net.legends FAQ
Noticeable Phenomena Of UseNet
Part 2/4
Archive-name: net-legends-faq/part2
Posting-Frequency: Every 73 days
Last-modified: 9/13/94
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Dick Depew (ARMM! ARMM!! ARMM!!!):
Long-lost twin brother of the intelligent and articulate Ray Depew,
who's not paying me one cent for those adjectives (AFU Official
Ex-Executioner: *no* smileys!). Showed up first in the sci.*
hierarchy, later became most common on news.* . Interestingly
enough, as near as I can tell, the original set of cancels that he
did affected exactly *two* posts - both of which had dared to come
from anon.penet.fi in the sci.* hierarchy... much to his surprise,
something of a furor arose over these, which was prolonged
unmercifully by his defense of his actions. Notable chiefly for his
long and vocal insistence that his plan (ARMM) for moderation by
forge-cancellation of people's posts (RetroModeration, or RM),
possibly without their permission, is a valid, necessary, and
logical addition to UseNet. Version one malfunctioned when tested
(3/30/93), causing a massive newspost/cancel loop (it was cancelling
its own cancels, as near as I can make out) which caused general
hysterical laughter from those who knew what was going on, as well
as the usual predictions of the imminent death of UseNet
(q.v.). Briefly espoused a "tit-for-two-tats" version. As it turns
out, the net is actually threatened in various manners by several
different things (not the least of which is its own ever-increasing
growth), but anonymous postings and/or the accountability thereof
generally are not among the subjects people post "Death of Usenet
predicted" (q.v.) messages about these days...
Joel Furr (q.v.) newgrouped alt.fan.dick-depew (which is *not*
retromoderated by Dick, despite frequent claims by him to the
contrary...). Dick was helpful in cancelling, for instance, the
rec.arts.sf.starwars 16+Megabyte UseNet "burp", which tied up
traffic for half a day in 12/93, and more recently the mustang.com
repost spew on news.groups and alt.config. He has also offered for
public consumption his spam-auto-cancel scripts (talk to him for
details) since the advent of Canter & Siegel...
Also notable for his theory that off-charter postings are uncivil
and therefore deserve to be "moderated" out of existence. Uses the
term "supersedes" instead of "cancels" to refer to his scheme,
generally. Has had trouble in the past making his plans conform to
RFCs -822 and -1036. "Now he lives off his new-found fame, kibozing
the Net for `ARMM' and revelling in immortality by monumental
error." More info is available in the Anonymity On The Internet FAQ
(which, oddly enough, is by a pre-legendary-status L. Detweiler
(q.v.)...). Also the proponent of "Newsgroup Democracy", an
interesting concept he regards as semi-integral to RM (but which
others, sadly, regard as a separate item - if ND *were* inseparable
from RM, objections to the latter would be far fewer).
Had a medium-size heart attack in 1/94, but (against doctor's orders
to not do anything stressful) returned to net.debate soon after; it
seems not to have had adverse effects though, thankfully. Newgrouped
alt.retromod in 3/94 after a perfunctory proposal (not involving ND)
on alt.config and has taken to mostly posting (and "admonishing" and
"rejecting") there. Claims to currently be figuring out a
revolutionary new Message-Id: scheme for HappyNet... and is
gleefully awaiting the return of Canter & Siegel to UseNet...
Contrib. post:
# > P.S. are you considering taking on the task of ARMM archivist?
# No, Dick, I'm not. I'm actually still of the opinion that you're a
# dangerous loon who should be locked up in a small steel box and put
# in a room with Tim Pierce.
#
# P.S. ARMM!
--
Posts from red@redpoll.mrfs.oh.us (Richard E. Depew).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* John Palmer (Another FORGERY!!!; I'm outa here for good and this group is toast):
Has his own alt.fan. group. And his own FAQ (which nobody can
apparently locate at the moment). Associated off and on with
Rabbit.Net (currently up); names his computers after the
Thundercats. Perenially in trouble with Michigan net-routing people
for forging map address entries for tygra. Has his own stable of
virtual lawyers, constantly on the go (which can be seen only by the
pure of heart), at least one of whom is named Mr. Stechschulte; has
his own special epithet ("asshole") [note: he uses it about others,
not vice-versa - just to be clear here...]. Is the victim of many,
many forged postings doing nasty things with rmgroups and newgroups,
all of which are shrouded in mysterious circumstances, and all of
which were confirmed at first by other forged postings purporting to
be from him. He's never (curiously) taken advantage of PGP to verify
which of these postings are actually from him...
His last widely-known exploit resulted in the twilight existence of
alt.tv.tiny-toon.sex, against determined rmgrouping by other admins
(who were chiefly incensed because John's "discussion" seemed to
have taken place on an other-dimensional net)... Currently has
reappeared, claiming never to have left or been "no longer employed
by" RabbitNet after all, and started up an automatic repeated
rmgrouping of alt.fan.john-palmer, which in consequence has gotten a
lot *busier* (maybe he should be newgrouping it instead?) Gave up on
that after a while. Is now apparently running an anonymous-remailer
service off tygra which Vitaca Milut (q.v.), among others, is
using. Ask on a.f.j-p about the "Mortimer Bomb"... Newgroups for
about six rabbit.*- hierarchy groups, including rabbit.config and
rabbit.q-and-a, showed up in 9/94; questions about RabbitNet
probably belong on the latter... Posts from uuhare@rabbit.net and
@tygra.com, among (many) others.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Bruce Becker:
Sysadmin reportedly somewhere in Canada who takes many rmgroups for
alt.* that reach his site, forges them (under assumed names) into
newgroups for the same groups, and sends them out again, ensuring
the effective immortality of anything in the alt.* hierarchy.
Widely cordially disliked, and partly responsible (with his
imitators) for many of the unused newsgroups that infest alt.* to
this day. His newgroups are recognizable from the invariable
...!feline!halt!... in their path somewhere. Reported to have been
responsible for the whole series of "Copyright violations"
description lines in the alt.binaries.pictures.* groups... Was
absent between October 1993 and March 1994; no such forged newgroups
were reported during that time, except for one in 1/94 (for
alt.binaries.games.vga-planets) which was rather more clueless than
usual Becker forges, and was probably from an imitator...
GTS.ORG is a site registered to Bruce Becker in Toronto, along with
several others according to rs.internic.net, and visitors to the
city have said that there is a Bruce Becker in the phone book
there... is this the real Bruce? Who knows? Posts, occasionally, a
list of the alt newsgroups he considers to be non-bogus from
news@gts.org to alt.config/alt.answers/news.groups/
news.admin.misc/"alt.newgroup". May also be bdb@gts.org; if anybody
knows a consistent email address for Bruce, let us know...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Laurence Godfrey:
Found on soc.culture.canada and soc.culture.british.
Contrib. post:
