COVER STORY : Electronic Rendezvous

In the ‘50s there was the malt shop.

In the ‘90s there is Baud Town.

Want to get together with your friends after school? Want to meet somebody new? There’s no need to leave the privacy of your own home. Unlace your Doc Martens, sit down at your computer, sign on and start to chat.

“Baud Town is a social meeting place, geared to everybody,” explains Linda Saenz, 41, SysOp, or system operator, of one of the Valley’s most popular computer bulletin boards. (Van Nuys-based Dreamscape is another hot local bulletin board system, or BBS.) Baud Town has been around forever by cyberstandards--it’s 5 years old. And, according to Saenz, it has a constantly changing roster of about 1,500 subscribers who make 15,000 calls a month.

Unlike many bulletin boards, which are explicitly sexual, Baud Town is a PG-rated operation, open to anyone 14 and older. As such, it attracts vast numbers of teen-agers, especially teen-age boys, who spend hours expounding their views in any of more than 50 Baud Town open forums or chatting electronically on whatever topics strike their fancy. The two most popular forums, by far, says Saenz: Homo Sapiens vs. Homo Sapiens and Lies, Rumors and Innuendoes. But Baud Town is an understanding community, where two people can slip off in cyberspace and whisper a deux if they are so inclined as well.

Asked electronically why they hang out in Baud Town, subscribers cited everything from not having a car to the sense of personal safety that electronic communication provides. Overwhelmingly, though, they talked about that most basic of human needs--having contact with other people.

“I’ve made friends who added so much to my life,” said Sharon Harleigh of Westwood. “BBSers were here for me when I went through hard times in my life (my parents’ divorce, cancer, etc.)” Many regulars (addicts, some called themselves) said how much they like meeting people personality-first, without having to think about looks or clothes. “No stupid getting-dressed-to-go-out junk like that,” as Rebecca Him of Chatsworth put it. And then there are those who have got lucky in Baud Town. “I met the love of my life . . . by sheer serendipity,” said 23-year-old Minsun Park of West Hills. “We sent e-mail for a month and finally just met for the hell of it and he turned out to be the most adorable, brilliant, sensitive man I’ve ever known. We’ve been together for 10 months now and are madly in love, not bad for two blinking blips in the night.”

Subscribers can talk as long as they want in Baud Town, reachable by modem at (818) 893-0340. No meter runs on their conversations. Instead the company sells different levels of access. To get on costs $13.50 for three months. That buys you the right to use the bulletin board as long as no one with more privileged access wants to use any of Baud Town’s 32 phone lines. Should one of the electronic elite come along, you will probably be bounced off the system, especially in the evening and at other peak usage times. Subscribers pay $99 a year for the highest level of access.

Saenz founded the North Hills-based business with her late husband, Frederick Gernand. Both had entrepreneurial backgrounds and saw the growth potential of an electronic bulletin board. They especially liked the idea of starting a local board, one that would link subscribers who were close enough geographically to get together in the flesh if they so chose. Crucial to getting the business off the ground, Saenz says, was coming up with a compelling metaphor, a term that would both describe it and help it to grow in the desired direction.

“We knew we wanted a town metaphor,” she says, and, indeed, she regards Baud Town as a real community, albeit one with no buildings except the modest home office in which it is housed.

Saenz points out, for instance, that Baud Town has its own Neighborhood Watch, whereby members keep an eye out for potential troublemakers. “Everybody watches everybody else,” she says. Electronic bulletin boards have the potential for abuse, she explains, including people who misrepresent themselves or harass others. But Baud Town is a peaceful, congenial place, she says, “because I run the system on a no-nonsense basis.”

Saenz requires everyone who joins to send in a copy of their photo ID. “On a bulletin board barriers come down, but facades also go up,” she says. “You can be anybody behind the barrier.” But in Baud Town, “you’re not going to say you’re 32 if you’re 16, or vice versa.”

All kinds of people gather in Baud Town. “We have the town eccentrics,” she says, “and we have the town intellectuals.” The population--which changes as people graduate from high school, go away to college and alter their lifestyles in other ways--includes an unusual number of “really smart kids,” she says. Baud Town has more female members than most bulletin boards, but the board is still predominantly male, about 70%. “I need more women,” says Saenz. “I need them to keep my guys happy.”

A good SysOp is many things, in her view. “I’m a mom, a counselor, a psychologist, a sort of bartender and a peacemaker.” Other roles include mayor and baby-sitter. Once in a while, she is called upon to act as a justice of the peace and to join two subscribers in electronic matrimony. “The marriages aren’t binding, of course.”

Newcomers to Baud Town are introduced to the etiquette that has quickly become standard in cyberspace. This includes the oddly prim practice of not writing messages in all capital letters. “It’s the electronic equivalent of being rude or shouting,” Saenz explains. Baud Town also prohibits subscribers from attacking each other, either directly or behind their electronic backs, a practice called “flaming” in much of cyberspace. “We call it bagging and ragging,” she says.

Saenz says she really came to appreciate the special quality of Baud Town when her husband died of cancer in 1992. She was bereaved, frightened at the prospect of running the business by herself, afraid that she might somehow break the electronic entity they had put together. Comfort came over the computer. “When Fred died, who helped me through was Baud Town,” she recalls.

“Sometimes I don’t think of it as a bulletin board service,” Saenz says. “I think of it as a living entity. I would never give it up.”

As for the future, Saenz has big plans. “I want to make Baud Town Baud World,” she says, dreaming of augmenting the service to include Internet access and other town improvements.