Well, I'm not the person who created this newsgroup, but I am his SO, and I
know the circumstances of the creation very well.
Jeff was (and still is, I think, or at least will be next semester) the News
Admin at Harvey Mudd College. As a joke on/surprise for/present to a certain
person there, he created a _local_ newsgroup, alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork.
Now, that said person, upon discovering the newsgroup, was quite pleased, and
immediately posted a message with _world_ distribution. Due to the nature of
the News software, the article propagated beyond the site. Now, most sites
put articles for unknown newsgroups in a place called junk. Some, however,
have software which automatically creates a newsgroup if an article arrives
with a previously nonexistent newsgroup in the header. The more sites
created the group, the more sites got the message,
'alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork not in .newsrc. Create?' So the infection
spread.
Now, some site administrators were not appreciative of this new group. For
at least one, this group was the last straw, and caused the site to drop the
alt.* hierarchy entirely. (They were already pretty much going to do so
anyway, but this just pushed it over the edge...) Very soon after the escape
of the group, it was removed as a bogus group.
But this is not the end of the story, as is obvious from the continued
existence of the group. Some News Admins, and many news readers, took the
group as it was originally intended to be taken: as a joke, and a fairly good
one at that. People _liked_ the very _idea_ of a group called, of all things,
alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork. Some sites aliased alt.tv.muppets to this
name; others allowed it to exist in its own right. Further attempts have been
made on the life of the group, but there are too many people who think it's
fun; the group will not die.
So there you have it. A college prank that escaped, propagated, caught on,
and is holding strong. Long live alt.swdish.chef.bork.bork.bork!
(BTW, if you want to contact the man responsible for the madness, he doesn't
have net access over the summer, but he has an account which should still be
active, and from which he will get mail at the end of August. His e-mail
address is: jvo...@jarthur.claremont.edu )
--Shirley Monroe
Snow in June... yeesh... oh well, I guess we've had blizzards in
may..
--
Bob Beck, be...@cs.ualberta.ca University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alta. Canada.
Internet Worm eat yer heart out!
--
// Conrad Longmore / Uucp: ..!ukc!axion!tharr!conrad / S*E*R*F says: //
// Bedford College / Janet: tharr!conrad @ uk.ac.ukc / Long live the //
// Computer Centre / YelNet: +44 234 45151 x5350 / --- ADM31! --- //
I think this should be a bilingual group, so here:
Translation:
Playcee borkee Daenemarkee, bork, bork, bork. (Thinkyy gotcha Soedre
Borkee, Borkee Norre Borkee). Funwindyy surfetestee FooToo isee haven
bork, bork, bork och pointee way that on the mappee, bork, bork, bork.
Thinkyy linguini twinkee, ah readee! Bork, bork:
\ Ws H /
\ iu Juri Munkki Macintosh Support jmu...@hut.fi PS /
/ nr Helsinki University of Technology, Computing Centre 4X \
/ df 8 \