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From: [e-mail] (Thomas Gerhard Seidenberg)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.usenet,alt.answers,news.answers
Subject: alt.culture.usenet FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Followup-To: alt.culture.usenet
Date: 6 Oct 1995 16:08:11 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Lines: 544
Approved: [e-mail]
Expires: 18 Nov 1995 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <453k9b$[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
NNTP-Posting-Host: seal.wpi.edu
Summary: Everything I can think of to tell you about a.c.u.
Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu alt.culture.usenet:16657 alt.answers:12558 news.answers:54584

Archive-name: usenet/culture-faq
Last-modified: Fri Oct  6 12:01:17 EDT 1995
Version: 1.6

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  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD

      There is an RFD on going for soc.culture.usenet (moderated)!
           Please, let you opinion (yay or nay) be heard!
             Look in alt.culture.usenet or news.groups.

       The RFD may be found at http://www.wpi.edu/~boigy/rfd.txt

  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD  RFD
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                  WELCOME  TO  alt.culture.usenet
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  If you wish to go to a particular section of this FAQ, and your
  newsreader or editor provides a search capability, search for the
  string SECTxx, where xx is the section number.

  If you don't understand any of the terms used in this document,
  please see the included glossary (section 04).  If the term is
  not mentioned in the glossary, e-mail the maintainer and it may
  be included in the next release.

Table of contents:

 Section 00: What I'd like to see in this FAQ.
 Section 01: What has changed since the last posting?
 Section 02: Why alt.culture.usenet?
 Section 10: What is Usenet?
 Section 11: The Usenet "Room Analogy".
 Section 20: Various insights into Usenet culture.
 Section 90: What are some relevant Usenet terms?
 Section 95: Who contributed to this FAQ?
 Section 98: How to get this FAQ.
 Section 99: How to contact me, the maintainer.

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SECT00: What I'd like to see in this FAQ.

    This section is devoted to what I think should be in this FAQ,
 but is not.  So, if anyone has any good ideas on what I should write
 about these things, drop me a line.  Heck, I might even quote you!
 Now wouldn't that be cool?

 - I've still got dozens of posts & email still waiting to be added...
 - Pointers to relevant URLs, FAQs, and other newsgroups.
   (which I could put in the HTML version of this FAQ, still under
   construction.)
 - Maybe an additional posting disecting an actual flame war.  I
   think this would be really interesting...  Think about it - a
   post-mortem on an actual flame war.  Of course, it would have to
   be a good one!

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SECT01: What has changed since the last posting?

 - Nothing.

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SECT02: Why alt.culture.usenet?

    alt.culture.usenet (referred to as a.c.u. in the remainder of this
 document) is a place where we can step back and study the culture
 that exists on Usenet.  While Usenet is primarily influenced by the
 United States of America, it has a truly global reach.  The culture
 on Usenet is unlike any other culture in human history - it is a
 melting pot of ideas, of talents, of intellects, and of tempers.
 Usenet is a grand experiment in democracy - as evidenced by its all
 speakers welcome philosophy, and even by Usenet's newsgroup creation
 process.

    On a.c.u., we ask "Why?"  "Why do flame wars always seem to spread
 to other groups"  "Why does MAKE MONEY FAST always appear in
 September?"  "Why does an hour reading news actually take 3 hours of
 real time?"  "Why?" is one of the most important questions a person
 can ask.  In a.c.u., we are all given the chance to ask why this and
 why that - to discover the social interactions that make up Usenet.
 Of course, we all can answer the questions too - sometimes it makes
 for very lively discussions!

    But let us not forget the other questions, like who? and when? and
 the others - they are important too!

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SECT10:  What is Usenet?

    Before we can discuss Usenet's culture, we have to get a few
 things straight.  First of all, we must agree on what Usenet is and
 what it is not.

    According to the New Hacker's Dictionary, Usenet was "originally
 implemented in 1979-1980 by Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott,
 and Steve Daniel at Duke University".  Usenet news was initially
 transmitted via UUCP to a few sites and so little was transmitted
 that you could easily read all the articles posted in one day.  Since
 then, Usenet has expanded enormously - with daily traffic measured in
 the hundreds of Megabytes and readers in the millions.

    Okay - time to put your thinking caps on, because its time for a
 quiz.  There is only one question on this here quiz: What is Usenet?

