Some thing some-one (I think it was Bill B) posted last week got me to musing about the changing "fashions" in internet communications.
Just to set the stage a little, I've been "on-line" for quite awhile now, and involved with wood-working, if not turning, for even longer.
Some 20 years ago, the 'Net was not new, but the Web part was, and there was no real "forums" on the web. There were "forums", but they were e-mail forwarding forums (something like Yahoo Groups today) and Usenet Newsgroups.
Newsgroups are a peer-to-peer posting forum. Today the most popular gate-way to Newsgroups is Google Groups
Back then (20 years ago) there was only one real wood-working forum. rec.woodworking, or "The Wreck" as we called it. It was one forum, period, no sub-groups, just the one. So it had posts on wood-turning, carving, cabinetry, everything.
On a busy day it might see 500 posts, on a quiet Sunday it might only see 200. Made it hard to follow things sometimes.
In spring of 1996 some people had enough, and wanted the group split. Some people didn't.
I personally didn't care, so I ran what was called a "straw-poll". Since (back then) -everything- on Newsgroups (Usenet) was democratically decided. Since "The Wreck" creation pre-dated the "great renaming" (that was in 1987) a new goup would have to be renamed to "rec.crafts.woodworking" and then split (r.c.ww.general, r.c.ww.what-ever) . Some of the people on the group didn't want to be in"crafts" with the sewers and "women's" hobbies (and blacksmiths), some didn't want the group split for other reasons.
The "no" people won the poll.
By the end of the poll, I had decided that they were wrong, and it should have split.
The wood-turners decided that they didn't care and did a RFD/CFV and created rec.crafts.woodturning in the fall of 1996
That was the first on-line wood-turning forum.
It was also a success, seeing 20 some posts a day, almost right away.
Then about Fifteen years ago web-based Forums started becoming popular and the popularity of Newsgroups started dropping.
About 10 years ago, when I got interested in woodturning, I joined the newsgroup rec.crafts.woodturning, which was still seeing about 10 posts a day. Today it sees two or three a month.
I've seen the same thing in other newsgroups. In 1995 I led the effort to create rec.outdoors.rv-travel (the 2nd RV Usenet newsgroup, after alt.rv). It was very popular, but it's popularity started dropping as Web-based Forums became popular.
About the same time as I got interested in Woodturning, I got onto some Web based forums for both Wood-Turing and RVs. Recently I've noticed a drop in the number of postings to both RV and Wood-turning web-forums.
A couple years ago I "had" to get on social media, as it was the only way to keep in-touch with some friends and family that had largely abandoned other methods of communication.
Lately I've noticed a serious "up-tick" in the number of wood-turning and RV "groups" on Facebook, I've even seen a couple folk I know from this forum posting to them
Like I said, changing Internet fashions
Just to set the stage a little, I've been "on-line" for quite awhile now, and involved with wood-working, if not turning, for even longer.
Some 20 years ago, the 'Net was not new, but the Web part was, and there was no real "forums" on the web. There were "forums", but they were e-mail forwarding forums (something like Yahoo Groups today) and Usenet Newsgroups.
Newsgroups are a peer-to-peer posting forum. Today the most popular gate-way to Newsgroups is Google Groups
Back then (20 years ago) there was only one real wood-working forum. rec.woodworking, or "The Wreck" as we called it. It was one forum, period, no sub-groups, just the one. So it had posts on wood-turning, carving, cabinetry, everything.
On a busy day it might see 500 posts, on a quiet Sunday it might only see 200. Made it hard to follow things sometimes.
In spring of 1996 some people had enough, and wanted the group split. Some people didn't.
I personally didn't care, so I ran what was called a "straw-poll". Since (back then) -everything- on Newsgroups (Usenet) was democratically decided. Since "The Wreck" creation pre-dated the "great renaming" (that was in 1987) a new goup would have to be renamed to "rec.crafts.woodworking" and then split (r.c.ww.general, r.c.ww.what-ever) . Some of the people on the group didn't want to be in"crafts" with the sewers and "women's" hobbies (and blacksmiths), some didn't want the group split for other reasons.
The "no" people won the poll.
By the end of the poll, I had decided that they were wrong, and it should have split.
The wood-turners decided that they didn't care and did a RFD/CFV and created rec.crafts.woodturning in the fall of 1996
That was the first on-line wood-turning forum.
It was also a success, seeing 20 some posts a day, almost right away.
Then about Fifteen years ago web-based Forums started becoming popular and the popularity of Newsgroups started dropping.
About 10 years ago, when I got interested in woodturning, I joined the newsgroup rec.crafts.woodturning, which was still seeing about 10 posts a day. Today it sees two or three a month.
I've seen the same thing in other newsgroups. In 1995 I led the effort to create rec.outdoors.rv-travel (the 2nd RV Usenet newsgroup, after alt.rv). It was very popular, but it's popularity started dropping as Web-based Forums became popular.
About the same time as I got interested in Woodturning, I got onto some Web based forums for both Wood-Turing and RVs. Recently I've noticed a drop in the number of postings to both RV and Wood-turning web-forums.
A couple years ago I "had" to get on social media, as it was the only way to keep in-touch with some friends and family that had largely abandoned other methods of communication.
Lately I've noticed a serious "up-tick" in the number of wood-turning and RV "groups" on Facebook, I've even seen a couple folk I know from this forum posting to them
Like I said, changing Internet fashions