Why would anyone make a system whose main qualifiers are that it's big (okay) and boring (uuh)?
Why would anyone participate in it?
I don't know either.
What I do know is that my esteemed colleague and evil genius experimenter on all things communication on the Internet, Edna Piranha, made a new "social network" called Big Boring System.
I'm using the term "social network" with quotes, as there are no "friends" or connections, but there's chat, and replies, but no "likes", and all of that is very refreshing and fun to play with. With all those "table stakes" features (that's debatable, as you'll find out if you try it for yourself) missing, it leaves room for some actual engagement with the content of people's writing rather than mindless consumption of unimaginative click bait.
I won't go into details on how exactly it works. Over on Vice's Motherboard Blog there's a nice little article doing that much better than I could.
I've been writing a few things over there, in plain monospaced text and without flashy distractions. That was surprisingly easy because I don't have to worry about images and such, or even noteworthiness of content. Along with the nice little "BBS" community, that has made it very fun so far.
I'm going to repost the most shareable/noteworthy BBS posts of mine here on my blog (tagged with "bbs", naturally), for posterity and in case BBS goes away someday.
Which it might.
And that'll be okay.