Talk:ISCABBS

I don't believe that this page should be deleted. The policy dictates that it doesn't feel that Wikipedia should act as a directory; I fully agree -- Google and hordes of other sites accomplish are much better suited to this task. That being said, and despite the fact that ISCA BBS fails to meet the Notability conditions, I feel it would be an egregious mistake to delete the page. My rationale is that, regardless of its notability, ISCA BBS is a long-time and storied BBS, with over a half-million accounts activated over the years. During its heyday, it supported upwards of 1300 simultaneous logins, with hundreds more waiting to get on-line. Personally, I feel that, with this being the case, if anything needs changing, it might well be the Notability policy, rather than the ISCA page. Let's examine the primary components:

1) The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself.

2) The website or content has won a well known and independent award, either from a publication or organisation.

3) The content is distributed via a site which is both well known and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster.

I guess the primary problem I have with all of this is that the "content" discussed is implied to be commercial. Instead, said content is an on-line forum. While the creators themselves may -- or may not -- still have extant accounts, it is published by way of the University of Iowa, and overseen by a committee (comprised of current Iowa students) by the name of the Iowa Student Computer Association -- which, due to its student requirement, by definition no longer consists of the founders. But even if they were involved, don't the considered comments of thousands of users over the course of 17 years -- ancient, by Internet terms -- constitute something of worth and interest, regardless?

Thanks for your consideration on this matter...

Another thing to point out is that the policy is for websites. ISCA BBS is not, nor ever was, a web site. It is an Internet BBS, based on the telnet protocol and that predates the popular web. The fact that it is still around and almost thriving is somewhat amazing. It's kind of a historical internet phenominon. There is no way that it could have gotten a web award or anything similar. In regards to its notability - I do recall it being mentioned in at least one published book back in the early 1990s, one of those "things to do on the internet" type books. It was mentioned along with (but not nearly as equal importance as) things like archie, gopher, and veronica that very few internet users today have even heard of. Finding publications that mention it at its height would be nearly impossible though, as they are so long out of print and unavailable on the web. - Trysha ^(talk) 23:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

== "BFM" section ==

I've cross-posted this to User_talk:24.33.124.117, which is why it's written in the second person:

Hi there.

You recently reverted my deletion of the section labeled "BFM" on the article ISCABBS. In fact, you called it "vandalism" to have deleted the section (which is definitely not in the spirit of Wikipedia:Assume Good Faith.)

The section was unsourced, original research (see WP:NOR and WP:V), the material is so unencyclopedically written that not even a date for the event is provided, and the acronym BFM advances a point of view about the event (see WP:NPOV).

I'll confide my personal stake in the matter: I was one of the participants in that event. It left a bad taste in my mouth, but many years have passed since then. I'd prefer not to see it brought back up at all, but if people like you are going to use Wikipedia to retell an ages-old drama, please find an accurate source to cite.

As a participant, I recognize my conflict of interest here, which is why I'm trying really hard not to re-delete the paragraph, but I feel strongly that it doesn't belong in the article, and certainly not in the form it's in now. 24.127.52.67 18:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

As another participant I deleted the paragraph about the BFM today because it was not even factually correct about the participants (It wasn't 3 sysops. It was two sysops versus a programmer, which changes the nature of the actual conflict). It may or may not be an important part of the history of ISCABBS, but if told it should at least be factually accurate. Perhaps I'll write an accurate summary of that night, but right now it seems more gossipy than important. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.217.233.246 (talk) 01:22, 11 October 2007 (UTC)