104 Snoozenet ----- Transcript of session follows ----- RCPT To:rs/tmp/alt/sys/suneadlock@uunet.uu.net 550 rs/tmp/alt/sys/suneadlock@uunet.uu.net... User unknown 550 rs/tmp/alt/sys/suneadlock@uunet.uu.net... User unknown —Rob When in Doubt, Post I put a query on the net I haven’t got an answer yet. —Ed Nather University of Texas, Austin In the early days of Usenet, a posting could take a week to propagate throughout most of the net because, typically, each long hop was done as an overnight phone call. As a result, Usenet discussions often resembled a cross between a musical round-robin and the children’s game of telephone. Those “early on” in the chain added new facts and even often moved on to something different, while those at the end of the line would recieve mes- sages often out of order or out of context. E-mail was often unreliable, so it made sense to post an answer to someone’s question. There was also the feeling that the question and your answer would be sent together to the next site in the line, so that people there could see that the question had been answered. The net effect was, surprisingly, to reduce volume. Usenet is much faster now. You can post an article and, if you’re on the Internet, it can reach hundreds of sites in five minutes. Like the atom bomb, however, the humans haven’t kept up with the technology. People see an article and feel the rush to reply right away without waiting to see if anyone else has already answered. The software is partly to blame—there’s no good way to easily find out whether someone has already answered the question. Certainly ego is also to blame: Look, ma, my name in lights. As a result, questions posted on Usenet collect lots of public answers. They are often contradictory and many are wrong, but that’s to be expected. Free advice is worth what you pay for it.

Seven Stages of Snoozenet 105 To help lessen the frequency of frequently asked questions, many news- groups have volunteers who periodically post articles, called FAQs, that contain the frequently asked questions and their answers. This seems to help some, but not always. There are often articles that say “where’s the FAQ” or, more rudely, say “I suppose this is a FAQ, but ...” Seven Stages of Snoozenet By Mark Waks The seven stages of a Usenet poster, with illustrative examples. Innocence HI. I AM NEW HERE. WHY DO THEY CALL THIS TALK.BIZARRE? I THINK THAT THIS NEWSFROUP OOPS, NEWGROUP --- HEE, HEE) STUFF IS REAL NEAT. :-) -- MY FIRST SMILEY. DO YOU HAVE INTERESTING ONES? PLEASE POST SOME I THINK THAT THEIR COOL. DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY BIZARRE DEAD BABY JOKES? Enthusiasm Wow! This stuff is great! But one thing I’ve noticed is that every time someone tries to tell a dead baby joke, everyone says that they don’t want to hear them. This really sucks there are a lot of us who *like* dead baby jokes. Therefore, I propose that we create the news- group rec.humor.dead.babies specifically for those of us who like these jokes. Can anyone tell me how to create a newsgroup? Arrogance In message (3.14159@BAR), FOO@BAR.BITNET says: [dead chicken joke deleted] This sort of joke DOES NOT BELONG HERE! Can’t you read the rules? Gene Spafford *clearly states* in the List of Newsgroups: rec.humor.dead.babies Dead Baby joke swapping