It can be off-putting for Web newcomers and occasional Web dabblers when they find they have to wade though pages of cluttered, commercial rubbish in the search for something useful. One wonders what sort of mentality is required to pick your way successfully through the digital debris. But Web veterans know the possible reward - finding a community in cyberspace to which you can belong for a few weeks, or forever. A recent search on motorbike-related items led me to a Web site I used to frequent years ago, reminding me that the old spirit of camaraderie which made the Net so popular is still alive and, ahem, kick-starting.
The site is Brit-Iron (http:// php.indiana.edu/ cstringe/brit.html), dedicated to fans of old British motorcycles and administered by Mr Chuck Stringer, who himself owns a 1967 BSA Spitfire. Started in 1992, first as a mailing list only and then as a web page too, Brit-Iron is predominantly American, but contains a wealth of experience with and knowledge of British bikes from contributors all around the globe. Stringer candidly admits the web page "was mostly to learn HTML", but adds "it was one of the first bike web pages on the Net". He has recently upgraded the site which now answers also to the simpler address, www.brit- iron.org.
Besides picture galleries of old and much-loved bikes, there's expert advice on how to restore them and keep them running, which is just as well given the age and state of the average Triumph, Norton and BSA. The mailing list - with around 800 participants - allows you participate in conversations on restoration projects, ask the experts how to tune an Amal carburettor, or enviously read trip reports from bikers in hotter climes as you contemplate another Irish wet front moving in from the west.
This site is an example of how co-operative the non-commercial side of the Net can be: when I started tinkering with my bike - a 500cc Indian Enfield Bullet - I found the mailing list an invaluable source of advice. Like all mailing lists it degenerates into flame wars from time to time, but despite my bike being made in India (British designed, not built, in stiff upper lip parlance), list users are more than happy to send advice on how to do maintenance jobs or get spare parts. Sometimes we just swap stories. I never met Finnish Enfield owner Keijo Virtanen, whose advice has kept my gearbox alive, or Jamie Hamilton from Australia another BSA lover, but we've all been part of the same online biker gang.
Groups like these give real meaning to the cliche "cyber-community". One list member compiled a database of contributors' addresses, so that they could provide accommodation for each other as they went on biking tours, saving money and getting members to make more than just electronic contact.
There are several more bike-related web sites, with or without mailing lists, representing more cyber-communities where people with shared interests get to know and help each other.
For example, The Stolen Motorcycle Homepage (www.dorsai.org/ pweinman/ pageinfo.html) allows despairing ex-owners to put up wanted posters of their stolen bikes. There are sites for parts suppliers, motorcycle museums, magazines, owners' clubs, racing clubs, and much much more - making an online paradise for motorcycling enthusiasts.
Thinking beyond bikes (never easy to do), there are thousands of special interests with associated websites and mailing lists, each representing another virtual community. They're usually easily found using a search engine, or from a list of lists such as www.liszt.com (90,000 entries).
Whatever your interest, you can transform the Web from a commercial junkyard to an information haven and have fun along the way.
Let Computimes know about your own favourite non-commercial, co-perative virtual community.
Eoin Licken is at eoinl@iol.ie