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Usenet & the origins of social exchange on the Internet

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From the «Finally a place we can insult people from a distance» department:
Title: Usenet and the origins of social exchange on the Internet
Author: zafiro17@pipedot.org
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 10:56:11 -0400
Link: http://pipedot.org/story/2014-08-31/usenet-and-the-origins-of-social-exchange-on-the-internet

Slate is running an interesting piece called  "The First Gay Space on the
Internet"[1]. But it's only marginally about homosexuality; it's really a look
at how people use the Internet to meet, exchange opinions, and discuss things
of interest. And that makes it relevant even today.

Many newsgroups were purely informational, useful for technical discussions
or sharing of news or jokes or porn. But soc.motss was genuinely a new kind
of community, a diverse set of people who felt at home and most like
themselves on the Net, and who had discussions there that they couldn’t have
anywhere else. Before Facebook preferred status updates to long posts and
Twitter reduced the size of a rebuttal to 140 characters, soc.motss proved
that online discourse was indeed compatible with open-mindedness, subtlety,
and civility.

The article goes back to a time when bandwidth was limited and expensive, and
people took a long time to compose and write down their thoughts before
posting. It points out early newsreaders were unthreaded, so any newsgroup was
bound to have more readers than contributors. The Internet has come a long way
from then, but the long, written form is in decline, and quick,
heat-of-the-moment posts or diatribes are more the norm. If you agree, click
the "like" button and then move on.

Links:
[1]: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/08/online_gay_culture_and_soc_motss_how_a_usenet_group_anticipated_how_we_use.html (link)

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Usenet & the origins of social exchange on the Internet RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-09-01 20:04 +0000
  Re: Usenet & the origins of social exchange on the Internet Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2014-09-01 21:11 -0400
  Re: Usenet & the origins of social exchange on the Internet "tdk" <forum.tdk@squte.com> - 2014-09-05 11:57 -0500

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