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Briefly, CircuitNet is a community of Internet Users united by an interest in communication in a family environment. We have a series of ever-growing listservs where users can meet and discuss (or simply read) message exchanges on a variety of topics.
1.2 How is this different from Newsgroups?
CircuitNet is a community, while Newsgroups tend to be open public forums. In the CN model, everyone knows (or gets to know) everyone else and "drive-by postings" are less apt to occur. Anyone can post to a Newsgroup, but only members of CircuitNet can post in our groups. Thirdly, Newsgroups are not always available everywhere but since we use email as a vehicle, anyone on the Net can participate in CircuitNet.
1.3 How did CircuitNet begin?
Years ago when the Net was not widely known or used by the public CircuitNet ran a worldwide email service between BBS (Bulletin Board Systems.) As the Internet grew, there was less of a need for BBS "echo mail" so CN went into retirement. Even then there were plans being made to move the CircuitNet concept to the Net.
1.4 What does it cost to join?
As always, nothing :-) Most of our expenses are donated such as this web site (thanks you Angelfire!) and our listserver (thanks you Makelist!) Last but not least, our echo hosts (formerly known as "moderators") donate their time and services as a hobby and contribution to the network.
1.5 What else is planned for CircuitNet?
That is up to our hosts and members, but we do have some plans for expanding this site. We are also discussing some ways we might use the power of the Net to enhance our community in ways that were not possible on the old BBS network. Stay tuned!