# For the uniniated, Laurence Godfrey is a british scientist who
# worked in Canada until he quit after a dispute with his boss (he is
# currently suing his former employers). Since that time, Godfrey has
# taken to posting on soc.culture.canada with insulting comments about
# Canada and canadians in general. Needless to say, he has generated a
# lot of flames.
#
# A few months back, several people posted comments to the effect that
# he was fired from his canadian job. "Libel!" cried Godfrey!
# Surprisingly, as of about a week ago (12/93), Godfrey claimed to
# have won out of court settlements from the academic institutions
# that these people attended. In the last few days, the thread has
# spiralled out of control - people doubting his claim (particularly
# the aspect of suing people in Canada from a British court) have
# called him a liar. His response to these people has been along the
# lines of: you'd better be careful what you say or: I am taking the
# necessary steps to deal with this person - basically implying that
# he will take legal action. A popular reply to this has been that
# Godfrey is purposely attracting "libelous" flames in order to make a
# quick buck.
--
# He vehemently loathes Canada and anything Canadian. Or German. But
# he's not racist (he married a Thai [note: Filipino, actually]); he
# came to hate most foreigners after a great deal of thought. He also
# loves suing, and is perpetually threatening to sue for libel over
# the net. Look for his posts in soc.culture.british (or don't), and
# there was even at least one issue of the Godfrey Gazette containing
# some of his more xenophobic comments.
#
# > this might sound like a rather minor net.loon...
#
# Well, apart from his disturbing ability to capitalize correctly
# (they're the most dangerous ones), he does have all the correct
# attributes.
--
# John Palmer (q.v.) has a stable of virtual lawyers, but this appears
# to be looniness of an entirely different order... Has been fairly
# quiet about the legal threats since 12/93; claims to have served
# someone with a High Writ just before Xmas. But wait -
#
# Contrib. Newsflash:
#
# From "RISKS DIGEST 16.06" (usenet group comp.risks):
#
# > In the first case of its kind in the UK, Canadian academic Dr
# > Laurence Godfrey [^^^^^^^^ oh boy,
# > RISKS DIGEST is about
# > to get sued for libel!!]
# > issued a libel writ in London against another academic based in
# > Geneva claiming he was defamed by a bulletin board message posted on
# > the Usenet system. If the claim succeeds, hosts and users could soon
# > be contemplating sizeble pay-outs.
#
# I'm not wrong, "Phil Hallam-Baker" is the "academic based in Geneva"
# that Godfrey has the libel writ against. Personally, I regard
# Hallam-Baker as one of the "single issue" ax-grinders that make
# Usenet such an inter- esting place. He seems to regard DEC (the
# corporation) and VMS (the operating system) as some sort of holy
# things.
--
Posts from s0lg@exnet.com (L Godfrey).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* David Sternlight:
Contrib. post:
# I second. David is one of the insidious ones, because he can spell
# and write. But he's terribly dishonest (or a GREAT troller). Every
# now and then, someone will post something saying "I don't always
# agree with David [who does?], but his posts always seem to make
# sense". I suspect they either don't understand the subject matter,
# they don't like flames (get off usenet NOW), or they're just loony
# lurkers.
--
# David would need to be added based in his lifetime of work, not a
# single rant (although I could probably dig one up if I needed). This
# contrasts with the Dan Gannon ilk whose every sentence screams "I'M
# A LOON!". David has been kind enough to keep from proliferating too
# far across the net. He tends to stick to the crypto groups and has
# what I would call a sick obsession with other people using pgp (he
# doesn't like it).
--
# There's David Sternlight, who seems to get his jollies by presenting
# his own agenda while ripping up or dismissing out of hand everyone
# _else's_ positions on topics in comp.org.eff.talk, then getting bent
# out of shape when people start slapping him down, so he declares
# that he's making his last post to this group, so any snappy
# comebacks are pointless because he won't see them -- and then begins
# posting again within a week. I think he's up to his third or fourth
# "I'm leaving this newsgroup forever" message now, and there was
# another posting from him this morning in comp.org.eff.talk.
--
# Clearly your counting abilities are not very well; you have lost count ;-).
--
[He is widely believed on those groups to be working for the
government, and trying to encourage use of the Clipper encryption
chip, and to discourage PGP (because the US govt. can't break it);
he is (or was, in 1989) a member of the gov't's Council on Foreign
Relations...]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Pat Townson (UseNet is a cesspool, a dungheap):
Moderator of comp.dcom.telecom, alias the Telecom Mailing
List/Digest (gatewayed). Known mainly for his commentary added,
seemingly at random, to the ends of posts - that is, up until John
Higdon, and others, proposed another, unmoderated, telecom group, to
be called comp.dcom.telecom.tech; got *way* over-worked-up on this
issue. Had a personal vendetta against Higdon - accused him of owing
him thousands of $, wrecking his net.livelihood, etc. The first vote
failed; much of the blame for this was laid at Pat's feet for
allowing only negative commentary (except for one special issue of
the Digest [which {I disrecall} may actually have only appeared
*after* the first vote]) to appear in the group and for sending out
a special mailing, to the list, urging people to vote against the
group's creation on rather specious grounds. Negative votes poured
in from list people - but only *after* said mailing. The vote failed
the 2/3-YES test (but not the >100 test).
The allegations of irregularity finally moved tale (q.v.) to waive
the normal six-month waiting period. The second vote was marked by
even *more* of a flamewar (although not up to the standards of the
soc.culture.tibet/ talk.politics.tibet flamewar which had just
ended, and of less volume than the rec.food.veg "discussion") in
news.groups, and passed resoundingly; shortly after, Pat made some
final scathing comments in news.groups (including a threat to start
a group sounding remarkably like this present FAQ) and cut off the
gatewaying of the mailing list to UseNet. Has since restarted the
Digest's feed (*possibly* motivated by Joel Furr's (q.v.) generous
offer to take over the moderation of c.d.t); all has been relatively
quiet since 12/93...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel J. Karnes (None of you guys have phased me even for a minute):
In the same tradition as Fordyce/Kaldis/The Bard; seen periodically
on a.p.h, attempting to ridicule arguments against bigotry and
usually winding up showing how little he knows on the subject. His
sig read at one point "Infinitely inconclusive", which many people
think applies to his usual "arguments" quite well. Has missed,
somehow, learning that quantity of posting does not correlate with
quality thereof. One of his aliases may (or may not) be "Artimus
Page", who posts radical-right anti-homosexual tracts from time to
time from a (bogus) address at Yale, claims to have a "cure" for
homosexuality and a clinic at which it's implemented, and who seems
to be present only when Dan is on-net... many people argue against
this on the grounds that Dan couldn't keep from wisecracks long
enough to post "Artimus Page"'s tracts (which isn't true, as Dan
*can* write well when he bothers to make the effort - see below),
and that "Artimus" never responded directly to people...
Netcom knows about Dan, is watching to see if he oversteps himself,
and has had at least one little chat with him about harassment of
other netizens... Also seen on the other gay groups; gets shunned
on soc.motss, and leaves quickly because of it. Apparently in it
solely for the attention he gets from gay people, which makes one
wonder severely... Has claimed outright to kiboze, apparently for
his name and/or initials in various forms (which is why certain
groups warn new people "don't say That Name again, please, or he'll
show up and we'll all have to start up our killfiles again"); has
also claimed to rarely call people names. Also seen frequently on
ca.earthquakes, where he reportedly has something of a reputation as
well. Has been laughed out of alt.flame at least once by the master
flamers residing there; has been taken against by "Andrew Beckwith"
(q.v.). Once (shortly after his first wife packed herself up in
their brown Ford Taurus station wagon and left him) forged a post to
news.announce.important asking that anybody who saw her get in touch
with him; I suppose it *was* important to him...
--
Contrib. post:
# Strikingly, no one that I've noticed has nominated Daniel J. Karnes
# as a net.butterfly (in the sense of "small thing one wishes were
# easily torn apart", perhaps). Maybe it's because he's been away.
# But he's back. Here's an extract from one of his recent posts,
# detailing his own assessments of his accomplishments last time
# around...
#
# > Actually, I "accomplished" quite a lot... Thus:
# >
# > 1) I got two hundred queers to go buy Bibles - and READ them.
# >
# > 2) I exposed the little "nice guy" facades that you guys put on as
# > the bullshit those of us with thinking minds know them to be.
# >
# > 3) I demonstrated the mental illness rampant in gay circles by
# > facilitating situations in which some really sick people dropped
# > their guards and demonstrated symptoms of their sickness
# > publicly.
# >
# > 4) I exposed dozens of pedophilic gays for what they were by their
# > own admissions.
# >
# > 5) I thoroughly enjoyed myself. :)
--
# > >> Artimus Page is always good for a laugh. He claims to have a `cure'
# > >> for homosexuality.
# > >
# > > Artimus Page is Dan Karnes under a very thin disguise... therefore
# > > he's already got.
#
# > This was widely claimed, but never decisively proved, as far as I
# > know. The Path lines weren't even similar. I think Artimus deserves
# > (?) separate mention, maybe in the Karnes section. Artimus
# > definitely had a very different rant from the typical Karnes style;
# > Artimus also never responded directly to anyone, as Karnes did all
# > the time (albeit incredibly ineffectually).
# >
--
# For what it's worth, every Artimus Page article that anyone bothered
# to track down was forged from the same out-of-the-way terminal
# server from which DJK has been seen to log in.
--
# Does Dan's entry include his rather, err, uh, unusual theories about
# earthquakes? He believes that earthquakes "like" to happen at 4:34 a.m.
--
Danny has taken against this FAQ entry for some reason, and has
threatened to borrow John Palmer's virtual lawyers, saying it's
"slanderous" (hint: look up slander sometime) and defames his
reputation, without actually ever giving any details to ye olde
FAQ-writer on *why* he thinks this or what exactly he doesn't like,
and going so far as to bother yoF-w's sysadmins and Department Heads
and Deans (sheesh!) about it; his version of what it ought to read
like is as follows (note that this by itself doesn't really tell one
why he's widely known on UseNet, or most of the interesting
details):
-----begin Karnes-----
The problem I have with my entry in this "FAQ" is that most of it is
simply just not true, and the rest is nothing but propaganda from
the net.queer element that reeks up certain parts of USENET.