   A) Usenet is the newsgroups.
   B) Usenet is the loosely coupled network of computers that
      transmit news via various protocols.
   C) Usenet is the community of people who read news.
   D) All of the above.

    Since I am the writer of this FAQ, I get to tell you the correct
 answer - which, in my arrogant opinion, just happens to be D.

 A) Usenet is the newsgroups.

    Without the newsgroups where would we be?  Well - somewhere else,
    of course - and probably wasting less time in the process!

 B) Usenet is the loosely coupled network of computers that
    transmit the newsgroups.

    Without the transport mechanism, where would we be?  Again -
    somewhere else (or possibly looking at local news only).  The
    network that makes up the news transport system is truly
    enormous, and likely as not changes by the minute.  All kinds of
    networks, communication protocols, and media are used to transmit
    news - TCP/IP, X.25, UUCP, modems, floppy disks, LANs, the
    Internet, satellites, light, radio waves, electrons...

 C) Usenet is the community of people who read news.

    Without us to read and write the news, where would Usenet be?
    Well, nowhere again!  (I think you all get the idea I'm shooting
    for - if you don't, then try harder - it'll come to you
    eventually, I'm sure.)


    Since the I have just told you what I think Usenet is, I feel it
 is also my duty to tell you what Usenet is not.

 - Usenet is not the Internet.
   While it is true that a significant portion of Usenet traffic is
   transmitted on the Internet, and it is true that many millions
   of people read news through the Internet, Usenet is NOT the
   Internet, and similarly the Internet is not Usenet.  To make it
   even more muddled, neither is a subset of the other - Usenet is
   not wholly contained in the Internet, and the Internet is
   certainly not wholly continued by Usenet.  Period.

 - Usenet is not email.
   While it is true that the email headers look a hell of a lot
   like news headers (indeed many are actually the same), and it is
   true that email and news can use some of the same transport
   mechanisms, and it is true that email and news use many of the
   same writing conventions, Usenet is NOT email.  When you post
   news, reply to news, or read news, you are interacting with
   millions of other people - *nothing* is private.

 - Usenet is not an online service.
   While it is true that most (if not all) online services provide
   news service for their users, and it is true that many online
   services provide very similar services under a different name,
   and it is true that these services have similar semantics,
   Usenet is not an online service.  You do not explicitly have to
   pay for Usenet (many people do actually pay for Usenet access,
   but Usenet itself is free).  Online service's forums, discussions,
   rooms, et cetera are NOT distributed as part of Usenet and cannot
   be accessed without buying service from the particular service
   provider.  Usenet has newsgroups - not boards, rooms, discussions,
   channels, forums, or anything else besides newsgroups.

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SECT11: The "Room" analogy.

    I have seen many analogies used that attempt to describe Usenet.
 The one that I prefer (and that I think is the best) is the "Room
 Analogy".  Basically it goes like this.  You've got this enormous
 building with thousands of rooms.  Each room has a sign outside
 describing what is being discussed inside the room...

    Some rooms are very organized.  These rooms have a large audience
 and a few selected speakers, and a spokesman or two...

    Some rooms do not have any spokesmen, but are still very well
 organized.  Every now and then some people go over to a corner and
 have a quiet conversation, but nothing terribly loud.

    Other rooms are like big social gatherings with many smaller
 groups talking (or yelling) among themselves.  There are many people
 in these rooms, most of them just walking around and listening in on
 the various conversations...

    There also play rooms, some with very few people, but they make a
 terrible racket!  Often, these play rooms have a king of the
 mountain, a demi-god, or even a bully.

    There are many kinds of rooms that I haven't described, but I'm
 sure you can figure those out for yourselves!  Of course, this
 analogy fails in some ways - how do explain we cross-posting?
 Oh well, analogies are not perfect...

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SECT20: Various insights into Usenet culture.

    I guess everyone has their 30 seconds in the spotlight.  Well,
 the following posts are those 30 seconds...  I think that these
 posts give us all some insight into the beast we call Usenet.  No
 one can ever truly understand Usenet because she is constantly
 changing.  But we can try.

