FLAGSTAFF, Arizona, February 29 -- Last year's Web-industry buzzword was "community." Everyone seemed to think that building a community of some kind was the way to get occasional visitors to become frequent visitors.
Well, there certainly are a lot of communities on the Web -- one of the sites Meg and I support has one, in fact. And the message traffic suggests that there are a fair number of people who come back on a regular basis, to trade technical tips, grouse about hardware and software problems, and generally shoot the breeze.
But the industry pundits who were buzzing about communities last year don't realize that we've had communities all along. (I say "last year" because they've since moved on to other buzzwords -- this year's favorite is "b2b," for business-to-business e-commerce; we'll see if it does any better than OS/2, push technology, thin clients, portals, communities, instant messaging, Internet telephony, and other supposed Next Big Things.)
The catch is that on-line communities have become worse, not better, over the past 10 or 12 years.
There were several excellent BBS packages for MS-DOS. The whole process was quick, tidy, and efficient.
The best on-line communities -- the ones that were easiest to use -- were PC-based bulletin board (BBS) systems that you logged into over a dialup line. Things have gone nowhere but down since then -- CompuServe was a nationwide (eventually worldwide) network, but it was slower and harder to use. Internet-based discussion forums (mailing lists and Usenet) were even worse -- slower, less reliable, and chaotic. Finally, Web-based discussion boards are the worst of all, in terms of technology -- they're slow, disorganized, and inefficient. We've seen a perverse sort of upside-down Moore's Law: each technological "advancement" has made on-line communities worse, not better, in terms of how well they work.
Sliding down the razor's edge of life
The first on-line community I logged into was a PC-based bulletin board called The Razor's Edge, which operated out of eastern Massachusetts. I signed up in 1987 and quickly became involved in discussions about all kinds of stuff -- software, politics, sports, work, play, you-name-it. They had a solid group of regular users who logged in every day, greeted one another as friends, and even got together in person from time to time.
There were several excellent BBS software packages for MS-DOS at that time. The Razor's Edge used one that made it easy to dial in, download the messages that had been posted since your last visit, hang up the phone, read the messages off-line, and write replies for later uploading. The whole process was quick, tidy, and efficient.
Mailing lists are the on-line equivalent of a busy sports bar. There's so much noise, it's hard to keep track of what's being said.
A couple of years later, when my employer was acquired by CompuServe, I got a free account on what was then pretty much the only large-scale on-line service. It had the advantage of being nationwide (later worldwide), which meant that you were talking to a much larger group of people. But the user interface was slow and clunky, compared to PC software -- and you had to do everything on-line, which cost a lot of money. CompuServe used to cost 21 cents a minute, plus any phone and network charges you might be incurring. Using a terminal emulator or their awful CompuServe Information Manager (CIM), following a discussion thread was tedious at best. (I still say CIM was one of the main reasons why CompuServe eventually failed. Third-party off-line readers made it possible to download messages and write replies without the meter running -- but all this did was bring the service up to where PC systems had been years earlier.)
But at least CompuServe had threaded discussions. The next step "up" the technological food chain came when Internet access finally became available to those of us without government or university connections -- this happened around 1991 or so. This gave us access to Internet mailing lists, as well as Usenet newsgroups. And once again, things got worse instead of better.
Mailing lists are the on-line equivalent of a shouted conversation on the floor of a stock exchange, or in a busy sports bar. There's so much noise and so much off-topic discussion, it's hard to keep track of what's being said. Usenet newsgroups, although they do have discussion threads, are prey to network and server glitches, and they're also prey to something much worse: spam.
In terms of wasted bandwidth, wasted time, and clunky user interfaces, Web communities take the cake.
I subscribe to several newsgroups, among them az.general, which, as the name suggests, is devoted to general discussion of topics related to Arizona. Unfortunately, the signal-to-noise ratio is extremely low. For every post worth reading, there are three that offer get-rich-quick schemes, links to "adult" Web sites, and ads for desert real-estate. (For those who are fairly new to the Internet, these types of posts -- especially when simultaneously posted to dozens or hundreds of newsgroups -- are the stuff first described as "spam"; the practice originated long before junk e-mail reared its ugly head.)
What's worse, Usenet messages are permanently archived, as are many mailing lists (see We know what you typed!, 5/12/98) -- so anything you post can be retrieved forever after.
The worst on-line communities of all are the ones you access with a Web browser. In terms of wasted bandwidth, wasted time, and clunky user interfaces, Web communites take the cake.
Trolling, but not for compliments
One of the Usenet newsgroups I subscribe to, alt.sport.bowling, has periodically been terrorized by an anonymous poster who takes a strange delight in disrupting the group as completely as possible. He does this by calling names, deliberately posting misleading information, and generally doing his best to stir the pot -- to the extent that at times, the majority of message traffic in the entire newsgroup consists of messages posted by this guy, replies to his inflammatory posts, and discussions about him by other members. Generally, the others argue about whether it's worth replying to his junk or whether he'll go away if ignored. (I suspect he probably would go away if ignored -- the problem is that not enough of the regulars are able to ignore the guy; that's what keeps him going.) In Usenet parlance, such a person is known as a "troll," because he "trolls" for a fight the way a fisherman trolls for trout.
What we have is reverse-evolution -- we've gone from quick, efficient PC bulletin boards to slower, less efficient on-line "communities."
In any case, a few months ago, one of the regular members went over to Deja.com and set up a moderated discussion forum (i.e., one in which he could control who was allowed to participate), as a means of locking out the troll. This sounds like a good idea. The problem is that because it's a Web-based discussion group, you have to access it with a Web browser, repainting most of the screen for each message you want to read. I tried this and found it so excruciatingly slow that I gave up after a session or two. I'd rather put up with the troll and read the regular newsgroup -- at least that's quicker.
So what we have is reverse-evolution -- we've gone from quick, efficient PC bulletin boards to slower but well-organized on-line services to still slower, more chaotic Internet mailing lists and newsgroups, finally reaching the nadir with even slower, less efficient Web "communities."
I'd be the first to admit that all things considered, a worldwide on-line group is better than a local one, in many ways. Through CompuServe and Internet communities, I've met people from all over the world, who often provide very different perspectives from those found in my home town. And, of course, Meg and I met on CompuServe -- it'd be dishonest not to mention that particular positive aspect of a big community. But I miss the efficiency, fast downloading, and tight organization of the first groups in which I was a participant. Anyone know of a good PC BBS in northern Arizona?
Copyright © 2000 John J. Kafalas
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