Spaf's Farewell, Ten Years Later

catfood writes "Ten years ago this evening, Usenet legend Gene Spafford posted his farewell to news.announce.newusers, news.misc, and a few other newsgroups. Among other things, spaf wrote: 'People don't seem to think before posting, they are purposely rude, they blatantly violate copyrights, they crosspost everywhere, use 20 line signature files, and do basically every other thing the postings (and common sense and common courtesy) advise not to. Regularly, there are postings of questions that can be answered by the newusers articles, clearly indicating that they aren't being read.' Speaking of his own post, spaf said, 'even if it is perceived as self-indulgent garbage, it will fit right in with the rest of the net.' Ten years later, we still have all of spaf's complaints plus mounting spammage just barely held in check by auto-canceling volunteers. Is Usenet still useful? Is it worth maintaining? I say yes, but I can feel spaf's pain. It may be too late now, but hey spaf: thanks."

Comments

Re:How I use usenet today

[savetz]

NetNews Tracker is a cool little tool for searching Google Groups for topics you're perennially interested in. Whenever there are new articles that match your phrase, it e-mails you a link to the article.

Re:A visionary

[nEoN nOoDlE]

The biggest problem with the net are elitist jerkwads who get modded up on slashdot. I was on irc back in around '94 when the internet was just gaining popularity but the rooms were all full of elitist assholes who never wanted to answer anyones questions or help anyone out because they were so much cooler than everyone else. It was annoying then and it's equally as annoying now. You're not better than anyone else just because you spend too much time on the computer... in most circles, you're probably worse. Also, the internet isn't yours so get over it.