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SOAPBOX ROCK
Not long ago a Hellbent war broke out on a BBS network. This story is the definitive example of the power politics in this medium. It is a 400 page font-size: 10pt; file of messages ordered in such a way it makes a good read building to degrees of intolerance from the Right few have ever witnessed.
SOAPBOX ROCK: A REVIEW
by Ron Archer - Professor of Political Science - Duke University
I have decided to write a review of what is probably (make that undoubtedly) the best work I've ever read connected to the practice of participating in netted echoes. The name of this work is SOAPBOX ROCK and it has no author. Rather, other than a one page preface from the editor, Mr. Ross Fuller (sometimes known as Muy Groso, and there lies part of the story), this is a file of nearly 600,000 bites which contains messages written by participants in several echoes in SmartNet between September of 1991 and January of 1992. The "users" of these echoes write the story. And the story is a fascinating and disturbing one. Finally, one might be reasonably asked why a review need be written at all. The reason, in my opinion, is simplicity itself. This one work presents, in clearer fashion than anything else ever written, every major issue involving participation in a national open echo. It is about ethics, and the lack of same; it is about penury of spirit, and its greatness; it is about censorship and the impassioned opposition to same; it is about how coercion can be used in this new medium, and how it is done; and, finally, it is about two very different notions of what a national political or debate echo is all about. And, of course, one goal of this review is to convince you, the reader, to access this work and read it for yourself. Remember, the final judgment will be yours. This review is mine and no one else's.
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