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What makes gopher special | |
March 05th, 2018 | |
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First an apology is due to ckeen [0] who I didn't realize was all | |
over this gopher thing. He was even kind enough to link to burrow | |
in a recent phlog. Thanks to jynx for referencing him so I could | |
discover what I was missing. | |
ckeen recently wrote [1] about what makes gopher special to him. | |
He and jynx [2] nail it pretty well when they talk about the | |
simplicity, creator/consumer dynamic, and signal to noise ratio. | |
I like the intentionality of it all as well. You don't just | |
accidentally create a gopher hole. You didn't just click a link to | |
oAuth somewhere and start posting nonsense. You chose to create an | |
account somewhere that offered a gopher server, or you rolled your | |
own. You sat there with the text editor crafting your message. | |
It's simple, yes, but it's also much more complicated. | |
In a sense, the technology itself and its relatively esoteric and | |
retro nature create a sort of gatekeeper. Gatekeeping is generally | |
used in a negative conotation these days, but I think this type of | |
natural systems gatekeeping is different. It's not prejudiced | |
against a people or person for identity, but for intent, will, and | |
interest. The technology hurdles aren't that high to say you have | |
to be a coder to make it work. Cat [3], for instance, has one of | |
the prettiest gopher holes and he does everything by hand using | |
the simplest tools. In place of fancy coding proficiency he has | |
demonstrated excellent interest and will to build Fax Sex. | |
I love nerdy communities when they're seething with excitement and | |
intention. I hate nerdy communities when they're filled with | |
criticism, angst, and envy. Gopher satisifes the first group well | |
and avoids the second. Perhaps it is as jynx says, a side effect | |
of no comments. Perhaps it's just the community by chance. Maybe | |
it's a side effect of the manual execution? You can't do | |
a drive-by trolling on gopher, after all. Once you sink in the | |
time to get set up, you're part of things. | |
At the end of the day, I guess it all boils down to content. | |
There's a lot of people on here that are doing interesting things. | |
Sometimes it's computer related and sometimes not, but that | |
exceptional drive to "do" things is contagious and I love it. | |
[0] ckeen's gopher hole | |
[1] ckeen - What makes gopher special for me | |
[2] jynx - On the specialness of gopher | |
[3] Fax Sex (cat) |