The River Home Page || Frequently Asked Questions || Conferences on the River (users area)
A list of The River Conferences

• HISTORY
• OUR MISSION
• CONTACT INFO
• RIVER RUNNERS

OUR HISTORY

In 1995, several hundred persons experienced in computer conferencing were conferring electronically to discuss the past and imagine the future of online communities and commercial communications services.

As a result of those discussions we decided to join together to create a member-owned virtual community and commercial non-profit online service, The River.

Our goal has been to share what we have learned online and then apply our collective wisdom to design that which will be in the future.

OUR MISSION

"The River was an open, self-governing, uncensored, economically sustainable, computer conferencing system. The central missions of the River are to maintain a medium for conversations among a group of diverse people, and to foster virtual communities which control their own destiny. The River Community was owned and governed by the people who created the high-quality conversations which were the source of the River's value. The River was dedicated to experimentation, and welcomed newcomers."

SERVICES AND ACCESS

To members and subscribers the River provided, in this priority: conferencing (command line and web interface), email, and shell access. Beginning in 1999 the River also offered leased private conferencing to members, subscribers, and others.

FEES

User fees were $10 monthly, or $100 for a full year in advance.
For new users paying monthly, the second month's fee was waived.

Each user was be allowed 5 Megabytes of free disk storage. Additional storage was to be charged for at the rate of $1 per meg per month, but in practice was never charged.

MEMBERSHIP

The River was a member-owned, member-governed co-op. Any River account holder could become a member by paying the annual membership fee of $50.

CONTACT INFO

The River was incorporated in the State of California.

River Runners' Web Pages

Reva Basch (reva) || Earl Crabb (esoft) || Christopher W Hafey (chris) || David Hawkins (dhawk) || Eric Rawlins (woodman) || Howard Rheingold (hlr) || Jerry Shifman (jerry) ||

---

The River Home Page || Frequently Asked Questions || Conferences on the River (users area)
A list of The River Conferences

Questions to (support08@river.org)

The River was a service mark of The River Cooperative Corporation. We used the Yapp Conferencing Software.

Web page corrections to support08@river.org
Last updated 31 December 2011, counter thanks to www.digits.com