While it is a very small segment of an overall workforce... I think it's
fair to assume that there would be a larger overlap of those who might
want to run a hobby BBS that professionally work in IT than the general population.

I think that is true now for sure. Looking back, I can remember when it
was not always true. I can remember some of the more popular BBSes back
in the late 1980's/early 1990's where I lived that were run by other professionals outside of IT. One was a surgeon. Some were run by
technically proficient HAMs or other hobbiests who were not IT
professionals but had at least hobby tech background. A couple were run by engineers, another by a member of the local Astronomy Society. There were a lot of Commodore boards that would come and go that were run by kids who
may have gone on to become IT professionals (they liked to act like
hackers). One or two were run by businesses that sold computers, another
by the computer department at a local magnet high school.

I was working in retail when I first started mine. I went from there to working at a library before eventually getting into various IT jobs.

Now usually when I am entering a message on a BBS, I figure the person
I am responding to is either a long-time BBS hobbiest from back then, and/or someone who likely has some sort of professional IT background.


* SLMR 2.1a * About as useful as a chocolate teapot.

---
þ Synchronet þ CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/Rlogin/HTTP

Re: IT Pros and BBSers
By: Dumas Walker to TRACKER1 on Fri Oct 07 2022 06:31 pm

While it is a very small segment of an overall workforce... I think it's fair to assume that there would be a larger overlap of those who might want to run a hobby BBS that professionally work in IT than the general population.

I think that is true now for sure. Looking back, I can remember when it
was not always true. I can remember some of the more popular BBSes back
in the late 1980's/early 1990's where I lived that were run by other professionals outside of IT. One was a surgeon. Some were run by technically proficient HAMs or other hobbiests who were not IT
professionals but had at least hobby tech background. A couple were run by engineers, another by a member of the local Astronomy Society. There were a lot of Commodore boards that would come and go that were run by kids who
may have gone on to become IT professionals (they liked to act like hackers). One or two were run by businesses that sold computers, another
by the computer department at a local magnet high school.

I was working in retail when I first started mine. I went from there to working at a library before eventually getting into various IT jobs.

Now usually when I am entering a message on a BBS, I figure the person
I am responding to is either a long-time BBS hobbiest from back then, and/or someone who likely has some sort of professional IT background.

* SLMR 2.1a * About as useful as a chocolate teapot.

The BBS owners i knew had a common HAM radio hobby, and were pc gamers.
Other than that, they were a sprinkling of various factory and customer servic e workers. When the internet became locally available, several BBS owners swi tched over to websites hosted by their local ISP's or sites such as
Geocities. other than posting pics, they would share links to their Qwake servers and other hobby sites.

---
þ Synchronet þ The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net