Blackbox (online community)

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The Blackbox was an online community founded in 1992 as a Viennese mailbox for politics and youth culture , which during the first two years of its existence established itself as the largest and most media-present virtual community in Austria and was able to maintain this position for about three years. At the height of its success towards the end of 1997, the black box had around four thousand active users and was considered an essential component of Austrian civil society . Unlike most of the mailboxes and the Internet of that time , it was not dominated by stereotypical technology specialists, but had a high proportion of schoolchildren, students of social science and other non-technical subjects, cultural workers, publicists and political activists.

The black box lost its importance again in the course of the next two years and was shut down in its original form at the end of 1999. The webmail and web forums set up instead in 1998 existed until the end of 2009, despite the fact that it had become less well known. Since the 2010 relaunch as a “forum for politics and society” did not achieve its previous significance by far, operations were stopped at the end of November 2012. Since then, the company Mediaclan has been managing the email addresses of blackbox's own domains.

Established as a mailbox

The black box went online on the night of November 11th to 12th, 1992 as BBS or mailbox for politics and youth culture in the vicinity of the Socialist Youth , an advance organization of the Social Democratic Party of Austria . The three or four direct founders of the Blackbox, depending on the source, had each been involved in the Socialist Youth for several years. The co-initiator and later member of the National Council Kai Jan Krainer, for example, was the organisation's state secretary in Vienna, while the main initiator Michael Eisenriegler was a former press spokesman. As a journalism student at the University of Vienna, Eisenriegler was also active in the Association of Socialist Students .

The operators managed to translate their respective relationships into subsidies, public contracts and, most importantly, free promotion by the city and the Ministry of Education. Among other things, the black box was the official virtual forum of all public schools in the city for several years. On December 6, 1995 it was even declared the official virtual forum of the city as such at a gala in the Vienna Exhibition Center under the name Digital City of Vienna .

Because of this kind of promotion, the black box quickly became known far beyond the classic mailbox audience. It also had the means to meet the demand that arose in this way and to be able to plan its expansion steps relatively long-term.

Years of success

Although the mailbox scene was already on the point of being displaced by the culturally and technologically more open Internet in 1992 due to the characteristic island character of its individual nodes and the inadequate expandability of its monolithic software platforms, the black box achieved continuous growth for almost five years.

A significant contribution to this success made the mailbox system used for the black box first class , not just mature and efficient approximations of e-mail , Usenet and IRC united, but simultaneously also much easier to install and had to use than it was then used software for communication via the corresponding original protocols.

Another factor was that, from 1994, the Blackbox was able to finance gateways to various other Austrian mailboxes, to mailboxes in Berlin , Brussels and Budapest as well as to parts of Usenet. In doing so, she created a kind of regional parallel internet through which the technology-inherent isolation of her community could be concealed for a relatively long time.

A third factor not to be neglected for the success of the black box was a group of forums accessible only to adults called Intimzone, which among other things contained a porn collection sanctioned and co-managed by the operator, probably unique in the history of youth mailboxes .

Towards the end of 1997, the Blackbox recorded around four thousand more or less regular visitors, with a total of over seven thousand visitors per quarter. The black box had grown into one of the largest and most media-present systems of this kind in the history of technology, of all times, in the half decade in which mailboxes had largely become an anachronism. The black box served not only as the digital home of various cultural initiatives and other NGOs , but also as a platform for the first online presences of Standard , various student groups and four of the five Austrian parliamentary parties at the time. Above all, the Young People's Party , the Vienna Greens and Federal Minister Caspar Eine , who is popular among the Greens and left-wing Social Democrats , used the black box intensively as a discussion forum, and the Greens also used it for communication with one another.

Well-known politicians and media personalities were interviewed by the community in so-called “Promichats”, alongside EU Commissioner Franz Fischler, among others, Federal Chancellor Viktor Klima , General Director of ORF Gerhard Zeiler , business captain Hansjörg Tengg, the artists Alfred Dorfer and Hermes Phettberg , the President of the Vienna Youth Court Udo Jesionek and clergymen such as the controversial Bishop Kurt Krenn , as well as various federal ministers, federal executives and top candidates of political parties, city councilors, senior officials, editors, editors-in-chief and columnists. An employee of a lifestyle magazine that has since been discontinued even made herself available for some time as a blackbox aunt for relationship matters.

The 30-year-old black box forum by radio presenter Susanne Pauser (now Pleisnitzer) was the starting point for the Wickie-Slime-Paiper hypes about childhood memories from the 1970s with 30,000 postings .

Culture

At the time the Blackbox was founded, practically only university members in Austria had access to Usenet or the Internet, the mailbox scene was limited to even fewer people. Even at the beginning of 1997, only four percent of Austrians surfed the Internet "several times a week". The black box was able to feel part of a cultural avant-garde and developed a corresponding feeling of togetherness, even across political and personal differences. Community life was extremely intense.

