-=> Quoting Damon A. Getsman to Nancy Backus on 01-May-2015 09:34 <=-

 NB>> We come to the hobby from different places... :) I came for genealogy,
 NB>> where real names are the lifeblood of the area... :)  Games (mostly
 NB>> word types or trivia) were an addition... as was getting somewhat
 NB>> involved in messaging in the local areas, getting to know the other
 NB>> users and the sysop better.  It helped that the sysop of that early
 NB>> board was a friendly sort, and encouraged good interaction.  :)
 DAG> Yeah I was definitely a naive kid who'd gotten into coding
 DAG> beforehand and had really romanticised dreams from reading the book
 DAG> 'Hackers' by Steven Levy and wanted to change the world through freedom
 DAG> of information and coding.  The persona was the really interesting
 DAG> aspect to it.  Struggling to have a life with more meaning in a
 DAG> pre-portioned society, I guess, at least that's what it felt like at
 DAG> the time.

Yours was following a dream, mine was finding a tool...  ;)

 DAG> 'Course I spent plenty of time with the online gaming, as I
 DAG> got telecommunications ability and I found that now I had software for
 DAG> the computer that I'd salvaged and no longer had to write my own.  It's
 DAG> kind of a shame, really.  I would've come a lot farther with my
 DAG> programming and sysadmin skills probably if I would've kept that hobby
 DAG> going as strong through my teens as it first started in my pre-teens. 

Pluses and minuses to having things handed to you... ;)  

 DAG> I didn't really resume it in force until almost my mid-twenties, and
 DAG> even then it was only my minor, while my major was in partying.

Water under the bridge now... but yeah, not so great...  ;)

 DAG> The first couple of boards that I was on, as far as local dialups,
 DAG> didn't really have that sense of community so much.  I guess they were
 DAG> really indicative of the culture in North Dakota, now that I reflect on
 DAG> it a little bit.  It was when I first got some cracked accounts to
 DAG> access major online BBSes (ie ISCA BBS) that I first started to feel a
 DAG> real sense of community. There weren't any people in my community who
 DAG> responded very well to my sense of repression fighting for outlet... 

Rochester always has seemed to have a good sense of community, on many
levels... bbsing being only one of them...  back in the day, with a
number of good bbses to choose from, there wasn't much rivalry (and what
there was was rather good-natured at that) and there was a lot of
cooperation... There's less of that now locally on the bbs scene, but
with telnet and all, the community just widened out globally..  :)

 DAG> Going against those grains instead of just taking what was handed to
 DAG> you in play was kind of frowned against.  Nobody could understand that
 DAG> a kid with problems might be a product of parents with problems...  I
 DAG> don't know, I could write a million page essay on all of that crap, but
 DAG> it's really neither here no there anymore.  It taught me to be a better
 DAG> father, that's all that should really matter at this point.  Well that
 DAG> and to fight to find things that can help me to keep those haunting
 DAG> nightly revisitation hours under control where the demons of the past
 DAG> try to pour back out at me.  ;)

It's good to find good lessons in the bad things of the past... :)  And
then to let the demons loose, to not torment you any more... :)

 NB>> There was some of that here, too.  And for some, I'm sure it was a
 NB>> similar lifesaver as for you.  :)  I remember one teen boy I spent some
 NB>> intensive time in chat on one bbs (he'd started by trying to "hit" on
 NB>> me, until I told him I had a son already out of college, at which point
 NB>> he responded by asking for advice on how to deal with his parents)...
 DAG> Heh.  I think I've probably made that mistake a few times myself.  I
 DAG> think that the whole atmosphere of online interaction can be really
 DAG> great for kids in that situation, where they're repressed and kept
 DAG> from normal socialization by parents or whatever cause. 

It didn't bother me... I just figured his reasoning was, any female on
the scene must be young, "old ladies" wouldn't be interested...   And
of course, there's no visual clues as to age...  :)

 DAG> Unfortunately I've seen the opposite, too.  It doesn't help much that
 DAG> the internet has been so popularized at this point that it doesn't
 DAG> really require a sense of community in the discussion boards or
 DAG> anything of the sort.  I don't think quite as many people experience
 DAG> the original senses of community that were so helpful to people in my
 DAG> position when they were younger, now-a-days. 

I'd tend to go along with you on that.  And I suspect that some of that
lack of real community is what encourages the somewhat resurgance of the
bbs scene lately...  :)

 DAG> Though no doubt the reblogging and soul dumpings
 DAG> on facebook, diaspora, tumblr, and [maybe even] twitter spurts still
 DAG> serve the same purpose.  It's just so much more likely to get lost in
 DAG> the flood.  Plus the newer media makes it a lot easier for people to
 DAG> just spend their time reblogging and 'liking' the different content
 DAG> that other people put up, instead of spending time in really meaningful
 DAG> interactions.  Kind of reminds me of people sewing band patches and
 DAG> other people's quotes onto their clothing so that they can be an
 DAG> 'individual'.  *looks guiltily at bathrobe emblazoned with many band
 DAG> patches and other designs* 

[grinning]  I suppose there's a place for that...   I have to agree
that what exists nowadays in social media is generally a poor substitute
for real interaction.  I'm sure there are some pockets of it, but the
medium doesn't really encourage it... it tends to be pretty impersonal..

 DAG>> I hope that I can roll out this shell that I'm working on to them
 DAG>> soon here so that I can give back a little bit to the community
 DAG>> that gave me so much.
 NB>> A nice repayment..  :)
 DAG> I'm just sad it's taking so much longer than I thought it would. 
 DAG> Such is the curve for projects of this size though, I guess.  Well,
 DAG> that, and I'm hampered a bit because of the fact that I've never coded
 DAG> with frameworks, never coded with testing, never learned any decent
 DAG> software engineering techniques.  I've only worked on my own code, and
 DAG> that's bitten me in the bum a bit.  Especially since I've had somebody
 DAG> else contribute good portions of work to this project, now, and I'm
 DAG> having trouble getting up to speed on the flow of their code in order
 DAG> to fix it where it's broken with recent additions.  Regardless, I hope
 DAG> some of them appreciate it once I iron out these last 3 bugs that are
 DAG> keeping me from putting it up public.

I'm sure it IS a learning curve...  :)  Sounds like you'll manage ok
with it though...  :)

ttyl      neb

... Rumors of the death of the BBS have been GREATLY Exaggerated

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