Rec.*.int-fiction
From IFWiki
Prior to the world wide web and web pages, Usenet was a common method of communication over the Internet. The interactive fiction community primarily used two Usenet newsgroups, known collectively as rec.*.int-fiction or r*if:
- rec.arts.int-fiction ("raif") for discussion of game creation and tool development.
- rec.games.int-fiction ("rgif") for discussion of released games.
Google Groups eventually supplanted the Usenet interface for a web interface and still exists today:
Google Groups has an archive of many past postings. The IF Archive has archived many posts (mostly 1992-2002, and some to 2012) for raif and rgif, in a variety of less accessible but often more complete formats.
The community from the newsgroups moved primarily to the Interactive Fiction Community Forum on intfiction.org.