on community building (Was: Re: Shell providers?)

Kaz Kylheku <433-929-6894@kylheku.com> writes:

On 2024-03-08, vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> wrote:

We like to give customers a soft landing when turning
down services.  I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions
for good shell providers, places like Panix.

>
That concept mostly went away 30 years ago with free Unix-like operating
systems that run on low-spec consumer hardware.
>

"bare-bones" for the users I'm thinking of.  Some of
them might be able to transition to being a system
administrator, but a lot just want to run tin, pine,
mutt, irssi, tf, and so forth.

>
To access some remote shell account you need a machine
that is internet connected and can run SSH. That machine
can just run a freeware OS with all the above packages.

That's all true, but it seems that people like to share a system
together because people love to belong to a community.  In the
beginning, I believe such communities were mostly made of local people
and the Internet has sort of destroyed that.  I believe people still
long for these local communities again.  BBSs connected local people.
The Internet seems to have done the opposite.
(*) On community building
There's also this conjecture that a person can't deal with more than N
people.  The number I usually hear is 150.  In other words, human
communities should be small (and local).
One principle I think about to achieve that is one begins a community
but others can only come through invitation.  If someone misbehaves, we
know who invited that person---the tree of invitation being public.
Yes, we lose anonimity.  Perhaps anonimity is overrated.