Usenet – Let's Return to Public Spaces
I&#x27;m too young to have been a part of Usenet, but it seems to me that there&#x27;s no good way to recreate the space described in the article without keeping most people out. My understanding is that the &quot;Golden Age&quot; of Usenet was possible mainly because only the people with the proper resources, knowledge, interest, and opportunity could even get to it in the first place. When you select a group of people from the general population with those traits and assets, of course you&#x27;ll end up with a group that&#x27;s more or less self-policing; the population will be small and largely homogeneous. It&#x27;s hard to have conflict when your neighbors are almost identical to you, at least on a large scale.<p>In my estimation, the larger and broader a group is, the more it&#x27;ll approximate human culture and interaction as a whole. It shouldn&#x27;t be a surprise when the negative parts of those things (e.g. war, strife, hatred) emerge, just as much as the positive things (peace, fellowship, love).