Independent Conferences
Independent Conferences are home to a wide array of conversation topics and of people. They are created and run by individual members of The WELL as they see fit, within the scope of The WELL Member Agreement. Some offer limited access for WELL members by invitation only. Most are open to all members of The WELL. Anyone with a Complete Plan membership may create new ones (as well as unlisted fully Private Conferences) at any time.
Hosts have the final say on entry to a limited-access conference. Their member lists are entirely up to them. For information about joining a limited-access Independent Conference, please click on the “request entry” link to email the conference host.
You must be logged in to your WELL account for the links to work.
| CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION As described by its host | SHORTCUT Direct login link | JOIN (Limited Access) |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Dedicated to contemporary art and communication technology | acen.ind | ||
| Grassroots citizen activism and organization | activism.ind | ||
| Attention Deficit Disorder | add.ind | ||
| Artificial Intelligence | ai.ind | ||
| Animation lovers, this is the place to talk about it! | animation.ind | ||
| Japanese animation and the obsessed folk who love them | anime.ind | ||
| Augmentation and robotics | augbot.ind | ||
| Take off your shoes and come on in | barefoot.ind | ||
| A conference to raise funds and coordinate support efforts for worthy causes near and far. | barnraise.ind | ||
| Bass players, acoustic and electric | bass.ind | ||
| Honky-tonk, western swing, vintage country, roots music | bigballs.ind | ||
| Professional biologists and interested observers discuss the data of the day | biology.ind | ||
| A repository for data about The WELL | blair.ind | ||
| Discussion of piercing, tattoos, and other forms of body art | bodymods.ind | ||
| For people who like to read and discuss books | bookclub.ind | ||
| Brilliant ideas, crazy inventions, creative solutions | brainstorm.ind | ||
| *BSD* *nix | bsd.ind | ||
| Let's talk about Burning Man | burningman.ind | ||
| Whatever involves the whole state gets special attention here | california.ind | ||
| Support conference for persons with cancer or caregivers (limited) | cancer.ind | request entry | |
| All about chess | chess.ind | ||
| the city of chicago | chicago.ind | ||
| More is never enough! | chocolate.ind | ||
| Food — you gotta love it! | chow.ind | ||
| Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar ... | cigar.ind | ||
| A place to discuss all types of comedic performance | comedy.ind | ||
| Inspired by Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind,” this conference spans psychiatry, spirituality, drugs, and questions about consciousness. | conscious.ind | ||
| End of the Cretaceous | cretaceous.ind | ||
| Crime and detection, in real-life and in the media | crimescene.ind | ||
| Conference for the discussion of relational databases (RDBMs) | db.ind | ||
| Freewheeling, friendly zone for discussion of sexuality, eroticism, and kink | desire.ind | ||
| Contra Costa, Calif / Diablo Valley reg ional conference | diablo.ind | ||
| Artists, musicians and writers working in digital arts media | digitart.ind | ||
| Decluttering, Getting Things Done, and otherwise getting organized | doingstuff.ind | ||
| Software development using the .NET framework | dotnet.ind | ||
| A place to record, discuss, and interpret your dreams | dreams.ind | ||
| Economy and ecology. Money theory and history. Alternates. | eco.ind | ||
| A place for electronic music of all kinds | electronic.ind | ||
| A place to discuss manners and ask questions regarding The Proper Thing To Do | etiquette.ind | ||
| Erotica, sex talk (alternate conference name for desire.ind) | eros.ind | ||
| For players of Everquest | everquest.ind | ||
| Expatriates — strangers in a strange land | expat.ind | ||
| for discussion of the social networking site facebook.com | facebook.ind | ||
| The outlands of literature: SF, fantasy, speculative fiction | fant.ind | ||
| Conference for firearms and related subjects | firearms.ind | ||
| Two men enter, one man leaves | flame.ind | ||
| About flickr | flickr.ind | ||
| A conference about fotolog.net | fotolog.ind | ||
| ANYTHING goes. NO neurotic hosting, no bans, no scribbles ... | freefire.ind | ||
| Kellie's fun stuff, come visit! | fun.ind | ||
| A place to discuss the latest in consumer electronics and gadgetry | gadgets.ind | ||
| A show-by-show discussion of the Grateful Dead’s “Wall of Sound” year: 1974 | gd74.ind | ||
| Tips and talk about genealogy research | genealogy.ind | ||
| Land, sea, air, and distribution of life on the planet | geography.ind | ||
| A discussion of all things German | german.ind | ||
| Sassy place to discuss disability, get help, wail, crack jokes | gimp.ind | ||
