malcolm (11/27/82)
#R:cbosgd:-283800:pur-ee:7200005:000:711 pur-ee!malcolm Nov 26 23:24:00 1982 The Birds of a Feather session at Santa Monica last January was great. My only regret about having one in San Diego is that I probably won't be there. The BOF in Santa Monica was very well attended. It as also an easy matter to decide the Name-the-Network contest, which had been dragging on forever over the netwaves. I can't remember if anything else "earth-shattering" was decided. If you do have one, please have Andy (trb) submit a quick summary. I'm not sure how impartial and/or accurate the last one was, but it was even more entertaining than the actual session. Remember, often the BOF and other BSing that goes on are the best parts of the conference. Malcolm Slaney Purdue EE
trb (11/29/82)
Here's my review of the Santa Monica USENET BOF, because You Asked for It! (Originally printed in ;login: in early 1982) ====================================================================== The USENET BOF session was much like the USENET itself; some useful information, some flames, some hilarity; too much information to digest in one sitting. We were forced to move the large audience from a BOF room to the main conference hall, for lack of space. Mark Horton (cbosgd!mark) of Bell Labs Columbus took his usual dictator's stance behind the lectern, and did a fair job of controlling the madding crowd. Mark held a short "name the net" contest, no one seemed to have much of a preference, and USENET was voted upon as the official name. Mark suggested the prospect of net., pers., and ug. newsgroups, for network, personal (netplay?), and underground (ugly?) newsgroups respectively. These distinctions would separate news that is strictly work related from news that is more frivolous from news that is downright vulgar. We concluded that we should not make these distinctions until we felt a pressing need. Argument from the pro-morality and pro-choice lobbyists was postponed until the session's end. Rob Kolstad (uiucdcs!kolstad) and Ray Eissick (uiucdcs!eissick) of University of Illinois - Champaign/Urbana gave the most entertaining (though long) presentation of the conference on their replacement for the fledgling Netnews B system. Their system is based on the PLATO Notesfile system, and has a nicer terminal interface and saner message ordering than Netnews B. The audience seemed pretty impressed with the description of the Notesfile system, but the implementation is brand new and there were murmurs of skepticism. Matt Glickman (ucbvax!glickman) of UC Berkeley talked about Netnews B. This new version of netnews is running in gamma test all over the continent and has been doing a respectable, if not bug free job. I consider it a public relations faux pas to have revealed both debutantes at the same ball. The last part of the session became the much anticipated "Battle of the Network Stars." Lauren Weinstein (ucla-s!lauren) alluded to ancient horror stories of the ARPANET concerning censorship of wine and phone phreak newsgroups, and how an ounce of prevention would be worth a pound of cure. Andy Tannenbaum (floyd!trb) of Western Electric stood in defense of free speech, truth, justice, and the American Way; a network divided will not stand, and all that. Andy also gave an impassioned testimonial about how great netnews is and how it has brought the quality of his life to hitherto unimagined heights. There was much screaming, laughter, and gnashing of teeth. No conclusions were reached; after all, the participants were netnews readers. A good time was had by most. Andy Tannenbaum
pat (12/05/82)
#R:cbosgd:-283800:uicsovax:4300005:000:63 uicsovax!pat Dec 4 23:21:00 1982 USENET user's could put a ":-)" on their badges... pat kane
mclure (03/09/83)
#R:cbosgd:-283800:sri-unix:8200001:000:74 sri-unix!mclure Nov 28 23:50:00 1982 Yes, definitely. Let's hope there will be another Andy T. vs. Lauren W.!!