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2.1M of the oldest Usenet posts are now online for anyone to read

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Re: 2.1M of the oldest Usenet posts are now online for anyone to read

#301

Post by cromwellian »

Dejanews used to have posts at least back to early 90s, I found some posts I made to rec.games.corewar in 1991 on Dejanews at one point (Edit: Found it https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.corewar/c/6rUdOS9EDIM/...). I'm kind fo sad Google essentially let Dejanews (Google Groups) whither. Yes, you can create groups on it, but it's second mission to gather the world's information and make it accessible was kind of abandoned, otherwise they would have continued to pursue the old archives.

Ditto for old BITNET/LISTSERVs needing to be archived. A lot of my childhood is wrapped in up BBSes, BITNET/LISTSERVs/Majordomo lists, and USENET, and being able to see some of it on textfiles.com and Deja was a nostalgic joy ride down memory lane.

Re: 2.1M of the oldest Usenet posts are now online for anyone to read

#302

Post by megameter »

AMerrit wrote: post #251
surround wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading about a game developer who was a big time troll/flamer on Usenet for years, and who’s Wikipedia Talk page got so out of hand it had to be courtesy blanked and edit-protected at the highest level. Does anybody remember who this is? I can’t find him, despite my efforts searching for what I just described.

That would be the notorious Derek Smart.

He's still going at it to this day on Twitter.

Re: 2.1M of the oldest Usenet posts are now online for anyone to read

#303

Post by iso947 »

72deluxe wrote: post #212
iso947 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wil Wheaton reported he really took the existence of alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die, and the associated trolling, to heart as a 15 year old nerd. He was more mature and could cope far better later on sites such as slashdot where he engaged, but landing a dream job, and being rejected by fellow nerds as well as “william fucking shatner” really did a number on him.

What a shame. It was a pity because he was heavily used in the first series and was kind of annoying, but that wasn't his fault - that was the writers! I suppose it must be a skill to learn that people dislike your character, not you personally.

15 year old boys tend not to have that “water off a ducks back” skill, even when they’ve been brought up with social media.

Still you can always rely on your heroes:

https://youtu.be/raGruhb8Qbg

Re: 2.1M of the oldest Usenet posts are now online for anyone to read

#304

Post by lordgrenville »

bartread wrote: post #244
jjav wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what Usenet was Usenet is still around, I still read it most days, with trn. Most newsgroups are either dead or pure spam, but some are active with real content.

> pure spam I think this is what really did usenet in for me. I used to use newsgroups quite a bit in the early 2000s, then moved on to forums, and then of course social media took over (and now I'm substantially over that). Given that usenet is now past its popular heyday, I thought it would also be past the peak of spam - and it probably is - but having just registered with eternal-september.org, I'm still pretty s…

Also lots of...cranks? I just registered and subscribed to comp.misc, and in between lots of innocuous posts there is this (under "Microsoft and Intel donate to BLM"):

> ...the executives of all these corporations who made the decision to fund these n*s all deserve to die in mass-shootings.

Re: 2.1M of the oldest Usenet posts are now online for anyone to read

#305

Post by markedathome »

watersb wrote: post #292
m463 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you feel old, I once located some posts of mine from the 80's when names started with net.* and everything was bangpaths like foo!bar!bletch hmm... here's a taste of it: https://slashdot.org/story/00/08/27/1439247/usenet-archive-f... EDIT: Great Renaming: n. The flag day in 1987 on which all of the non-local groups on the Usenet had their names changed from the net.- format to the current multiple-hierarchies sche…

Friend at Yale was a bang-path email relay in 1987. Can't remember the structure, the actual address or how it worked.

hu hum...digs out "Managing UUCP and Usenet" by Tim O'Reilly and Grace Todino, revised 1994.

p293 " ! Should only be used when sending via UUCP. This should be the only special character in the address (called a path). The path indicates each site through which mail will be routed, starting at the left and going towards the right. Mixing ! with @ is not considered good. That is, use:

uunet!ucbvax.berkeley.edu.edu!smith

not:

uunet!smith@ucbvax.berkeley.edu.edu"

In other words because UUCP was dialup and long distance expensive, email was routed through specific known hosts, which is why sometimes people ended up with long bangpathed addresses.

Re: 2.1M of the oldest Usenet posts are now online for anyone to read

#306

Post by ben_w »

glaberficken wrote: post #210
jolmg wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For that example, it's at least fairly obvious why it was censored. Actually, it's not that obvious. It censored "Dirty Sanchez". I'm thinking it thought it was a person's name, and censored it for privacy reasons? > Keeping the p e(s) full seems to I suppose "pipe" can have an offensive/sexual connotation. Even if it doesn't so much today, perhaps it did back then.

"pipe" means blowjob in french. Maybe the filter dictionary is multilingual?

It can happen. A decade ago, Apple’s automated App Store processes warned me that “Knopf” was a dirty word in German.

(It isn’t: while “knob” can be translated as “Knopf”, the latter doesn’t have the anatomical meanings of the former).

Re: 2.1M of the oldest Usenet posts are now online for anyone to read

#308

Post by SturgeonsLaw »

lixtra wrote: post #282
msla wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you deal with the (European) right to be forgotten? Probably by not being European. Europe doesn't make laws for the whole world anymore. Colonialism is dead.

What about copyright?

Archiving is considered fair use

Re: 2.1M of the oldest Usenet posts are now online for anyone to read

#309

Post by Jaruzel »

jefftk wrote: post #297
Jaruzel wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miles O'Brien was promoted to security officer after Worf left, on the Enterprise-D iirc.

O'Brien transferred from the Enterprise D to Deep Space 9 in 2369, while Worf continued with the Enterprise until it was destroyed in 2371. The next year Worf also transferred to DS9.

I should have been more explicit - When Word left Starfleet for bit, and went 'full Klingon'.

Re: 2.1M of the oldest Usenet posts are now online for anyone to read

#310

Post by baud147258 »

anewone wrote: post #252
surround wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading about a game developer who was a big time troll/flamer on Usenet for years, and who’s Wikipedia Talk page got so out of hand it had to be courtesy blanked and edit-protected at the highest level. Does anybody remember who this is? I can’t find him, despite my efforts searching for what I just described.

He doesn't have a Wikipedia page, but Cleveland Blakemore certainly fits the Usenet gamedev troll profile.

I remember reading his account of the LA riots. Very vivid, some parts that were obviously bullshit, but a few that ring true.

He also got a guest appearance in Jagged Alliance 2. Or at least one of the characters (Calvin Barkmore) looks and sounds a lot like him.

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