 On Flames:

   Steve Siegfried ([e-mail]) wrote:

 > You see, that's the really neat part about the net.  We flame
 > people.  We flame people for making sense.  We flame people for
 > being silly.  We even flame people trying to make a living.  We
 > flame people for asking questions.  We flame them for posting/
 > emailing thoughtful responses to our otherwise lack-luster queries.
 > We flame 'em for making mundane replies to Pulitzer-class
 > postings.  We especially like to flame people who even hint at
 > newbieness.
 >
 > A large part of the net and the email traffic it carries is the
 > exclusive domain of pocket-protected, high-water-trousered,
 > over-hyphenated, socially-retarded single white males.  In short,
 > the net's a social club for technonerds ("No Girls Allowed") not
 > unlike, say, the Masons.  As further evidence, IMHO, we have a
 > secret language.  We even have a decoder ring:  rot-13.  Oh yeah,
 > and signature files whose size is probably inversely proportional
 > to either our IQ or some other personal measurement.


 On the (political) power of Usenet:

 We would do well to understand just what we (readers of Usenet) as a
 group are and are not capable of.  Many people have claimed that
 Usenet is heralding a new era in U.S. and/or world
 _insert_favorite_topic_here_.  Well sober up, because in most cases
 its just not happening.

   David Birdsey ([e-mail]) wrote:

 > Yes, I do think the technology will spread, but I don't think that
 > will facilitate the USENET's becoming some sort of vox populi --
 > perhaps I should clarify that. It may be that USENET _is_ already
 > a town meeting in progress, but that does not make it a political
 > force.  I for one have been really impressed with the information
 > that can be gleaned from the Internet, USENET included. However,
 > I'm not sure the expansion of computers and the Internet will mean
 > that we will have a sudden explosion of interest in the often very
 > esoteric topics that are the foundation of a lot of broader policy
 > decisions in government, and concommitant mobilization of the
 > public on these issues.  In other words, people will probably
 > e-mail their pals, look up recipes, and download naughty
 > pictures, but probably won't rush out to register to vote because
 > of what they learn (or don't learn) on the Internet.

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SECT90: What are some relevant Usenet terms?

    This section defines some terms that a relevant to the discussion
 of the culture of Usenet.  I have taken some of the following
 information from The New Hacker's Dictionary - mostly because it
 explains things from a point of view often found on Usenet - from
 the point of view of a computer related or influenced field.

    Understanding these terms, and the reasons behind the terms can
 help in understanding Usenet and its culture - its not the whole
 understanding, but its a start.

    Where appropriate, I have included pointers to particularly
 relevant groups where the term is the basis for the group, or where
 the term is likely to be in use by the group.

 [Refinements are welcome, as are good illustrative examples.]

 Aahz's law
   The best way to get information on Usenet is not to ask a
   question, but to post the wrong information.

 Boigy's Law
   The theory that there are certain topics in every newsgroup that
   are discussed cyclicly, such as every month.  Often, the period of
   the cycle, and the length of the resulting discussion, can be
   accurately estimated by those who have been around long enough.

 Flame
 Flame-war
   1. To post an email message intended to insult and provoke.
   2. To speak incessantly and/or rabidly on some relatively
      uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous attitude.
   3. Either of senses 1 or 2, directed with hostility at a
      particular person or people.
   Flames are often found in large numbers (known as a flame-war)
   during religious wars (see religious issue, below).  alt.flame is
   specifically dedicated to perfecting the art of flaming.

 Flamebait
   A posting that is intended to trigger a flame war, or one that
   invites flames in reply.  For example, posting an article on how
   to run dogs over in rec.pets.dogs is sure to draw scathing flames
   from the readers of that group.

 Kibo
   Also known as "He who grep's" (grep is a Unix text searching
   tool).  Kibo was the first person to "grep" (search) the entire
   news stream for his name, generating an a reply if the string
   "kibo" was found.  Eventually, (we think) he modified his search
   pattern to find various modifications of "kibo", such as "Kibo" or
   "KIBO".  Kibo is the closest thing to a God on Usenet.  We worship
   you, almighty Kibo!  See alt.religion.kibology for more information.

 Kook
   A term used for many things, but mostly for the weirdos who
   randomly appear in random groups and who cause no end of trouble.
   Often placed in kill files, they usually disappear only after
   everyone has finally stopped responding to their ridiculous or
   improperly posted articles.
   See alt.usenet.kooks for more information.

