Critical Mass (and where in the world is Dave Locke???)
- Doctor Who -
It has been a long while since I last visited this newsgroup (and since the last time The Sub~Orbital was updated :) ..
Thanks to the efforts of CY, the Morse site has been fed with sufficient info to keep itself running...) I was very
pleasantly surprised by the amount of activity on this NG... It was two years ago when Dave Locke - the original
moderator of this site, who enlisted me and a fellow Morse fan in New Zealand, tried to work out the problems that this
NG was having - e.g. problems with missing messages, lack of PR, and other NG-related problems. As I recall, we worked
off and on to propagate this NG thru the newsgroup network. (there was a time when this NG was not available on a vast
number of News servers out on the Internet - which in turn led to access problems). It seems those problems are now gone
- I think this NG has reached critical mass - with sufficient input from regulars(thanks to all of you) to keep the NG
running.
I haven't heard from Dave for a while. But, if you see Dave lurking around on the Internet, please thank him for his
efforts. Dave, if you see this, please post a response. We'd love to hear from you.
K.P.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Sub~Orbital http://users.accessus.net/~dr_who
email: dr_...@accessus.net
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Max Shreck
>I think this NG has reached critical mass - with sufficient
>input from regulars(thanks to all of you) to keep the NG
>running.
Well, hello there, KP! How nice of you to put in a visit! :^)
When you say this ng has reached critical mass, were you intentionally
referring to our new official motto, "A Smoldering Critical Mass of
Naughtiness"?
I read somewhere some time ago, though I can no longer remember where, that
Dave Locke was the *moderator* of this newsgroup. I don't remember us ever
being moderated, though -- good thing, too. We've had a lot of fun going
off-topic!
Also, I posted a month or two back, around the time when traffic started
picking up here, asking who had founded the ng and when. (The thread was called
"The birth of a.f.i-m?") I never did get a definitive answer. Perhaps you know?
Y'all come back and see us soon. Don't be a stranger, hear? ;^)
-- Max
judith lawrence
don't know if it's the same one. However, I'll contact him and ask.
--
Judy L Uni...@gte.net
Max Shreck wrote in message
<199808022038...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
- Doctor Who -
>KP wrote:
>>I think this NG has reached critical mass - with sufficient
>>input from regulars(thanks to all of you) to keep the NG
>>running.
>
>Well, hello there, KP! How nice of you to put in a visit! :^)
Hi Max!
>
>When you say this ng has reached critical mass, were you intentionally
>referring to our new official motto, "A Smoldering Critical Mass of
>Naughtiness"?
>
I like it! ... it must have been the fact that I'm so tuned in to fellow Morse fans... It was a lucky coincidence :o)
>I read somewhere some time ago, though I can no longer remember where, that
>Dave Locke was the *moderator* of this newsgroup. I don't remember us ever
>being moderated, though -- good thing, too. We've had a lot of fun going
>off-topic!
>Also, I posted a month or two back, around the time when traffic started
>picking up here, asking who had founded the ng and when. (The thread was called
>"The birth of a.f.i-m?") I never did get a definitive answer. Perhaps you know?
