I know the title will be very confusing to many but for those who have been around since the days before dial-up modems this has some interesting touch points with running a forum.
In short, after BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) generally came Usenet, then CompUServe, etc.
comp.lang.c is on UseNet and was one of the most popular for programmers as it was about the C programming language which was big at that time, C still is very popular but I don’t know how popular comp.lang.c has been of late.
But if you have visited some of the UseNet groups in the last few years some of them have become the places where others banned from other forums seem to go because of lack of adequate moderation.
So why the mention here? If comp.lang.c is getting banned then this might become a domino effect and the start of the end of UseNet.
I formed unix.com as a forum nearly three decades ago (not yet three full decades, but closing in on it…) for this precise reason. USENET (and other forums way back then) were full of bullies and techno-ego-maniacs operating in an unmoderated, very abrasive manner toward others. We were one of the first forums on the net “way back when” that actually had a set of posting rules and moderators who enforced the rules.
We put an end to bulling in forums (our forum at unix.com) a long time ago (our site used to be ranked < 6,000 by Alexa, but that was a long time ago before forums were “everywhere” like now); which included ending bullying not only by posters but also by moderators (for example, those who deleted technical posts they did not agree with, alternative approaches, etc.).
Of course, when you have less controversy and less conflict, this often results in losing users who want freedom to bully others (and users who enjoy conflict); but without honor and ethics and civil “discourse” all is “lost”.
After all, FB and other “big tech” social networks make billions of dollars from constant conflict, hate speech and misinformation; as we have all sent in the past few years.