There was for a brief period what I like to call the "wild west" of the web. All just shitty phpBB and whatnot boards for every topic. There was no concept of social media. I genuinely got to know the people, mods, smods, gmods, admins, superadmins (the list of "positions" was always comically long and induced great drama on most communities). I visited many of those people I formed connections with online, in person. I feel like social media has swallowed the people from these communities and created large "highways" instead of communities.

Facebook groups just aren't the same. There's something comforting knowing it was "just some fucking guy" hosting the website for fun.

I think that kind of cultural expression is something we need to protect and keep alive.

A future when all of our communities, all of our social interactions, are routed two a small amount of services hosted by great companies is one I don't look forward to.

That kind of thing - just setting something up for the hell of it, and slowly building a community, or a group of friends that way - to me it's very special.

I remember when I first encountered BBSes (mid to late 80s). Dialing into a slew of local systems and enlarging my social circle. Then there was the Internet and many of my former BBS social circle were deriding it, saying it didn't have that community feel.

I remember when I first encountered USENET (early 90s). Reading scores of USENET groups and enlarging my social circle, even going to far as to go to a yearly meeting one group held for several years. Then there was the World Wide Web that everything was being funneled in to. Most of the USENET crowd I was with were deriding it, saying it didn't have that community feel.

I remember when I first encountered Slashdot (late 90s). Reading score of comments on trending topics and again, enlarging my social circle. Then there was Digg and many on Slashdot were deriding that, saying it didn't have that community feel ...

That's all well and good but we've hit the top. Neither of those were billion dollar corporations.

I also remember when no one could get fired for buying IBM, and when no one could get fired for buying Microsoft. Both were also (and still are) billion dollar corporations.

I agree. That's sorta what HN used to feel like also...

I feel a bit the same way. I was running a BBS in 90s, which allowed only one person to connect at a time. I ended up meeting a big bunch of my users in person.

To recreate this, maybe I'll try starting a video chat when random people want to ask me for advice. Tried that today when someone sent me a random message on FB asking me for advice about living in Japan, was fun.

Yep. I was the same way. The community feel definetely got lost along the way.

> Plus, you are (were) one of the dorks and your sister is one of the cool kids. The two groups have noticeably different modes of socialising.

Very true. And like some of the other commentors are pointing out, it's somewhat sad that the old, more "natural" communities built over time are becoming a dying breed.

All communities evolve. I don't think there's anything particularly more natural about one approach or another (if anything I'd say phpBB promotes a very unnatural mode of conversation because of the way its "topics" work).

There's still a huge number of very active phpBB-type bulletin boards out their, with all the usual drama. They turn up whenever you search for help on a random non-tech topic. I love to visit the world for a little bit. It's like walking into a real locals' pub, where the regulars are at the bar chatting to the landlord about the crazy stuff Dave got up to at the weekend. They're probably the same people who go home and post on their homebrew, beekeeping, classic car, medieval history etc, etc forums.

P.S. as a corollary, if you were 14 today and on snapchat, you'd be one of the weird people she doesn't want to snapchat with and you'd be in the exact same position.

I still don't know how to use Facebook... Neither Snapchat or whatever social thing. I only need a text messaging app, which today is WhatsApp, and i'm fine.