Article 30696 of alt.folklore.computers:
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From: wolfe@wolves.Durham.NC.US (G. Wolfe Woodbury)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.culture.usenet,news.admin.misc
Subject: Re: Famous flame wars, examples please?
Message-ID: <1992Nov30.040947.18262@wolves.Durham.NC.US>
Date: 30 Nov 92 04:09:47 GMT
References: <1992Nov28.071525.9093@vlsi.polymtl.ca>
Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers,news.admin.misc
Organization: Red Wolfe @ The Wolves Den
Lines: 61
X-Md4-Signature: 0070631ae6a0d3dcb36fa2f265bcb4e6

d40937@aiken (Jean Yves Desbiens) writes:
>
>I would like to know if there has been in the past some
>celebrated flame wars in the past? 

Well, the "first" flame war on "Usenet" took place even before it had a
real name or cabal!    Laura Creighton complained bitterly about Bill
Joy having a halt instruction embedded in the middle of the BSD tape
boot sequence, and not having it noted that the halt was normal
behaviour and the "continue" should be pressed.   Bill Joy himself
replied, implying that those who didn't like it just didn't understand
computers and operating systems.  And the tradition was off and running!

The second flame war occurred in a discussion of computing as a career,
and the discussion turned on the concept that computing was running in
families, that the younger folk were getting computers from the older
folks and we might expect dynasties of computer families.  Some poor
fool taling about how everyone in his immediate family was computer
literate (I was the twit) and had the indecency to be "politically
incorrect" and said "...even my half sister hacks computers for a
living."  [This was in the days when "hack" was a good word.]  Alas, I
don't recall the denoument of this war, since it was strongly suggested
to me at that time that I not post to news.  [The flame war was over the
sexism "inherent" in the statement, and in the poor way that most
programmers treated women who were computer literate or even computer
professionals.]

The most significant flame war of Usenet history was over the "Great
Renaming" when the seven main heirarchies {comp,misc,news,rec,sci,soc,talk}
were created and the old groups {net,fa,mod} were all moved around.
There was great gnashing of teeth as groups were sorted and tossed
around and relegated to their polities.

Suprizingly, there wasn't much of a flame war over the development of
net.motss, or its movement to soc.motss.

But the most profound change to the net occurred when Richard Sexton
proposed "rec.sex"  (followed closely by rec.drugs) and the group
"passed" its "vote" but the Backbone Cabal decreed that they would NOT
carry the group or create the group on the "backbone" machines.
Almost immediately, the "alt" distribution was set up, using alternative
routes that were "seperate" from the backbone (and theoretically avoided
traversing the ARPAnet).   Alt.sex, alt.drugs were the first groups
created, and the next day, Brian Kantor issued the newgroup for
alt.rock-n-roll (for aesthetic purposes, said he!)    Shortly
thereafter, (within about 5 months), the Backbone Cabal "officially"
abdicated (due to some dissention in the ranks over the control of
routing and newgroup guidelines)  after installing the "Holey
Guidelines" and "Gene Spafford" as the new.group Tsar.

FOllowing the abdication of the Backbone Cabal oligarchy, Usenet was
proclaimed to be the worlds foremost example of a working cooperative
"anarchy" and it has remained so ever since.

Someone may want to double check the chronology around the Great
Renaming, and the abdication of the Cabal.
-- 
G. Wolfe Woodbury @ The Wolves Den, Durham NC	[This site is NOT affiliated  ]
wolfe@wolves.durham.nc.us			[with Duke University! Idiots!]
UUCP: ...!duke!wolves!wolfe      <Standard Disclaimers apply>
    Above All, we celebrate!  --Celebrate the Circle, Statement of Purpose.


