SGwylan's
About CompuServe PageSGwylan's
About CompuServe PageWhile my first encounter with on-line services was back in 1983, it was primarily professional services, such as Dialog Information Services, Lexis/Nexis, and time-sharing service bureaus. It wasn't until 1990, when IAC - then a part of Ziff-Davis Publishing - started making some of their research databases available on CompuServe. Having recently built my own PC with a modem, and received a diskette in the mail from CompuServe with an early version of DOS-CIM, I thought I'd look into it.
I came to like what I saw. The news services, databases and gateways were kind of nice, but what I quickly came to really appreciate were the Forums. I started with the UK Forum after a "What's New" announcement about it as I am always looking for information about Wales and thought it looked like a good candidate. It wasn't really at the time, but by 1994 that had changed.
Through UK Forum, I learned about Off-Line Readers (OLRs) and, in particular, TapCis, a program that used scripting to quickly go through selected Forums and process file and message operations as quickly as possible (which, when charged $5-10 per hour, really meant something). In short order, I went from participating in one or two Forums to participating in about ten.
Of particular interest at the time was the family of Forums dedicated to OS/2. I'd read some interesting things about OS/2 (and had been unimpressed with Microsoft Windows 3.0) and wanted to know more. The Forums were a great way to get all the low-down on problems and advantages of OS/2 and, after nine months of monitoring the Forums, I installed OS/2 v2.1 on my (by then upgraded) system. I haven't looked back since, though I have to use Windows NT at work.
In the Summer of 1995, the only 'Sysop' in the UK Forum who understood Welsh resigned and, because the Forum operators need to be able to monitor messages for Terms of Service violations, had to ban the use of the Welsh language until a new Sysop could be found.
Although Welsh wasn't widely used, many of the participants thought the ban was outrageous and started various on-line and off-line protests. At the height of it, I happened to be attending my first Welsh language course, followed by a trip to Wales. I had taken my laptop with me and was keeping up with events, but they continued to heat up. The morning after my arrival in Wales, on the front page of the Western Mail was an article titled, "Language Snub: Fury over computer ban on Welsh use". The details were a bit muddled, but it was an odd greeting.
In another bit of synchronicity, the UK Forums annual Summer Barbecue was to be the day before I was to fly back home. Since I wanted to see a quick resolution to the problem, I thought meeting these folks in person might be a good start. Working through e-mail with the other protesters to craft a reasonable proposal to present to the Forum management, me and one other, Tom Rawlinson, who spoke Welsh, prepared to meet up at the barbecue and present our proposal.
As it turned out, we never got as far as the proposal. The management met us and asked how we felt about sharing Sysop responsibilities, since Tom was better at the language than I, but I'd been more visible on the Forum. It was better than what we had in mind (more than we thought to hope for), so we said okay. Tom has since left the staff, and the Wales section of the Forum has gone due to lack of interest, but I still keep an eye on the goings on in the UK Forum and answer any questions on Wales and Welsh language that I can.
The place on CompuServe where I'm most active is the Science Fiction/Fantasy Media Forum, and in particular, the Virtual Tavern section. The Tavern, also known as The Gutter (and hence it's residents as Guttersnipes or 'Snipes), is an odd place where the cats fly, the barbarians play Dominoes, and just about anything goes. The history of the section is a bit too complex to go into here, but it is essentially a friendly, but quirky, place to get silly and do a little role-playing. See also my SciFi/Fantasy page.
Several years ago, CompuServe US made most of the Forums under their service available to anyone with a CompuServe, AOL or one of the Internet Messengers (CSIM, AIM, Netscape IM or NetCenter) accounts. If you'd like to poke around some of the Forums I like to frequent, a list of them can be found on my CompuServe home page. You can visit anonymously using the Guest URL or become a member using the Public Access URL and using an existing CS, AOL or IM Screen Name and password, or sign up to get one. For more information, see my CompuServe Forums Public Access page.
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