Being a late arrival in August of 2002, I was a Usenet refugee, remember ba.motorcycles, or rec.Motorcycles ? Most of the members were early tech people, or similar folks who also rode motorcycles. We frequently had discussions about IEEE issues as much bikes. I recall a heated discussion about whether 802.11 would ever take hold. :rofl
My memories of that era are starting to dim, but there is where I met Craig Hightower and a few other riders from the East Bay.
Some of the people from the usenet mailing lists ended up at BARF, since many ISPs no longer supported usenet at all. The Yahoo groups were never going to be the answer,it seemed, so BARF had to be.
And so BARF is, thanks to Dennis and all the people who keep the chains greased.