| All about golf | golf.ind | ||
| Come and talk, vent, laugh, stress, scream, and inquire | gradschool.ind | ||
| Express gratitude and discuss the concept | gratitude.ind | ||
| Amateur radio on The WELL! | hamradio.ind | ||
| Do they matter? Are they meaningless? | hits.ind | ||
| A place to address sustainability at the human scale - at the level of the individual | homeplanet.ind | ||
| A place for stack developers, users, and other things Hypercardesque | hypercard.ind | ||
| Of things Irish/Celtic | irish.ind | ||
| Discussion about Islam with the writers of New Civilisation | islam.ind | ||
| Israel beyond the conflict: culture, cuisine, history, politics. | israel.ind | ||
| an independent conference for anyone with an interest in kids | kid.ind | ||
| Got rock? | krakhaus.ind | ||
| Say it loud! I'm left-handed and proud! | leftout.ind | ||
| A place to tell tall tales | lies.ind | ||
| Lists, catalogs, directories, indices, inventories, rosters, plans, rolls, logs, bibliographies, and schedules | lists.ind | ||
| The lost generation | lost.ind | ||
| Discussion of low-carb eating | lowcarb.ind | ||
| Pamphlets, periodicals, and publications | magazines.ind | ||
| Mastodon and the Fediverse | mastodon.ind | ||
| Hey, you Einsteins! Let's talk math. | math.ind | ||
| Metal working: welding, forging, cutting, etc. | metal.ind | ||
| Mobile computing: laptops, PDAs, remote access and the like | mobile.ind | ||
| All about money: financial planning, tax questions, best bank-vault tours. | money.ind | ||
| Monkey business, etc. | monkey.ind | ||
| F1 to IRL, Champ Cars to WRC, MotoGP to A1GP, it's all here! | motorsport.ind | ||
| The Well Muse - Online multi-user hangouts and interactive environments | musers.ind | ||
| Everything about networking you never wanted to know | networking.ind | ||
| Neurodiversity and the neurodivergent | neuro.ind | ||
| A place to discuss modern, now, a-go-go music | newmusic.ind | ||
| News around the nation and around the world | news.ind | ||
| This is the most pointless conference on The WELL | nihil.ind | ||
| A place for aspiring novelists to play | novelistas.ind | ||
| all about nutrition | nutrition.ind | ||
| Discussion of movies from the silents thru the '50s | oldmovies.ind | ||
| A place to discuss Open Source software and the OSS community | opensource.ind | ||
| A place to discuss the optical field | optical.ind | ||
| A place to talk about that magical land called Oz | oz.ind | ||
| Conference for pagan and neo-pagan chatter and discussion | pagan.ind | ||
| All about the perl programming language | perl.ind | ||
| Discussion of rap music and hip-hop culture | phat.ind | ||
| Podcasts: this is the place to discuss your favorites. | podcast.ind | ||
| For pond owners and lovers to compare notes and share information | pond.ind | ||
| Conference for the support of user-contributed software | public.ind | ||
| Quotes! Of all kinds ... | quotes.ind | ||
| Conversation with atheists, agnostics, and those with structured religious beliefs. | religion.ind | ||
| A discussion group to talk about retirement from planning to execution and everything in between. | retirement.ind | ||
| The peculiarities and pleasures of "country life." | rural.ind | ||
| Sacramento and the surrounding valley | sacto.ind | ||
| A home for those born from 10/23 - 11/23 | scorpio.ind | ||
| Like to play Scrabble? Word freak? Want to learn? | scrabble.ind | ||
| Let's go down! All about SCUBA diving, snorkeling, and so on. | scuba.ind | ||
| Security: computer, network and other, with a touch of freedom | security.ind | ||
| Life in the Big City | slicker.ind | ||
| The art of creating and managing the ultimate small business | solo.ind | ||
| A place to discuss anything in Spanish, or anything about the language and the people who speak it | spanish.ind | ||
| The world of startup companies | startup.ind | ||
| Texas related topics! | texas.ind | ||
| All things Star Trek | trek.ind | ||
| Started by Twitter users, now includes Blue Sky, Post, Spoutable et al | twitter.ind | ||
| UFORUM — a conference devoted to UFOlogy, and related topics | uforum.ind | ||
| A supportive place for discussion of issues that affect minority peoples | unity.ind | ||
| All about Visual Basic programming | vb.ind | ||
| Discussions and support of vegetarian living | veggie.ind | ||
| A gathering place for military veterans, families, and friends | veterans.ind | ||
| Everybody loves to talk about the weather! | weather.ind | ||
| Technical discussions of WWW servers | webservers.ind | ||
| Discussion of weight lifting and bodybuilding | weights.ind | ||
| weird.ind (limited) | weird.ind | request entry | |
| A conference to talk about, learn and love WINE! | wine.ind | ||
| Discussion of successful ways writers have landed assignments | writersmkt.ind | ||
| Historical events on this day, arbitrarily and capriciously selected | year.ind |