A bulletin board for a modern age
Since the time of the ancient Greeks people have been using bulletin boards to share information within local communities without having to tell each person individually. Although bulletin boards also have a secondary aspect that most people overlook they created spaces around them to allow people to engaged in local discussions about the notices on the board. These discussions about the bulletin board essentially convert this space from just a place to get information to kind of third space where people can gather and discuss what is happening. However, ever in more “recent” times (1980) people moved to posting this information on “local” bulletin board systems (BBS). These systems had the same concept as the normal bulletin boards although instead of printing out the poster or message and sticking to the local bulletin board this system would allow you to call in and leave a message on what is essentially a glorified answering machine. This “newer” still kept the local nature of the bulletin board system as you would have to know the number to call in to as well as cross-country calls being expensive and carriers not talking to each other. Not to discount that on these BBSes since they were local to the places uses them this too created a form of virtual third space where people could discuss local happening continuing this trend. This however was changed when high speed links started to forum between these smaller clusters of BBS systems and really in turn starting to create the world wide web as we know it. Alas, as the internet has taken off within our modern ages BBSes have almost ceased to exists with a few still floating around due to them however most requiring a telnet program to access. This decline of BBSes is in addition to them now becoming connected to the world wide web losing that local communities’ aspect. So that was the past, in the present most people have turned to using Facebook groups or discord servers to create what is essentially a bulletin board for there local communities, this is an excellent use of the tools they have on hand and modernize the system however these are not without their faults. However, I argue that these are not true bulletin boards and instead just another form of virtual third space in addition they lose some of the soul of what made a bulletin board it became less of a place to post information and more of a place to request information. This can be in the form of asking about local road works this would never be posted on a bulletin board because you would instead just ask someone instead. This is not to discount the fact that people still use this for its indented purpose, is more this have further evolved in to something a bulletin board is not.
Therefor I propose an idea a modern take on a bulletin board that combine the use of new technology such as phones and IOT devices. This idea will have the following requirements written in the EARs format with some additional rational for why:
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the device shall allow for the posting and viewing of bulletins
cant have a bulletin board without bulletins
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the device shall run its own wireless access point
since people dont want to print out a poster and stick it to a bulletin board and every one normally has some device they can just connect to a local network on may as well use that device instead to show everything
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the device shall host the bulletins on some web server
This is just the easiest method of displaying content in a reasonable manner to the user additionally this means the bulletin board can be customised.
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the device should not be connected to the internet for remote posting or veiwing.
This is done to primary keep the idea of letting people meet naturally in this now hybrid virtual and physical third space
The reason why there are so few requirements is not to limit what one of these bulletin boards can be. It could be as simple as an ESP32 running a web server that people can connect to and upload their bulletins or as complex as a computer and router with a QR code on a monitor that also show some of the bullets so you dont need to open your phone. Now this would normally be the part where i show a proof of concept device however i have yet to make one this is purely a theoretical idea at this point. However, when i do implement this i will be sure to provide an update on how it went.