Information Technology Reference
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ing place for Deadheads, and always maintained a counter-culture feel. Importantly, many
major thinkers and technologists concerned with the present and future of online commu-
nications found a home for their early discussions on the WELL. For example, technologist
Harold Rheingold took inspiration from the WELL to create his now classic topic
The Vir-
tual Community
.
"The virtual village of a few hundred people I stumbled upon in 1985 grew to eight
thousand by 1993," Rheingold recalled. "It became clear to me during the first months of
that history that I was participating in the self-design of a new kind of culture. I watched
the community's social contracts stretch and change as the people who discovered and star-
ted building the WELL in its first year or two were joined by so many others. Norms were
established, challenged, changed, reestablished, rechallenged, in a kind of speeded-up so-
cial evolution." Speeded-up indeed.
