The conference was presented to the other PARTI users on TWICS like this:
"MSDOS TIPS" by ODD DE PRESNO, Feb. 23, 1990 at 11:57 about
GOOD PD AND SHAREWARE PROGRAMS (7 notes)
Few systems of the bulletin board model let users start their own conferences at will. All new topics must be stored in a given structure. The administrators (sysops) of the service manage the evolution of the 'conference room'. After a while, old messages may even be deleted to make room for new. In PARTI, conference messages are organized under a topic, or any sub-topics that can be derived from the main topic. Conferences are modeled after their counterparts in the face- to-face world. They start with an introduction followed by a discussion about a narrow topic, like here:
"SMART PEOPLE" by MACBETH on Jan. 4, 1992 at 12:27, about WHO ARE
THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST (504 characters and 17 notes).
In this example above, the welcome message is 504 characters long. Following that, there are 17 other messages (called notes). Notes are stored without individual subject headers and the name of a recipient. Everything is posted to 'the group'. If CompuServe message above had been posted on PARTI, then the first five lines might have been reduced to:
12 (of 12) SHABBY DOG Jul. 22, 1991 at 10:05 (119 characters)
On PARTI, all participants read all notes. Selective reading must be done in other ways (by searching conference contents). These two conferencing models seem to attract different types of discussions. PARTI has given birth to more discussions on topics like these (from PARTI on The Point, January 1992):
"HELLO BEEP" by THE SHADOW on Sept. 17, 1991 at 19:20, about
BEEP'S ADVENTURES IN JAPAN, AND THE LIKE (840 characters and 22
notes).
"MEMORIES" by LOU on Dec. 21, 1991 at 12:31, about …….I
REMEMBER WHEN…… (423 characters and 1 notes).
"AMENDMENT II 1991" by PASSIN THRU on Dec. 25, 1991 at 20:55,
about OUR RIGHTS TO OWN AND POSSESS FIREARMS, AND THE MYTH
REGARDING ASSAULT WEAPONS. (3036 characters and 38 notes).