Over 16,529,990 people are on fubar.
What are you waiting for?
I found the internet in about 1996. I soon began interacting online through an email list. Things have changed a lot from when I first started.
In those days the internet was just begining to become mainstream. You could be reasonably certain that the people you were interacting with were of a certain economic and educational level. PCs and internet access just weren't available to everyone. This made the level of discousre much much more polite then we see today. People routinely put their adresses and phone numbers in ther signatures.
As the world wide web spread out and internet connectivity became avaible to more and more people, the level discourse got better (because there were more experiences and viewpoints brought in) and worse (because the increased number of people with internet access brought people with baser attitudes into many online communities).
I moderate on three forums, two of them for professionals and one for the shooting community. Through the email lists and the forums I've met a lot of people, some I've actually met in person and become close friends with, some who I've visited on the phone with and some who are just cyber friends.
One trnd I've noticed is that people online often exhibit behavior that we used to talk about in riot control class. The loss of inhibitions because they feel they are anonymous. Many people feel free to say things online they would never contemplate saying to someone face to face or even on the telephone.
fubar is my first social networking site. So far it's proving to be interesting and fun.
