA> conversationalist to the Fidonet and BBS communities then maybe    
    AA> we'd notice some increased presence by their participation.   
      
   There is the issue in a nutshell. But it's more than that.   
   The BBS community is where I've met some of the most innovative people in   
   computers.   
   Terminal programs, BBS programs, offline readers, door programs, FTN and other   
   style networks.... while there is commercial software, for the most part it   
   was done by individuals, or groups of people, creating these wonderful   
   programs because they could.   
      
   You don't see very much of that now. Now, the BBS community seems more about   
   preserving the history.   
      
   Why can't it be both?   
      
   I think I was around 12 years old when we got our first home computer. Younger   
   if you include things like Atari games.   
      
   Now, there is an entire generation that a computer in the home is like a   
   television or a stove.  You yourself have referred to your computer as an   
   appliance.    
      
   Smart phones and tablets have been around for over a decade.    
      
   But look what happens when the conversation comes up about software for these   
   mobile devices to connect with FTN networks. There is very little interest, if   
   not outright hostility to the idea.   
      
   Recall the reactions to my idea of running a BBS on a smartphone or Tablet?   
      
   At best, my ideas have been met with a response that is basically, "Yes it is   
   possible, but I have no interest in using that myself. Good luck with that."   
      
   Like it or not, you're going to have little, if any growth in the BBS network   
   community without adapting to new technology. This doesn't mean discarding the   
   past. But existing BBS software can be adapted to mobile device technology   
   without making the existing tech obsolete.   
      
   The proof of concept exists in the program I am using now. It's just not being   
   supported.   
      
      
      
   --   
   Best regards!   
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