Did Traveller have its own Usenet and/or Echomail groups back in the day?
Basically the title. I don't see a Traveller group on Eternal September, so I suspect even if it was a thing on Usenet, it's not anymore. I'm not sure how to perform a more thorough check off the top of my head.
I have no idea about Echomail.
If they existed, what were these communities like? Do they still exist and I just didn't find them when I looked?
The primary mode of communication within the community was TML or the traveler mailing list, which went on for more than 20 years.
I guess Citizens of the Imperium is the spiritual successor to whatever communities existed before.
I recall discussion of Traveller in 'rec.games.frp.misc'. Can't dredge up more detail than that, though.
Chat GPT says
rec.games.frp.travellerexisted. I can't find an archive of it. It seems neither Eternal September nor Planet Usenet subscribe to it.Google Groups bans it for some reason, which suggests it may have actually existed, as opposed to being an AI hallucination, but that's not conclusive.