The Different Net Forums
Introduction
There are a lot of different ways to explore and participate in the scene on the internet. Different forms have their own advantages and disadvantages and finding the right one for you can make all the difference. This article looks at the most common forums and what their strengths and weaknesses are.
Email Lists
Email lists are simply systems set up so that you can email a single address and then everyone subscribed to the list will receive the email. Being relatively easy to set up, email lists are very common and very popular with many, many, net using groups having their own.One of the most obvious advantages of being on an email list is that you can 'lurk'. By lurking, you simply do not post anything, semi-anonymously reading those messages that are sent around you until you feel ready to speak up. As everyone receives the emails to their email accounts, everyone on the list has the potential to be involved, not just those who are present at the time of the discussion.
Probably the biggest downside of email lists is that wherever you get more than a few members of the scene together, you tend to get people with very strong feelings that lead to arguments. With text being an imperfect communication medium, misunderstandings are common. With the numbers of people reading every post, the chances of a misunderstanding - or someone simply being deliberately abusive - are generally high. As a result, many email lists suffer very heavily from abusive posters scaring off most of the valid discussion.
Other problems with email lists can include things like receiving huge numbers of emails that swamp your account along with people sending large file attachments. A well run list tends to improve the signal-to-noise ration but in turn makes the list more popular and so swamping becomes more of an issue. If you intend to use an email list, consider either using a separate email account or using an email client that can filter all list messages to a separate folder.
Newsgroups
Newsgroups are, in a lot of ways, very similar to email lists. Instead of everyone receiving every message sent, they are all sent to a central repository which you can download from at will (assuming you have a newsgroup client). Microsoft's Outlook Express has the ability to offer you newsgroup access but only if your internet service provider allows them. If you do not have a client, or your ISP does not support newsgroups, the sitehttp://groups.google.com will provide you with access.
Most of the advantages and disadvantages of newsgroups are exactly the same as for email groups. The main difference is the number of users - newsgroups tend to have vastly more. Depending on your perspective, that is either a good or a bad thing.
The large numbers of users on the popular newsgroups mean that you are more likely to find varied discussions and people who are able to answer your questions. The downside is that bickering tends to be more common as does advertising. The number of people who Spam newsgroups means that some of the most well known (such as the alt.sex groups) have been all but abandoned by serious users.
Bulletin Boards
Bulletin boards are simply message systems that allow you to leave a message on a page, much like pinning one to a traditional bulletin board. Depending on the site, the complexity of bulletin boards tends to vary greatly from a single continuous list to searchable, navigable, complex structures.The advantage of bulletin boards is that they are generally web page based, requiring nothing more than a web connection and a browser to visit them. There is also the advantage that some bulletin boards never, or rarely, remove older posts, allowing you to go back through possibly years of archives.
The downside is that bulletin boards are generally not very user friendly, making finding the information you are looking for a painful task of scanning through a lot of text and then following links that are often all but empty. This difficulty, in turn, means that bulletin boards tend not to be all that heavily used (though there are some exceptions), making searching through them even less rewarding.
Web Page Chat Rooms
Web page based chat rooms are, at the time of writing this, probably the most commonly used form of [real time] interactive scene discussion on the net. Companies such as Microsoft's MSN, Yahoo and AOL - along with a great many smaller ones - provide downloadable programs that give you chat room access through your web browser. Some use java applets to make the task even easier.Once you have the client installed, you are usually asked to choose (and register) a name. Different chat rooms have different conventions for naming so it is probably worth logging in once with a somewhat generic name while you feel out the system.
The advantage of chat rooms is that they tend to have the largest numbers of people, and the largest diversity of rooms, all available in real time. Within them, you can usually follow a discussion in the main room and them move to a private whisper - or often create your own private rooms.
The ability to interact in real time means that chat rooms become the ideal place for people to explore role play ideas and try things out from the anonymity of a computer alias. Should you embarrass yourself in a chat room, you can always disappear and return with a new alias that nobody recognizes.
