Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link

The Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link (WELL) is one of the oldest and most famous examples of a virtual community. Started in 1985 as a local dial-in bulletin board service (BBS), the WELL is currently owned by http://Salon.com, and is accessible through the World Wide Web. As with other BBSs, the WELL allows users to log on and post typed messages for others to read. Messages may be anywhere from a few words long to several paragraphs, and are organized topically in conferences. A directory lists conferences in broader categories. (For example, the broader category “Computers and Internet Conferences” includes such conferences as “World Wide Web” and “Hacking and Cracking.”) Each conference is hosted by one or more WELL members who moderate the discussion. Conferences are further subdivided into topics, allowing members to read only those discussions pertaining to a particular conference topic that they find interesting.

The WELL began as a collaboration between Laurence Brilliant and Stewart Brand. Brilliant, a physician who had previously been involved in fighting smallpox in India, ran a company called Network Technologies International (NETI). He was interested in finding a group of people who could spark interest in computer-conferencing technology, which his company sold and which he felt had the potential to become an important new communications tool. Brand was well known for editing several publications catering to the counterculture, including the Whole Earth Catalog (initially published in 1968). He and several of his associates had already become interested in computer conferencing. His non-profit organization, Point Foundation, became joint owner of the WELL; NETI supplied the technology, and Point Foundation supplied the participants.

The WELL used a somewhat difficult-to-use conferencing system called Picospan. Participation on the WELL thus required either technical facility or enough persistence to gain such facility. In addition, an expectation for erudite conversation developed early on, owing in part to the connection with the Whole Earth publications community. Therefore, WELL participation also required facility with written language.

These requirements, combined with the interpersonal connections and interests brought online by the earliest WELL users (or WELLbeings, as they sometimes call themselves), meant that particular types of people were attracted initially to the WELL. For the first few years, most WELL users were either: 1) people involved in 1960s and 1970s countercultural movements; 2) early personal-computer programmers, enthusiasts, and tinkerers; 3) journalists (many of whom were given free accounts) and other writers; or 4) fans of the Grateful Dead. The last group took to the WELL enthusiastically in 1986, and by 1987 made up nearly a third of all participants.

Brand started the WELL with the explicit aim of creating an online community. At a time when very few people had any experience with computer-mediated communication and almost no research on the topic of online community existed, Brand's ideas about how to create such a community were presciently effective. His previous experience with computer conferencing convinced him that some face-to-face contact among members was important. While by some accounts, the early face-to-face meetings were not particularly scintillating, most participants felt that they played an important part in fostering interpersonal connections. The WELL also required people to use their real names. Nicknames could be used and changed at will, but were always attached to a user's real name.

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