After giving it much thought, I have decided to quit Usenet cold
turkey.  I have been grumbling about doing this for some time.  One
of the deciding factors was the disappointing failure of
rec.sport.pro-wrestling.info to pass its vote.  Another deciding factor
was that I decided to stay offline yesterday, which is the first time
I have done that without being out of town or very busy, and I had
the most productive, enjoyable day I have had in a very long time.

The reason I am posting about this here is that rsp-w is the only group
I have consistently read since I first got into Usenet in 1989, so in
a way I feel like it is my home newsgroup.  I have enjoyed talking with
many of the people here, both in the group and in private email.

Unfortunately, as I have discussed with many of you, my experience on
the Net has been less and less satisfying.  Groups have got much bigger
and harder to keep up with (rsp-w used to be a quick read of a dozen
or so good posts).  The amount of flamage has gotten worse.  There is
more deadwood.  People are ruder.  There are still a lot of gems among
the rubble, in fact there are more than ever, but I am finding that
the time it takes to find them is no longer worth it.

More and more, I found myself wondering why I bothered.  There is
almost nothing else that I feel compelled to do for over an hour each
day.  Usenet is a wonderful institution where everyone is a reporter
in a unique many-to-many relationship, with a lot of amazing knowledge
out there.  Still, when you get down to the core, it is just a bunch
of people talking to each other.  My local friends don't even get the
same dedication from me that I found myself giving to Usenet, and that
just doesn't make sense.

Another factor in my decision happened when my wife's brother visited
us.  He is on summer vacation from Clarkson University.  Once he got
permission to access his Clarkson accounts from my Internet account,
he was gone from our apartment in every way but the physical.  Seeing
how he was like a drug addict getting a fix after going through
withdrawal made me examine my own behavior.  Usenet was fun at first,
but the way I've been complaining about it so much while still
dutifully logging on every day to get my fix was eerily reminiscent
of an addict that started a drug for pleasure but now needs it just
to get through the day.

And my brother-in-law isn't really "on summer vacation" from Clarkson.
He bombed out, and I can't believe the fact that he left school with
a mastery of several different MUDs had nothing to do with it.  While
I'm being honest, I can't deny that I've let Usenet and other Internet
diversions interfere with my own life.

I've tried to scale back my activity.  I've even succeeded, for a
few days or weeks anyway.  But, sooner or later, I inevitably found
myself wasting away a good part of the day staring at my computer
terminal and then wondering where all the time went afterwards.

So this time I gave it some very serious thought.  Was I getting that
much out of Usenet?  Well, I was getting something out of it, but
certainly not "that much".  Was it worth the time I spent?  No.  Did
I often find myself spending what I later considered way too much
time with it?  Yes.  Since I'm posting this in the wrestling newsgroup,
the fact that I spent more time each week reading (and writing)
about wrestling than watching it struck me as a particularly
ridiculous example.

Trying to be as objective as possible, I decided it would be best to
just drop off the face of Usenet completely.  I examined the
ramifications, and I kept coming back to the fact that prior to 1989,
I had no Usenet access, yet I managed to get along just fine.  I suspect
I will be able to do the same in 1994.  The worst thing that can happen
is that someone will write something interesting, and I'll never read
it.  So what?  It happens all the time anyway.  Though I'll certainly
miss some aspects of Usenet, including many of you, I suspect overall
my life will be more enjoyable and productive without it.

This is in no way a condemnation of any of you.  Keeping with the
drug addiction analogy, I've know people who have recovered from
drug habits that nonetheless envied those who could do it in a
recreational way without it interfering with their lives.  I tend
to be obsessive about things, but if most of you can participate
in Usenet in a way that mostly enhances your life, more power to you.

As for me, though, this will be my last message.  I am not going to
throw around "never"s and say my writing will never gaze this
newsgroup again, but you won't be seeing me for some time.  The
fact that I'll look like a total idiot if I return so soon after
writing this message is part of my motivation for writing it.  If
I have a question that needs an answer, I won't hesitate to pop into
a newsgroup to ask it, but the daily habit ends now.

As somewhat of a parting gift, I located and did some editing on
files containing Prodigy messages from Dutch Mantel, his wife,
Missy Hyatt, and Sherri Martel.  I also dug up an old GIF of Evan
that I got from CompuServe a while back, and I found another GIF
of Sean Ryan from his newsgroup.  I will upload all of that stuff
to the cactusjack site as soon as it lets me connect.  I also will
break my "last message" pronouncement above one time to post the
Hulk Hogan poll results after the voting closes on Sunday, since
I'd promised to do that.

I have never had a problem with email, and I will continue reading
mine every few days.  So if anyone wants to contact me, feel free
to send me email, especially if you hear anything really interesting
that you think I'd want to know about.

Well, I believe I've said everything I needed to say.  It's been fun.
I'll leave you with a quote from an article I recently read.  It
expresses a sentiment a little harsher than mine, but this quote and
the rest of the article made a lot of points that hit a nerve.

"Excuse me, but I'm taking a little vacation from the Internet.  I'm
going back to a real life.  Jeesh, has there ever been a bigger
collection of mean-spirited, emotionally deficient, just-plain-weird
and mostly utterly boring people?"

     -- Erik Lacitis, Seattle Times columnist
        from 1994/7/4 Chicago Tribune article,
        "Time to pull the plug on the Internet"

Goodbye...

--
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   / Bob Rusbasan                  |     Dance to the tension       \
  /  rrusb...@nyx.cs.du.edu        |      of a world on edge         \
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