Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I don't know exactly when I joined, but it was early enough in the
game for the username "tony" to still be available. Since then, it's
been my only address. 

I was on the board of the Northern California Translators Association
at that time, looking for a way to bring translators together online. I
don't remember how I heard about The Well, but I figured I'd give it a
try, and was more than pleasantly surprised that Cliff et al. made it
so easy -- I had braced myself for an interview with suits and for a
lengthy application process. 

I hosted the Translators Conference for about one year or so, but
could not attract enough translators to build up a critical mass. At
the time, Compuserve's FLEFO forum was the magnet and focus of the
profession's activity: no matter what I did, I could not break that
barrier. For what it's worth, access to the net broadened, and mailing
lists and other venues drained the interest in FLEFO: it too, closed up
not long ago. 


Gail kindly folded my conference into her Language Conference, where I
notice some translation questions still crop up. As time and stamina
allows, I sometimes nostalgically still check it out. 
  

    

My post from <oldtimers.42> regarding that gathering in Golden Gate Park,
slightly amended:

> What I remember about that gathering, under a big ol' tree in GG Park, was
> approaching it with my notw girlfriend.  Hugh delivered the punchline of a
> totally geeky joke -- 'Bang fortune minus O!" -- to great hilarity, which
> nearly made my GF turn around and walk away.
  

    
Bang fortune minus O!

That's a knee-slapper fer sure. How many online communities were so
intimately tied to Unix? I think that part of the WELL was one of the
most interesting - that we let users log in to the OS and actually muck
around to the extent of their privileges. That Bandy could write Mass
Scribble was dangerous but also pretty damn cool.
  

    
And at least a few early dWellers cut their unix teeth here, and went on to
become system administrators, consultants, and other such techno-literati.
  

    
Yeah, and the desire to teach -- which was perhaps not widespread but
certainly expressed by dhawk for example -- made it less daunting to learn
around here.  I still have a copy of "Teach yourself UNIX" (published in
1991) that I used in conjunction with topics in Deeper to figure out what
people were doing.
  

    
Now if this was a thrash, flamewar, feudfest, troll-baiting, we'd get
106 posts in an hour! ;-)

Where IS everybody?
  

    
Worn out.
  

    
If someone were to come in and rhapsodize on the fact that the Well got him
work, friends, and laid, we might get something going.
  

    
I'm liking the pace! But I'm pretty busy with the other details of 
the anniversary.  Perhaps this is a good juncture for posting that 
comments and questions are welcome at inkwell-hosts@well.com too for 
those who are not members right now.

Also, there's expanded information on various anniversary activities 
(and a reunion offer if that's what you're looking for!) at 
http://www.well.com/twenty/

For those who want to tell stories within the password gates, there's
more activity inside <welltales.> By the way, there's a photo gallery 
open to all at http://www.well.com/conf/welltales/ with Howard's wide-
eyed mug up top.
  

    

I remember the "got laid" fracas.  It was interesting that it caused a stir,
since a lot of WELL people certainly had various sexual connections,
including marriages and long time devotion as well as assorted flings 
and romances.  

That was when I was first trying to sort out the riddle of context and
norms for expression.  It's the kind of statement that might be callous 
in one context, but utterly pedestrian and descriptive in others.  And 
the idea that various conferences felt like very different settings for some 
people was fascinating to me.

I seem to remember that was in <news.> while if it had been in <sex.> it
would have been nothing at all.  It was also in response to a request for
testimonials, wasn't it?
  

    
Work, yes. Friends, definitely. Laid, no. But I'm married. We're not
SUPPOSED to get laid.
  

    
Yup, and it really rankled (casey), who didn't like me much anyway.   We did
have a rapprochement farther on down the road though, and she initiated it.
  

    
In 1988, I had a book party at the Booksmith on Haight, followed by a
party at Flash's. I remember that one of the employees asked jrc if
this was a cult, and of course he answered in the affirmative.
  

    
Howard slipped in (he's still got it, folks).
  

    
My guess, too, is that it depended on whether people knew you. If they
didn't know you, it sounded gross.
  

    
And that was in an era of a strongly masculine online culture.  The
easliest participation file list I have from a July 1985 printout shows
12% likely female first names.  85% men was not typical of the social
culture I'd known during the 1980s!  It shifted very slowly over the
years before Gore unleashed the commercial Internet.

Casey was aware of that and not afraid of stirring things up, as opposed
to discussing it demurely and privately.  Those conversations did become
painful at times. 
  

    
(I should clarify and say  85% men was not typical of the social culture I'd
known elsewhere, offline).
  

    
The WELL certainly had an impact on my career. It allowed me to start
telecommuting in 1988 .. that's why <sofia> joined the WELL, so he
could pick up the source code I was uploading for him here.
  

    

> Now if this was a thrash, flamewar, feudfest, troll-baiting, we'd get
> 106 posts in an hour! ;-)

Or perhaps a question can stir things up. As an agent provocateur, I ask:
When will the Well die and what or who is causing its death? Conversely,
who or what do we have to get rid of to prevent that grevious fate?
  

    
Or: Who do you have to fuck to get out of The Well?
  

    
it used to be (mudshark), but I'm not sure who caught the pass.
  

    

the WELL has died, or been Terri Schiavo'd, on a regular basis in the 15
years I've been around. Blair's suicide was the death of innocence (but to
the extent that hlr and I got aquainted then I am forever thankful). Mo
replacing the vile figtex certainly killed the well, until Katz came along
and we realized we didn't know what "dead" meant yet. The move to the River
was either supposed to kill the well, shock it back into life, or be the
result of survivors leaving an already dead WELL. Maybe internet access
killed the WELL. Certainly the repetitiveness and predictability of certain
thrashes and the attacks of (and on) personalities killed and continues to
kill the WELL for many participants.

But it remains one of the biggest, fastest collections of smart, articulate
and often funny people I know, even if the signal to noise ratio has
dropped.
  

    
re: unprecedented access to the operating system early on

I always thought it was neat that the users figured out a lot of stuff
about how the place worked and shared the knowledge.
  

    
"Imminent death of the Well predicted"? 

The reason I think the Well will survive, unless whatever media
corporation, large or small, owns it at any given time decides to
affirmatively kill it, is that it does not need a whole of overhead to
run.  And as the total size of the Net community increases, the
absolute number of people who would be interested in the Well
increases, *even if* the percentage in the Net population falls. 
It will be increasingly easier to sustain a membership base in the 
(say) 5000 neighborhood indefinitely, as computing and networking
resources become cheaper, as well as reduction in the number of staff
hours overall needed to maintain it. Not needing a modem bank, etc.

As much as I love Salon and the Salon folks, I wonder if the Well
would not be better off as an independent nonprofit. (Yes, there are
historical precedents and lessons of both.)
  

    

I think the Well population as a whole is aging, tho, and when the end
comes (as it comes to everything else), it just may be because we've
all died.

Other than that, I don't know why it can't go on indefinitely, if
people continue to join.

(Thanks for your excellent analysis of just why that can be, <mcb>.)