FidoNews
FidoNet's weekly newsletter: a text file passed from node to node, in which sysops argued about the network's future.
Tom Jennings launched FidoNews in December 1984, the same year as FidoNet itself. It was a plain text file sent out through the network every week and posted for download on the bulletin boards. Anyone could submit an article, and the editor assembled whatever arrived.
The contents mixed technical news, nodelist changes and policy disputes, in a tone often reminiscent of a club's annual general meeting that has run well past its scheduled end. For historians the archive is invaluable: it shows a volunteer, decentralised network trying to govern itself with nobody really in charge — and how often that failed. The newsletter kept appearing long after most nodes had hung up for good.