i miss w
But there was something special about ‘w’ for me. In those days of shared servers I would auto-run a shell script that would parse ‘w’ and highlight my friends and see what they were up to and if they were available to talk. If they were in Pine of course you wouldn’t bug them, but if they were just idle in a shell or working on homework, they were probably up for talking or helping you find some new wares site or want to meet up for a slice of pizza.
I still think there’s something else you can do with status. I just haven’t figured it out yet.