Reading this, I find that almost all of it conforms nicely to the
"model" that net.queers try to paste on anyone that opposes them,
but very little of it is based on fact. (quite typical of
homosexuals)
Please remove my entry from your FAQ - or allow it to be revised so
that more TRUTH is presented.
Like this:
------------------------------------
Daniel J. Karnes
Or "djk" as he is known on computer systems around the world has
been a part of the internet since it's early days. At first, he was
confined to posting to "relative" newsgroups and sending private
email through a numbered account in a large corporate machine. Djk
found true freedom when he was one of the first users on one of the
first commercial public access UNIX systems when the internet was
opened up to non-governmental or academic users in the early 1990's.
Djk works in the telecommunications industry as an engineer and
manager, and possesses a rare blend of hardware and software skills
that make him a technical power to be reckoned with.
Early in his net.carreer, djk noticed a strong homosexual element
present on the net, and being a member of a very large Traditional
Values group, decided to watch them closely. It did not take much
time for djk to become outraged by the activities of net.queers who
seemed to think that the net was their own private playground. Djk
began his very controversial postings to the gay groups as an effort
to undermine the efforts of net.queers who were operating with
gang-like organization against anyone who opposed them. Djk can
stand firm against hundreds of opponents and his name strikes fear
into the hearts of most homosexuals on the net.
djk posts as djk@netcom.com and operates TASP.NET as a private
access UNIX system from his home.
------------------------------------
There! Now THAT is more accurate!
-djk
-----end Karnes-----
I might add that, contrary to his usual one-liner posting style, Dan
*can* compose long rational pieces of prose like the above, given
time, but apparently does not think it worth the effort to do so in
almost all of his UseNet posts. A minifaq is also available with
some interesting Dan posts and email, to/from myself and
sysadmins. In 5/93, came in 13th in the "most evil
net.personalities" vote on alt.evil. Posts as
djk@(TASP.uucp.)netcom.com (email: djk@bandor.tasp.net) (Daniel J.
Karnes).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Not all of the net.legends are people - or even human.
Therefore, viola (tm):
3.0 Stupid Net Tricks:
======================
* Dave Rhodes and MAKE.MONEY.FAST:
In every Paradise there is at least one fatal flaw. In every mail
system, there is sooner or later a chain letter. UseNet, luckily,
seems to have been adopted by only one such - but it pops up in more
places and faster than kudzu, and is about as hard to kill
completely. Actually, nobody currently knows much about Dave Rhodes
(but see below) - except that he wrote the template for the first
MAKE.MONEY.FAST pyramid scheme. His name and address have long
since fallen off the top of any of the current copies... There is
something of a miniFAQ available on this post.
Advice to new netters panting to try it out and make $50,000 in an
afternoon: I can tell you right now what you're gonna get - an
extremely full emailbox, a ticked-off sysadmin (because your
emailbox is full of letter bombs from irate UseNetters who snapped
at seeing this cr*p in their newsgroups for the fifth time in two
weeks, and because several thousand *un*snapped-as-yet UseNetters
email her directly saying "Talk to this kid; it's illegal, a waste
of time, and annoying), and a rapidly-vanishing UseNet access (wave
bye-bye to it for a looooong time, if you're not lucky...)." The
letter itself says it's legal, you say? It's lying; it's known as a
Ponzi or pyramid scheme, and is wire fraud for *sending* the letter,
*and* postal fraud for receiving any of the money thru the U.S. Mail
(can you say Federal Case, boys'n'girls?)...
And you *have* to leave a trail directly to yourself, name and
address - or else it *can't* work (hee hee)... Save yourself the
grief: just say NO to Dave.Rhodes . Recently voted number one on
list of people *every* UseNetter would like to see die an
excruciatingly slow and painful death. If we're lucky, it does not
get posted at all (for a day or two).
Contrib. post:
# Dave Rhodes was a student at Columbia Union College in Takoma Park,
# MD. This is a Seventh Day Adventist college. The posting machine
# was !cucstud, aka Columbia Union College, Student. It passed news
# upstream to uunet. Cucstud was a 3B2, and there were two or three
# more. Note this predated the widespread usage of the pseudodomain of
# { }.UUCP, and I don't recall if the site was ever so named.
#
# Needless to say, Leroy Cain, the sysadm, was not amused. This
# posting was made in 1987-1988, sometime just after the infamous
# jj@portal one, and his incoming mail queue was impressive.
#
# I do not know if Leroy took the matter to the Dean of Students, but
# do know he posted an apology, and ensured that Dave would not be
# doing that again, at least at THAT site.
#
# As for why I had an account on cucstud, and knew Leroy, when my only
# connection was that I caught a bus to work in front of the place
# every morning; that's a different story........
--
# I like what Dogbert had to say about chain letters:
# "Don't you think that for your first crime you shouldn't attach your
# name and address and mail it to several thousand strangers?"
--
[Evidence has since turned up that the Dave Rhodes letter has been
circulating, in snail-mail form, long before that fateful day in
1987 or 1988... ah well...]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* alt.adjective.noun.verb.verb.verb:
Alt.* ... is a sewer. Thanks to Bruce Becker (q.v.) and others like
him, there are literally thousands of odd, little-known,
poorly-propagated alt.* groups, many or most newgrouped as a whim of
someone's. The canonical first on the list in this category (and the
most widely (?) respected) is alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork
(newgrouped by Jeff Vogel, with Distribution: mudd and
surprising-to-him results), for speaking in Mock Swedish and
discussing chickee recipees. This spawned, thru the intervention of
Shub-Internet (q.v.), alt.tv.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die,
alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die, sci.edward.teller.boom.boom.boom,
alt.lawyers.sue.sue.sue, alt.minsky.meme.meme.meme,
alt.music.enya.puke.puke.puke (and of course the infamous
alt.music.enya.puke.puke.pukeSender:, missing <return> and
all) as well as alt.ted.frank.troll.troll.troll ... all of which are
effectively immortal.
INN apparently now has a "kill-the-chefs" option which sends
newsgroups of the form alt.foo.bar.baz.baz.baz to the
bitbucket... Also infamous: .cabal, from approximately mid-'93,
which broke news software far and wide (due to no-one having
imagined anyone would create a newsgroup starting with "."...), and
is *still* causing problems among some xrn users... The moral of the
story? First: read *all* the newsgroup description lines. Then: read
the alt.config FAQ. Only after *that* should you even *think* of
discussing a new alt.* group (on alt.config, of course).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* "Can you take a moment to fill out this survey?"/"Do my homework for
me, mister man?"/"Please email me, as I don't read this group":
This sort of stuff recurs quite frequently, and is usually a result
of low familiarity with UseNet. Try not to do it yourself. Surveys
actually do have a place - but not the ones that seem to think
they're doing you a favor by letting you contribute to their
Important Research... "Please email me, as I *can't* read this
group", on the other hand, is quite acceptable, as is "Please email
me; I'll post a summary of the responses". Thinly-disguised
attempts to get others to do your research paper or algebra homework
are Right Out, thanks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* "Will you icky queers kindly take your
pictures/GIFs/discussions/proposals OUT of our nice shiny clean
newsgroup!":
Sigh. There will always be people who have *no* idea that ideas
different from theirs exist - until they get to UseNet, where
*anyone* can speak up at *any* time. Quote: "It's UseNet, get used
to it." Prevalent on the erotica and sex groups; usually seen
proposing that the group be *split* into sections - what a
*marvelous* idea - why hasn't *anyone* ever thought of it before?
