The Wide Angle April/May 1996 Volume 1 No 6

On-Line Activism: Pt 1 in a Series

by Hans Hornstein, On-line Coordinator

Author's Note: Due to its overuse and misuse by the popular mass media, the word "cyberspace" will not appear anywhere in this article.

The on-line world is becoming a part of everyday life at an amazing pace, fast becoming the one place to go for information. Since San Diego county is one of the most "connected" places in the United States, it only made sense to make size-acceptance on the Internet the topic of the Coalition's March meeting. For those of our readers who missed the meeting, here is a quick guide to finding size-acceptance material and resources on-line.

The first issue to address in getting on the Internet is, of course, hardware - the equipment needed to get on-line. Either a PC or a Mac can get connected, so the Internet isn't much of an issue in a decision between these two platforms. Most Internet applications for the PC assume at least a 66 MHz 486 processor with 4 Megs of RAM, but I recommend at the very least 8 Megs of RAM, since Windows 95 gobbles up memory. The serious power user will probably want 16 Megs, but that's going to hit the pocketbook. With prices the way they are, a Pentium-75 or Pentium-90 processor may give the most bang for the buck, with the Pentium Pro waiting in the wings. For the Mac, our newsletter editor says that any machine with an 680x0 processor or higher will connect to the net, but if the money's there, then a PowerMac is "the way to go".

After the computer itself, the most important piece of hardware for the Internet is a modem. The speed of the modem determines how much time on the net is actually useful, and how much is just sitting in front of a screen waiting for the information to come over the line. A 14.4 kbps (kilobits per second) modem will serve as a connection, but again, a 28.8 kbps modem is probably well worth the price for the doubling of the speed.

The final piece of the hardware, which sometimes gets forgotten, is the phone line itself. While a phone line is being used for the Internet, it obviously can't be used to answer incoming calls. A second phone line for the modem only is an option, but again, that is a question of cost versus benefits.

Once the hardware for the connection is in place, the next step (obviously) is the connection itself. For the beginning Internet user, an on-line service such as America On-line (AOL), Prodigy, Compuserve, and so on, is probably the best way to ease into the Internet world. These services provide access to many of the resources listed below, but in a somewhat restricted fashion (depending on the service). However, they provide a point-and-click interface that allows a user to be on the net without having to know anything about the underlying technology. For the user who wants to have more power, and is willing to learn more about the nuts and bolts in order to get there, an account with a local Internet Service Provider (ISP) can provide exactly that with a PPP (Point to Point Protocol) connection. The commercial on-line services give access to the Internet, but at one remove -- the user is never directly connected to the Internet. With PPP, the user's computer becomes a direct part of the Internet from the time the connection is made until the time the phone is hung up. This allows more flexibility and power, but again, requires more knowledge and willingness to "get under the hood".

Once on the Internet, there are many means of communication, and there are size-acceptance resources available through all of them. Email, newsgroups, the Web, and IRC are the "big 4" of the Internet.

EMAIL

Over email, there are several mailing lists on various topics within size-acceptance. Mailing lists are ways by which email is sent to one address, which then forwards the same message to all the participants in the list. One warning, however. Mailing lists can fill up your mailbox very quickly. If this will be a problem, then subscribe to lists judiciously.

For general size acceptance discussion, there is the fat-acceptance list, an unmoderated list open to anyone interested in the issues. To subscribe, send email to majordomo@world.std.com with "subscribe fat-acceptance" as the message (not the subject).

For members of NAAFA, the naafa-members list provides a forum for NAAFA-specific issues and discussion. This list is restricted to current NAAFA members only, and subscription requests are verified by the On-line Coordinator. To request a subscription, send mail to majordomo@world.std.com with "subscribe naafa-members" as the message. Both these lists are maintained by NAAFA On-line.

For adult discussion of fat sexual matters, net-personality Yohannon has established the fat_sex mailing list. Discussion is wide-ranging and free form, to say the least. To subscribe, send mail to lists@rotunda.com with "subscribe fat_sex" as the message. But be aware, explicit matters are sometimes discussed.

Other lists available include Big Mom's, for fat mothers and mothers-to-be, and Club-100 for people trying to lose over 100 pounds, but in an accepting environment. Information on those can be obtained from the lists already mentioned.

NEWSGROUPS

Newsgroups came about when the idea was put forward that mailing lists were a bit wasteful, sending multiple copies on the same message to everyone. To solve this, news servers were set up, where articles were stored centrally, and users would connect to read them. Individual newsgroups were set up to explore different topics, getting more and more specialized as the medium evolved. Newsgroups function like communal bulletin boards -- users post "articles" about something within the group's topic, then others can follow up to the article, or start a new "thread", or reply privately. Discussions can last for months, with all kinds of input from people all over the world. There are many ways to get to newsgroups, so a service provider should be consulted for the best way to get there for a particular setup.

The first and oldest newsgroup relating to fat-acceptance is alt.support.big-folks, somewhat oddly named as it was created by people from alt.support.diet who didn't wish to hear the message of fat-acceptance on the dieting group. A year and a half ago, in order to have a group more widely carried and more recognizably about fat-acceptance, a.s.b-f regulars helped create a new group on the same topic, soc.support.fat-acceptance. Both are high-traffic groups dealing with almost any issue related to size-acceptance, from personal issues, gripes and victories of the readers, to political and theoretical discussions of the nature and direction of the movement, to practical questions of where to find good large-size clothes, and fat-friendly health care.

alt.sex.fat was set up for discussions of things sexual relating to being or being with a fat person. However, of late, it has become little more than a haven for people advertising 1-900 phone sex and other "spam" (inappropriate postings to multiple groups). alt.sex.fetish.fa, with its somewhat controversial name (implying that FAism is a fetish, instead of a preference), has basically become a place for R and X-rated pictures with a BBW theme. alt.personals.big-folks and alt.personals.fat also exist for those looking for love or romance on the net.

Overall, the world of size-acceptance on-line is a very rich one, and is growing every day. Join us on-line!

Continued Next Issue...