homenets.nn.ru was a Nizhny Novgorod website about home computer networks, active in 2001–2002. In the earliest surviving version it was called "Home Networks of Nizhny Novgorod" and carried the motto "A computer network in every home!"[1]; by spring 2002 the title had changed to "Nizhny Novgorod Home Networks"[2]. It was made by two people: the homepage named Dmitry Barkalov as the site's creator[3], while the administrator and principal author was Denis Nikitin, whom readers were invited to contact at denis@mail.nnov.ru or by ICQ[1]. A permanent fixture of the left-hand column was a list of Nizhny Novgorod networks: Yarmarka-net, Nestnet, Freelan, Lightnet, RealNet, Newnet[1], joined by Mescheranet by May 2002[3]. It was one of the early thematic resources of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet devoted not to providers but to district networks that residents wired up through their own homes themselves.

How the site was built

It was a portal engine with registration and the full set of services typical of the period. The main menu in January 2002 consisted of the sections "News," "Reviews," "FORUMS," "Private messages," "Links," "Add Your News," "Files," "Site statistics," "Polls," and "Chat"[1]. The chat counter showed zero people in both the general and the private channel[1]. By May, "User list" and "TOP TEN" had been added to the menu[3].

Services were switched on before the reader's eyes: on 1 January 2002 the forum opened, on 13 January the chat started working, and on 14 January the author reported that he was adding a computer "flea market" to the site[1]. On 31 January an update came out with a new design and an "Archive of news" section; network administrators could use the "Add Your News" form to post notices on the homepage seeking like-minded people, subject to review by an editor[2]. At the same time a contest for a site logo and banner was announced, with beer set as the prize[2]. Throughout this period the feedback block kept a disclaimer that the site was "under development and active content-filling"[1].

What it wrote about: interviews with network builders and homemade switches

The main genre was conversations with network organizers. At the turn of 2001 and 2002, interviews appeared with Sergei Burmistrov (Yarmarka-net), with Pavel Lotovich, organizer of the Freelan network, and with a user of the Lightnet network[1]. The homepage read counters showed 108 views for the Freelan interview, 80 for the article on traffic accounting, and 77 for the Lightnet conversation[1].

A second layer was network-building practice: overviews on setting up DHCP servers under Linux and Windows NT[1], an article on a homemade traffic-accounting system submitted by Nizhny Novgorod resident Vladimir Zabrudayev[1], notes titled "A 100-megabit switch by your own hands" and on how Linux behaved under a sudden power outage, and a list of documents required for a telematic communications-services license[3].

A third layer was news of networks and providers. The site reported the first connection in Nizhny Novgorod of an upscale residential building to the internet over telephone wires using HPNA technology, carried out by the firm "NIS"[1], on the same provider's new rates from 1 April 2002 and on discounts from "Kommercheskie informatsionnye seti" ("Commercial Information Networks") for ADSL connections[3], and on Freelan's plans to get its own satellite channel[3]. On 21 April 2002 the anniversary of Freelan was marked: its first 128-metre segment had been laid on 22 April 2001[3]. There was also coverage of the first meeting of prospective RealNet participants on Rodionov Street[2], and of the creation of a commercial local network in Pechory[3]. A separate strand consisted of reprints on time-metered telephone billing and analysis of amendments to the law on communications[1].

The tone was homely, without editorial distance: New Year and Radio Day greetings to network builders, the site creator's birthday on 11 May[3]. In February 2002 the author admitted a slump: interest in the site and in home network-building in Nizhny Novgorod had cooled, and "the flow of messages to the fido thematic conferences has dried up"[2]. In May the same author publicly took offense at the Lightnet network: its article, published in "Komputerra+ NN" on 30 April 2002, had been posted on the third-party portal homenetworks.ru without being offered to the Nizhny Novgorod site — "apparently we're not in Lightnet's good graces," as the homepage put it[3].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet and the domain's fate

In the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating, homenets.nn.ru is listed in the nn.ru directory (the /rub/ section) as a site about Nizhny Novgorod home networks with news, reviews and forums; its Counter.nn.ru score in our sample is 107.42, with no votes recorded for it in this data. It does not appear in the surviving results table of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote for 2004[4] — by that point there had already been no fresh snapshots of the homepage in the web archive for two years.

According to the archival study, web-archive crawls at this address fall within the span from 21 November 2001 to 28 May 2002; the text survives in three snapshots — from 25 January[1], 30 March[2] and 25 May 2002[3]. Eleven days before the last snapshot, the site announced a new series of polls on the legal status of home networks[3]. The domain homenets.nn.ru no longer exists, and our data contains no record of the project moving to another address. What remains is a half-year's worth of material: interviews with network builders and notes on how those networks were built.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, January 2002 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, March 2002 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, May 2002 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote results, 2004 (archive)