I've been active in forums like this for about ten years. First was the folk forum on Prodigy. When that closed down weh Prodigy tried charging by the minute, I went to a computer bulletin board in Maine where some of the Prodigy folks had migrated (the board was run by Noel Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul & Mary). Then I came here in 1996, and I've found this to be the most interesting of the three. I met many people from all three forums in person, and found most of them to be even nicer in person than they were online. There were some exceptions, but even those encounters were interesting, not dangerous. I got a couple of nice visits in Maine and a three-lobster dinner out of the bulletin board, and I have a plush toy lobster atop my computer monitor, and a blackfly-spattered Maine license plate to remind me of the good times I had with those people.
I did notice that the friendships tended to dissolve once the conversations in the forum started to die. The other two forums lasted about three years, and then people began to say the same things over and over and get mired in trivialisms. I'm hoping this forum will last much longer than that. My friendships here seem much stronger, perhaps because I was able to have multiple encounters with the Washington people last year.
I guess I'd say that my friends here are more "friends of the road," rather than "friends for life." The forum is what ties us together, what we have in common. If that common tie dissolves, so will most of our relationships.
-Joe Offer-