Telnet BBS Guide

Fax connections over GSM required a special (read: expensive and inefficient) circuit-switched data service that was limited to 9600 bps, at least here in the U.S.A.:

http://navasgroup.com/attwireless/gsm_data.htm

Just to augment what the other poster said:

The way this would work is that your cellphone would send the fax data over the digital cellular network connection; in turn, the actual cellular network itself would speak the V.29 fax protocol.

Sure, there were those boards, but they were mainly for tech support or associated with a school or something like that. The boards I hung out on had far more relaxed rules.

> I really think the future is private enclaves, closed forums, etc. with strict rules to try to keep out not just trolls and idiots but more importantly bots. We are living in the twilight of the open Internet, at least as a medium of any kind of meaningful communication. All that will be left on the “clearnet” is a social media influencer hustle culture driven hellscape where half the participants are bots anyway.

I think we're already starting to see this. Mastodon, Gemini, Discourse, forums, resurging interests in NNTP, FidoNet, etc. Even the public generally prefers group chats, Discords, TikTok, Snapchat, or to some extent IG because they're more private than FB or Twitter. I think creating a "global village" was interesting and empowering for most of humanity as a new thing that humans were capable of doing, but we all quickly realized that you can put a million people in a room together, but they won't have much to talk about together.

I have no doubt that private communities are going to be the future.

I think you're right and prescient, and I'm sad that it's happening now that I'm old. In my 20s I had hours and hours and hours to burn on forums and BBSes and muds and such, and found my way in to some cool communities. I loved participating in them, the in-jokes, and even some of the drama involved.

But those places are all moribund now, and the modern closed equivalent of those communities on decentralized services that I would love to be a part of are, by definition, closed to me because I've got a demanding job and kids and stuff. I might have enough time to participate in such a community, but nowhere near enough to try out a bunch and find one where I'd fit in. And an invite is unlikely, because if I were a part of a great closed community I'd be very cautious about bringing in outsiders.

But for younger people, with more time to join a group, participate for a while, realize it's not the right fit, try another one, etc, until they find a tribe they mesh with, I think what you're describing is spot on - meaningful online interactions will be driven out of the public eye, and traditional social media will grow to resemble Linkedin even more than it already does.

Hm? From when 4chan was just a board with no other boards, it was a _lot_ of stuff. The original board distinction (/a/ and /b/) was made because eventually anime content and "other"/meme content collided in the interests of the board users, so they were separated. It's hard to see the viewpoint in our politically charged time, but the origins of 4chan were just about people interested in anime saying whatever. The frequency of the content often meant that it was mostly just kids with too much free time (as I suspect a lot of *net Fora tend to be). The board changed a lot over the years, but initially it was just a place for anime-oriented talk.

The Diamond Mine also has some NNTP from what I've seen. Doubt they have all the newsgroups though.

This is just one dude's experience / opinion -- if this sort of stuff bothers you, I don't think there's any BBS that you'll like, since people pontificating is kind of what they're for