Its original management team—Matthew McClure, soon joined by Cliff Figallo and John Coate—collaborated with its early users to foster a sense of virtual community.

Williams, one of the principals of the satirical group the Plutonium Players, had been working in nonprofit theater management and was already an active member of the WELL.

[10] In 1992 Cliff Figallo also left his job at The WELL and long time WELL member Maurice Weitman was hired as general manager.

Figallo's resignation letter to the Board cited changes in company approach: "I am too much identified with the permissive and accommodating attitude that has been part of The Well's growth to preside over a more restrictive régime.

Wired reported, "The surprise move... gives Salon a dose of new credibility by tying it directly into a members-only community of scores of artists, writers, thinkers, scientists, programmers, and visionaries.

In November 2006, a press release from The WELL said "As Salon has not found a suitable purchaser, it has determined that it is currently in the best interest of the company to retain this business and has therefore suspended all efforts to sell The WELL.

Salon also announced that it had entered into discussions with various parties interested in buying the well.com domain name and that the remaining WELL staff had been laid off at the end of May.

"[17][18] The CEO was Earl Crabb, a programmer and supporter of the Bay Area folk music community, who died on February 20, 2015.

The original hardware for the WELL was a VAX 11/750, which cost "a quarter of a million dollars and required a closet full of telephone lines and modems.

A license for PicoSpan, in exchange for a half interest in the company, was part of NETI's initial investment in The WELL (along with the VAX computer running the mt Xinu variant of Unix).

[21] The WELL's conferencing system is organized into forums reflecting member interests, and include arts, health, business, regions, hobbies, spirituality, music, politics, games, software and many more.

The intent is to foster a more intimate community through "people taking responsibility for opinions, obsessions, insights, silliness, and an occasional faux pas.

A few years later, two members involved in a messy real-life relationship posted about it across several conferences, dividing the community and ultimately becoming a central narrative device for Katie Hafner's book about the WELL.

Thomas Valovic, then a research manager with International Data Corporation and adjunct faculty at Northeastern University, theorized that a "single articulate and entertaining person" might be able to steer a discussion through "sheer number of postings," and that this tactic could be used effectively to spread propaganda: "The same, of course, is true of other online systems.

In her 1994 essay, “Pandora's Vox,” WELL member Carmen Hermosillo observed that by posting her thoughts and feelings where an online platform could profit from them, "I had commodified myself.

"[31] On the other hand, during a panel at the 1994 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Figallo reported that "encouraging the formation of core groups of users who shared their desire for minimal social disruption" had been generally successful in promoting free discussion without the need for heavy-handed intervention by management.

[32] Looking back in a 2007 interview with Rolling Stone, Stewart Brand said, "Communes failed, drugs went nowhere, free love led pretty directly to AIDS.

Gail Ann Williams recalled the phrase had a number of different interpretations: In an era when it was uncertain how laws applied to online content, Brand intended it to place legal responsibility for posts on the people who wrote them, she said.

Looking back at the early years, journalist Jon Carroll wrote, "Suddenly there were chili cook-offs and outings to ballgames and brunches and evenings of song...

[38] Musician David Gans, who was hosting an hour of Grateful Dead music on a San Francisco radio station, launched the conference with Bennett Falk and Mary Eisenhart as co-hosts.

Matthew McClure, part of the WELL's original management team, recalled: “The Deadheads came online and seemed to know instinctively how to use the system to create a community around themselves...

Suddenly our future looked assured.”[20] By 1997, Eric F. Wybenga's almanac of Grateful Dead resources said the WELL "is to Deadheads what AOL is to the average American online.

[41] Godwin helped publicize flaws in a notorious early study of pornography on the Internet, which had led to calls for legislative censorship.

Even after this list expanded to a public LISTSERV and incorporated as a for-profit, Newmark said he viewed it as a community trust and emphasized, "The purpose of the Internet is to connect people to make our lives better.

"[44] Salon hired WELL management team member Cliff Figallo in 1998 and WELL conference host Mary Elizabeth Williams to direct its online community, Table Talk.

Notable journalists who have written about their experiences on the WELL include John Seabrook of the New Yorker,[46] Katie Hafner of the New York Times,[29] Wendy M. Grossman of the Guardian,[47] and Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Platforms such as LinkedIn and Yammer open up communication channels among coworkers and peers with similar professions in a more relaxed setting.