The origin of alt.fan.inspector-morse.... we think it originated in the UK, about six months before I started The
Sub~Orbital - we traced it back to the news server that started it all... However, it barely existed because of an utter
lack of postings and because the administrators who managed news servers on the Internet(at the time) did not bother to
include this NG listing on their servers. Enter Dave Locke - he first contacted me via The Sub~Orbital and told me of
the existence of this NG.. soon after, I began to promote the NG on the Sub~Orb and we started posting to this NG in the
hopes of generating more interest and activity. It was then when we discovered all sorts of propagation problems in this
NG... for example, Dave would submit a posting to his news server and I would see no sign of it on my news server. The
reverse would also be true. A fellow Morse fan from New Zealand couldn't even subscribe to the NG because it didn't
exist in the NZ news servers at the time. We decided to send emails to news server administrators persuading them to add
the NG to their list. We also tried various posting tricks - for example, to post to this news group, we would also post
to alt.test to ensure that our messages are properly propagated to news servers around the world. Slowly, more people
began posting to the NG... We also found that DejaNews was a fairly reliable posting and retrieving tool - which is why
you see detailed instructions on the Sub~Orbital site (written by Dave) on how to use DejaNews. Dave started moderating
the site - we needed a moderator because of a rather bad problem we had with Spam at the time... I think we still have
it today :( and to maintain a level of civility (relatively speaking :o) ) in ongoing discussions. At the time, we had
about 5 postings per week. Alison was one of the first regulars! I do believe I was the first to be flamed - for
revealing Morse's first name on the web site - this despite the fact that all of the major UK newspapers revealed the
name (including Mr. Dexter himself, during a press conference) on the day DINMN became available. Thankfully, there were
plenty of supporters on the NG who helped me survive the incident :) Thru it all, Dave played a huge role in making
sure that this NG grew - to the point that I consider Dave to be the one who started it all... Somehow, he has vanished
from the electronic world and is nowhere to be seen today.... hence the quest - Where in the World is Dave Locke???
I dropped off the scene after a while (the Sub~Orbital was dormant for about six months at one time) due to an extremely
hectic travel schedule (as CY can attest). Anyway, it is great to see all the activity in this NG today.
>
>Y'all come back and see us soon. Don't be a stranger, hear? ;^)
>
I'll do my best, Max. :)
Cheers, KP
Lachy Darby
dr_...@accessus.net (- Doctor Who -) wrote:
Hello KP
It's seems that you are right
The newsgroup has reached critical Mass
Cheers
Lachy Darby
ga...@voyager.co.nz
Moses could'nt believe it.
He went back to God
"Tell me agin. The Arabs get the oil,
and we get the end cut off our what?"
- Doctor Who -
>
>It's seems that you are right
>The newsgroup has reached critical Mass
>Cheers
>Lachy Darby
>ga...@voyager.co.nz
Hi Lachy!
It has been a long time, old friend. Good to hear from you again. Hope things are going well for you down in the
southern hemisphere. I still can't believe that this newsgroup actually has a respectable amount of traffic - this after
all of the attempts at getting things to work in the beginning...
Stay in touch.
Regards, KP
Lachy Darby
>Hi Lachy!
>
>It has been a long time, old friend. Good to hear from you again. Hope things are going well for you down in the
>southern hemisphere. I still can't believe that this newsgroup actually has a respectable amount of traffic - this after
>all of the attempts at getting things to work in the beginning...
>
>Stay in touch.
>
>Regards, KP
>
Life been rather hectic in the last six months, I have been watching
with interest the development of the newsgroup with now a seemingly
dedicated audience. Just hope we haven't given birth to a monster.
I just come and visit the site again shortly and see how you have
been getting on with it.
I don't know how much we has to do with the sudden increase in traffic
for the group but it feels rather good to know that all that work we
did has not been in vain
Lachy Darby
ga...@voyager.co.nz
The bravest animals in the land
Was Captain Beaky and his band
That Timid Toad, Reckless Rat,
Artful Owl and Batty Bat.....
Max Shreck
Lachy Darby wrote:
>Life been rather hectic in the last six months, I have been watching
>with interest the development of the newsgroup with now a seemingly
>dedicated audience. Just hope we haven't given birth to a monster.
I think you have, but fortunately most of us here seem to enjoy monsterousness.
:^)
>I don't know how much we has to do with the sudden increase in traffic
>for the group but it feels rather good to know that all that work we
>did has not been in vain
Lachy, why don't you introduce yourself? Or KP, why don't you introduce us?
Apparently you were another of the Founding Fathers?
As it is, all I know about you is that you live in NZ and you have *quite* the
cool name! "Darby" I can guess at how to pronounce, but how do you say "Lachy"?
-- Max
- Doctor Who -
>
>Lachy, why don't you introduce yourself? Or KP, why don't you introduce us?
