by the amount of effort spent in regulating
them. First, we have the completely open board, whose sysop is off
chugging brews and watching re-runs while his users generally
degenerate over time into peevish anarchy and eventual silence. Second
comes the supervised board, where the sysop breaks in every once in a
while to tidy up, calm brawls, issue announcements, and rid the
community of dolts and troublemakers. Third is the heavily supervised
board, which sternly urges adult and responsible behavior and swiftly
edits any message considered offensive, impertinent, illegal or
irrelevant. And last comes the completely edited "electronic
publication," which is presented to a silent audience which is not
allowed to respond directly in any way.

Boards can also be grouped by their degree of anonymity. There is the
completely anonymous board, where everyone uses
pseudonyms--"handles"--and even the sysop is unaware of the user's true
identity. The sysop himself is likely pseudonymous on a board of this
type. Second, and rather more common, is the board where the sysop
knows (or thinks he knows) the true names and addresses of all users,
but the users don't know one another's names and may not know his.
Third is the board where everyone has to use real names, and
roleplaying and pseudonymous posturing are forbidden.

Boards can be grouped by their immediacy. "Chat-lines" are boards
linking several users together over several different phone-lines
simultaneously, so that people exchange messages at the very moment
that they type. (Many large boards feature "chat" capabilities along
with other services.) Less immediate boards, perhaps with a single
phoneline, store messages serially, one at a time. And some boards are
only open for business in daylight hours or on weekends, which greatly
slows response. A NETWORK of boards, such as "FidoNet," can carry
electronic mail from board to board, continent to continent, across
huge distances--but at a relative snail's pace, so that a message can
take several days to reach its target audience and elicit a reply.

Boards can be grouped by their degree of community. Some boards
emphasize the exchange of private, person-to-person electronic mail.
Others emphasize public postings and may even purge people who "lurk,"
merely reading posts but refusing to openly participate. Some boards
are intimate and neighborly. Others are frosty and highly technical.
Some are little more