I don't think it's been a thing for years and if you ask me, it stopped being a thing when the old Sequent Symmetry went. Not only non-root users could wall, remote users could wall. A smaller, sillier internet.
It's good to see that the CSUA encyclopedia still exists somewhere, even if it's not hosted on soda anymore: https://www.erzo.org/shannon/writing/csua/encyclopedia.html I had the good fortune to meet and work with the primary author at a small games company called Skotos Tech during my later undergraduate years.
The t-shirts used to be a good way to run into strangers IRL who would inform you that they too partied with Nick Weaver.
I agree that shell accounts weren’t as important by the aughts, but the culture was still going strong in the early aughts.