> What is it with people on this list?
If you've been on the internet before AOL opened the floodnets to abUseNet,
you'll understand the phrase 'Endless September'. If not, then I'll go
throught it for you (there's nothing else to this email, so 01D 5K00lRz
who know what 'Endless September' means and why netiquette-flaunting
newbies encounter such a touchy response can feel free to press [D]elete)
In the pre-AOL days, UseNet News was a fairly orderly online community.
Some newsgroups were moderated, but most were not. There were no
spammers (before Cantor and Seigel), and very few people violated the
basic rules. Those that did were privately educated on them via email.
The basic rules were reasonable - no spam, no commerce, crosspost only
when absolutely necessary, and NO ALL CAPZ or b1ff15Mz. Every September,
college freshmen would show their inexperience by breaking these rules,
and every September, abUseNet oldtimers would politely but firmly (and
privately) educate the newbies.
And the newbies would agree to abide by the rules. After all, it's
a community.
Then AOL did the unthinkable - it bridged it's then-proprietary network
and abUseNet, and hordes and hordes and endless hordes of clueless,
arrogant, "I'm paying $14.95 a month and I can do as I please" fscking
click-n-drool walking vats of protoplasm from unchlorinated swamp claiming
to be some distant relative of the gene pool swarmed onto abUseNet.
It was like September, 13 months a year. We tried to resist, tried to
impart clue. I lost count of how many cluebats I went through that year.
Polite emails didn't help. FAQ posting by the megabyte didn't faze them.
Flames they ate and spat back (completely quoted, with their lame rejoinder,
"Your mother!" posted at the end, resulting in an 80:1 quote:text ratio).
Newsgroup after newsgroup fell to this unending horde of dumbness. Even
the last dim lights of hopes, the moderated newsgroups, cast aside fewer
and fewer of the dark demons of Duh!, as one moderator after another just
set their newsgroup to auto-moderate (basically, pass everything).
It's the tragedy of the commons. (ironically, the best link for this is
hosted off AOL: http://members.aol.com/trajcom/private/trajcom.htm) And
in the end, abUseNet, the bulletin board to end all bulletin boards, lay
crushed under Make Money Fast, and XXX Here, and Green Cards and Spam.
And you wonder why I react this way?
tim