 Lurk
   To read a newsgroup but not post articles.  It is often
   hypothesized that upwards of 99% of the people reading a group do
   not post, or post very rarely.  Of course, this hypothesis could
   be entirely incorrect and we're all out here babbling away to
   ourselves.

 Religious Issue
   Questions which seemingly cannot be raised without touching off
   holy wars (a flame war about a religious issue), such as "What is
   the best operating system (or editor, language, architecture,
   shell, mail reader, news reader...)?"
   Almost every group has a religious issue of some kind.  Anybody
   who was around the last time the issue exploded is careful not to
   provoke another war.  Religious issues are universally guaranteed
   to start a long running, tiresome, bandwidth wasting flame war -
   no truces allowed.

 September
   The time when college students return to school and start to post
   stupid questions, repost MAKE MONEY FAST, break rules of
   netiquette, and just generally make life on Usenet more difficult
   than at other times of the year.  Unfortunately, it has been
   September since 1993.  With the growing sensationalism surrounding
   the "Information-Superhighway" in the United States, the current
   September is likely to last into the next century.

   Regarding the origin of this term, David DeLaney
   ([e-mail]) wrote:

    > The first recorded outbreak of this was Warren Burstein saying
    > "It's *always* September, *somewhere* on the net" in response
    > to a particularly Clueless outburst from Delphi.com on
    > alt.folklore.urban, in fall 1993.
    >
    > Dave Fischer extended this, some time after that, to "1993 was
    > The Year September Never Ended".

 Signal to Noise Ratio (snr)
   A subjective quantity (the snr has no units - its usually just
   some obvious quantifier) describing someone's idea of just how
   much content a group has, relative to the junk that the group has.
   The snr is *very* subjective: my idea of the snr of alt.flame
   (approximately 0%) certainly differs from those who thrive on it.
   Generally, every person who reads news has a certain threshold for
   snr.  If any group falls below that threshold, the reader will
   unsubscribe, rather than wade through all the junk.

 Sturgeon's Law
   Ninety percent of everything is crud.  What that ninety percent is
   depends on who you are, but this law is often the cause of
   strenuous debate about a thread being either on or off topic!
   Please note that this does not imply that the remaining ten percent
   is not.

 Troll
   A posting designed specifically to generate followups about
   something trivial, but not in the sense of a flame; or a post
   designed to instruct readers' to ignore obvious drivel by making
   the replyers feel utterly stupid.  Such things as blatantly
   incorrect facts, misspellings, or concepts can be used as trolls.
    After the followups have died down, the troller will usually
   inform the victims of their status as guinea pigs and move on to
   another group.  Often, trolls are explicitly noted in the summary
   or keywords portions of the headers, thus making the respondents
   look like idiots - which they probably are for not having read
   the headers to begin with.

   For a good analogy and taxonomy of trolls,
   Abby Franquemont-Guillory ([e-mail]) writes,

    > Sometimes, when one goes fishing, one engages in the practice
    > of trolling: the art of casting out a line complete with bait
    > and a hook, and rowing or moving slowly while you drag the
    > line and wait to see what bites.
    >
    > Trolling as it is used in newsgroups means much the same
    > thing:  one throws out a baited line with a hook attached, and
    > waits to see who takes the bait by responding to the posted
    > troll.
    >
    > Examples of trolling might be going to a newsgroup filled with
    > fans of a particular person, and posting something slanderous
    > about said person.... going to a newsgroup filled with
    > newbies, and posting something that the uninitiated might be
    > taken in by..... going to a politically-charged newsgroup and
    > posting something which you know for certain will start a huge
    > debate or flamewar....
    >
    > You can also troll for specific people.... for instance, my
    > mother is an ethnobotanist who specializes in the usage and
    > taxonomy of Peruvian plants, and who is writing a book about
    > the potato.... and if I know she reads a certain newsgroup, or
    > searches for the word "potato" or something, I can do
    > something like post a message where I think she'll find it, a
    > message containing some misinformation about the potato, and
    > then if she responds to debunk the misinformation I posted,
    > she has been trolled. In fact, if she were to discover this
    > article and respond to it, she could even be said to have been
    > trolled.
    >
    > There are clever trolls, stupid trolls, obvious trolls, the
    > kind of trolls where you just can't be sure if it or it isn't,
    > the kind you can't resist, the kind that make you mad, the
    > kind that are aimed at everyone and anyone, trolls that are
    > intended to get one person's goat in particular, trolls which
    > are meant in fun, trolls which are set out with malice
    > aforethought, and many many other kinds of trolls.
    >
    > The effect that trolls have can also be widely varied.... it
    > depends on any number of things, and on the kinds of responses
    > and respondents that a troll receives.  There are people out
    > there who live to troll, and people to whom it is anathema.
    >
    > All in all, it's a pretty integral part of newsgroup culture.