Tend to leave quickly, under the dark cloud produced by the
flames. Canonical recent example: stx1606 (q.v.).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Clueless newbies:
Everyone has been a newcomer at one point or another. Thus the term
"newbie". It's not derogatory, and it's an easily-curable condition
- for most people. The rest tend to become known as "clueless
newbies". The only known treatment for such is repeated
force-feeding of clues. Sometimes even this doesn't work... If
someone *does* give you advice on the net, it *never* hurts to think
about it for a second, nor does it ever hurt to think before
following up to a post. Canonical example: the alt.christnet (q.v.)
fiasco. And remember, all you newbie-flamers out there - you too
once knew nothing whatsoever about this mysterious thing called
UseNet.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Death of UseNet/Internet predicted:
People panic easily, it seems; any time there's a new development
leading to expansion of the net, someone's sure to bring up its
humble origins and the fact that it was never designed in the first
place to be *anything* like what it's grown into today. This
invariably leads to someone else predicting "imminent death of
UseNet; film/GIFs/JPEGs/animated ASCII art/SIRDS/ Claymation/etc. at
11" (old news joke; Brad Templeton (q.v.) claims the original
formulation of "Imminent death of the net predicted" - I don't know
who first added "<medium> at 11"...). Basically, it's gonna
take a *lot* of shit to break the net, as it is today (even Dick
Depew (q.v.) didn't manage it (yet...)), although it can be
staggered some, or slowed down for a bit... meanwhile, it keeps
right on growing, and the next crisis is always Just Around the
Corner (tm). The net *was*, after all, designed to keep functioning
after an all-out nuclear war... and though some of the flamefests
have approached this level, none have quite managed to destroy it
yet.
Anyway, "Imminent Death of the Net predicted, <medium> at 11"
is a long-running net.joke, applicable to Internet as well as
Usenet, and is in fact the unofficial Motto of news.admin.misc
(where the net.crises are posted about and debated endlessly - until
the next net.crisis shoves them aside).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* .sig viruses:
First there were .sigs; next, the Warlord (q.v.); then came .sig
viruses. The simplest (and probably first) was "Hi, I'm a .sig
virus; copy me into yours and join the fun!". This, rather
predictably, mutated into dozens of non-compatible versions; most
.sigs can only hold one or so (Kibo's is, as usual, an exception; a
1000-plus-line .sig has room for *everything*!).
A particularly strange turn was taken on a.f.u in late 1993, when
Vicki Robinson, relative newbie, innocently proclaimed "But I'm not
in anyone's .sig". A.f.u being what it is, this appeared in someone
else's .sig almost immediately, (Jason R. Heimbaugh claims this
distinction, and is keeping both the .sig collection and the FAQ)
and quickly spread to cover nearly the entire a.f.u community of
posters; it has been sighted as far away as news.*. There is a
Vicki Robinson sig-virus FAQ; refer to it for more details on
chronology, varieties (this .sig virus mutates MUCH faster than
normal), etc. Vicki's own .sig now contains mentions of her .sig
virus in other people's .sigs (a meta-virus)... "welcome to
afu. Here's your accordion" sums it up best, I guess. A Vicki virus
in your .sig is not *required* for a.f.u posters (indeed, Joel Furr
(q.v.) has denounced the practice, saying essentially "get a
life"... and has ended up in Vicki's .sig, and others, as a
result)... but viruses *are* contagious. Has somewhat revived, in
multiple varieties, not all of which are Vicki anymore, in late
summer '94.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* alt.religion.kibology:
Possibly one of the strangest places on Usenet. Home to the worship
of and/or scorn for Kibo (q.v.); impossible to crosspost
inappropriately to, much like misc.misc. Home also to a
constantly-changing cast of "regular" Kibologists, currently
including several people already mentioned in this FAQ (Kibo, by
definition, plus John_-_Winston, Ludwig Plutonium, and Andrew
Bulhak, and everyone mentioned in the xibo entry), as well as such
luminaries as Craig Dickson, Lewis (YDNCTFL YWSRCFAOTW) McCarthy
(not to be confused with Lewis Stiller), Rose Marie Holt, brent
jackson, and Jay Paul Chawla, plus a couple anti-kibologists (Jason
V Robertson is filling this role at the moment, with R Bryner being
an anti-k 'bot). Filled with trolls, beabling, "You misspelled Ann
Rand", odd followup-to lines, posts from Kibo, and a proselytary
attitude; inadvertent arch-enemy newsgroup of rec.org.mensa. If you
see it in the headers while reading another newsgroup, you may want
to take a deep breath before pushing 'f'. Stick around long enough
here and you'll be crossposted almost everywhere else on
UseNet... which leads us neatly into
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Crossposted to *.test:
A variation on "crossposted to alt.hell and back"; see Gannon,
Argic, etc. A news.admin.misc post suggested that this practice
(which gives unsuspecting followers-up a deluge of autoreplies from
the daemons scanning the *.test groups worldwide) originated with
Carasso (q.v.) in the late 80s; further data I've gathered
indicates, however, that it well predates him, and that he simply
widely popularized and practiced it... Moral: *Always* check your
Newsgroups: and Followup-to: lines...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* And the sequel, "Posted separately to every newsgroup you can find":
No, you're not the first person to think of it. Unfortunately, you
won't be the last, either. As the net grows, and the number of new
users grows, however, each incidence of this is a little worse than
the last; at the moment we have in net.memory Skinny Dip Thigh Cream
(posted by someone who set his email-forward to the [widely known]
address of one of the developers of Mosaic, but got kicked off his
account *very* fast anyway because he didn't have the access to set
his site's postmaster@ address' forwarding too), Laurence Canter and
his law firm^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hwife Siegel [Green Cards and Spam! I do
not like it, Sam I Am!] (who have been kicked off *four* separate
services for mass postings of a misleading "Green Card" ad) and
Clarence Thomas IV, who mass-posted a two-page note about the end of
the world ("JESUS IS COMING SOON") soon after the California quake
from a Seventh-Day Adventist college somewhere. Joel Furr (q.v.),
incidentally, has released a Canter & Siegel T-shirt, and in
return has been threatened with various lawsuits by the distaff
portion of that lovely pair...
"Cross-posted to 2000 different newsgroups" has also been thought
of; this will quite probably break people's newsreaders all over the
place due to line length considerations. Either of these is about
the only thing that's not actually illegal that you can easily do
which will piss off your admins *and* the net worse than posting
Make.Money.Fast (q.v.); don't even think about going down in
net.history like this, kids. Can you say "25,000 pieces of email in
your mailbx"? Can you say "Kicked off your account faster than you
can spell an12070@anon.penet.fi"? I knew you could...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Hitler, Nazis, nazis, and net.cops:
Warning: now that this FAQ has mentioned Hitler and Nazis, UseNet
Rule #4 (also known as Godwin's Rule, after Mike Godwin of the EFF,
sci.crypt, and comp.org.eff.talk, a sometime foe of David Sternlight
(q.v.) [even though it was apparently in use, by Richard Sexton
{q.v.} among others, before Mike's 1988 (?) net.advent; the
"Godwin's" part seems to stem from "Rich Rosen's Rules of
Net.Debate", which I don't have a copy of]) says it will be coming
to an irrelevant and off-topic end soon. Just as there will always
be newbies ("It's *always* September, *somewhere* on the net" -
response to a 1993 wave of delphi.com postings on a.f.u), there will
always be people who see the net and are repulsed because there's
stuff there they don't want to see - so they set out to make sure
noone else can, either. They invariably fail, because there are no
net.cops to enforce any such rules on UseNet; in the course of the
heated flamewar that usually follows, things escalate until either
Hitler or Nazis (or both) put in an appearance, at which point the
thread has officially lost all relevance. People scream at each
other a bit more, then give up and go home. Bleah. "Keep your
brains up top; don't be a net.cop."