>Apparently you were another of the Founding Fathers?
>
Max, yes... please allow me the pleasure to introduce Lachy - a fellow Morse fan who helped work out all the kinks in
this newsgroup during its nascent stages. :)
Cheers, KP
Lachy Darby
Shreck) wrote:
>Lachy, why don't you introduce yourself? Or KP, why don't you introduce us?
>Apparently you were another of the Founding Fathers?
Gosh
*Blush*
I rather shy really
>As it is, all I know about you is that you live in NZ and you have *quite* the
>cool name! "Darby" I can guess at how to pronounce, but how do you say "Lachy"?
I don't know if you would say my surname is cool , in fact I know that
I wouldn't but thanks for saying it any way.
My christian name (for what's it worth) is pronounced lockie
The first person to spell it like that shall be struck down by what
ever means I can find.
It's Scottish ( you can blame my grandmother)
I'm not really one of the founding fathers of the newsgroup.
My involved is rather fringe at best,
Having discovered the group just after it's inception
I wrote to KP telling him of the newsgroup existence.
We both sat back and waited for the posts to flood into the group as
he advertised it presence on his web site.
Nothing happened for Six months despite repeated posts into the group.
Then one day there was a post from Dave Locke ( the man who deserves
all the credit) saying that there was exteremly little activity in the
group and wanting to know why this was so, and he beleived that I was
responsible for it's creation and wanted to know what was going on.
This got the three of us talking (via e-mail) and we decided to see
if we could get to the bottom of the lack of propgration on the news
servers around the world.
We basically took turns at posting messages into various config groups
requests that propragtion take plave and all of us talking to our ISP
in order to trace the newgroups home server.
We traced it to England but no further than that.
We had gone as far as we could, BUt over the last 12 months I am glad
to say that the newsgroups has kicked into life.
Well Done Everybody.
There.....
Thats my entire history all reduced to a few paragraphs.
Max Shreck
Oh, the joys of being idle at work! I had a chance to surf the net a bit and
used it to check out Deja News. What fun to review the early a.f.i-m! It was
pretty different in some ways; it seemed to stick closer to the topic at hand
most of the time. (Which is not necessarily a good thing. It means there was a
lack of undergarment discussions. Also, the NG participants did not yet know
the real reason for the limp, though the topic was often discussed.)
I learned a few interesting things.
1. Maria has been posting, though sporadically, for several years. Even in the
early years she demonstrated a level of interest in the limp issue that would
be considered unhealthy in anyone but an anatomy professor. ;^) ...So she's off
the hook! After all, it's for Science!
2. There used to be a lot more flaming. And there used to be a lot more men. I
don't think that's coincidence. I have a book, "You Just Don't Understand,"
that examines the topic of communication styles and comes to the conclusion
that women, in discussion, tend to go for a "consensus-building" approach --
ie, they try to find ways to agree with each other. Men, on the other hand,
tend to argue and debate even in friendly discussion. It's not necessarily
considered hostile; it's just how they communicate. This explains a lot. And
speaking of arguments...
3. The alt.fan.homicide newsgroup Dave Locke Judith mentioned is indeed the
same one that used to be such a staple of a.f.i-m. His e-mail address is the
same (dave...@bigfoot.com) and a couple of the archived posts I ran across
even mentioned his web page.
-- Max
(who felt both saddened and vindicated to read in "You Just Don't Understand"
that New Yorkers are considered rude and pushy because their *normal*
conversational style is to interrupt and speak over each other, and non-New
Yorkers don't realize that.)
Max Shreck
Lachy wrote:
>My christian name (for what's it worth) is pronounced lockie
>It's Scottish ( you can blame my grandmother)
>The first person to spell it like that shall be struck down by what
>ever means I can find.
Well, I try to be respectful in name spelling, but I know how I'll remember the
pronunciation now: Locke-ie! ;^)
Or is it Loch-ie, as in Loch Lomond, with that Scottish H?
>I'm not really one of the founding fathers of the newsgroup.
