Mensa Online

Web Sites

    Mensa web sites are open to anybody. (Most also have members-only areas.)

    Our neighboring Local Groups all have web sites:

    to the Southwest:  Central New Jersey Mensa  www.cnj.us.mensa.org

    to the West:  Northern New Jersey Mensa  www.nnjmensa.org

    to the North:  Mid-Hudson Mensa  www.mid-hudson.us.mensa.org

    to the Northeast:  Connecticut and Western Massachusetts Mensa  www.cwm.us.mensa.org

    to the East:  Southern Connecticut Mensa  http://scm66.org

    Greater New York Mensa is part of American Mensa's Northeast Region 1.

    There are Local Groups across the country.

    Our National Group is American Mensa. There are national SIGs and other resources.

    There are National Groups around the world. British Mensa

    American Mensa is part of Mensa International

Online communities / discussions / forums / newsgroups /

Official American Mensa online community: www.community.us.mensa.org

The following forums are unofficial and open to the public, even if they have Mensa in the name. The people involved may or may not be Mensans.

Newsgroups on Usenet -- Newsgroups generally require newsreader software, although echoes for some newsgroups are available on the web. Perhaps the best known Mensa newsgroup is called rec.org.mensa (or via Google Groups at http://groups.google.com/group/rec.org.mensa ). Known for its spirited conversations, although it often seems that few Mensans visit there. Another set of newsgroups is called the Mensa Hierarchy or "the Mensa Newsgroups" (via Google Groups at http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?sel=33582908 ), the most popular of which is called mensa.talk.misc ( http://groups.google.com/group/mensa.talk.misc ).

For people in the UK and Germany, there are also uk.org.mensa ( http://groups.google.com/group/uk.org.mensa ) and de.org.mensa . ( http://groups.google.com/group/de.org.mensa )

Other Mensa groups can be found by searching. (Google indexes Usenet groups and Google-hosted groups together. http://groups-beta.google.com/groups/dir?q=mensa .)

One of the few remaining "premium Usenet services" (paid) is NewsGuy.com . (Is this still of interest?)

For-M "Unmoderated discussion list for members of Mensa and friends of Mensa. Subject matter is unrestricted, including topics such as pets, recipe sharing, and lively political debate. Suggested age 17 and up." An e-mail list for Mensa members who want to chat about any and every topic. It is like a newsgroup but with no crossposting (which ruins a lot of groups). You just receive messages in your mailbox. If you'd like to talk to other Mensans, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/For-M (formerly hosted on ONElist, and then eGroups) and subscribe to For-M. (Free.)

For many years there was a Mensa Forum on CompuServe. In 2006, American Mensa dropped its sponsorship of the Mensa Forum on CompuServe. However, it continues as The Intelligence Forum. http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?nav=start&webtag=ws-intel

Chat:

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) -- The IRC server "Undernet" hosts an active #mensa channel. (Search for #mensa IRC channels)
(EFnet used to host a #mensa channel. www.efnet-mensa.org is stale but has some logs from 2000.)

Over the years, there have been many places where Mensans could be found online. Some have come and gone with changes in technology and people's interest. Several historical on-line resources:

Address Lists -- The American Mensa Email Directory SIG (was at http://www.chicago.us.mensa.org ) maintains a large list of Mensan email addresses. You can email this group at emailsig@chicago.us.mensa.org. The list is for the exclusive non-commercial use of Mensa members only. No distribution of the list may be made outside of Mensa.

There was also an International Mensan Email Address List in the Global Mensa Directory on the British Mensa website.

There was an e-mail mailing list called M-Talk.

Before the modern Internet, several Mensa chapters and individual Mensans operated BBSes (Bulletin Board Systems). Some carried relayed messages and forums using FidoNet and RelayNet International Message Exchange (RIME). Most have been copied onto the WorldWide Web, closed down, or both.

If you haven't found what you are looking for, you can also try an Internet search engine, such as Google and Yahoo! (below). The Global Mensa Directory on the British Mensa website is also very extensive.

(opens in new window) Search WWW   Search www.gnym.us.mensa.org