This has mutated, in true UseNet fashion, to encompass *any*
continuing thread; if you mention Hitler or Nazis out of the blue,
the thread is sure to die irrelevantly soon (and, incidentally,
you've lost the argument, whatever it was)... and every continuing
thread on UseNet *must* contain such a reference sooner or later.
Invoking Rule #4 deliberately in hopes of ending a thread, however,
is doomed to failure (Quirk's Exception)...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* UseNet Rules #n:
No firm info at the present time is available on just what the other
UseNet Rules #n are. However, at a guess, they include:
--
Rule #nonumber: There are no hard-and-fast Rules on UseNet, only
Guidelines, which are more or less strictly enforced (and differ)
from group to group; this is why it's generally wise to read any
group for a bit before ever posting to it.
Rule #0: *There* *is* *no* *C*b*l*. There *is*, however, a net-wide
conspiracy designed solely to lead Dave Hayes (q.v.) to believe
that there is a C*b*l.
Corollary: *There* *are* *no* *pods*.
Rule #9: It's *always* September, *somewhere* on the Net. Dave
Fischer's Extension: 1993 was The Year September Never Ended [so
far, there doesn't seem to be much evidence he's wrong...]
Rule #17: Go not to UseNet for counsel, for they will say both `No'
and `Yes' and `Try another newsgroup'.
Rule #2 (John Gilmore): "The Net interprets censorship as damage and
routes around it."
Rule #108 (from the soc.motss FAQ): "What will happen to me if I
read soc.motss?" "In general, nothing. (You may be informed or
infuriated, of course; but that's a standard Usenet hazard.)"
Rule #666: Old alt groups never die. They don't fade away nicely,
either.
Rule #7-B: There is no topic so thoroughly covered that noone will
ever bring it up again.
Rule #90120: Applying your standards to someone else's post *will*
result in a flamewar.
Rule #1: Spellling and grammer counts. So do grace, wit, and a sense
of humor (the latter two are different), as well as a willingness
to meet odd people, but these are lesser considerations.
Rule #x^2: FAQs are asked frequently. Get used to them.
Rule #29: no rational discourse can happen in a thread cross-posted
to more than two newsgroups.
Rule #6 (Eddie Saxe): don't post to misc.test unless you understand
the consequences.
Rule #547 (Arne Adolfsen): When people know they're wrong they
resort to ad hominems.
Rule #37 (Faisal Nameer Jawdat): Read the thread from the beginning,
or else.
Rule #5 (Reimer's Reason): Nobody ever ignores what they should
ignore on Usenet.
Rule $19.99 (Brad `Squid' Shapcott): The Internet *isn't* *free*.
It just has an economy that makes no sense to capitalism.
Rule #3 ("Why 3?" "Because we felt like it"): For every opinion
there is at least one equally loud and opposing opinion; sometimes
stated as:
Rule #27 (Gary Lewandowski): "In cyberspace, *everyone* can hear you
scream."
And for completeness' sake:
Rule #4: (Godwin's Rule) Any off-topic mention of Hitler or Nazis
will cause the thread it is mentioned in to an irrelevant and
off-topic end very soon; every thread on UseNet has a
constantly-increasing probability to contain such a mention.
Quirk's Exception: Intentional invocation of this so-called "Nazi
Clause" is ineffectual.
Case's Corollary: If the subject is Heinlein or homosexuality, the
probability of a Hitler/Nazi comparison being made becomes equal
to one.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* `Rap is not music' (and other Permanent Floating Flamewars):
Contrib. post:
# In the list of non-human net.legends, I think the `Rap is not music'
# meta-thread deserves a mention. This turns up every month or two in
# some music group, and is distinguished by being even more
# predictable than the average recurring net.thread. It's become a
# crowd participation event to chant along with the newbie following
# the script until he gets to the point where he (never seen a woman
# do it) volunteers to write a rap 'cos its so easy and disapears in a
# puff of embarassment.
--
# > Let's see...off the top of my head, not looking in the archives...
# > There's the "how do I remove a file named '-' from
# > comp.unix.wizards... at least a year so far..)
# > The " 'move' is less intuitive than 'copy-and-delete' thread from
# > this humble newgroup [alt.folklore.computers] ( 3 or 4 months, and
# > still kicking!
# > Hi, Mike [Dahmus]!).
# > The "Furrymuck is for lameoid perverts" thread that Joel Furr keeps
# > firing back up on alt.fan.furry...
# > And let's not forget the "Imminent Death of the Net" theme, which
# > has echoed at least since the first FidoNet gateway...(or was it
# > Compu$erve?)
#
# Those are all recurring, not long-running.
#
# >Do the cyclical "september threads" count as continuous?
#
# It's moot now. September 1993 will go down in net.history as the
# September that never ended.
--
Foob's Law states that the quickest way to completely derail any
netnews discussion is to bring up gun control, and so I guess we're
on our way to Outer Space now.
--
Note that almost every newsgroup will have a Flamewar that Will Not
Die (or two, or six) lurking somewhere in the background - but that
these flamewars are usually pretty well confined to the one
newsgroup simply through specialization, so I'm not gonna even try
to include most of them here... however, there are several that pop
up almost at will *anywhere* in UseNet, among which are the abortion
flamewars, the homosexuality flamewars, the "My computer's better
than yours" flamewars, the freedom-of-speech/UseNet-
is-international flamewar, the Permanent Floating Flamewar that
followed Serdar Argic wherever he oozed, the drug wars (for various
drugs), the male/ female circumcision wars, and the
Christianity-spreading-people vs. "enlightened intellectuals"
flamewar(s)... there's something about many of these subjects that
seems to attract the worst in people (that's partly why this FAQ
seems to concentrate somewhat on anti-gay posters, for instance -
there's so *many* of them that have this little "hot button" that
there's more kooks amongst them...). Scan down the subjects in
talk.* for a more complete listing, and note that Emily Postnews has
a FAQ on the predictable "I want my groooop!" script for alt.config
...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* "Oooo, *he's* Famous! What's his email address???":
There are many people on the net who are Famous in Real Life tm;
however, usually the requirements of being Famous preclude their
spending all their time on the net corresponding by email with Fans.
Some have newsgroups where they hang out (Douglas Adams and Mike
Jittlov have their own alt.fan groups, for instance, as do Dave
Barry and Terry Pratchett, and they show up there or lurk with
varying degrees of consistency); others are on an online service or
just lurk in certain places. Generally, though, you'll do better
writing to their editor or publisher or agent if you really really
want an autograph or a piece of their clothing... William Gibson
(of Neuromancer fame) is *not* on the net (he still reportedly uses
a manual typewriter), so don't ask. Asking "Gee, how can I get
[famous author]'s email address? Pretty pleeeeeze?" on rec.arts.sf.*
is likely to get you semi-toastily flamed as well.
This may be slowly changing however... more companies/organizations
are discovering that the net's a good place to get feedback or
opinions, or to get volunteers (or even employees), and some (like
Wizards of the Coast on rec.games.deckmaster) have a quite extensive
net.presence, looking for reactions and/or helping people. But in
general, creative-type famous people must spend much of their time
creating, not wasting time on UseNet...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4.0 Lesser Lights (Honorable Mention):
======================================
not all of these are loons (many are quite sane), but all are
notable in more than one group to some degree, or notorious in one
group. There are *far* too many odd people on the net to mention all
of them, or even a fraction thereof; these are some of the ones that
have stuck in *other* peoples' minds as ... distinctive.
