Re: OT: FidoNet [Was Community hostility [Was Recent spam increase]]
On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 07:20:35AM -0500, Ed Curtis wrote:
} On Sun, 29 Oct 2006, Tim Post wrote:
} > On Thu, 2006-10-26 at 12:40 -0400, Chris Walters wrote:
} > > > Anyone remember FidoNET?
} > >
} > > Yes, I definitely remember FidoNet - I even ran a BBS there for a while.
}
} I just had a conversation over the weekend about blogging with my mom.
} She asked me what it was. I told her people had been doing it for years
} before it ever became "blogging" on BBS's through fidonet, etc.
I am not 100% certain, but I believe Usenet predates FidoNet, if you want
to talk about message boards and their equivalents. Blogging, however, is a
different animal.
Considering the architectural aspect, both Usenet and FidoNet were
decentralized store-and-forward networks of servers with data replicated
across all of them. Blogging is about the edge of the network, and
maintaining one's blog on one's own server. (Yes, there are many blog
services and servers which the users themselves do not own, but the point
is that the blog posts stay on the server on which they were posted, and
are retrieved from that server for reading.)
Considering the discourse aspect, blogs are basically monologues. Yes, many
blogs have comments and trackbacks, but their essential nature is that of
lecture rather than conversation. Unless my memory fails me, FidoNet (and
WWIVnet and the like) had message boards on which people held conversations
on a topic (much like Usenet or a web forum) but there was no area set
aside for an individual author to lecture.
If you are looking for activity in the past analogous to blogging, you
might consider Socrates or Plato's philosophical speeches to their
followers. Less charitably, you might consider the loons in Central Park
(and, in pleasant weather, anywhere else with freedom of speech, crazy
people, and a sufficient number of passersby).
--Greg
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