September is near
Matt Giwer
the first to discover usenet.
Beware the deluge.
--
If a truth is protected by law you know it is a lie.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 1525
The Atomic Ass
> Hundreds of thousands of new college freshmen are going to think
> they are
> the first to discover usenet.
>
> Beware the deluge.
>
Heh, first to discover usenet. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
--
Ranko, aka "The Atomic Ass"
"The" Asshole on the Internet.
ftp://ranko.d2g.biz/ | the_ato...@SPAM.KILLER.runbox.com | ICQ: 96057212
Matt Giwer
> Matt Giwer elegantly belched in news:3D707334...@tampabay.rr.com:
>> Hundreds of thousands of new college freshmen are going to think
>> they are
>>the first to discover usenet.
>> Beware the deluge.
> Heh, first to discover usenet. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
One can wish there were somthing to hang on you wall in a frame or a
T-Shirt rather than hoping people read the fine faq.
Daniel Seriff
(in message <3D707334...@tampabay.rr.com>):
> Hundreds of thousands of new college freshmen are going to think they are
> the first to discover usenet.
>
> Beware the deluge.
Dumnass. Most schools began classes a week or two ago, if not more.
--
Daniel Seriff
La musique est un langage qui se signifie soi-même.
- Jean-Jacques Nattiez
Alistair Davidson
> Hundreds of thousands of new college freshmen are going to think they are
> the first to discover usenet.
>
> Beware the deluge.
This is the September That Never Ended, it started in 1995...
--
Alistair Davidson
Prying open your third eye since 1823
Ian S
<micro...@what.zzz>
>
>Dumnass. Most schools began classes a week or two ago, if not more.
>
>--
>Daniel Seriff
>
Depends where you are in the world. In my neck of the woods classes
begin in late September and early October.
Ian
Matt Giwer
In the US it generally begins after this holiday weekend. (Labor day)
--
In private a man may freely choose reason and common sense.
In public he must side with the most common beliefs as
reason is not suitable for public discourse.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 1600
Chris Camfield
> Hundreds of thousands of new college freshmen are going to think they are
>the first to discover usenet.
>
> Beware the deluge.
What the hell do we have to fear? We're somehow putting up with YOU.
Katherine Tredwell
> On Sat, 31 Aug 2002 2:41:00 -0500, Matt Giwer wrote
> (in message <3D707334...@tampabay.rr.com>):
>
> > Hundreds of thousands of new college freshmen are going to think they are
> > the first to discover usenet.
> >
> > Beware the deluge.
>
> Dumnass. Most schools began classes a week or two ago, if not more.
But it takes them a week or two to get past the I'm-lost-so-I'll-
stand-in-the-middle-of-the-sidewalk phase, stop being lost, and
figure out where the computer labs are.
Katherine Tredwell
rosignol
ccam...@sympatico.ca (Chris Camfield) wrote:
Bah. On usenet, it's been September since 1995...
--
al Qaeda delenda est
Matt Giwer
I'm a deluge now. My ISP must be triple posting. You should inform them.
--
110 political assassinations by Israel with 432 murdered
as collateral damage. This proves Israel is telling the
truth in saying it takes extreme care to avoid harming
civilians.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 1624
Joe Bernstein
to which I'm posting it, but footnote 1 is on-topic to soc.history.ancient
(one of the thread's ancestral groups; the post to which I'm replying had
followups set to, I think, soc.histOry.what-if) and footnote 2 is on-
topic to alt.fan.dejanews, hence the newsgroups line. Being a pessimist,
I figure if there are *any* followups they'll be to footnote 2, so I've
set followups; redirect if you're instead answering note 1.
In article <akrhq5$1kote7$3...@ID-110097.news.dfncis.de>, Alistair Davidson
<lord...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> If you believe what *they* tell you, Matt Giwer wrote:
> > Hundreds of thousands of new college freshmen are going to think they are
> > the first to discover usenet.
> >
> > Beware the deluge.
> This is the September That Never Ended, it started in 1995...
Oh, nonsense. That September ended years ago. How many newsgroups
do *you* know that are newbie-dominated any more? I'm not sure just
*when* the long September ended, but I'd guess somewhere between 1997
and 1999. And by the way, it began in 1994 or before, not 1995; my
arrival fell solidly within it, and I showed up in late 1995. (While
Google's timeline can't be trusted in all details, if they say their
first post from AOL was in 1992, then at least I'd bet it wasn't any
later, and they do say that. Traditionally, AOL's arrival on Usenet
has been seen as the beginning of the long September. Reference:
http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html.)[2]
This is not the same thing as having most threads be started by newbies.
Newbies customarily do have more questions and more enthusiasm than
old-timers, so having most threads be started by them is pretty normal.
And frankly, I think the old-timers on soc.history.ancient have so little
in common that threads started by any one of us are less welcome, on
average, than threads started by people we've none of us seen before.
This is also not the same thing as any general decline in Usenet's
quality. It's worth remembering that most things humans experience
tend to be seen, over years, as declining in quality. It's also
worth noting that a culture subjected to several years of sustained
invasion will not rebound instantly the minute the invasion stops;
indeed, it may never rebound, and I have real doubts as to whether
the majority of once-useful text Usenet groups will ever be useful
again. Finally, it's worth remembering that people tend to lose
interest in Usenet over time - this happened before the long September
too, and can't be blamed entirely on that event - and so some
majority of the people now posting never even saw netiquette working
properly.[1]
(All of this ignores the determined efforts of Microsoft, most notably
but not only, to ensure that people use abominably bad newsreaders,
from within which netiquette is difficult or impossible to follow.)