* "Red-Headed Goddess":
Contrib. post:
# I still want to nominate at least in lesser Loon status the
# "Red-Headed Goddess" that I saw on a.a.v and occasionally on
# sci.skeptic. Doesn't anyone but me remember her? She was able to
# post the most absolutely LOVELY gems of New-Age crossed with 1920's
# space-opera physics which she used to combat spoilsports like me who
# might inquire as to how intelligent life could exist on Venus. Her
# retorts were works of art, saddened by our unenlightened state,
# filled with "different vibrational states in the ether" and other
# buzzwords of poetic yet senseless nature.
--
*May* be Kathy, kathy@vpnet.chi.il.us (Redheaded Goddess), sighted
recently on talk.religion.newage; may not be. Waiting for further
(dis)confirmation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Steven Fordyce (Deer are for dinner) and his ilk:
Dedicated to proving that homosexuals should not be allowed to
marry, because marriage is based solely on the possibility of
reproduction and the needs of the government. He and several others
like him fight a losing battle daily in alt.politics.homosexuality
and alt.(fan.)rush-limbaugh, usually simultaneously (UseNet makes
strange bed-fellows...). Is currently several thousand points behind
solely on style and grace, not even mentioning logic; is seemingly
not capable of altering his worldview. Has admitted he did not marry
his wife for love, and doesn't seem to understand *why* this spurs
his debating opponents on... Posts from stevef@bug.UUCP (Steven R
Fordyce).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Ted Kaldis (I can't understand why anyone should think I'm a "gay-basher"):
Contrib. post:
"Christian" homophobe. Most famous for the "tire iron incident", in
which he lent his tire iron to some friends so that they could use
it to bash some men at a gay bar. He bragged about this in
alt.flame, then subsequently claimed he had had no idea what was
going on. Supposedly nothing came of the incident; the police
turned up or something. Believes that nobody outside the USA may
comment on anything to do with the USA. Particularly hates
Canadians who have the temerity to comment on US issues.
Sexist, racist and misogynist to boot. Posted an article which
listed (mostly obscene) slang terms for Asian women, and seemed
surprised when he got flamed for it. Seems woefully unaware of his
own reputation.
Choice quotes:
- - - cut here - - -
cj@modernlvr.wpd.sgi.com (C J Silverio) writes:
> [...] With a name like Valerie or Sally or Trixie, a woman on the net
> is in for it.
"Trixie" is a name for a female dog. (The four-legged variety.)
> [...] You get Ted Kaldis responding to your posts with heavy-footed
> witticism about "feminine logic being an oxymoron." [...]
Darling, you're just wound a little too tight. And I know exactly
what'll loosen you up.
- - - cut here - - -
- - - cut here - - -
cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
> I've seen ads in the Sonoma State Star (SSU's student newspaper), that
> specified that a gay employee was required for a graphics advertising
> position with one of the gay resorts on the Russian River.
Well they shouldn't have any trouble finding one! I worked in the ad
industry for over a decade, and I can tell you for a fact that homo's
seem to proliferate that industry. My best explanation is that they
live in a fantasy world anyway (pretending that aberrant behavior is
normal) and because of this they are drawn to a profession where an
active imagination takes precedence over practical reality.
- - - cut here - - -
"If a man has sex with men, he's a homosexual -- and by definition is
exhibiting a hate for humanity; if he carves them up afterwards, he is
a homosexual who carries out his hate for humanity to the ultimate
degree. [...] It is only to the depraved that the act of buggery
represents an expression of affection."
"Lesbian: a poorly-socialized female who is unable to enter into or
maintain a relationship with a man, and who thus resorts to engaging
in perverse sexual acts with other females."
"I have the necessary qualifications to speak on behalf of Jesus."
"That's easy. This is yet another example of feminine "logic" (truly
an oxymoron if ever there was one)."
"These kinds of remarks are wholly inappropriate and are the mark of a bigot."
"I can't understand why anyone should think I'm a "gay-basher"."
> I am surprised (and probably shouldn't be) that Ted Kaldis is still around.
No you shouldn't.
> Did he ever get his tire iron back?
No. I had to go to the junkyard and pay a buck to get another one.
--
Actually lucid for posts at a time, which puts him in the Sternlight category.
--
He, of course, euphemistically referred to [the tire-iron incident] as
"scaring some homosexuals".
T*d once titled a post "SHUT UP CANADIAN AGITATOR!" for no good reason on
(get this) soc.culture.canada.
You're [also] forgetting his exceedingly pedantic harping about spelling
mistakes, his claims he would vacation in Colorado because of the passing of
Proposition 2 and his claims that he would move to Louisiana because they
passed stringent anti-abortion laws.
--
And his proud boast that he was moving to California to get a 6-figure
salary. Never happened, what a surprise.
And the time he bragged about his programming expertise, and proved it
by producing a version of bubble sort which he had coded in uncommented
8086 assembler "for maximum speed and efficiency".
--
Posts as kaldis@{remus|romulus}.rutgers.edu (Theodore A. Kaldis).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Mikhail Zeleny (That goes completely against the categorical imperative!):
Russian philosopher wanna-be; *his* objection to homosexuality (yes,
I know I have about six in a row here, but *honestly*, it's one of
the big nut- subjects, no pun intended, on the Net...) seems to be
purely abstract: he can't imagine Kant (I think) approving of it,
thinks it rules out reproduction, and so tries to show that it's
metaphysically bankrupt. Seen on several different groups; try
soc.culture.soviet, but mind the Zumabot ...
Contrib. post:
# Michael Zeleny pops up all over the place. His kink is to post
# unbelievably long messages full of philosophical verbage which
# generally boil down to no content. His only `interesting' opinion is
# that homosexuality is immoral because it (in some way he can't
# define) precludes reproduction. Maybe he thinks the net will need
# more newbies in 18 years time.
--
"No content" is a little strong, but it is clear that he's arguing
for the sheer love of long pointless arguments. The last time I saw
him drift into a real group, the first followup (from someone
himself prone to long, relatively opaque and pedantic posts) was
started with a warning that most people in the group should probably
just ignore him and save the grief.
Cameron Laird's beautiful summary of a few USEnet groups mentioned him:
# >> I think of it as a party held in very very large house. In one room
# >> people are drinking espresso and discussing translations of Rilke,
# >> while in another they're sucking nitrous out of a garbage bag and
# >> setting fire to a couch.
#
#
# > rec.arts.books: drinking espresso, and watching M. Zeleny burn
# > translations of Rilke.
#
# > misc.woodworking: should we burn the couch-maker, because he used
# > electricity?
#
# > soc.history: eat the garbage bag, inject nitrous into anyone who
# > looks like Rilke, and, anyway, couches and espresso are glorious
# > Turkish inventions.
#
# > news.groups: no one should be permitted to say "garbage bag",
# > "fire", or "couch", because newsgroups for those purposes already
# > exist--and even if they don't, it was a democratic decision.
--
# I think it would be fun to include an example of Zeleny's attempts
# at humor. Seeing Zeleny try to tell a joke is like watching Miss
# Manners try to limbo; you know it is not going to be done well, but
# it is amusing to see it attempted. There was a really good one on
# rec.arts.books about a week and a half ago; too bad I didn't archive
# it.
#
# Shall we start an Urban Legend saying that Zeleny is the same guy as
# "Fans-to-blow-toxic-waste-into-Latvia" Zhirinovsky? Or maybe he's
# the lost Russian twin of Dieter on the SNL "Shprockets" skits?
# ("The categorical imperative does not allow negative statements. So
# you see your attempts at humor are futile.")
--
# Zeleny will do anything for posterity. For some articles he wrote
# last October in a.p.h, he put the expiration date to be Dec 31,
# 1999.
--
Posts as zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Mikhail Zeleny).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* magoo/Gary Landers|Warren (The Great Gary L.)/The Bard, and other
prepubescents everywhere:
Generally all following the same pattern: flame and run away, or
flame and stick around and never reply very sensibly to
anything... A hazard of day-to-day lurking/posting on the gay or bi
groups, or alt.flame - there's many more, like Chuck Whealton, but I
think I'm gonna stop with The Bard, because the examples (like the
posters) just get repetitive... The particular multi-handled person
mentioned above seems to grow a new "handle" after each retreat...
