An Appeal to the Hive Mind (Ironically Enough)

Attention conservation notice: Asking for help finding something that you don't know about, that you don't care about, and that a bad memory might have just confabulated.

I have a vivid memory of reading, in the 1990s, an online discussion (maybe just two people, maybe as many as four) about what online fora, search engines, the Web, "agents", etc., were doing to the way people acquire and use knowledge, and indeed to what we mean by "knowledge". My very strong impression is that one of the participants was linked somehow with the MIT Media Lab, and taking a very strong social-constructionist line (unsurprisingly, given that affiliation). At some point the discussion turned to her experiences with an online forum related to a hobby of hers (tropical fish? terraria?). The person I'm thinking of said something like, the consensus of that forum just were knowledge about \$HOBBY. One of her interlocutors made an objection on the order of, why do you trust those random people on the Internet to have any idea what they're talking about? To which the reply was, basically, come on, who'd just make stuff up about \$HOBBY?

I have (genuinely!) thought of this exchange often in the 20-plus years since I read it. But when I recently tried to find it again, to check my memory and to cite it in a work-in-glacial-progress, I've been unable to locate it. (The fact that I don't recall any names of the participants, or the venue, doesn't help.) I am prepared to learn that, because this is something I've thought of often, my mind has re-shaped it into a memorable anecdote, but I'd still like to see what this started from. Any leads readers could provide would be appreciated.

Actually, "Dr. Internet" Is the Name of the Monster's Creator; The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts