I finally decided to hang out on TalkBass after having spent a lot of time in alt.guitar.bass. I have a website with some practical information for bass players at
www.azwebpages.com/bass. I get a lot of positive feedback on my article about compression - an often misunderstood effect. I recently put together some pages with links to over 100 companies making basses and bass related gear.
I'm looking forward to lurking for a while, then jumping in with both feet.