   Ted Frank ([e-mail]) wrote:

    > The purpose of trolling is not to "deliberately start a flame
    > war".  Deliberately starting a flame war is flame-baiting, and
    > requires absolutely no intelligence to post something obscene
    > that'll get people mad.
    >
    > Trolling is more subtle. It's a tactic to discourage flaming,
    > by posting intelligently and cleverly crafted (but marked)
    > inaccuracies; someone attempting to flame a posted troll finds
    > that he has acted too rashly and has succeeded only in making
    > a fool of himself. It's a device to teach people not to
    > immediately hit "F" to demonstrate how superior they are to
    > the great unwashed uninformed. It reinforces netiquette;
    > compare flame-bait, which encourages the breakdown of
    > netiquette.
    >
    > A good troll is an impressive thing.
    >
    > Anyone can start a flamewar. Go to group X and post "X
    > SUCKS!!!!". Trolling is much more difficult.

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SECT95: Who contributed to this FAQ?

    I'd like to thank all the people who helped me with this FAQ, who
 have been quoted, or who have influenced this document in some other
 way.  Thanks!

 NONE of the following addresses are guaranteed to be correct!  The
 only address that may be relied upon is the maintainer's current
 address as noted below! Further, I do not claim that any
 attributions are correct - only that they are as correct as I could
 make them without being God (not that I wouldn't mind being God...)

  The New Hacker's Dictionary (also known as the Jargon File),
     MIT Press
  Technobabble by John A. Barry, MIT Press.  (This is a wonderful
     book - I'm sure I'll end up quoting this book in this FAQ
     sometime!)
  Aahz                      <[e-mail]>
  Abby Franquemont-Guillory <[e-mail]>
  Al Black                  <[e-mail]>
  Cameron Laird             <[e-mail]>
  David Birdsey             <[e-mail]>
  David DeLaney             <[e-mail]>
  Jim Jewett                <[e-mail]>
  Jorn Barger               <[e-mail]>
  Steve Siegfried           <[e-mail]>
  Ted Frank                 <[e-mail]>
  Thomas Seidenberg         <[e-mail]>

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SECT98: How to get this FAQ.

 This FAQ can be found in a number of places.

 * First and foremost, it is posted to the Usenet newsgroups
   alt.culture.usenet, alt.answers, and news.answers on or about the
   18th of each month.  It is set to expire just as the next one is
   being released so it should be available at all times at Usenet
   sites that abide by the Expires: header.

 * It is linked to my home page.  This is an exact copy of the most
   recently posted version, *NOT* an html-ized version.  The complete
   URL is

     http://www.wpi.edu/~boigy/text/a.c.u.FAQ.current

 * I would be willing to mail it to if you mail me at either of the
   addresses below, though I would much prefer you use either of the
   two methods above.

 * I am not specifically aware of any FTP site on which this FAQ has
   been archived, but I would think that rtfm.mit.edu or ftp.uu.net
   has a copy by now.

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SECT99: How to contact me, the maintainer.

 *Please* speak up if you think something needs to be changed in
 this FAQ.  I may ignore you, but then again, I may not!

 Comments?  Corrections?  Flames?  All suggestions, no matter how
 important or unimportant, are encouraged.

 [e-mail] (this address is used more.)
 [e-mail]   (this address is going to be around longer.)

----  _       Tom Seidenberg: Christian Student Sysadmin Programmer
--- _| |_    http://www.wpi.edu/~boigy  [e-mail]  [e-mail]
-- |_   _|  Opinions are mine, flames are deserved and creativity
-    |_|   was accidental! I Speak for me unless otherwise noted