Contrib. post:
# Oh, he made an entrance here, I think it was during late summer,
# with stories focusing on young gay men, transvestites and orgies,
# where he made claims that "there was nothing so shocking as seeing
# another naked man." Every character except for the protagonist was
# portrayed as fucked up. The language was... passable.
#
# The first ones were fascinating to read; after that it became like
# watching the same carcrash over and over. The funny thing is that he
# doesn't dehumanize gay sexuality, but just sees us (oh crime) as
# `unamnly'. He then proceeded to define that in wonderfully circular
# defenitions, manly == having women == manly == etc. He seemed to be
# beyond reason or empathy.
#
# Furthermore, there is this subplot somewhere of a gay brother of his
# who died, and I think we are seeing guilt for ostracization of him
# somewhere. (By the way, don't ever get caught doing dishes, cooking
# or other household chores as a male person. He brands you `unmanly'
# for it).
#
# Wait, wait, wait, there's more, yeah: he saw being gay as taking the
# easy way out. You know, can't make it with a woman, so you turn to a
# a man. And lesbians don't exist, in his worldview. He never mentions
# them.
#
# By the end of it, he claimed to be here just for the flaming and
# having fun with the reactions, he really didn't mean it like that,
# he just wanted some attention and then proceeded to give a name by
# name account of people who responded to him and that he thought they
# were cool and brave fighters.
#
# Again, another person who thinks it's ok to just take queers as
# objects to flame for fun. Makes you wonder why they never go over to
# soc.culture.jewish or soc.culture.african-american or
# something. They could have heaps more fun there. So, is that recap
# enough, or do you want more?
--
# 'The Great Gary L.' is Gary Landers, who over summer 1993 terrorized
# alt.politics.homosexuality with his unbelievably crap posts on how
# to stop being homosexual.
#
# He also posted a lot of spoof fictional tales, as I recall.
#
# In September 1993 he posted that, owing to requests in a.p.h., he
# was going to spend a weekend 'being gay' and rattled off his own
# list of what exactly being gay meant to him. Strangely, when the
# time came to report the results, he was silent.
#
# Eventually (this must have been early October) he had so pissed
# everyone off that he must have been in most people's killfiles. In
# response to someone politely inviting him to leave he gave a hostage
# to fortune by saying he was well liked on a.p.h. and called a
# net.vote to determine whether he stayed or went.
#
# He lost by at least 10 posts to 0. The low number of posts asking
# him to leave was probably due to his ubiquitous killfile
# presence. Though he said he had actually won the vote, he did indeed
# go shortly after.
--
[He didn't stay away very long, but re-appeared as The Bard...] The
Bard posted from thebard@char.vnet.net, now from
thebard@jabba.cybernetics.net, and has confirmed being Gary; Gary
Landers posted from scoopnet@access.digex.net, and magoo from
magoo@char.vnet.net (Magoo) (magoo also has confirmed being The
Great Gary L.). (7/94) Gary Warren, hardcopy@char.vnet.net has just
appeared, signing his posts "The Wonderful Bard"...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Keith Cochran ("Justified and Ancient"):
A counterpart to the above several. On the seek-out-the-fundies-
and-dissect-their-arguments-gleefully-with-flaming side; tends to
bring abortion and/or gay rights into threads he's in. Likes to
snipe at the alt.christnet (later christnet.*) groups (but had to
cut back dramatically since Holonet started filtering them), and
likes to crosspost to them, to talk.abortion or
alt.abortion.inequity, to talk.religion.misc, and/or sometimes to
talk.origins or alt.atheism (keeping things stirred up on all of
them...). Also to nyx.misc, when the subject mutates to Colorado's
Amendment #2, apparently partially accounting for its inflated
percentages in the Arbitron ratings. Associate Professor of
Religious Studies and Chair, University Sexual Discrimination
Committee, for the University of Ediacara. Known in talk.abortion
for discussing "aberrant sexual practices" (by their standards,
anyway) and for being the unfortunate person Peter Nyikos decided to
use to tell the world about his hemorrhoid problems. Keeper of the
comp.databases.xbase.fox FAQ's, which says something. We're not sure
what, but it says something. Posts as kcochran@nyx10.cs.du.edu
(Keith "Justified And Ancient" Cochran).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* xibo (You're allowed. NOT! --X.):
Kibo imitator. Title currently held by Sean "Xibo" Coates;
apparently, "back when Kibo was kibo@mts.rpi.edu it was even a
semi-rotating title". Not Allowed; one former holder of the title
seems to have taken this seriously enough never to have posted.
Apparently Head Wizard at (EVIL!)Mud. Further deponent knoweth not.
Variations also existent: Scott "~ibo" Ramming, Jeremy "OS/2ibo"
Reimer, Rich "mcmxciibo" Holmes (q.v.), Andrew "znribo" (varying
pronunciations) Hime (who reposts interesting-to-him stuff in
alt.cosuard, which recently was invaded by what seems to be the
alt.1d crowd, finally fed up at all the test posts there [which was,
after all, the raison d'etre of alt.1d: getting the test posts off
of alt.3d ...]; they've since moved on), Anthony "SCHWAibo" Hobbs,
Magnus "!kibo" Y Alvestad, Bill Marcum "beableibo" (although Andrew
Bulhak claims to be the Beableibo), Headless "James `Kibo' Parry"
Chicken, Lewis "McKibo" McCarthy, Craig "*ibo" Dickson, Joe "Hibo"
George, d"d'ibo"kirchner, Defender of the ".ibo" Faith (ingram),
Patrick ".*ibo", "kibof" Schaaf, Brian char _[]="\x69bo"; Chase,
Rose Marie "AAAAEEEEIIIIbo" Holt, Jacob C "\nibo" Kesinger, Austin
"Zibo" Loomis, possibly Rachel J. "asciibo" Perkins (opinions are
divided). Also, very subtly, playing off Kibo's font fondness,
5150. Craig "*ibo" has the title to the -ibo namespace, and
applications for an -ibofix must go to him; declarations are handled
independently.
--
From the alt.religion.kibology FAQ:
"IS KIBO RELATED TO XIBO?"
No.
"WHAT'S A XIBO?"
A bad bozo, who isn't allowed.
"WHY DON'T YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT XIBO?"
I could if I wanted to. See, I'm allowed to. Xibo isn't allowed.
As the saying goes, "You're allowed, unless you're Harry, Glass,
Xibo, Spot, Sandro Wallach, Noah Friedman (after midnight), Jay Paul
Chawla, or especially Patrick L. Obo."
[Note late addition:
"I do believe that [Andrew Beckwith (q.v.)] was never allowed, under
the doctrine which clearly states the rules:
8.1.3a (617) People whose identity-fields formatted as
standardized spec K112-41/J positive-match the regexp '^ANDREW B*$'
shall have their allowedness status classified below level 'ALLOWED'
but above level 'LEVEL BELOW NOT ALLOWED'. Identity-fields matching
'^ANDY B*$' will be assigned allowedness levels on a case-by-case
basis, the processing of which may only be expedited if the user
comes through with the dough. -- K."]
[Also: "I have decided to forgive Jay Paul Chawla for his past sins.
I can afford to be magnaminous because I am no longer a mere
net.personality or a net.legend but a major marketing phenomenon.
And besides, forgiving and removing from a killfile are not the same
thing. -- K."]
[Also also, Kibo has also declared George W. Hayduke to be Not
Allowed, for nominating Joel Furr and Sean Ryan for Kibo and
Vice-Kibo, respectively.]
"WHO'S XIBO?"
A very bad bozo, who still isn't allowed, no matter how much he
whines about it.
"WHERE'S XIBO?"
Sittin' in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere .plans for
nobody.
"WHY IS XIBO SO FAR AWAY FROM KIBO?"
Because they're on opposite sides of the real world.
--
Contrib. post: (from Kibo)
# When Sean "Xibo" Coates visited Boston a couple years back, he took
# the MTA, and I can prove it--there's no MTA here any more because
# Xibo took it. Xibo is evil! In a good way, though.
#
# Scott "~ibo" Ramming has been formulating a secret plan to rename
# the MBTA to the META for some time, which would allow the trains to
# emply "fuzzy" logic so that any train could stop at any station at
# any time, even ones that hadn't yet been built. I prefer this to
# A. J. Deutsch's "Subway Named Moebius" concept, in which one simply
# writes a short story about London subways and then changes all the
# station names to Boston ones randomly when reprinting the story so
# that key action occurs in nonexistent places.
--
May post as Xibo <xibo@ritz.mordor.com>. This is uncertain.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Dan Gannon (q.v.) has followers and imitators:
--
Hermann: Net-pseudonym of Milton John Kleim, Jr. Posts as
hermann@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU; also seen on alt.skinheads, along
with:
--
Pendragon (White Pride! White Power!): posts from delphi.com. Sigh.
