#WWW on IRC

nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu (Jay A. Carlson)
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 13:58:44 -0500
From: nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu (Jay A. Carlson)
Message-id: <9306251858.AA06324@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu>
To: Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz
Cc: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
In-reply-to: Nathan Torkington's message of Fri, 25 Jun 1993 10:58:09 +1200 <199306242258.AA14189@kauri.vuw.ac.nz>
Subject: #WWW on IRC

> What I thought would be really valuable is a WWW developers (possibly
> and users) BBS, telnettable to.  That way the conversation could be
> subdivided into topics (``boards'' for Clients, Mosaic, Servers, CERN
> Code, WAIS, Getting Started, SGML-flamage, &c.).  The site to set this
> up would need to be well connected, though (hint hint :-).

> A problem I find with the mailing list is that *everything* is here,
> which is not necessarily a good thing :).  I delete more than I read,
> and it takes a while for the mail to get through.

> As an interim idea, why not use IRC to communicate informally?  I'll
> join #WWW on IRC whenever I'm on, and if there's sufficient interest,
> I'll look into writing a 'bot to serve files, maybe even access the
> web.  Someone with a less crappy connection to the backbone might be
> able to run the 'bot if it gets going.

Let me suggest that you visit JaysHouse, "a MOO for friends to talk,
experiment with networking, hypertext, collaboration, etc." at
    telnet://jhm.moo.mud.org:1709/

MOO stands for "MUD, Object-Oriented"; it's a text-based simulated world with
an object-oriented programming language used to create the components of that
world.  Among those components are, of course, people and rooms; also a
full-fledged mail/newsgroup system, which could be used as you indicated for
splitting discussion into topics (while still keeping them all closely
related.)

We at JH have been using MOO to explore some of the same issues that show up
in WWW.  For example, we developed a Gopher client in MOO that allows for
collaborative browsing of Gopher, and embedding of Gopher data in `physical'
objects--for example, a `weather map' in the living room that gets its data
from the Gopher weather server.  More recently we've been working on our own
internal hypertext system, used to add a richer dimension to the MOO's help
system, as well as notes and other assorted objects.  There's a gateway to
jtext--said hypertext system--at
    http://jhm.moo.mud.org:7043/
I think this has been announced in www-land before, but I'm not sure.

I see JH as a technology demonstration---I'm not proposing that all
the WWW people move in there.  If people feel that this is a
communication medium worth exploring, we can find a site and set up a
WWW-specific server.

Oh--I'm usually logged on as "Jay".  Other good people to talk to
about hypertext stuff are Joe (or Joe Feedback) and Ron, and other
people can be helpful as well.  We'd like to talk to WWW people about
this as a possible communication system, and hear what you think.

Hope to see you soon.

Jay Carlson
nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu

Flat text is just *never* what you want.   ---stephen p spackman