A rearrangement of signal to noise ratio, emphasizing the fact that in many of these BBS systems, the amount of noise often dwarfs the signal, aka good stuff.

But something draws people into this type of board, even if the noise to signal ratio is high. What is it? A desperate search for community in this postmodern age, perhaps?

Phenomenon often seen in the comments section of slashdot, especially after a post regarding GNOME, KDE, RedHat, Debian or some combination of the above.

A high noise to signal ratio is typical during a flame war.

Also appearing on Usenet and IRC.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.