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I remember first joining Parent-L in the mid -90s. That was my first social networking community experience.

I belive my first 'message board' WAS Allnurses maybe in 2002 or so?And I remember one particular post reply (I want to say it was in regards to nurses and tattoos) I made that caused an epic stool storm. It was an innocent enough post but it was taken the wrong way. That being said, I pushed the keyboard away and just read posts. After a few weeks I stopped visiting. When I returned in 2006 I lurked as a guest (as I could not remember my previous signon name and email) and it took me about a year of watching, reading and understanding the workings of this board before i got up the guts to register again and begin participating.

My first foray into online discussions was on the Nursing Spectrum forum. Back then, it was a good forum, and we had a lot of fun.I discovered allnurses shortly after that. Over the years, I have made some friends here and at another nursing website. I also experienced having people snarling at me in their posts, but fortunately, I didn't use my real name and never disclosed where I lived.I'm glad you're here, Ruby. You always tell it like it is. I think if you had worked at my hospital I might have give critical care a try. I was very happy with OP oncology, though, and I have no regrets regarding my career choices (for the most part, that is).

I remember using news net during my down time during college in the late 90s-early 2000s. I stumbled on this site as a PN nursing student and lurked for a long time before posting. Then nursing and life got in the way, but now post regularly my own take on nursing. I think this site serves to be great unadulterated (albeit moderated) website on the truth of nursing from some posters, especially you Ruby. Some may not want to admit it, but the honest posting does work for an "aha" moment that makes ones practice all the much better.

Great article Ruby. As I am one of the newbies at this site, and actually my first foray into the forum world, it is great to have experienced posters as yourself sharing their words of wisdom. All I can say is thank you to you and all the other posters who share their knowledge, and keep on doing what you do.

I also lurked for a long while before joining partly because I was not yet a student nurse and the other part being hesitation to join a forum when I had quite a bit of a lack of self-restraint back when I was on the K-Pop forums in my high school years. Now that I'm more responsible with my free time and All Nurses seems to be a little more low key, I joined and it has helped me immensely!! I can imagine how it would be if I didn't have this as a great resource, especially for trickier topics and I'm grateful All Nurses exists!

For me, it was the early 90's when I was first introduced ('92) and first got online myself in '94 or '95. I had learned Fortran computer language in college, but since then....nothing. WHAT a different world then! Text only, of course, and there were suddenly people 'in my home' who I wouldn't have talked to on the street, LOL......welcome to the world of online discussion groups.I remember typing in the word "crochet", just to see what might pop up, and was absolutely and completely SHOCKED to see nearly six thousand hits. SIX THOUSAND boggled my mind, in that there were so many groups/pages for such a thing! As a comparison, I just did the same thing while posting this message, via Google, and got 35,100,000 results. Over 35 MILLION. Stunning.So you see, the world has gotten bigger and smaller all at the same time. Nothing is anonymous, although those of us with a touch more savvy than some fresher faces have less to fear. And I DO fear for those who are so very foolish as to post their photos, their KIDS' photos, their real names, their schools, their addresses and phone numbers and emails.But I do warn them. And truly hope they understand it's FOR their benefit that I (and others like me) do this: we don't want to read about them in the news, someone bludgeoned to death because of a crazy stalker who found them and followed them online. It HAPPENS!So....thank you, Ruby Vee, for this article, it's terrific, and I do hope will be VERY well received

I have lurked around AN since 2009, but did not register until 2013, I found it by doing an internet search and was addicted from day one. I have always found the nursing profession fascinating. Then one night I wrote my first post in a word pad and decided to register and post it, I got a kick out of how many likes I got and the comments as well, it made my day. I have always wanted to thank a large group of nurses for what they do, so I figured why not join and post from time to time to remind them that they have some fans, supporters and admirers. I also enjoy reading the stories you all share and like the debates. I have many favorite posters as well. As a big fan of nurses this site has gave me an inside look into nursing and what you all deal with, it has also showed me that there are people who truly do care about others, and as a patient and admirer that is nice to know. So glad I found AN!

I've been here a few years and appreciate the tone of the forums. It's so much gentler and kinder here than in some others.I was a moderator on another site that should have been supportive and helpful to its members. Usually it was, but sometimes people who had a negative agenda joined to cause trouble. I remember one particularly ugly episode where one poster figured out who another poster was, identified family members, and sent copies of everything negative the second person ever wrote, to her family members.That's one reason why, from time to time, I post the idea that we must be careful about posting identifying details. We never, ever know who is reading and what that person might do...

I'm a newbie at this site though I'm no longer new to online forums. I love to read them because I get to learn a lot from it. Glad to be part of AN.

Awesome article, thank you for the words of wisdomJust like any community - in cyberspace or in a face to face environment - there is a culture. Learning that culture is the trick to playing well with others. I think sometimes the supposed anonymity of the cyber world encourages people to type things they wouldn't dare (well, some of us anyway) say to some one face to face.

I am still a member of the Nursenet list. Unfortunately, this wonderful nonanonymous group of mostly advanced practice nurses took a real dive when the members started a Facebook account for it some years back. Those of us who eschew FB for many reasons saw participation in the list drop to almost zero. It was like a death in the family, really. I miss those people and the hilarious discussions we used to have on some goofy things, really good discussions on serious topics, the students that dropped in every semester as part of a school assignment to ask us questions, and the easy availability of people we knew were experts in their fields when we had a clinical question or wanted a referral to a specialist. We supported each other in sickness and in health, too.Around the Usenet era the old AOL had communities, designed as an alternative to the free-wheeling Usenet craziness. {{Although in fairness, I met a few wonderful people on the Usenet, one by replying to him, "You are entirely too reasonable and literate to be on this board. Why are you here?" This led to a number of professional and volunteer opportunities in our area of mutual interest which had far-reaching effects to a very large number of people.}} Communities had moderators, and in many cases, regularly-scheduled live chats. Moderators took several layers of very comprehensive online training and had some fun tools to use prn, like the ability to have our words appear in a signature color and font (guess what mine was) and block problem members from the live chats with a keystroke. I found this very helpful when I ran a student homework helper chat a few times a week with another host and we got nutballs dropping in who wanted to know if, say, Oriental women's genitalia were different (the ways spelled out in detail), or people who wanted to talk about enemas and catheters who clearly weren't asking from a student perspective, as it were. We did a lot of good work there and on the RN community, and when AOL folded their community program, we missed it.Then I found AN a few years back and felt at home again for the first time in years. While we are largely anonymous, it's no particular secret that some longterm posters have connected IRL (in real life), and those connections have been a source of joy and support to me (you know who you are). Some online communities have regular meetings at professional meetings; I haven't had occasion to get to any but I would love to put some faces to the names or, I guess, names to the names. Although I would feel funny if anyone from AN called me anything else but Green Tea.