>
>My involved is rather fringe at best,
>
>Having discovered the group just after it's inception
>I wrote to KP telling him of the newsgroup existence.
>
>We both sat back and waited for the posts to flood into the group as
>he advertised it presence on his web site.
>
>Nothing happened for Six months despite repeated posts into the group.
<snip>
>We had gone as far as we could, BUt over the last 12 months I am glad
>to say that the newsgroups has kicked into life.
>
>Well Done Everybody.
Well done y'self, Lachy. Hope you stick around for a bit. :^)
-- Max
Dave Locke
> I haven't heard from Dave for a while. But, if you see Dave lurking
> around on the Internet, please thank him for his efforts. Dave, if you
> see this, please post a response. We'd love to hear from you.
Hey, K.P., here I is...
I haven't posted into a.f.i-m since the end of December last year, and
that was just two or three posts. Haven't actually done any real
posting since the end of March in 1997.
I wrote you about it at the time, but apparently you were off on one
of your jaunts and the email got lost in the kipple.
Basically it was a matter of fafia (forced away from it all) due to a
personal matter, causing me to cut back drastically in online
activity.
> Dave Locke - the original moderator of this site
The group was never moderated. I was the "monitor" of a.f.i-m.
Basically that meant chasing away the spammers and the trolls,
promoting the group on rec.arts.mystery, and helping you and Lachy
attempt to propagate the newsgroup so that people could get to it,
plus a bit of peacemaking when tempers flared.
Here's an example of what I used to post in here:
Subject: All the new spam that's fit to trash
From: dave...@bigfoot.com (Dave Locke)
Date: 1997/03/16
Message-ID: <332d5d18...@news.pipeline.com>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.inspector-morse,alt.test
Yes, your Monitor is still alive and active and gleefully getting
spammers tossed out of their accounts. And, yes, there
seems to be a greater amount of spam on Usenet these days.
Luckily, I notice that we're skipped a little more often than we
used to be. Can't lose them all...
Remember: if you see a spam and get ticked off about it ... it's
being dealt with. It's a dirty job and someone has to have fun
with it...
Dave Locke, Monitor alt.fan.inspector-morse dave...@bigfoot.com
It may still be a little bit before I can add a.f.i-m back into my
list of online crifanac, but I do hope to be back before too long.
Nice hearing from you and, elsewhere in this thread, Lachy. And all
the rest of you...
--
Dave | dave...@bigfoot.com | http://www.angelfire.com/oh/slowdjin/
Dutch, Injun, Irish, Limey, Scotch | "Proud to be a mammal"
Max Shreck
>I haven't posted into a.f.i-m since the end of December last year, and
>that was just two or three posts. Haven't actually done any real
>posting since the end of March in 1997.
>Nice hearing from you and, elsewhere in this thread, Lachy. And all
>the rest of you...
Hail, hail, the gang's all here! Welcome back, Dave! Hope we'll be seeing a bit
more of you in good time.
And now, in the midst of this Old Guard reunion, Alison seems to have gone
missing! Dang...
-- Max
(looking high & low)
Lachy Darby
Shreck) wrote:
>
>
>Well done y'self, Lachy. Hope you stick around for a bit. :^)
>
Well Max
I don't know if I have anything useful to add, But I certainly will
continue to lurk, with everyone permission
- Doctor Who -
Hi Dave!
Am really glad to hear that you're OK. I hope things will work out for you to the point that you can be at a.f.i-m on a
more frequent basis. I continue to marvel at the improvement in message propagation in this NG... eventhough the
occasional message still gets lost in the black hole of electrons....
Lachy Darby
>
>Hi Dave!
>
>Am really glad to hear that you're OK. I hope things will work out for you to the point that you can be at a.f.i-m on a
>more frequent basis. I continue to marvel at the improvement in message propagation in this NG... eventhough the
>occasional message still gets lost in the black hole of electrons....
>
Looks likes we done good !!!!!!!!!!!!!1