If they did it must have been at a time when I was too sick to know. I come from Old Skool BBS days. Community meant community, not shoveling shite while sporting a troll hat. ;-)

Yes! Bingo - that was far more akin to the BBS model. They didn't hold though. Too much money, too many predatory asshats and middlemen, not enough unity and justice.

Reddit really remains the closest but it's become such an insanity dump at this point only revolutionary data openers, extraordinary minds can deal with huge data sets and glean specific detail with empiric and iterative analysis. For me it's just too exhausting and soul-sucking.

That's a challenge for me, having mothered many early communities and promoted them as not just a day job but a life passion. I want to believe connection is still a tool for human social evolution. We couldn't have known how the extreme disruption disruptive technology would go!