Several dozen visitors could easily appear at the weekly official user meetings as well as at spontaneous private gatherings in the mid-1990s. Several hundred well-wishers took part in the celebration advertised by the public youth broadcaster FM4 on the occasion of the fifth birthday of the black box on November 20, 1997.

While Usenet and the Internet were dominated by prospective or practicing technicians and scientists in the early and mid-1990s, and mailboxes generally only attracted computer enthusiasts, the black box had a very high proportion of users who were not technically distant from the start. On the one hand, as planned by its founders, it won over pupils and students of social sciences and other non-technical fields of study, on the other hand it was also frequented by older people from various professions, including artists, cultural workers, publicists and politicians. The black box could also interest some neophile retirees. The proportion of women was remarkably high for the time. The unusual composition of the community and its disjunctivity to the rest of what was then known as cyberspace , together with the technical specifics of the platform, led to the development of its own network culture , the jargon and manners of which differed significantly from that of other mailboxes or the Usenet.

Two of the peculiarities of the black box were its high proportion of sock puppets , referred to as fakes in black box jargon , and the friendly tolerance that was exercised towards them. The Blackbox, which was formally organized as an association , made unrestricted access dependent on joining as an extraordinary member and thus paying a contribution of around 800  schillings (around 58 euros) per year. Accounts of non-members were subject, among other restrictions, to an access limit to an online time of 45 minutes per day. Heavy users circumvented this limitation by creating additional accounts.

It was well known that low-income young enthusiasts could find themselves compelled to entertain five or more fakes and post them under five or more names. The associated relative tolerance towards fakes caused fakery to spread for other reasons as well. Finally, even administrators discussed alternative identities.

And because the black box demanded from the desire for more club accessions out theoretically by any user, under his real name (also called "Real Name") to occur, the administrators saw at least forced to erase the obvious fakes. Some users reacted by either registering friends and family members or simply any names from the telephone book as fake accounts. The no less than ten active fakes of the popular black boxer Huda M. or the appearances of the equally nymphomaniac and unfortunately elusive student Tamara Hoffmann are among the favorite anecdotes for many veterans.

Controversy

External impact

The elite consciousness of the black box ensured sometimes tense external relations. The philosopher and political theorist Oliver Marchart, for example, was bothered by the dissonance he felt between the self-portrayal of the black box as a non-commercial idealist project and the appearance of its operators as wealthy, successful entrepreneurs. Marchart referred to the operators as "SJ-uppies" and "Datenschnösel" and accused them of organizing "gross operetta parties with sparkling wine, caviar rolls , paella buffet and what I know" and of acting as part of the Viennese " Schickeria ", while initiators of comparable projects are satisfied to work on a voluntary basis and “on a pure freak basis”. The black box has repeatedly been the target of such criticism, albeit mostly in a less polemical way.

The relationship between the black box and the Austrian Usenet community was particularly exciting. The Blackbox considered itself to be the oldest online community in Austria or Europe at all. In addition to historical precedence, it also claimed cultural precedence and saw the Austrian Usenet as a kind of continuation of itself. Due to the interface between several public blackbox forums , which were mirrored in Usenet as the newsgroup hierarchy at.blackbox. * , They went as far as random and nothing to denote Usenet users who suspect the existence of the black box as black box users. The Usenet community, on the other hand, insisted on seeing itself as decentralized and the black box as one access provider among many.

In a vote in 1999, a clear majority spoke in favor of abolishing the black box newsgroups that had been tolerated up to then and thus essentially cutting off the black box that was not ready to lead the regular groups.

process

At the beginning of 1997, the black box had to answer in court as a defendant.

The black box user Tom Kalkus, known for his sharply formulated criticism of liberal and conservative world views, had given employees of the Young People's Party in their discussion forum with phrases such as “ Austrofascist snot spoons ” and “ reactionary brood ”. The addressees felt that their honor was injured and brought proceedings against both Kalkus himself and the operators of the black box. According to the legal opinion of the Young People's Party, the black box was a medium in the sense of the Media Act, so that its owners were jointly responsible for the content it transported and liable according to the relevant provisions.

The media law in force at the time was essentially from 1981 and was not prepared for digital discussion forums. Relevant judicature also did not yet exist. The trial against the black box was literally the first of its kind in Austria. The lawsuit met with widespread public rejection. In addition to several well-known exponents of Internet culture, the Green MP for the Vienna Landtag, Peter Pilz , sided with the defendant.

