A Beginner's Guide to the Internet/INTERNET.ISO/text/usenet/faq/usenet02.faq

Internet Message Format | 1996-05-06 | 68.3 KB

Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!faqserv
From: David DeLaney <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.usenet.kooks,alt.answers,news.answers
Subject: Net.Legends.FAQ (Noticeable Phenomena Of UseNet) Part 2/4
Supersedes: <net-legends-faq/[e-mail]>
Followup-To: poster
Date: 27 Nov 1994 15:09:28 GMT
Organization: Brown Ajah, r.a.sf.w.r-j Division
Lines: 1154
Approved: [e-mail]
Expires: 22 Feb 1995 15:08:06 GMT
Message-ID: <net-legends-faq/[e-mail]>
References: <net-legends-faq/[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
NNTP-Posting-Host: bloom-picayune.mit.edu
Summary: This FAQ gives information on some of the more noticeable or notable    people, places, and/or things occuring on UseNet. Not to be taken internally.
X-Last-Updated: 1994/09/15
Originator: [e-mail]
Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu alt.folklore.computers:55171 alt.usenet.kooks:11179 alt.answers:5893 news.answers:30106

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 [e-mail] (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 [e-mail] 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 [e-mail] to alt.config/alt.answers/news.groups/
news.admin.misc/"alt.newgroup". May also be [e-mail]; 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 [e-mail] (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 [e-mail] 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: [e-mail]) (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 [e-mail]"? 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, [e-mail] (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 [e-mail] (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 - - -
[e-mail] (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 - - -
[e-mail] (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 [e-mail] (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 [e-mail], now from [e-mail], and
has confirmed being Gary; Gary Landers posted from [e-mail],
and magoo from [e-mail] (Magoo) (magoo also has confirmed being The
Great Gary L.). (7/94) Gary Warren, [e-mail] 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
[e-mail] (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 [e-mail] 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 <[e-mail]>. This is uncertain.

Dan Gannon (q.v.) has followers and imitators:
--
Hermann: Net-pseudonym of Milton John Kleim, Jr. Posts as
 [e-mail]; 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 [e-mail] 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 [e-mail] (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 <[e-mail]>.
--

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 [e-mail] / [e-mail] (Mike Dahmus).

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