@Linkshaender @tomjennings
FidoNet in Ireland (2:263) was mostly nice, with plenty of Star Trek fandom (we did have author Diane Duane running her own node, and being part of the online community).

All nice people, apart from one commercial BBS whose sysop set it up to edit all Echomail messages, in an effort to convince all his users that other systems didn't exist, all so he could make more money from subscriptions.