The big problem with chat rooms is that, like newsgroups, they are so easily found that they tend to get a huge number of idiots to go with the genuine people. When you add their tendency to be people's first opportunity to explore the scene, you have to deal with a lot of misinformation and tourists.
As chat rooms are real-time, discussions have to remain current. While a newsgroup or message board allows people to respond to topics from a day or so before, users of a chat room only see what is currently being discussed. If no one present has anything of value to add, intelligent discussions quickly die off.
Because of the difficulties maintaining a discussion, most people tend to end up using a non-real-time system for their discussions and a real-time system for playing out role-play scenes and meeting new people.
Internet Relay Chat
IRC was really pretty much the precursor to the web page based chat rooms that we see today. Accessed via a client program, it provides almost unlimited numbers of user created areas where everything from 50s radio comedies to BDSM can be discussed. While slowly being replaced by the easier to access web page based chat rooms, IRC is still popular and has a huge diversity.
Talkers
Talkers are text-based virtual online domains where users can meet and talk before usually moving to another room in the same virtual world to carry on in private.Talkers are accessed via telnet. Just about every computer seems to come with some form of telnet client installed - for example, just type 'telnet' in to the Start Bar's Run window in any version of Windows. Attempting to connect, you are asked for a host name and a port. Finding the lists of these names is usually just a matter of searching the web for talkers and trying addresses until you find one that suits you.
The advantage of a talker over most other systems is the freedom to interact. Once you are used to the command set available, talkers let you interact much more quickly and directly than just about any other medium. More so than any other form, erotic exchanges on a talker - when with someone with a good command of language - become fast paced, very sensual, truly interactive, erotic stories.
Much as IRC is being superceded by web page based rooms, so are talkers. The difficulty of using telnet for the first time, along with finding addresses for good talkers, means that most people settle for web page based options. As a result, the numbers of users are dropping, devaluing talkers further.
MUDs
Multi-User Dungeons started off as a multiplayer form of the old text adventure games - the kind where you type "go north" and "kill orc". While most have stayed in that realm, some have moved on to other areas, be they sci-fi, Victorian erotica or vampire themed erotica.Identical to talkers in most other respects, MUDs offer a greater degree of interactivity with objects that can be bought, sold and used, other computer controlled characters, character development and more diverse areas. While it is rare to find a scene-themed MUD, those that do exist can offer a complexity of virtual world not found anywhere else.
The downsides of MUDs are, once again, the same as Talkers. You need a telnet client to connect and they tend to be a little harder to learn to use. Like Talkers, MUDs have been largely replaced in recent years so there are fewer of them around and those that do exist are often less populated than they once were.
Community Sites
Community sites tend to combine a whole variety of different forums. They will often include a web page based bulletin board, email lists and maybe even chat rooms (or be the permanent other half to a more immediate chat room). Often a community site will also host articles written by members (or often copied by members from elsewhere) as well as lists of recommended web links.With all of these technologies combined, the potential that a community site has to offer is huge. When well run, there is a huge amount of permanent and semi-permanent information as well as the option to use the chat rooms to experience a more tangible group feeling, meet others and get immediate answers.
The downside is that running all of these facilities well requires a huge amount of time and effort as well as skill. Every one of the technologies, as shown above, has potential weaknesses if not maintained well. When so many are combined at once, it is very common for some or all of them to be badly run. The time requirement needed to run such a site also ensures that, in many cases, what was started with the best intentions in the world quickly becomes a largely abandoned mess.
Conclusion
No one medium is perfect. For simplicity of use and access, web page based chat rooms are currently the most popular form of real time interaction while newsgroups and email lists remain strong because of their ability to have more people take their time over answers.The only advice that can really be given is to think about what type of forum will work best for you and then explore the great many different examples of it that are out there. While nine out of ten rooms, groups or communities may not be for you, taking the time to find that tenth one is likely to give you a very rewarding experience.
SoulThief
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This page was last updated on Saturday 29th 2001f December 2001