Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!percy!littlei!intelhf!agora!trifid
From: trifid@agora.rain.com (Roadster Racewerks)
Newsgroups: comp.society.development
Subject: Re: Nets and Reality
Message-ID: <1991Jun3.112925.18607@agora.rain.com>
Date: 3 Jun 91 11:29:25 GMT
References: <1991Jun1.103409.6738@ims.alaska.edu>
Organization: Open Communications Forum
Lines: 51



Hmmm...
Why connect up if only a "couple hundred thousand" are on the nets?  Well, I
don't know how it is elsewhere, but around here, I keep and make printouts of
newsgroup articles for many of my friends who aren't connected. They tell me 
their concerns and interests, and if I run across their "pet topic" I capture
it for them and surface mail it, or give it to them next time we meet. When you
see something interesting here, don't you share it with anyone? I am also
currently getting some software sent from Ireland for a friend who wants a  
program not available in the US, and trying to track down a rule in a club I
belong to for a member I hardly know, from the club headquarters many states
away. I don't know anyone, however  reclusive, who hasn't done this at least
once in a while. I find it hard to conceive of a village site refusing to help
a mother get a message to her son in a university overseas, or vice-versa.

And that brings up the remark that only homesick profs and businessmen send
email. I find, by reading a lot of the soc.culture newsgroups, that it's quite
the reverse. Homesick students are continually asking "is there a site in XXX
that can relay a message to my aunt...." soc.culture.soviet has someone trying
to set up email sites where letters can be transmitted, and then their journey
completed by local land mail, this probably being faster (maybe even more
reliable) than mailing it the entire distance. This was also done for US troops
during the recent war. 

As to the lack of administrators, I think there is a software revolt at hand.
One of my favorite local BBSs is (maybe tonight!) going Fidonet. Fidonet allows
use of regular (Very user friendly) BBS software to interface with the network.
The software she uses (QuickBBS and D'Bridge) do her netmail calls automatically
on a regular basis. All she attends to are power failures, system breakdowns,
and system upgrades. She's online 24hrs a day, and some months puts in *no*
involuntary time on the system. Her computer is a clone that she has slowly
built from re-conditioned components, and although she is not a computer tech,
she runs the system gratis, as a hobby. She isn't at all wealthy, but she enjoys
the interaction, and helping others so much that it doesn't seem like a 
sacrifice to her. She's going Fido because she *hates* unix, and has never quite
gotten the hang of it (she has an account on this system she hardly uses except
to read news). She is not a computer genius, just motivated. Her motivation may
not be what business and university admins envision at all. She learned all her
skills hands-on as events required, with the coaching of tech friends. Don't be
afraid to look in unusual places for the people to do this. Give up preconceived
notions. There must be librarians in many African cities. And doctors. These
would have their own, built-in motives to want to connect. Who knows who else?
As for the people in the countryside, well, our countryside isn't all connected
up yet, but every BBS-fan who moves back to the farm dreams of opening a local
system. Sometimes they even find users out there. That part will grow naturally,
no matter where. Just get people online in the cities, city folk don't exist in
a cultural vacuum....

Suze Hammond
trifid@agora.rain.com