There's a great timeline of general events on the current WELL website but all it states is

One year after the opening of The WELL, the Grateful Dead conference is started. The already-extant community of Deadheads finds a virtual home on the WELL and gives the WELL a financial and cultural boost.

Given John Perry Barlow (the Grateful Dead lyricist, and founder of the EFF) founded the EFF on the WELL in July 1990, as well as the history of audio and recording technology developments that occurred in and through the Grateful Dead scene, I'm guessing there's a story to be told about the GD "conference" (the WELL equivalent of sub-reddits as far as I gather). And given the body of scholarly work on the Grateful Dead, I'm hoping that somebody has documented this little chapter as well?