"Usenet doesn't have channels" <---This is weak weak weak. What word did you expect me to use? BOARD. Fine? BORED. OKAY? Fucking troll, I used to login through Software Creations BBS, if it would help you to discredit me. Idiot.Fine.
Conversation on usenet was directly responsible for 3 things: 1) Breaking the hobbyists up into 3 distinct groups (simulationists, game-ists, and narrative-ists) If my memory is correct, Kim was under the belief that to investigate what was happening to RPGs, namely it being overtaken by other hobbies, like MtG, it was necessary to breakdown how people played RPGs. He was insistent that heavy simulation and light game were the bulk of what was wrong. 2) Besides the spam-bots, there were NOT that many people there. However, there were times when postings were hot and heavy. I was there because I lost my group and wanted to understand WHY this was happening. Many people (including Kim) had great ideas which would become shut down once it was determined there were only 3 ways to play, instead of the (I believe) six which were being discussed. 3) The Forge was created on that board. The forge DDOS'd my personal server way back when and kept me banned through out the early to mid 2000s. Mainly because I've use the same username since 1987.
You want hard physical proof of what I'm saying? I DONT HAVE ANY EXCEPT MY MEMORY. But don't worry. I'll be shot for my beliefs and integrity soon enough. People like you? You'll eat each other ALIVE.
The correct term is newsgroup, not channel. Which, as I mentioned, was the term used in another contemporary mode of communication, IRC. And not board, either.
You also seem unfamiliar with the history of the Threefold Model. The Threefold Model was descriptive not proscriptive. It didn't say how you
should play, it just tried to describe how different groups of people did play, or liked to play. The whole point was to create a bridge between the "they're doing it WRONG" reaction when someone is playing with a different set of priorities and the understanding that they're just doing it differently. All playstyles are valid. It was also focused on decision points, not styles. People might have tendencies, but there weren't hard barriers. Everyone made decisions that were gamist, simulationist, and dramatist. The big weakness was a lack of posters to represent the gamist axis (Gleichman and Knutsen tried), so dramatist and simulationist got more attention (Theatrix was popular). Nobody shut anybody down who wanted to play a different way, that was utterly alien to the culture. Different axes were one of the most common topics, with the Threefold Model being pared down from models with more. The most common suggestion was a social axis, but there was never a consensus because it was more about what you did outside the game than in the game.
All of the one true wayism, the attempt to define different playstyles, the attempt to classify games rather than decision points within games, and the clear preference of one axis (narrativism nee dramatism) over the others, and even the focus on creating games, was from the Forge. Which was considerably later, and an entirely different group of people. So you're conflating completely different things.
All of which means your memory is muddled, or you weren't there.
And I have no fucking idea what "people like you" means, except you clearly have no integrity.