There's something ironic about one of the oldest and biggest BBS's only describing its acquisition via PDFs.

Could have been worse; could have been Flash.

Or they could have required you to dial in via 300bps modem.

The first time I ever heard about the well was when I browsed it with gopher.

That was 5 or so years ago. They seem to have turned the gopher servers of in '09. So PDF is properly the best they can do.

As a user of the WeLL from the 1990's, I'm glad to hear that the community that owns its own words will now own its own destiny.

Are there any HNers who are current users of the WeLL? I've read about it in books about 80s/90s internet culture, but it rarely comes up in online discussions. Maybe that's because a 2000 (or more? Has it decreased in population?) person community was impressive back then, but doesn't really have much significance now.

I'm glad the users now own the means of production. Long time coming. I was sad when they closed the modem pool round-robin number - I dialed it one day a few years ago just to reminisce, and it had been assigned to a real estate holding company.

I recall that this is what happened with the Blender Foundation. Perhaps something incredible will come of this?