A first hearing on February 25, 1997 revealed that the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters was of the opinion that it would have to base its judgment on analogy. The court also indicated that it would probably assess the black box as a medium, but still did not take conviction of its operator as a matter of course. The trial was adjourned and ended by settlement . This meant that the fundamental question was not fully judged until the amendment to the Media Act in 2005, which ultimately made it irrelevant.

development

FirstClass mailbox system

Between 1994 and 1998, the Blackbox was operated on the FirstClass server and client software by DatenWerk Kommunikationges.mbH on behalf of the association. In the years 1998 to 2001 the company MediaClan Gesellschaft für Online Medien mbH took over the operation of the system. At this point in time, the Internet or the web had already become widespread, which led to more competition and thus to a decline in activities in the community.

Parallel operation of the mailbox system and the Internet

From 1998 MediaClan developed an open standards and web browser based platform for the black box, which was named blackbox.net . The new platform went online in autumn 1998, and both systems continued to operate simultaneously.

Complete move to the Internet

At the turn of 1999/2000 was the first class -based version of the Community off, then on the black box existed only in the web version. In 2001 the company MediaClan decided to release the software it had programmed as open source software and to hand over the online community to its users. On July 1, 2001, a number of committed users took over the operation and further development of the system in the form of the revived Black Box Systems association . Since then, the company has been financed exclusively from membership fees.

Up to the year 2003/2004 it was essentially only possible to maintain the status quo, i.e. undisturbed operation; further development up until then failed due to a lack of human resources.

Further development and relaunch

In 2005 substantial further developments took place in the backend area. At the end of 2005, the cubic project to redevelop the black box was started because further development based on the old technologies no longer seemed expedient and too time-consuming.

In 2009, the open beta test of the new black box took place, which after a relaunch wanted to position itself as a forum for politics and society. In March 2010 the system went into normal operation, the old platform was switched off. At the same time, the old content of the black box was taken offline as well as the previous user websites under the domain black box. Only the contents of the former hierarchy at.blackbox. * Are still publicly available on the Internet due to the interface with the Usenet that existed until 1999 and the archiving by the Usenet archive.

Since, from the operator's point of view, the provision of a mailbox system was no longer worthwhile in view of the many providers of free mailboxes, the mailboxes were also switched off and users were asked to save their mailbox contents on their hard drives or in their free mailboxes in good time before switching off. The e-mail addresses themselves, also under the domains glump.at, depp.at and hamma.net, were still provided by the black box.

attitude

Because fewer and fewer users were discussing on the provided forums, the closure of the black box at the end of November 2012 was announced on September 1, 2012 - after a big party on her 20th birthday on November 10, 2012. The operating association dissolved and the domains were handed over to the company Mediaclan, which has been maintaining and operating the e-mail addresses since then.

technology

The black box software called Netbox , which existed until February 28, 2010 , ran on a standard Linux installation and was essentially based on an Apache web server, a MySQL database and numerous CGI scripts, mainly written in C and Perl. In addition to access via web browser, the system offered POP3, SMTP, NNTP and IRC.

From the relaunch in March 2010 until you were hired, the system was based on the web forum software phpBB with some individual extensions.

Association and board

Black * Box * Systems, the association for the promotion of computer-assisted telecommunications systems, was a non-profit association that was dedicated to the operation, maintenance and further development of the black box and its community. This was to be understood in both a technical and an organizational sense. All proponents worked on a voluntary basis and without pay.

The members of the association, who paid an annual fee for their membership and enjoyed certain advantages over conventional users (there were some additional features), had the right to participate in the future of the association.

As of November 2009, the Executive Board consisted of the following people:

  • President: Harald Havas
  • 1. Vice-President a. Deputy d. Treasurer: Brigitte Grohmann
  • 2nd Vice President u. Deputy d. Secretary: Dieter Henkel
  • 3. Vice President u. Treasurer: Julia Braunegg
  • 4. Vice President u. Secretary: Harald S. Frassine

At the general assembly invited for this purpose on November 10, 2012, the dissolution of the association and the end of operations was unanimously decided and then, with proponents from earlier and lastly, the 20 years of Blackbox and her last birthday were commemorated.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to the Austrian Internet Monitor . Cf. ORF : Integral study on Internet usage in Austria Internet coverage: ORF in Austria in second place . APA-OTS , April 14, 1997.
  2. ↑ Oliver Marchart: One Vienna is enough! For the digital recycling of a city. - Report on the opening of the Digital City of Vienna . In: kunstradio.at, Oliver Marchart: Attacks . December 6, 1995, accessed May 6, 2010.
  3. ↑ a b Ctrl-Alt-Del: Young ÖVP: charges against users and online system - the "black * box process" (press releases) . ( Memento of November 27, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Retrieved on May 5, 2010 (archived from the original).
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on February 8, 2006 .