Posted by Druin on 8, 2000 at 12:48 PM:
In Reply to: Its downhill from here on posted by kev on 8, 2000 at 12:05 PM:
: Like any other good thing, the people involved in this 'hobby' used to be a small group of reasonably clued up enthusiasts. But now the masses have discovered it.. its downhill from here, folks. No offence, but the masses are irritating.
Well I somewhat generally agree that everything can become too populated in negative ways as more people get involved, but I can't see how this emulation deal can go undesirable. The more people experiment and do things in the area, the more information becomes available. Whatever people build for themselves, we only have to deal with if we go to their websites and look them up. In message bases, people who haven't done any experimenting will be asking basic questions, and once they figure it out they'll add to the knowledge base. It's like an economy that I see as progressing from livestock trading to bank note trading, without the possibility of political or other large scale problems. I don't see where they would fit in.
I remember feeling that way, however, about BBSing before the internet. It used to be a small community of people interested in having discussions that they probably wouldn't get the chance to have face to face, and with people they'd otherwise probably never meet. Then one day everyone had a modem and it became polluted with one liners and file leeches, and the meaning was lost.
Then the internet came and the bbs world was shelved. I still have my old BBS software in its installation directory from when I was a 4-year SysOp, and I have the most recent 100 messages I never bothered getting rid of over the years.