--
Ross Vicksell: can be seen on alt.revisionism.
--
Vitaca Milut (Pronounced: Vitacha Milut) and Zeljko Jericevic:
are attempting to link Serbo-Croatia with various Nazi war
horrors. Newcomers (as of 12/93); Vitaca was posting from
an10805@anon.penet.fi and Zeljko from uwaterloo; Vitaca is *now*
posting through an anonymous service that *appears* to be
administered by John Palmer (q.v.) (it's on tygra.michigan.com...).
--
Martin S. Singleton (Lots of people suffer in wars- so what if Jews do too):
another rabid anti-Semite... from alt.revisionism.
Quotes:
> What is so special about Jews that when they die like other people
> there has to be SUCH A BIG UPROAR ABOUT IT?
>
> I've never heard any Jews bemoaning the plight of the complete
> extermination- in the most grisly ways of perfectly peaceful people,
> like cutting off there hands and feet and roasting them slowly over
> hot coals- of the Pygmy population of Tasmania in the nineteenth
> century.
>
> What about what the Jews are doing to the Palestinians? Do you
> think they like to be tortured in the Isreali [sic] prisons and
> jails with no due process of law, of which you profess yourself a
> proponent, while at the same time you are probably a duel [sic]
> citizen of Isreal and the US?
>
> Stop harassing me, you wolf in a sheep's pelt pulled tightly around
> you while you lie in wait for your prey.
Another quote:
> Why don't you filthy swine stop tormenting me with your libel? Now
> even that 'ole "Nazi"-hunter, Ken Mcvay, is assaulting me with his
> propagandized lies. Stop bludgeoning me with your hollow-cause.
> Fortunately help is on its way. To the Fourth Reich: if you need
> more raw material for heavy industry, try South Afrika. How about
> Oberkommando von Kalifornia? Les rad, these mongrels are getting on
> my nerve. World War III will save the human race from America and
> the Jews. Hooray for the Great German Nation!!!!
Posts as martin@rahul.net (Martin S. Singleton).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Marc Barrett (that guy in comp.amiga.sys.advocacy):
spins tales of doom, trashes Amigas. His answer to every question is
"Throw your Amigas and DOS machines away and buy a MAC", but he
doesn't own a machine.
--
"I refuse to acknowlege the existance of the Mac vs. MS-DOS, VMS
vs. UNIX, and Amiga vs. Everyone flamers."
--Bill "final authority on Loons" VanHorne
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Minas Spetzakis:
Contrib. post:
# How about Minas Spetzakis, star of stage, screen, and rec.humor? I
# got to where I could recognize his first name in rot13 (Zvanf)
# before I gave up reading noise-ridden rec.humor to free up time to
# read other noise-ridden groups.
--
# Ah Minas! (I thought it was Spitakis, but you probably know better
# than me.) Star of rec.humor.english.as.a.second.language. Made a
# brief appearance (what? about 4 years ago?), and soon became a part
# of the folklore of rec.humor. Any really unfunny joke, told very
# badly, was soon greeted with "Minas? Is that you?", no matter who
# told it. (Much like the references to Sven in a.f.w these days, but
# with Sven it's just good natured fun.) He wasn't a loon, but he did
# become part of the group's folklore. This is something I've noticed:
# each group (or conglomeration of groups) has its own folklore, about
# the poster from the past (or present) who everybody talks about and
# knows about, but people outside that group have no clue about.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Roy Crabtree:
Contrib. posts:
# Just one more net.loon occurred to me-Roy Crabtree, he of the text
# editor that makes everything he writes look like experimental free
# verse, and who cannot be dissuaded of his belief that insect vectors
# have played a significant role in AIDS transmission (the source of a
# much-longer-than-necessary thread on alt.conspiracy last spring).
--
# Crabtree is a definite winner: remember his campaign accusing Ted
# Frank of "obversion", whatever the hell that means to him?
--
Apparently to be found in misc.legal, following up Ted Frank's posts
with the aforesaid editor...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* K*nt Pa*l D*lan (Kent Paul Dolan) (you foolish child, I have more
intellect in my ..etc, etc):
Contrib. post:
# What about that man from xanth, Kent Paul Dolan ? While not strictly
# a net.loon, K*nt has probably pissed off more of the net than most
# with his bombastic insulting style and unshakable beliefs. I last
# saw him in talk.politics.drugs about two years ago - any recent
# sightings ?
--
# Oh, definitely. K*nt's claim to infamy was the rec.arts.sf-lovers
# reorganization of late 1991, for which he was the vote-taker; any
# survivors of that fiasco will attest to his warm, diplomatic style
# and high ethical standards. [Not!]
--
# A mention of the Grand sf-lovers reorg fiasco just brought back
# memories of K*nt P*l D*lan... I hardly dare to type his name out in
# full, Kent Paul Dolan.
#
# He was the vote - taker for the first attempt of rec.arts.sf-lovers
# in 1991. His vitriolic comments and threats to throw out what he
# considered "ballot box stuffing" votes led to the first immediate
# revote in the history of Usenet because of procedural problems, and
# to the eventual creation of the Usenet Volunteer Votetakers.
#
# Also, he served as the inspiration to one of the best pieces of
# net.humor ever published, the Usenet Flame Olympics (or somesuch,
# it's been some time) of 1991.
#
# Shortly after the revote was called, he announced that he had better
# things to do with his life, was about to get married, and vanished
# off the net; I have never seen him again, nor heard anybody who has.
#
# BTW... does anybody still have a copy of the Usenet Olympics
# around? This piece of now nearly ancient net history certainly
# would bear a repost ;-)
--
Kent was apparently a sufferer from monopolar depression; he had
treatment, and was released as "improved, not cured"; a copy of the
UseNet Olympics is available as a miniFAQ, and can also be found at
ocf.berkeley.edu, /pub/Usenet_Olympics ... he also had a text
editor, apparently, which posted in columns about 20 characters wide
(see said miniFAQ...).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Peter Trei: [From Peter himself, in a list of net.loon nominees]
last, and probably least...
Peter Trei
Monomaniac who greps most of Usenet for mentions of Freemasonry, and
posts corrections if he feels the fraternity is being slighted.
Sporadically publishes the Masonic Digest on a mailing list. Not
too good at answering his email. At least he has a sense of
humor... Posts as <ptrei@mitre.org>.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Mike Dahmus ("Linux sux! Linux sux! OS/2 iz g00d 4 U!"):
Often seen on the comp.* groups and alt.folklore.computers. Argues
at length (about NextStep, Unix, OS/2, etc.), and crossposts. Also
posts to alt.religion.kibology, rec.sport.basketball, and
rec.sport.football.college; good at baiting flames, to the point of
being the curator of the rec.sport.football.college Hall o' Bait
(they call trolling "fishing" there for some odd reason). Has at
least one archenemy, Andrew Bulhak (q.v.), whom he calls "Lumpy (tm)
'Andrew' Bulhak"; Bruce Ediger has also been mentioned. Works for
IBM at last report. Has some people convinced he's convinced Penn
State is God's gift to the US athletics conferences, and that OS/2
R00LZ... Has his own alt.fan group. Tied for eighth place in the
Kibo election. Will argue st00pidly with NextStep advocates. May
or may not be Not Allowed at the moment.
Contrib. post:
# And then there's Mike Dahmus, who claims that UNIX sucks and
# everything other than OS/2 is trash and that UNIX's "mv" command is
# brane dam3jd because it doesn't refuse to move files across drives.
--
# Sigh. What a load of Bulhak. The actual reasoning was - "as long as
# OS/2 is stuck with the concept of drives, and as long as it has a
# dynamic swapfile, it's probably a good idea that 'move' doesn't let
# you move across drives."
--
Posts as mike@schleppo.bocaraton.ibm.com / miked@inca.gate.net (Mike
Dahmus).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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DeLaney); this does not claim that individual contributors'
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original portions thereof are copyright. Please feel free to
distribute freely, charging no-one.