merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) (09/26/89)
In article <34991@apple.Apple.COM>, chuq@Apple (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: | It's sad that | USENET is based so heavily on negative vibes and 'surviving' the idiots. If | anyone wants to know why I'm spending more and more time on CI$ and less and | less here.... The headlines read: "Chuq Leaves USENET... Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted." (Sorry, as a fellow old-time-netter, couldn't resist. :-) -- /== Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ====\ | on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA, Sol III | | merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn | \== Cute Quote: "Welcome to Oregon... Home of the California Raisins!" ==/
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (09/27/89)
>| It's sad that >| USENET is based so heavily on negative vibes and 'surviving' the idiots. If >| anyone wants to know why I'm spending more and more time on CI$ and less and >| less here.... >The headlines read: > "Chuq Leaves USENET... Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted." No headlines. Despite what I am personally doing, USENET is far, far from dead or even dying. The *worst* that can be claimed is that USENET's interests and my own are growing down separate paths. That doesn't mean what USENET is doing is good, bad or anything -- just that what I'm looking for and what USENET is interested in aren't meshing as closely as they used to. Which happens. It's easy to equate "I don't like" with "this is bad" -- many people (even those who should know better) do it all the time. USENET isn't being run for my benefit, and it hasn't for a long, long time. My attitude is pretty simple. Use the parts I like, ignore the parts I don't, and try to help out where I can while avoiding making things worse. I wish that attitude were more prevalent on the networks, frankly. And, to make matters even more interesting (sort of) a flame-war erupted on CompuServe over the weekend that rivaled the nastiest cr*p I've ever seen here on USENET. Which points out two basic facts of computer networks: o Once a network reaches a given size, conflicts and flame fests are inevitable. USENET, Internet, CIS, GEnie, Delphi, Fidonet -- I've seen the same thing happen to each in almost identical ways. A small population is generally friendly and cooperative. It hits a certain critical mass, though, and it's likely to go *poof* over relatively trivial issues [and it generally *is* trivial issues rather than important ones...]. On the plus side, on a flamewar/population ratio, USENET seems to be better at avoiding things (that may sound counter-intuitive, but USENET has *much* larger user populations -- the other folks get just as nasty, just as often with many fewer people to fan the flames...) o If you track flame-wars back to the source, you will generally find one or two real twits at the source. In the case of recurring flames, you'll usually find the same crew of recurring twits (On CIS, it was three, maybe four people making life miserable for the other few thousand...). The problem, of course, is getting rid of those three or four people.... -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> Editor,OtherRealms <+> Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com <+> CI$: 73317,635 <+> [This is myself speaking. I am not Appl Segmentation Fault. Core dumped.
jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) (09/27/89)
In article <4971@omepd.UUCP>, merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) writes: > > The headlines read: > "Chuq Leaves USENET... Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted." Maybe Mr. Von Rospach isn't just going to *leave* the net. Maybe he's going to Chuq it all. Jeff
rob@violet.berkeley.edu (Rob Robertson) (09/27/89)
In article <4971@omepd.UUCP> merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) writes: In article <34991@apple.Apple.COM>, chuq@Apple (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: | It's sad that | USENET is based so heavily on negative vibes and 'surviving' the idiots. If | anyone wants to know why I'm spending more and more time on CI$ and less and | less here.... The headlines read: "Chuq Leaves USENET... Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted." chuqi's been he's about to leave for years. as with the death of usenet, i'll believe it when i see it... rob -- william robertson rob@violet.berkeley.edu symbolic links are the GOTO's of filesystems
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (09/27/89)
>chuqi's been he's about to leave for years. as with the death of >usenet, i'll believe it when i see it... Actually I have left many times, and always returned (usually to a smaller subset. My net-reading is, actually, at an all-time low again as far as # of groups. The *volume* of what I read isn't, because of the number of messages. It's probably more or less constant -- as the net grows, the number of groups drops....). I used to decry the forthcoming Death of the Net. I don't any more, because it's not going to die. What the net has done (and continues to do) is mutate and evolve to meet the needs of the various groups that use it. As different groups grow and shrink, the net switches around to meet the needs. Whether what the net does meets my needs (or the needs of any individual user) is immaterial to the life or death of the net. Remember, at one time, USENET was here primarily for the discussion of Unix. Now, that's a fringe (as the Unix-first people found out when they tried to kill off the PC and Mac groups a while back, only to find out they were heavily outnumbered...). Things change.... -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> Editor,OtherRealms <+> Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com <+> CI$: 73317,635 <+> [This is myself speaking. I am not Appl Segmentation Fault. Core dumped.
avery@well.UUCP (Avery Ray Colter) (09/29/89)
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >And, to make matters even more interesting (sort of) a flame-war erupted on >CompuServe over the weekend that rivaled the nastiest cr*p I've ever seen >here on USENET. Which points out two basic facts of computer networks: Ummm, you wouldn't happen to be referring to the flame war that I played probably a critical part in carrying on, now would you? -- Avery Ray Colter avery@well.sf.ca.us 71067.606@compuserve.com {apple,lamc,lll-winken,cogsci,hplabs,pacbell}!well!avery "....Fat-Bottomed Girls, You Make the Rockin` World Go ROUND!" -Queen