[comp.society] Cleveland FREENET Project

taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (06/19/87)

    The FREENET project was initiated as an attempt to pull together the
e-mail and bbs users in the Cleveland area and provide for them a sort of
electronic shopping mall (patterned somewhat after CompuServe) of conferences.
They have the usual PC-DOS conferences, etc. that you would expect to see
on many BBS's, but they also have a conference that they call (I think)
the TOWN HALL. Within it, you can enter sub-conferences that were specific to
an individual such as the mayor or governor (They had Gov. Celeste represented
by his teenage son, who monitored the conference and submitted questions
back and forth between the e-mail audience and the governor).

    They also have a POST OFFICE (message area) and a few other community
related areas dealing with law, medicine, etc.

    Unfortunately, a few of these areas are represented by no more than empty
shells at the moment (eg. If we had news about *****, it would be here). Since
I'm not connected with the project itself - in fact, I help represent friendly
competition since PC-OHIO is also a multi-node BBS - I can't really claim a
success or failure rate beyond what I see as an occassional user.

    For anyone interested in calling, they're running at 1200,7,1,E comm.
settings and at (216) 368-3888. I believe that they have funded this project
with the help of AT&T.
                                     -Dave Chatfield