In any event, I have the impression that most college freshmen these
days aren't even *interested* in text Usenet, as opposed to the parts
of it that allow trading of movies, music, and pictures. And to judge
by the ones I've been seeing at the campus from which I post this,
most college freshmen are too damn *intimidated* to raise much
trouble on a group like soc.history.ancient, jammed full of longtime
regulars who can't stand each other and are not shy about showing it.
(Yes, of course I include myself in that statement. Isn't this post
ill-tempered enough for you?)
Joe Bernstein
[1] To the extent that the "endless September" remains a widely
popular theme, however, it's certainly an interesting one, which
bears comparison with the way in which the Roman Republic maintained
various themes from its early years for a Long Long Time, even past
the point at which they had any contemporary *relevance*, to say
nothing of contemporary *value*. Consider on the one hand the
Importance of Breeding True-Blooded Citizens, which lasted all the
way up to Augustus's day and began ?when?, and which was always
somewhat delusional in a society as promiscuously assimilative as
Rome; and on the other hand the Importance of Not Having Kings, which
turned out to be an entirely justified passion after over four
centuries, oops.
I think it'll be interesting to see which of the behaviours and
ideas formed in response to Septembers in general and the long
September in particular will last, and to what extent this will
just be in-group puffery like True Breeding, to what extent it'll
be serious matter like No Tyrants Here. It's noteworthy that
although FAQs are in decline on text Usenet, they've spread to the
general culture; the FAQ originated out of September 1982, and
the topical FAQ craze of the early 1990s was also newbie-directed,
so this pattern is unsurprising but suggests that FAQs can be
considered serious matter. OTOH, acronyms have always had something
of in-group puffery about them, far back as I can remember... I
think maintaining the idea that September never ended functions as
in-group puffery, too: it amounts to throwing up your hands at an
alleged and unsolvable problem while showing enough knowledge to
prove that you're not a part of it, rather than observing the actually
existing problems, which are considerable, and trying to figure out
whether those are solvable. In this regard it's much like the Roman
tradition of placing the age of perfect filial obedience, among other
virtues, firmly in the past, a sharp contrast with, for example, the
self-confidence of Periclean Athens. Hmmm. Maybe there are actual
survival advantages in having delusions of decline?
Ooo look, I managed to sorta make this on-topic! Neat! Wish I
could always do that!
[2] Google's first reference to the name you provided is by Dave
Fischer, in January 1994:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=94204205851.dave.22710%40gilly.cca.org
We have "endless September" in March 1994 from Mo Shu Glenn:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1994Mar23.223307.25900%40midway.uchicago.edu
which may explain why I liked it, being another U of Chicago person;
and in between, "Eternal September" is the actual subject line of
a post by John William Chambless, cross-posted among four alt.*
groups of course, dated February 1994:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=2j9vhj%24hms%40whale.st.usm.edu
This seems conclusively to show that the long September was seen, at
the time, as having begun in September 1993, which interestingly makes
the AOL-long September connection look pretty odd.
Interestingly, the phrase I *now* use, "long September", is earlier than
any of these; David Fox uses it in commenting on a MMF in December 1993:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1993Dec18.232147.24242%40belvedere.sbay.org
In this meaning, it has continued in use to the present.
But in my meaning, that is, as an assertion that it really ended,
let's see... Um, there's a use in 1997 that *may* be that meaning,
though I think it's still as a synonym for "endless September":
Christi Alice Scarborough, November 1997,
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=65jnab%243r0%241%40osfa.aber.ac.uk
but if you agree with me that that doesn't count, the next one *is* me,
in February 1998:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=6cigfr%244o4%40huitzilo.tezcat.com
And I don't find anyone agreeing with me even superficially until
July of 2000 - which I think is not really an agreement - using
the same phrase, anyway: a C. Jones
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=8k13qt%24i1a%241%40pulp.srv.ualberta.ca
I'm not sure I find anyone else at all using "long September" who
agrees with me. But "September has ended" turns up Eli Balin in
August 1996 (!), admittedly on alt.religion.kibology:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=4ts3vc%241f4%40panix2.panix.com
and more seriously if doubtfully, T. R. McLoughlin in February 1998:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=34D9D5B3.C1167CB3%40erols.com
From "September is over", I get a staggeringly optimistic post by
Lee Bumgarner, who oughta know, in December of *1996*:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=57tu04%241lk%40nw101.infi.net
(the l might be a 1, sorry, can't cut & paste here)
The conclusion of all this searching appears to be that hardly anyone
actually *does* agree with the contention I opened this post with.
How depressing. But if delusions of decline *are* good for a
culture, then maybe it's a good sign in disguise...
--
Joe Bernstein, writer j...@sfbooks.com
<http://these-survive.postilion.org/>
Leeb
> From "September is over", I get a staggeringly optimistic post by
> Lee Bumgarner, who oughta know, in December of *1996*:
> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=57tu04%241lk%40nw101.infi.net
> (the l might be a 1, sorry, can't cut & paste here)
This means I'm officially an olbie. Someone is going through
groups.google.com and reading the bazillian posts I wrote way back
when. I can just see some grad student writing a thesis on "The
Spelling Mistakes of One Lee S. Bumgarner 1994-1999" or "The Latent
Sexual Desire Between Lee S. Bumgarner and Wednesday as Representation
of the Post-Sexual Revolution in the Virtual Community."
Of course, they'd probably only use from Perns from The WELL. (I've on
occasion thought of joining The WELL just for the Hell of it, so I
could post to Usenet with an @Well.com address.)
Yes, in a previous post I mispelt "Wednesday." I regret the error and
I guess she can be mad at me for what I said because of it.
Brhahahahahhahah
Leeb